Favourites:
The New Sound
Igor
Blackstar
Ants From Up There
Call Me If You Get Lost: The Estate Sale
| Current average score: 5.84/10 | |
|---|---|
| Artist, Name, Score, Cover | Comment |
| [Neutral Milk Hotel] (In the Aeroplane Over the Sea) 8/10  | I can definitely see why this album is regarded so highly in terminally online music rings. The instrumentation is wonderful even if the singing is a little nasally and raw for me and you can really hear the how much influence this had directly or indirectly from Surfjan Stevens to Arcade Fire. The recording does feel a little muffling at some moments I'd have liked some more accordion like the first song (at least I think it's accordion) but I guess it's a folk album so lots of guitar should be expected. The Fool is getting majorly slept on by the way and was probably my favourite track, really felt like it was helping with the already great flow this album had. The heavy mic clipping drums on songs like Holland, 1945 are also pretty sick too and something I want to see more of in modern music, even felt a little reminiscent of Deathconsciousness. |
| [Bon Jovi] (Slipper When Wet) 6/10 | My dad really likes this album so I decided to give it a shot and sorry dad but it's just alright... It had some great songs for sure, Livin' On A Prayer is an all time classic and You Give Love A Bad Name is just as entertaining as it is corny. It loses some steam though later on and its just a little too unapologetically 80s for my taste and it doesn't really seem like its doing anything too different from the norm of that era. 'Remember when we lost the keys and you lost more than that in my backseat baby' is the funniest line of all time though that shit is so stupid that it looped around and I think it might be genius. |
| [Bruhguy3457] (STATION #19) 1.5/10 | Likely the worst singing I've ever heard in my life. Would've been a lot better with no vocals at all. Very little variation in the songs. Nightmarish way to spend 40 minutes. |
| [Purfume Genius] (Glory) 2.5/10 | I misread Deafhaven as Deftones somehow so for the first 20 minutes or so I thought I was listening to a completely different artist, my mistake. I also never expected this to be a metal album with that cover, I had assumed I was going to listen to some genre with indie in the name but I suppose not, sadly metal is not my favourite genre at all especially with the screamy, incomprehensible lyrics in this album. I prefer my metal more rock leaning personally. I know with that I mind I really should've never listened to this album, and I'd have agree with you on that one because I didn't enjoy this at all. It was pretty grating and felt like a slog to sit through with nothing really griping me. Had some nice riffs at least. |
| [Purfume Genius] (Glory) 6.5/10 | This guy's voice is great and this certainly kept my interest throughout with interesting and pretty varied songs, I just feel like it could be pushed further. I don't mean to belittle Perfume Genius' efforts as I'm sure its taken a lot of work to get to this point but a lot of the time I spent listening to this album just made me want to listen to Surfjan Stevens as his music just feels like a more well executed version of the ideas in this album. I also lowkey expected 'In a Row' to be way more heavy like 'Punish' by Ethal Cain, I'm not quite sure why I expected that, it kind of felt like it was building to that so it was a tad disappointing to hear a less explosive ending than expected... Aside from that Glory seems to lose a lot of steam by the end which was a little sad too. Better luck next time. |
| [Kanye West] (BULLY V1) 4/10 | Preacher Man and Beauty and the Beast tricked me into thinking this was going to a good album it was so sad when Close To You / White Lines came on and it was the worst song of all time. Super lazy project from Kanye, apart from the first two songs and the last the vocals were dogshit as well as having the worst Spanish of all time on Last Breathe. The production was just alright on the majority of this. This was less disappointing for me than Vultures 2 mainly because it was like 20 minutes long and I already knew my goat was washed but it's still kind of sad to see. |
| [Weatherday] (Hornet Disaster) 5/10  | Never heard a Weatherday album before, this certainly had its moments but it was pretty bloated so I started to lose interest about 45 minutes or so in. My main issue with the sound of it was that somehow it sounded a little crunchy or something and I'd much prefer my music to not sound like it's been horribly compressed. This could've been a good album with a little bit of pruning and perhaps some more variation in the songs as it started to sound a little same-y. The cover certainly bangs though. |
| [Hesse Kassel] (La Brea) 7/10 | Spanish Black Country, New Road. Straight up. This might be the most derivative album I've ever heard but my BCNR glaze is immeasurable so I couldn't help but enjoy this despite the album really having moments where I just thought, cmon man, because it was clearly so heavily inspired. La Brea also could've been better if the microphone sounded less choppy on the more screamy moments. Even though my complaints may make it seem like I didn't enjoy this album, I can't lie, this was great. The instrumentals were awesome and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing this man yell despite only being able to understand about 15% of what he's saying. Likely my favourite album this year so far. Perhaps dragged a little though. Edit: 7.5 -> 7, kind of grew off me, the later sections are a lot weaker than the earlier. Album would've been better off ending 20 or so minutes earlier |
