UFO or Die

John Oswald, “O’hell (Sir Jim Moron)”

Beyond the disorienting pluderphonics thing being totally in Five Songs’ wheelhouse, anything which calls Jim Morrison a moron is A-OK with us here.

The Melvins, “Honey Bucket”

The Melvins’ 2021 release, Five Legged Dog, is an all-acoustic exploration of their sound. It features songs from across their entire catalog, alongside some assorted covers of other bands. This tune comes from their major label breakthrough (?) Houdini, and it’s fun to hear an alternate take on it like this. It’s impressive how heavy they can get this to sound without the usual roaring amps. This is an inessential record, but any Melvins weirdo needs to hear it.

Feels like this month is dragging for these entries. Usually I can bang these things out without too much trouble (and you can tell the effort I put into them!), but it seems like it’s just painful so far this year. Alas. Well, once more into the breach!

Czarface & MF DOOM, “Bomb Thrown”

Czarface is Inspectah Deck (from the Wu-Tang Clan) teaming up with 7L & Esoteric, and they’ve gotten together for album-length collabs with MF DOOM and Ghostface Killah, which are their best records. Anything with DOOM on it is worth listening to, and these records are no exception. It’s not peak DOOM, but that’s too high of a bar.

It’s Megan’s birthday! Happy birthday! I picked a keyword today, can you figure it out?

The Budos Band, “Old Engine Oil”

The opening track of V, which I like a lot. This track in particular has a lot of classic rock vibes going, which go well with that big, brassy horn part.

The Beautiful South, “Old Red Eyes Is Back”

I adored the first Beautiful South record (Welcome To The Beautiful South), and was kind of disappointed with the followup (Choke). There just weren’t as many transcendent moments, there weren’t as many of the really acid moments in the lyrics, and it felt kind of rushed out. When 0898 Beautiful South came out, I was happy to hear it was closer to the first album. It’s still not quite as good, but it’s close, and it’s my second favorite album from them.

The Toasters, “New York Fever”

I’d have to go back and listen to a bunch of early Toasters records to confirm this, but in my memory, New York Fever is the record where the Toasters’ sound kind of accelerated. There’s a more frantic pace to their work from here going forward, which kind of presages the ska-punk to come along in a few years.

UFO Or Die, “Old Cold Meat”

UFO or Die is a side project of Boredoms leader/genius/lunatic Yamatsuka Eye. It’s just pure experimentation, all sound collages, weird squawky noises, random hiss, and just general messiness. Is it good? I don’t think that’s really a sensible question to ask of something like this. Is it fun to listen to? Every now and again, sure.

Took a little break there. No worries, we’re back in business!

Wiccans, “Pageantry”

I mentioned last time that Wiccans kind of sound like an old Amphetamine Reptile act, and they really do. This kind of sounds like maybe old Cows, or perhaps something like the Cosmic Psychos.

UFO Or Die, “Kendo Machine Smokin'”

Well, uh, that’s a thing, huh?

Botanist, “Gleditsia”

The closer to VI: Flora, this is the coda to an excellent album, but this song doesn’t have a lot to say.

Spastic noise punk, power pop, third wave ska, rap, bombastic post-rock: this is just about the full gamut for Five Songs!

UFO Or Die, “0 Or 1ers”

Uh, yeah. UFO Or Die isn’t exactly random noise, but it’s not THAT far from it, either.

The New Pornographers, “Centre For Holy Wars”

We’ve heard from A.C. Newman before with Zumpano, but here he is with the band he’s best known for, the New Pornographers. Started as something of a supergroup with Newman, Dan Bejar (Destroyer), and Neko Case (all of whom we’ll hear from with their other acts), the New Pornographers took a while to turn from a lark into a real band. But, they finally put out their debut album, Mass Romantic, and it’s a corker. Fully embracing power pop, it’s one of the catchiest and most fun albums in my collection. And, sorry, if you don’t love “Letter From An Occupant”, you’re dead inside.

Prompted by it coming up during an off-blog shuffle, at some point The Beatles are going to come up here. I have all their albums, after all. Can you even find them on YouTube? I don’t know, I guess I’ll find out. Today is not that day, though.

Agalloch, “…And The Great Cold Death of the Earth”

At some point, black metal experiments with enough other instrumentation and flirts with folk enough that it really stops being metal, doesn’t it? Agalloch sort of sets out to answer that question, with this track being a good example. There’s really not a whole lot that ties it to black metal, but the band is still considered to be at least adjacent to that community. Part of it is the themes that Agalloch writes about, which are similar to some of the things explored by black metal bands. But if you played this for just somebody random who is knowledgable about music, it would be a while before they came up with black metal as a descriptor.