Prince Paul

Prince Paul, “A Prince Among Thieves”

Hearing this song out of context, the climax/punchline of Prince Paul’s briliant album A Prince Among Thieves, really is kind of jarring. It makes so much sense in the original context but is a strange one outside of it. It just kind of sounds like what it is parodying, a maudlin tribute song from the 90s.

Chokebore, “Line Crush”

This is from the comp Clusterfuck ‘94, a collection of singles, album tracks, and unreleased stuff from three bands (Chokebore, Today Is The Day, and Guzzard) that was intended to fund a tour. It’s really pretty unnecessary, especially when you have most of the material on here with other records. But, you know: in ‘94, I didn’t have the ability to look stuff up easily, so I bought it. I bought basically everything Amphetamine Reptile released, just as a policy. Anyway, Chokebore is the least interesting of these three bands, but this track is OK.

The Housemartins, “Flag Day”

I don’t want to profane this with my witless scribbling.

Panopticon, “Trauerweide II”

From a split release with Panopticon and Waldgeflüster, where the bands each contributed a long black metal song and a folk cover of a song from the other band. This is Panopticon’s cover, and I’m not familiar with the original, so I can’t really comment on how it differs. But it’s a nice listen, anyway.

Prince Paul, “Psycho Linguistics (Convergent Thought)”

Before his masterpiece, A Prince Among Thieves, Prince Paul released an uneven first solo record, Psychoanalysis: What Is It?. There are some good tunes on it, but a lot of kind of self-indulgent meandering, so it’s probably not worth pursuing too much unless you’re very curious.

Thantifaxath, “Eternally Falling”

Thantifaxath have only made one album, Sacred White Noise, but it’s a banger. It’s black metal, but it uses a ton of atmosphere to generate a consistently creepy tone without just relying on howling fury. The ability to dial it back manages to throw the chaotic moments into greater contrast. Mastery of dynamics is such an important thing for all bands, but especially extreme metal bands. Keeping everything on 11 all the time just results in fatigue.

Nine Inch Nails, “The Beginning Of The End”

Year Zero marked the fastest followup that Trent Reznor had produced to date, with the album appearing a mere two years after With Teeth. At least five years had separated studio albums up to this point. Perhaps as a result of the relatively short gestation of this album, it’s not a lot different musically from the predecessor. It’s a theme album of sorts, examining a dystopian United States in the near future. It was marketed with an augmented reality campaign, which was genuinely new in 2007. The music itself is solid, but isn’t one of NiN’s essential albums.

The Presidents of the United States of America, “We Are Not Going To Make It”

The Presidents were viewed as a novelty act, which is kind of inescapable when your hits are things like “Lump” and “Peaches”. And, yeah, there’s a lot of breezy nonesense in Ballew’s lyrics. But there’s some genuinely charming stuff in there, some real wit, and of course, some self-deprecation like in this tune. But, more importantly, the songs themselves were crisp, memorable, and catchy, and that means that their rock/pop/punk melange is just plain fun.

Mostly rock today.

The Strokes, “When It Started”

Every so often, rock “comes back”, brought back into cultural relevance by some release that critics declare revinvents the genre. Meanwhile, of course, rock never goes anywhere between these “breakthrough” albums, mainly because old boring people never shut up about it.

(cough)

Anyway, most of the time, these albums are often pretty darn good. Is This It, for instance, is a pretty tasty album! It doesn’t break any ground, not really, but it’s energetic and plenty fun.

I could get used to sets like today.

Hayaino Daisuki, “Aka”

A delightful EP from a Hydra Head grab bag, this is just pure speed. It doesn’t quite sound to me like grindcore, more like thrash being played extra fast. It’s sort of comical, but also kind of charming.

What is wrong with me that I find this charming?

The Grifters, “Hours”

This song is from the Grifters’ last album, Full Blown Possession. By the time they wrapped things up, most of the truly ramshackle stuff had been worked out of their sound. They no longer were a lo-fi band that sounded like they were recorded in a basement. To be totally honest, I kind of preferred more grit in their sound, but they also never made a bad record.

Make! The most! Of my! Toe toast! Hey, while we’re giggling over this first Descendents track, a Five Songs correspondent pointed out the existence of this masterpiece, which is really breathtaking.

Descendents, “Enjoy”

A couple albums into the Descendents’ snotty punk career, the casual observer might have wondered if they were ever ACTUALLY going to grow up, despite an album title declaring otherwise. With the opening track of Enjoy, the band gave a definitive answer. An ode to bodily smells of all types, “Enjoy” was defiantly sophomoric in a way that exceeded even the low maturity standards of their first few releases. I will say this, the little descending baseline is very memorable.