| [clipping.] (Dead Channel Sky) 4/10 | Not the vibe I was feeling at the I heard it sadly. The rapping felt a little too fast and repetitive for me. The beats didn't do much for me either, I saw someone calling this the best produced rap album in decades and I simply wasn't feeling that. I feel like the beats could've been pushed a bit further and they didn't really sound like they were complimenting the beats. |
| [Kayleb Duckett] (Speechless Housefire) 5/10 | Pretty impressive album for a guy with 65 monthly listeners but it had some pretty ehh moments holding it back aswell as just not being super great at holding my attention, any longer and I might've given up on it. Songs like Pavlova Moon which had a pretty dogshit chorus and Conflict Of Opinion which somehow had a mic many levels worse than the rest of the album which weren't helping the situation. The rest of it was pretty fine, I even added Airport and Papercut King to my playlist. |
| [Joy Divison] (Unknown Pleasures) 4/10 | Extremely unfortunate that the first song is the best by a pretty wide margin. I think Day of the Lords might've had a chance but it just drags for a minute or so too long which seems to go for a lot of the songs on here, just not enough energy to go around. Not sure where all the hype is coming from because I found this to be a pretty uninteresting, boring album. |
| [leroy] (Grave Robbing) 2/10 | Lowkey hurts my ears. There are quite a few moments I greatly enjoy from this album but they're overshadowed to such a point by moments where there's just hundreds of random sound effects slamming into me and it ends up sounding like nails on a chalkboard. |
| [Lady Gaga] (MAYHEM) 7.5/10 | Despite having retread a lot of ground that The Fame Monster walked over 15 years ago, hell Vanish Into You is basically a Bad Romance reskin, MAYHEM ended up just being a really good album. I enjoyed all the songs, I like how she got a little Bowie on Killah and I was just overall impressed that Gaga still had it in her to make an album this fun and catchy. Disease > Die With A Smile btw. |
| [Saya Gray] (SAYA) 7/10 | Super solid art pop album. Definitely had some weaker moments especially at the end and never really had a song as fun as the first but SAYA tries really hard. Really excited for what Ms Gray has next. I also enjoyed the more experimental moments that I don't really expect from a pop album. Between this and The Weeknd's new album pop has really had a great few albums already this year. |
| [Paris Texas] (They Left Me With A Gun) 6.5/10 | Album cover goes hard. Another fun EP from Paris Texas just a week after their last. I think I mentioned I could've listened to another 20 minutes of the last EP and I think this one filled that need. Didn't have anything quite as good as 'El Camino' but 'Stripper Song' got pretty close. |
| [Panda Bear] (Sinister Grift) 5.5/10 | A more boring Pet Sounds. Praise was a good start but I lost interest in this project pretty quick. I know I can't just call every Psychedelic Pop album Pet Sounds but this really felt like it I can't tell you why. |
| [青葉市子 [Ichiko Aoba]] (Luminescent Creatures) 6/10 | It's alright but I feel like I got my fill of Aoba in Windswept Adan and while it's still a very pretty album a lot of it just felt like background music and I sometimes even forgot it was playing at all. Not sure how people are even comparing this to Windswept Adan, they aren't even close. |
| [Radiohead] (OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017) 6.5/10 | Second half was pretty medicore but 'I Promise' followed up by 'Man of War' followed up by 'Lift'???? Holy fuck that's a crazy start. Those three are better than a fair few songs on the original especially 'Man Of War' which might be one of my favourite Radiohead songs, it's up there at least. |
| [Radiohead] (KID A MNESIA) 6/10 | Pretty fine bonus tracks. 'Pulk/Pull (True Love Waits Version)' is a lot better than the original, 'If You Say the Word' is pretty great too. The rest isn't much to write home about. |
| [Radiohead] (Amnesiac) 7.5/10 | I know people call this Kid B but aside from the absolutely awful 'Pulk / Pull Revolving Doors' which is Fitter Happier's dickhead older brother I actually think this might be better than Kid A. I prefer it being less ambient as something about Kid A's ambience doesn't sit right we me and while I've rated them the same due to Punk / Pull I think in general this was a more interested album to listen to. |
| [Graham Kartna] (An Obsession With Kit) 5.5/10 | Very internetcore album which usually isn't my thing and yet I've been vibing out to Browser History for years. Love it so much, there rest of this project is just kind of mid to me though and. Subtext is straight up bad. |
| [A Tribe Called Quest] (The Low End Theory) 4.5/10 | Not even gonna try to defend myself on this one. Guess I just don't have good taste or something because me not liking this or Illmatic must mean there's something wrong with me. I don't even know what to say, 90s rap just really bores me and this album put me to sleep. Did like some of the jazzier moments though. |
| [Ultra Ego] (Feed Me Jack) 5/10 | Really fun 20 minute EP (I think). To be honest I'm writing this review about a week after listening to the EP and I literally have no memory of any of it so I have to assume it can't be so great though I do remember it being fun. |
| [Blur] (The Magic Whip) 6.5/10 | Weak first half followed up by a second half with quite a few absolute bangers, 'I Broadcast', 'Ghost Ship' and 'Ong Ong' are so much fun I can't see myself rating this lower. |
