Experimental post-rock band Pyramids released their first record on Hydra Head Records, which is how I ended up being exposed to them. They’re honestly pretty all over the map on this record, which kind of lurches around between various styles. I’ve only got this and their last record, 2015’s A Northern Meadow, and that’s similarly a restless record. I don’t really love it, but I think it’s at least interesting, so that’s a good thing.
[Read More]In a fine concept for an album, Death Don’t Wait (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is a soundtrack for a non-existent spy movie. I’m already a sucker for spy music, so I enjoy this quite a bit.
There are definitely moments on Houdini where the idea of the Melvins breaking big in the wake of Nirvana and Soundgarden didn’t seem quite so crazy. This song, for instance, would seem to me to be perfectly palatable to the grunge crowd. The record didn’t really break big, because even its most marketable moments are pushing the boundaries for a mainstream crowd, but at least you can kind of see the outline of an idea here.
[Read More]Sometimes, we get a band on here that I just want to describe as “rock”. Just rock. This is a rock band, playing a rock song. Rock. You want rock? Have rock.
Yautja is most frequently described as a combination of sludge and grindcore, which are two genres that don’t sit very naturally together in my head. There’s a monomaniacal relentlessness to grindcore, a commitment to aggression above all else, that doesn’t marry to sludge’s necessity for timing being key and the flexibility to stretch or compress things. But Yautja makes it work, and it’s a unique sound they’ve assembled. This is from last year’s The Lurch, and I recommend it.
[Read More]I’m really wobbling here - I think at some point pretty soon, I’m going to stop updating this every day. It just consumes a little bit too much of my creative time, and I’d like to do something else.
The opener of Black Rainbow, and you know within seconds if this thing is going to be your jam or not. Some bands are growers and it takes some time to decide if something is for you or not. Others…are not.
[Read More]At this point, I find it charming when I find an edgy-z spelling. This was cutting edge stuff at one point. You saw a “z” instead of an “s”, and you knew you were in for some attitude.
Limb is a compilation of un-released material from Foetus pulling from the very early years of the band. It’s an interesting historical document, showing where J.G. Thirlwell came from, but it’s largely going to only be interesting to fellow Foetus sickos.
[Read More]Once More Around The Sun is definitely a Mastodon album, what with all their stylistic tics being present. But for the most part, it’s all packaged in a much more accessible way. Much of this song, for example, really is just a half-step away from something like Soundgarden. I, of course, prefer the denser and more elaborate songs of their earlier albums, but this is still a decent listen.
[Read More]This is another one of those songs that has a tremendous sense of place about it in my memory. This came out early in 1995, in my last year of college, and my friend Miranda and I listened to it over and over sitting in the lounge of my dorm. We’d get my roommate’s Super Nintendo with the floppy drive going, and fire up a bootleg copy of Super Bombliss and spend the afternoon blowing each other up. I can picture the crappy TV, the empty pizza boxes, and my shitty toaster in the corner of the lounge. It’s a gift for a piece of music to call up such a vivid memory like that, and I can become Captain Cheap Tetris again, if only for a couple of minutes.
[Read More]It’s stuff like this, from the early Swans career, that really drives home how appropriate the “no wave” label was for this. It just oozes nihilism.
From Mos Def’s great first solo record, part of one of rap’s highest peaks, albeit a short one. This track is bolstered by Q-Tip appearing on it, driving home the song as a spiritual successor to A Tribe Called Quest’s “Sucka Nigga”.
[Read More]This is what passes for a tender song from Skinny Puppy. It works probably way better than it should, which really shows how good cEvin Key and Dave Ogilvie were at their jobs. Last Rights was the last album from them before they went on hiatus, and it’s an excellent one. I haven’t actually listened to any of their records after this one, I wonder if they are any good.
[Read More]Sumney’s Aromanticism pivots around “Lonely World”, a song that goes from gauzy and shimmery and gradually ramps up to a frenzied finish, reflecting the inherent duality in this album. It’s an album that sounds like a love album but is all about not being capable of experiencing romantic love.
J-Zone has had multiple musical lives in his career. His early career, as a producer/rapper, ended with a miserable tour, a retirement, and a memoir recounting his struggles. His second act began with this album, Peter Pan Syndrome, where he came back as a rapper but added the drums to his skill set. He sounds energized on this album, doing something new, but full of the same types of sophomoric (but funny!) gags as his first go-around.
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