Sandra Bell

Gas Huffer, “Nisqually”

The first song from the first Gas Huffer full-length, it sets the tone for what they’re trying to do: straight-ahead garage rock with zero pretension. Although they were contemporaneous with grunge and from Seattle, they were doing something more parallel to that stuff, as there’s not really any metal at all in this sound.

Sweet Baby, “Year after Year”

More garage rock! This is from Hello Again, a comp that includes an album from Sweet Baby and an album from the successor band, Brent’s TV. It’s pretty good, but one of the virtues of this kind of music is that it gets to the point and gets out of the way. And, well, 40 tracks of it is not getting out of the way.

Mudhoney, “It Is Us”

If you got off the Mudhoney train back in the early 90s, you’re in good company. But it’s worth taking a look at their later catalog - they’ve got five studio albums after the 90s, and they range from solid to excellent. Under a Billion Suns is one of the very good ones, but not the best (that’s The Lucky Ones). But give it a whirl!

A rare double clueless day!

Radiohead, “We Suck Young Blood”

1. A carefully placed comma makes this song title pretty funny.
2. Handclaps are bitchin'.
3. The recording on this is beautiful.

Summerlands, “Lost My Mind”

Power metal, as a genre, usually features lethal amounts of cheese. By and large, I don’t mind some cheese with my music every now and again, but it has to be a rare treat, and I usually don’t myself craving it. But beyond the inherent corniness of the genre, the songs usually don’t appeal to me that much, being kind of heavy on wailing (both from the singer and lead guitarist). As a result, I mostly tend to avoid power metal. So, I’m not sure how I ended up with this. I must have read a good review somewhere? Or sometimes, I like to sample records from genres that I don’t love just to see if maybe my tastes have changed.