| [Radiohead] (Hail To the Thief) 6/10 | Just not a super interesting album. It's not about the political messaging, in fact I couldn't care less if I tried about the politics in this it's that the songs just sounded less interesting. Might be because I've listened to 160 Radiohead songs in two days though, might need to give this one a relisten at some point just in case. |
| [Radiohead] (The Bends) 8.5/10 | Was a little scared to listen to this because of all the freaky sex jokes made about it but it had an extremely solid first half, on par with OK Computer with a still solid if a bit weaker second. You can certainly tell this was made before Radiohead was fully standing on solid ground and there were still some growing pains but despite that it holds up shockingly well against the test of time and is a massive step in the right direction after Pablo Honey. Edit: 7.5 -> 8.5, I'm sorry but this album fucking bangs. |
| [King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard] (Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava) 5/10 | The songs are just too long, maybe I'm just TikTok brained or something but I can't endure these unchanging tracks despite them being good in bite-sized chunks. Also AI cover, not that I really GAF but that shit looks awful cmon guys. |
| [平沢進 [Susumu Hirasawa]] (救済の技法 (Technique of Relief)) 4/10 | Kind of boring sorry. Unsure of why this is his most praised album when '賢者のプロペラ (Philosopher's Propeller)' is better in every aspect to me at least but despite a really great first song this loses steam quickly and then manages to run out by about track 7. |
| [Paris Texas] (They Left Me with the Sword) 6.5/10 | Just a really fun EP, they clearly aren't taking themselves seriously and it's just a nice breath of fresh air. It being less than 20 minutes helps too even though I reckon I could listen to 40 minutes of this and still be entertained. |
| [Citrobal] (My Caution Line) 7.5/10 | The instrumentation was top notch the whole way through and it was out here constantly surprising me, like im pretty sure I heard an accordion somewhere?? Whoever was playing guitar was great too and I was even getting some bossa nova vibes at some point which was fun. Really dislike Orange specifically because of the annoying ass empty sounding drum in the background but that's the only song I straight up don't like. My favourite was Do Re Mi, had me nodding and shit, idk how it only has 76k plays on spotify. |
| [Jamie xx] (In Waves) 3/10 | This shit lowkey put me to sleep idk what to tell you but I don't think this was meant to be heard as an album more like something you hear and don't really pay attention to. |
| [Radiohead] (OK Computer) 8.5/10  | Somehow last time I rated this I gave this album a 5 and called the mixing awful. I don't know what I was talking about, maybe I was listening to the wrong album but this entire project is lovely. Even 'Fitter Happier' had me hooked and people hate that guy. Edit: 8 -> 8.5, I've relistened to this about five times since I last spoke about it and I can't see myself stopping soon. |
| [Radiohead] (In Rainbows) 10/10   | Holy shit. The hype is valid. This is one of if not the most beautiful albums I've ever heard in my entire life and I was fully sobbing on a few tracks ('All I Need' especially) then jamming out on the next song. I had to listen to this a few times just to make sure I wasn't insane and this album didn't secretly have a bad song and despite my searching I never seemed to find one. I intend to write a longer review later once I listen to this 100 more times or so but you should really just listen to this for yourself. This is how it feels to receive Radio-head from Thom Yorke himself. |
| [Maruja] (Visions of the Emerald Beyond) 5.5/10 | Not a bad album just kind of boring and I ended up tuning it out as just background music. |
| [Maruja] (Tír na nÓg) 3/10 | Very disappointed, very easily their worst project yet. It being improvised is cool and all but it just doesn't feel like it gets anywhere. I also really miss the vocals, hoping their LP will be closer to their previous EP's. |
| [Nine Inch Nails] (Pretty Hate Machine) 7.5/10 | When I think NIN I certainly don't think synthpop but that's what I got in this album and I really enjoyed it. I listened to this on a recommendation and I was a little worried as I had heard about how heavy a lot of the NIN stuff is but apart from a few moments it seemed my fear was unfounded. Even if it had some weaker moments especially into the second half this was a really great album that might just make me listen to the rest of their stuff. |
| [Radiohead] (Kid A) 7.5/10  | Was feeling in a Radiohead mood so I decided to go through their discography again starting with their coolest looking cover. I don't know what I was smoking on when I first listened to this but I found myself really enjoying it this time. 'The National Anthem' horn section was a real highlight and 'Motion Picture Soundtrack' was a wonderfully bleak final song (if you don't count the bonus track of course). I can't really see where the hype around 'How to Disappear Completely' is coming from but it might just take me a while to get it, who knows. |
| [acloudyskye] (The Won't Be The Last Time) 5.5/10 | Just saw this was #2 on AOTY for this year so far and decided to check it out. It was meh, indie rock really isn't my thing but this album wasn't awful, certainly overhyped though. I imagine the score won't stay so high for long as a wider audience checks it out ofc. Don't like how it somehow manages to sound spiky though. |
| [Yeah Yeah Yeahs] (It's Blitz!) 7.5/10 | Just a really good dance-punk album. I really only checked this out because it had 'Heads Will Roll' but to be honest all of the first four songs were incredible and if that quality was kept up for the rest of the album I might've given it a high 9, unfortunately there are som real duds in the second half. Even then it's a really good album still. |
