CLPPNG, the first full record from clipping., was a record with the band still kind of piecing together what they had. It would be on the next album (Splendor & Misery) that everything would come together perfectly, but there are still times on this album where things still seemed a little awkward. The individual pieces, especially Daveed Diggs, were often spectacular, but the best was yet to come.
[Read More]This song sounds weird in only one earbud.
nimrod. is the Green Day album I listen to the least. It’s not because of the songs that break out of the pop punk mold, but because the punk songs on it just sound kind of worn out. This song, for instance, sounds like a third-generation xerox of a thing from Dookie. Even on their final record, American Idiot, they brought more energy to the tunes.
[Read More]I dunno, I just love Pavement. Just hearing the intro to this song puts a grin on my face. I haven’t gotten sick of it yet, and I hope I never do. Pavement will probably be one of those bands that my kids will look back on fondly as reminding them of their old man, and maybe they’ll even listen to them occasionally as a result. I’ll still be distorting their taste from beyond the grave!
[Read More]Nimrod is an uneven record, but I really like the high points of it, and this is one of them, I think. It’s nice to hear them expirimenting with their formula some, as Insomniac really did not at all.
Burnt Offering found the Budos Band referencing hard rock pretty explicitly in their music, and it was a really nice breath of fresh air. The following album returned to their numbering system, and V represents kind of the midpoint between III and Burnt Offering. There are still some of those same hard rock riffs here and there, but the Afrobeat is clearly back in the driver’s seat. It’s a great album from a band that have really taken it up a notch in their last few albums.
[Read More]I really kind of tend to think of noise rock as mostly a 90s thing, with it kind of falling out of fashion after that point. But, of course, it’s alive and well, and bands like yesterday’s Pile and today’s Buildings are showing that there’s plenty of excellent stuff being made. I miss you, Amphetamine Reptile, but there are plenty of bands keeping the sound alive.
[Read More]I know they became clownish and bad, and that continuing to like them is evidence of creeping Boomerism, but I don’t care, this album rules and this song rules.
I had my annual tour through the year end album lists a month or so ago, and this Yves Tumor album was one of the big winners. It’s very good! I’m not sure what I was expecting from a band named Yves Tumor, but I don’t think it was this. Among other things, Yves Tumor isn’t a band, it’s a person. Anyway, excellent album.
[Read More]Jeff Nelson is one of the co-founders of Discord Records, as well as the drummer for the legendary Minor Threat, a legacy that would be the envy of so many people. I was just listening to Minor Threat the other day, and it still holds up incredibly well.
He also drummed in the High Back Chairs.
While listening to metal might not be good for much in terms of self-enrichment, if you look up band and song names, it’ll at least increase your vocabulary.
[Read More]New year, same old flaky schedule! My apologies, we here at Five Songs were on the road intending on keeping the rock going, even lugging our laptop all over the place. But, alas, Plexasaurus Rex back home decided to die, and needed a reboot, and nobody was around to push the button. So, a bit of a break. We’re back! We’re ready to rumble! HIT IT, PLEXASAURUS REX!
I was playing Rock Band with the kids the other day, and a couple of Green Day tracks popped up. The kids declared that all Green Day songs sounded the same, and I’ll be honest, I thought I had a couple more years before they started roasting my taste in music. Disheartening! I grounded them for a decade.
[Read More]This is the intro to Scar Sighted, Leviathan’s 2015 album, a fearsome black metal album. Leviathan is the solo band of Jef Whitehead, who is also notable for starting one of the premier metal labels around, Profound Lore. This track is really just a build up to the start of the of the record, so I guess we’ll tackle it properly next time it comes up, along with maybe the controversy surrounding him.
[Read More]Folks, I don’t know if I can keep up this pace. Seven songs AGAIN?
As you’d probably imagine based on the stuff that shows up here, I’m 100% here for the merging of noise into hip-hop. There are a bunch of acts that are exploring this territory right now, and one of the better albums in the area is Dälek’s Endangered Philosophies. There’s an urgency that the noise adds to these songs that gives a pretty different feeling from more conventional hip-hop.
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