After the anarchic fun of Cure For Sanity, which got some popular attention particularly on dance floors, their followup (The Looks or the Lifestyle) came out the next year trying to cash in on the popularity. But while there was a surface similarity, it all felt kind of pro-forma. Lots of chanting, repetitive lyrics gestured at being anthems, but nothing really lands on the record, and it should really be ignored.
[Read More]Bark Like A Dog is the first Screeching Weasel album that came out after I’d graduated from college. It was also the first record after Ben Weasel decided to end his Ramones worshipping band, the Riverdales. And, you know, return to his previous Ramones worshipping band. At any rate, this stuff wasn’t quite hitting me totally right, and it was the first Screeching Weasel album where I found myself questioning why I was still picking up the records. I did last one more, though, because of course I did.
[Read More]Another cut from the first Pardoner album, which is just a delightful rock discovery from a few years back. I went in totally blind, just a single review I’d read, and it hits me just right. There’s the right amount of stank on the guitars, the tempo drives nice, it’s just good stuff all around.
So smooth. The lights in the room just spontaneously dimmed here.
[Read More]Far Out Recordings released a comp of demos from Azymuth from 1973-5 in 2019, capturing this Brazilian jazz/funk group’s sound at the height of their powers. I don’t know jack shit about them other than this, but this record seriously smokes.
You know what? Sometimes it’s ok to just enjoy a pop song. This is pleasant. It’s nice! It doesn’t matter that it’s extremely unchallenging.
[Read More]There are several bands that I really only knew from later radio hits that were on when I was a kid. So, to me, they were just these bands that had some corny hits that I didn’t think much about. Kool & the Gang are absolutely in that cateogry, and Earth Wind & Fire is another. This is both an unfair evaluation of the hits that they had on the radio, but also fails to account for the long careers of these bands. Take EWF’s first album! It’s a fantastic blend of funk, R&B, jazz, and rock, and is incredibly impressive for a debut.
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