| [Travis Scott] (Birds In The Trap Sing McKnight) 5/10 | Lots of great stuff on here, stuff like 'the ends', 'goosebumps' and 'pick up the phone' but this album is just so bloated it doesn't even matter how many bangers it has. Really needed more quality control or just quality in general. |
| [高中正義 [Masayoshi Takanaka]] (SEYCHELLES) 4.5/10 | A pretty boring jazz fusion album. The guitar was good as expected from a Takanaka album but without any vocals like I found in 'The Rainbow Goblins' this just wasn't really able to hold my attention unfortunately. |
| [Oklou] (choke enough) 5/10 | White women music. Some songs were pretty fun and I actually enjoyed the unexpected Bladee feature despite all the odds but none of the album really stuck with me. |
| [Pent Up Pup] (FURFAG) 3.5/10 | I'm not a Pent Up Pup fan, though by the cover and the name I totally knew what I was getting into when I started listening and I really wouldn't have listened to this if I hadn't noticed how divisive this album seemed to be. When I last checked this had just as many 100s as it had 0s so I seeing that I had to wonder if this was as bad as people were making it out to be or instead maybe people just saw the cover and gave it a 0 without giving the album a chance. I thought the production here was very solid or at least unique most of the time, much more so than their previous EP which I heard a couple songs from a little while back. The rest of it though, I'm not so sure about. I thought the vocals were pretty mediocre, I might just be saying that because the guy's British though, not 100% sure and while I appreciate how confident this guy is in his sexuality I still couldn't help but feel uncomfortable sitting through the freaky gay furry sex album sadly so that ended up really putting a damper on how much enjoyment I could pull from this. The lyrics don't really have any real substance to be found in them, this guy clearly just wanted to make a fun silly project and I'd say he achieved it even if I personally didn't find it all that fun. It'd be pretty silly for me to sit here and trying to read into such wonderful lyrics as 'I guess yiff imitates life' but that doesn't mean I wouldn't have liked it more if there was some meaning behind the songs. Obviously not really the place to be looking for that though of course but a man can dream. If you're into the genre and don't feel any discomfort hearing about how much Pent Up Pup wants to fuck I'm sure this album will be a really fun time but unfortunately it's not for me. Happy valentines to everyone reading this, it's already over for me and I had a pretty good one, I hope it goes well for you all too and if a good valentines day for you is having a fursuit orgy more power to you. |
| [PARTYNEXTDOOR & Drake] ($ome $exy $ongs 4 U) 4/10 | Not much to say about this, just very uninteresting and feels like B-sides for a Drake album I didn't bother listening to. Not to mention sex music isn't my favourite genre but jokes on me for listening to anything on valentines day. |
| [Serú Girán] (Grasa de Las Capitales) 8.5/10  | One of the most fun albums I've heard in quite a long time. I'm not sure if the lyrics are super heavy or anything but I just had a really good time with this and I can't stop listening to the opening track, makes me want to get shit done around here. |
| [Frank Zappa] (Apostrophe (')) 6.5/10 | Was honestly a bit scared because I'd heard how bizarre and over the top Frank's music was but despite my 6.5 score I was pretty happily surprised to find this to be an alright jazz rock album. Uncle Remus is clearly the best here but the rest is pretty nice too even if I didn't find the comedy aspects very funny. |
| [Maruja] (Connla's Well) 7.5/10 | Not quite as good as the wonderful Knocknarea but a really fun EP with the highlight definitely being 'The Invisible Man'. Not much else to say but Maruja are definitely carrying jazz rock on their back right now, hoping we get more like this from the upcoming EP. |
| [Petal Dress] (Times Are Getting Tougher) 0.5/10 | Not even sure why the creator would feel like wasting their time making an album this obnoxious and dogshit. |
| [Low Roar] (House in the Woods) 4/10 | Rest in peace Karazija but this album is just boring. By about 4 songs in I was just uninterested and that didn't end up changing for its entire runtime. |
| [Jeff Wayne] (Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds) 3/10 | Sorry Mr Wayne but your musical is really boring. This felt to me like a mix between Ziggy Stardust and Rainbow Goblins but worse in about every aspect. I'm not a huge fan of the narration here and while the album starts out sounding pretty interesting musically it gets repetitive fast and it's long ass runtime doesn't help. I also really didn't like how fucking complicated this story is and how much of it needs to be told in long spoken word sections, I liked Rainbow Goblins because its story was simple, nice and didn't require too much focus to comprehend. For this I felt like it was forcing me to go read the Genius page like an actual book and even then it wasn't a particularly interesting book. |
| [Squid] (Cowards) 6/10 | Fine but not super memorable unfortunately. I heard this a few days before writing this and aside from the final track 'Well Met (Fingers Through the Fence)' I can't say that I really want to go back to listen to any of the songs by themselves. |
