There’s a non-trivial amount quality in rock that is just purely in how things sound. The tone of the instruments, the production, the arrangements - there’s an alchemy there that works extremely well, and nailing the formula of the sound can propel a band a long way just on its own. And RFTC always sounded great, one of the reasons they were always a ton of fun.
[Read More]This is from Ψυχική Αποσύνθεση, the EP released in 2021 from this Greek black metal band. Here’s what I know about them:
This is the stuff, though - unpredictable and relentless black metal where I cannot understand anything that’s going on, but do not care at all. I cannot even verbally recommend this to anybody, I haven’t the foggiest how any of that would be pronounced. I suppose I can fake the band’s name. Anyway, I hope they release a full-length at some point!
[Read More]Oh shit! Enjoy! This is the second half of Product Placement, the breakbeat extravaganza collaboration between two break experts. Incredible stuff, and honestly, I could probably just end today after this. This project ties together the songs that provide the key breakbeats that hip-hop was built out of, but provides more context for them, and it rules.
Gleeful electro-funk outfit TWRP are entirely about cranking up a good time with the fattest grooves they can conjure. Is it pointlessly retro or not? I don’t think it matters, frankly. If they can bring it, does it matter that they’re conjuring the sounds of the 80s?
[Read More]This was a companion piece for Anthem, one of the best Less Than Jake records. They took a bunch of unused material from that record, polished it up, and released it as an extra album. And, honestly, there’s not really that much drop off between the two albums. As another set of tunes from their strongest period, it’s a welcome addition to the library.
[Read More]Black metal pioneer Bathory (which was pretty much just Quorthon) pivoted away from the pure black metal of their earlier albums towards Viking metal, more or less establishing that genre too. Hammerheart is one of the key albums of that genre, and if you wanted more bombast in your black metal, Bathory can help you out.
After Pretty Hate Machine, there wasn’t any new music from NiN for several years, due to label disputes. When the dry spell lifted, it brought a six-song EP (not counting the two bonus tracks that weren’t really connected) of fury. Broken sounded to my ears like a totally new direction for the band, which was actually OK with me, as I had really moved away from industrial dance. It really was a preview of what The Downward Spiral was, and is just an excellent set of tunes.
[Read More]Can I talk about some of the strange artifacts that my music collection has accumulated over the years? Oh, that’s right, you can’t stop me! The process of ripping CDs (often with dodgy info databases), matching via iTunes and Amazon Music, storing and then re-downloading from Amazon Music, moving from computer to computer, and a bunch of other things have caused mutations in a lot of this stuff. It’s mostly harmless, but every now and again a tic is interesting or odd. This album has one of those mutations: the album name is recorded as Straightaways (Warner Bros) for some reason, suggesting that someone once input it that way into a database and these tracks picked it up. And you may think, well, did they release this album on multiple labels? Nope, every version in Discogs is from Warner Bros. Somebody apparently just annotated all their album names with labels for some goblin reason, and it got swept up into some aggregated database, and now it’s here perplexing me.
[Read More]I come to you today with an important piece of information: buying records from a band based entirely on a particular comic artist doing the cover art has a pretty shaky track record. NEWS YOU CAN USE. Blah blah books and covers or something. Anyway, Evan Dorkin is really good!
An underrated aspect of country, whatever the variety, is that it’s often a lot of fun to sing along with. Jay Farrar further has the advantage of being pretty reasonable to keep up with across his bands. I really only know Trace well enough among Son Volt’s work to sing along with, but it’s fun.
[Read More]Less Than Jake, especially during their heyday, put out tons of singles and compilation appearances. They’ve collected those on various comps, which are usually worth looking into. This is an alternate take of “Scott Farcas Takes It On The Chin” (which originally appeared on Hello Rockview), this time showing up on the comp Goodbye Blue & White.
I have an idea that Son Volt’s range is not as wide as Wilco. (Before you say anything: no, you’re not allowed to discuss Son Volt without a comparison to Wilco, it’s part of the Universal Music Critic And Adjacent Commentator Standard Contract and Practices that we all have to sign before we get our blogging license.) Anyway, that notion is probably horseshit, but it’s my horseshit. And now it’s yours?
[Read More]More of this California punk band, I’m not sure there’s a lot to say about it.
Yeah, now we’re talkin’! Compare these two tracks. There’s just more energy, more interesting guitar work, just…more with this song. Gaunt could sure write a punk song.
Another live track from another deluxe reissue of a different Devo record. By virtue of having “Whip It” on it, Freedom Of Choice is the Devo album most people will have heard of. But the album is great even outside of that, with a full-on synth pop sound running through the whole thing. Devo’s control of their aesthetics are impressive across the board.
[Read More]There’s sort of a darker edge to this song, with the horns especially, which is fairly unusual among the third-wave bands that were Mu330’s peers. Of course, this isn’t ska, this is rock with horns.
Mostly, I look goofy, funky Beck more than the other versions of Beck, so I’m more drawn to those albums where he lets that side loose. The Information is the followup to Guero (which is one of the ones I like), so I was clearly hoping for more of the same. And, it’s not really the same. It’s not as loose, as spontaneous. But, you know, some of it works. Listen to how beautiful the production on this song is!
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