| [The Comet Is Coming] (Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery) 7/10 | Didn't except this to be completely without vocals but fuck it we ball. This album was mystical at times and tracks 2 through 4 are some of my favourite in the jazz fusion subgenre. I feel like I'd enjoy this more as an EP or just a shorter album though even if it's already not super long at only 45 minutes. The latter half just felt weak. |
| [Squid] (Bright Green Field) 7.5/10 | In anticipation for the new Squid album I decided to give this a listen and I thought it was really great. I can see how some people compare this to BCNR and while I like BCNR's more grandiose approach to their stuff I can appreciate what Squid is doing here. Songs like 'Narrator' or 'Pamphlets' are so unbelieveable fun even if I found them a bit long. 'Pamphlets' also happens to have an awesome music video so that definitely helps it's case and this entire album in general is just a really fun time. |
| [菊池 ひみこ [Himiko Kikuchi]] (Flying Beagle) 6.5/10  | Pretty fine Jazzy album with one of the hardest covers out there, straight up every time I was looking for new jazz stuff this kept catching my eye and eventually I was forced to succumb. Kind of become background music but it was some pretty enjoyable background music. |
| [JPEGMAFIA] (I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU (DIRECTOR'S CUT)) 4/10 | Very disappointing, I rated 'I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU' a 9 and I still stand by that but these new tracks are just so weak even if some of them like the ear piercing 'CULT STATUS' have grown on me. |
| [高中正義 [Masayoshi Takanaka]] (The Rainbow Goblins) 7.5/10 | I actually didn't know how to feel about this album on first listen, or second so now on third listen I've decided this is really good. The wonderful jazzy instrumentals with great guitar work by Takanaka in combination with the childrens storybook-esque story being told by the British narrator man can't help but make me feel warm and happy. God bless this rainbow. |
| [Fiona Apple] (Fetch the Bolt Cutters) 7.5/10 | Certainly some of the best piano rock out there, this is such good album that can go from fun to devastating at the flick of the wrist and I can understand why critics raved about this project in 2020. I can't lie I've had Shameika and Cosmonauts in my head for days. |
| [betcover!!] (卵 [Tamago]) 6/10 | Was looking for a good jazz-rock album and this was getting a lot of praise so I decided to check it out and while it had some stand-out moments like 'H' most of this album is really forgettable and at some points there was just too much going on and it felt uncoordinated and overwhelming. |
| [Dvar] (Oriior) 3/10 | Got sent Fozzih by a friend and liked it quite a lot so I decided to check out the rest of this album and it's just bad. It all kind of felt like a grey mush that I was wading through aside from some standouts. Maybe that's just what darkwave is but if that's the case I guess I don't like darkwave. |
| [Sigur Rós] (ÁTTA) 7.5/10 | Having never listened to a Sigur Ros album before this I wasn't quite sure what to expect but I was very impressed by this. This album was gorgeous though felt a little long and repetitive at times, someone also told me that these guys speak a made up language which is really funny if true. |
| [The KLF] (Chill Out) 5/10 | It was nice, I didn't like many of the field recording or spoken words sections but when it's just nice ambience for the background it's at its best. |
| [Miles Davis] (Kind of Blue) 3.5/10 | Awfully overrated and uninteresting. I had the first song looped for an hour and didn't even notice because that's just how nothing this album sounds. Cover isn't much to look at either. |
| [Miles Davis] (In a Silent Way) 7/10  | Listened to this album mainly because this album cover is awesome but the music itself was good. Miles Davis isn't close to one of my favourite artists, I think he's a bit overrated but a nice solid 40 minute jazz fusion album like this is the best way to listen to Miles. |
| [Susumu Hirasawa] (Philosopher's Propeller) 8/10  | Big shoutout to eye for recommending this banger. This was well worth needing to open SoulSeek for, this was a mystical, floaty ass album that I'm not even sure how to categorise. It leans pop but at the same time it's giving some classical and maybe even some trip hop? I really love how echoey it gets at some points and the overlay of voices and sounds, like when that bell plays on track three that was some real shit. Also this may have just been because I was listening to the highest quality flacs ever or something but track four got me disorientated, had to look around before I realised the voices were in the song, even gave me some There Is No Food vibes if you get me? I do feel like the album slows down ever so slightly in the second half and songs like track six feel a bit too long for their own good. |
| [FKA twigs] (EUSEXUA) 3/10 | I was pretty hyped about this album but it turned out to be a bit of a let-down. I wasn't a giant fan of the more EDM-y vibes coming from this project, I found it a little too reminiscent of BRAT which is a shame because I think BRAT is a way better album in every aspect, not to say FKA twigs was copying Charli, I just feel like she could have done sometimes more with this idea. I also wasn't super interested in the album messaging-wise, it just feels like it's saying something that's already been said over and over. The whole idea of Eusexua too, like sure it's nice to feel good about yourself and be free, all that but to be completely honest I just don't find that a very captivating idea to make an album about. I'm sure my score will increase over time as I give time for this album to sit as my expectations were clearly way too high but for now I'll give it a 3. To be honest I'm not even sure why I'm so disappointed, it's not like FKA twigs is one of my favourite artists or anything but who knows. |
| [Candy Claws] (Two Airships / Exploder Falls) 7.5/10 | I was actually going to give this a three because it sounds like a piano falling down the stairs bass boosted. It also hurt kind of hurt my ears to listen to as well and EUSEXUA is bouta drop so I can't allow my beautiful ears to get damaged though for some reason I actually kind of love it and I can't explain why that's the case. A 7 seems like a pretty good score for something that lost me 1000hz of hearing range. Edit: Already a 7.5 I can't explain it but I think I might really fw this album though it did take a bit of time to acclimate to it. |
| [The Weather Station] (Humanhood) 4.5/10 | It's some alright Jazz-rock most of the time but I didn't like at all how some of this shit was like practically spoken word. Really killed the vibe for me. |
| [Mac Miller] (Balloonerism) 7.5/10 | Better than Circles in my opinion? To be honest I don't really like Mac's unenergetic almost bored sounding delivery but some of the stuff really got to me especially the last couple songs. |
| [The 365 Project] (011: Accept and Embrace the New Dark Age) 0.5/10 | Shitpost in the form of an album that I listened to a minute of before realising that this is the whole thing. Simply too deep for me clearly. |
| [The 365 Project & Post Modern] (015: Social Outsourcing) 3.5/10 | Would have given it more thought if it didn't sound like the album was recorded on a smart fridge or something like buy a $20 mic dude it'll be infinitely better. |
| [Ethel Cain] (Preacher's Daughter) 8/10  | Bless the souls of all three people who told me to listen to this after I disliked Perverts. This album is everything I loved about Perverts, a more pop-like vibe without the long droning sections which I found tedious to sit through not to say it was without some of these as it had some moments like that in songs like Ptolemaea but it wasn't quite as drawn out and boring as many in Perverts. This album is absolutely great and I can see exactly where all the hype around Ethel was coming from. American Teenager pulled me out of what I was up to and forced me to and provide this album with my complete focus and for its entire hour runtime it was like Ethel had me in a stranglehold. Ethel's voice is wonderful and the recording is on point. Many sections of the narrative on the other hand were interesting but didn't resonate with me personally, not to say for something to resonate you'd have to had experienced it personally but as someone who had a fairly uneventful but happy youth in a atheistic household some lyrics about religion or familial turmoil are so far detached from my own experiences that they're difficult to grasp. I hope Ethel Cain makes more stuff like this in the future though I'm not quite sure what direction she intends to go in at this point, and after hearing Perverts I won't say my expectations are completely marred but they'll be at least a little toned down for her following projects. |
| [Asian Glow] (11100011) 3.5/10 | One of the most boring and grating shoegaze projects I've ever heard. Instead of sounding layered it just sounded like a stream of boring ass sound. |
| [Museum Music] (Edward Skeletrix) 4/10 | From the reviews I read before hand I thought I was gonna hear a Peggy knockoff which I was fine with because I love Peggy but this is much worse. It might even be too experimental because I had to shut this shit off multiple times because it was hurting my ears. |
| [Ethel Cain] (Perverts) 5.5/10 | Yes I know this is hard to read with no paragraph breaks but I don't know how to add them so just try your best. Just to be clear this is the first Ethel Cain project I've heard so I don't really have much to compare it with, I also was not aware that this was a drone album beforehand because I had my head in the sand or something so that came as a surprise. I found Punish brilliant so I was very excited for this to drop and I hate to say it but I left disappointed. I guess I shouldn't have gone in expecting the level of energy from the lead single throughout the entire album but the first song being glitched up radio sounds and wind noises for the first five minutes was not on my expectation bingo card. To be completely honest I'm not even sure I'd consider most of the title track to be a song at all and that's not a good thing. It was mysterious sure but it didn't really get me very interested nor did I have any idea what was going on. Perhaps I was meant to 'get' it after having finished the album but I didn't. I did like the last two or so minutes a lot more though, sounded like something was actually happening. Punish as mentioned was brilliant, have had it on repeat since release and it's certainly the highlight of this project. The synth was wonderful and I love it through and through. It even managed to feel like its placement in the track list made sense which I was a little worried about when I was about halfway through the title track. Punish is also lyrically interesting despite me being unable to relate to the situation Ethel is speaking of. I'm sure the other tracks are well done lyrically too but Punish is the only one with lyrics right now and I'm a lazy bum who prefers to read lyrics off a page that someone else has written down. I'm not quite sure about Houseofpsychoticwomn, it feels like a repeat of the title track in that instead of being a song its a repeating sound with Ethel whispering mind bending messages in my ears. The repeating sound made it sound like I was spinning or something and it was really annoying lowkey. Ethel said she loved me though so +1 points (ily too Ethel). The droning synth at the end was also pretty cool. Vacillator felt like we were getting back on track, it's a slow nice nice listen that doesn't constitute psychological torture and Onanist was even better, it was ethereal, heavy and all round great. Stuff like it really helped me not have a stroke and die during this album though to be honest at some points it got a little staticy for my liking if that's the word. Not a big fan of the two minutes Ethel ASMR at the end of the track either though I'm sure 'it feels good' has some deep meaning, maybe something to do with the whole abuse throughline going on that I'm not smart enough to decipher. Pulldrone was another spoken word section which if you haven't guessed by now I'm not a fan of. Not much to say, I wasn't listening too carefully so I didn't really know what was going on, ouroboros or something, I'm quite the reviewer I know. Tragically I hadn't liked the album enough up until that point to care too much. Then Ethel used a weedwacker that became bagpipes near the end for the rest of the song. The end. Etienne was a nice instrumental track with random rambling from some guy who sounded like he was behind a pane of glass at the end. Not much to say about it. Thatorchia had some nice heavy synths like Punish did but never matched Punishes freak sadly :(, it was just synth and some vocalization. Amber Waves was a wonderful end to this album, slow and beautiful which I think are the two best attributes Ethel gives her songs in this album. I saw some people commenting about how sad it was, I didn't really feel that. Saddest part about listening to this album is that I got Hypixel level 125 while listening to it. I clearly need to get out more. This album isn't bad, if it was I probably would have turned it off midway through, it certainly had something interesting going on, but I can't see myself returning to it and I wasn't a fan of the long ass drone tracks at all. Certainly didn't make me excited to check out more of Ethel in the future. |
| [Stiffy] (HACELOS CONCHA STIFFY) 3.5/10 | The cover was not enough to make me stick around and listen to this really bizarre mixtape. At some points it straight up sounds like a shitpost and I'm fairly sure I'm missing something I would have got if I wasn't illiterate in Spanish. |
| [L.A.B.] (L.A.B. VI) 5/10 | Pretty medicore funk album from L.A.B. that I only listened to because they were from New Zealand and I'm a patriot. |
| [White Noise Radiance] (10 Hours Of Continuous Rain Sounds For Sleeping) 8/10 | I imagine it to be difficult for musicians to stomach that the perfect ambient album was made four billion years ago by mother nature. Aphex Twin could never. Sadly I have to give this album an 80 though as I prefer myself some heavier rain and I'm not a huge fan of whatever material the rain is hitting. |
| [LCD Soundsystem] (The Long Goodbye: LCD Soundsystem Live At Madison Square Garden) 8/10  | A collection of great songs from my goat? There is no way I wouldn't love this. Despite that this felt a bit long as it was like three hours so I had to do shit intermittently. I think this might have hit a lot harder too if they actually broke up but due to me living in the future I know they didn't. |
| [YUNG LIXO] (13 Lentes de um Final Feliz) 7.5/10 | Who could have guessed one day a Brazilian furry would make a better rap album than what Kanye dropped. While I can't judge it lyrically due to a language barrier this shit just bangs, all the beats are wonderful and YUNG LIXO has a really good flow. The final track is my favourite and I've been blasting it since release. |
| [Vylet Pony] (No Matter What 2024 EP) 4/10 | Vylet Pony is so overrated I'm sorry but this is just lowkey sucks. It's her 5th project of 2024 and it shows because it feels so rushed and just really unfunny though luckily only about 10 minutes long. |
| [Swans] (Live Rope) 4.5/10 | It's Christmas day and I'm listening to a Swans album, what the fuck happened to my life? Anyhow the Swans continue to get hyped up on this site and I continue to not know why. They aren't particularly bad or anything but their music is just so god damn boring, the instrumentals especially which is a shame because some of their songs are like full 30 minutes of instrumentals. Some points in this album are just so unbelievably repetitive it borders on annoying. Like how can the first 7 minutes of Rope just be the same strum with a boring drone in the background and the singer channelling a demon or yodelling or some shit, it feels too simple and empty and it really drags. Even when it started to ramp up and get all over the top and shit (my favourite part of every post-rock album), it feels like Swans overdid it. Maybe it was because the recording I'm listening to is just so horrifically low quality but it just sounds like an endless washed out wall of painful sound. I'll still listen to their new album when it eventually drops but my expectations have never been lower. Now, time to hype myself up to talk to my racist uncles who I see once a year in a few hours, wish me luck. |
| [Godspeed You Black Emperor!] (Yanqui U.X.O.) 5/10 | Gotta love how Godspeed drops one of the best songs of all time (Rockets fall on Rocket Falls) but put it in between a whole load of dogshit. It having a 50 just shows how good Rocket Falls is. |
| [Arcade Fire] (The Suburbs) 7.5/10 | Had to bump this one up from a 6 to a 7.5 because the mega catchy songs like Modern Man cannot seem to get out of my head. It does have some low points and it's a little more bloated than I think it should be but it's still a really good project and some highs are just as high as Funeral. |
| [Snoop Dogg] (Missionary) 6/10 | Best thing Snoop has made in actual decades. I was never a big fan of his but aside from that song with Jelly Roll this project is pretty solid. |
| [Ace of Thorns] (the view from) 7/10 | Very impressive album, surely my favourite album from Ms Ace of ___. 'ghosting' goes very hard and going from the cramped and distorted 'crimson' to the tranquil 'by then we'll be halfway down' is quite beautiful to be honest and might have been my favourite part of the album, kind of reminds me of 'if we cannot meet....' in CPU Buddha. I wasn't reading the lyrics so I can't really comment on them but I was just having a fun time with it so it's alright. My main complaints are kind of incoherent and not very constructive but to me a few of the songs sound kind of uninteresting, I wasn't as big a fan of the second half of the album as I was the first, a few of the songs started sounding like some Canadian System of a Down or Green Day knockoff. Didn't like how skin was just a distorted poem and the recording (on the first song especially) is kind of liquidy if you get what I mean (???) which led me to not really enjoy it. Sadly my music word vocab is quite desolate so I'm unable to articulate what I mean. Very excited to see what you come out with next, easily the most interesting musician on this site right now (except for Nevermeant but he dropped one song and dipped so he doesn't count). |
| [ReMark] (ReMarKable Trackz 1 - Veins of Ruin) 2.5/10 | A very uninteresting trap album, it didn't do anything I didn't expect from a trap album including the extreme bragging which I couldn't take serious like man you have 500 listeners on Spotify what millions are you talking about 😭. |
| [Nujabes] (Modal Soul) 6/10 | Alright but very underwhelming. I really liked Nujabes' Luv(sic) series, it's certainly one of my favourite albums of all time so I assumed I'd like this album too but it's just so boring. I liked the first track, Luv(sic) pt3 and Eclipse but the rest was fairly uninteresting. As usual Nujabes' beats were the best part though. |
| [Swans] (Swans Are Dead: Live '95-'97) 3/10 | Feel Happiness was great but the Swans really can't be here expecting me to sit through almost 2 hours 30 of this shit, honestly I was done by the end of disc 1 and then it kept going. Not to mention disc 2 was just worse than the first. |
| [Godspeed You Black Emperor!] (Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada) 8/10 | Skinny Fists if it didn't suck ass. Moya is probably my favourite one of their songs, up there with 'Rockets fall on Rocket Falls' and 'Storm'. Great stuff going on here. |
| [HMLTD] (The Worm) 2.5/10 | This shit was so boring that I literally fell asleep. Like straight up, this is the first time this happened but halfway through I just got up and went to bed, it wasn't even night either it was like 5PM. |
| [Muse] (Origin of Symmetry) 6.5/10  | Headache prior to listening to this, headache after too but I really quite liked 'Darkshines' and the rest ranged from alright to good. Sick ass cover too. |
| [Alvvays] (Blue Rev) 2/10 | Was having a really shit day and then I listened to this and it gave me an even worse headache like beating me when I'm down. |
| [MARS] (MARS) 3/10 | Got bugged into listening to this one and it's really just some basic ass J-Rock. No idea where the love for this album is coming from. |
| [J. Cole] (Friday Night Lights) 5/10 | Getting some early Kanye vibes from this but it just didn't hit. It had a few great songs but the majority didn't do anything for me at all. Kind of funny how a two songs with the same beat got released like 10 days apart though, I'm sure Kanye wasn't happy. |
| [jschlatt] (A Very 1999 Christmas) 7.5/10 | Shockingly it's really good. I imagine a lot of it is just because I love christmas music but jschlatt has a great voice and this is probably my favourite version of 'Let it Snow!' |
| [Natural Snow Buildings] (Daughter of Darkness) 0.5/10 | How people feel pretending to like music on the internet. Is this album haunting and eerie?? I'm not sure. I wasn't really even listening to this album, I was just doing shit and paying it no mind the majority of the time. Did they expect me to take a seat and listen to mysterious sounds for 7 hours straight? This just sounded like one long ass boring song that was intermittently interrupted by whatever sparkles sound like and some guy who sucks ass at yodelling. The only way this 'atmosphere' you guys are going on about is as pronounced as you say is if the atmosphere is me walking through a cold ass street for 7 hours with nothing to do as I slowly lose my fucking mind. Like I was kind of enjoying the atmosphere for the first 20 or 30 minutes but this shit just drains you, I felt tired after listening to this album. It is funny to see the Spotify views drop slowly as people get bored out of their minds listening to this. I think I'm going to get an early night. |
| [toe] (For Long Tomorrow) 6/10 | God I hate math rock. Why did I give this a listen at all? Even then though, the album was pretty alright so I'm sure anyone who actually likes math rock would have a great time. |
| [万能青年旅店] (冀西南林路行) 9.5/10  | Hello?? They got even better?? This album is borderline perfect. The lyrics, poetic. The instrumentals, incredible and even with a pinch of jazz that was absent from the previous project. The way they made the sounds of mining in songs like '采石'(The quarry) was absolutely awesome to hear and '河北墨麒麟' was so epic. Would be an 100 if track 3 didn't exist. |
| [万能青年旅店] (万能青年旅店) 9.5/10  | I was loving this project and then '杀死那个石家庄人' came on and it was like what the fuck where have you been in my life before now?? |
| [窦唯] (黑夢) 7/10 | Nothing bad about this project, it was good but could have been better with a few more exciting or interesting moments. |