Recommend me some 2022 albums +1000th album halp

[rayword45]

Re: Recommend me some 2019 albums halp

Day 555: Seven Horses for Seven Kings by Black to Comm

This goes from chamber-y to industrial to ambient to noisy to swirly to bizarrely gorgeous for brief passages, while remaining ultimately cohesive. Maybe not super-consistent, but for an hour long it's consistent enough and the best tracks actually elicited shock and terror out of me. Er, well, maybe not quite that, more like a minor discomfort BUT IN A GOOD WAY!

It's not something I'd wanna listen to frequently, but in the right place at the right time, this really captures the vibe it's going for and is one I'm gonna keep.

did I win the slot machine

Best Track: Angel Investor
Rating: 7.5/10

[dashoe93]

Re: Recommend me some 2019 albums halp

Ribbons by Bibio

[rayword45]

Re: Recommend me some 2019 albums halp

Day 556: Cows on Hourglass Pond by Avey Tare

This is very much the next step to Tangerine Reef, except this time there are actual songs instead of just soundscapes. And the fact that it's not under the Animal Collective banner. Avey sings with the same inflection he always does, which comes off as fittingly strained and borderline-childlike when it works, plain stupid and dopey when it doesn't.

Chilly Blue is gorgeous and is a surprising highlight despite being basically an interlude. It's not the best track, but it has a certain quality that a lot of these songs don't, which is a singular direction. That... might not be the best way to compare it to the rest of the songs, as this is certainly a lot less splatter-y than Centipede Hz or any Black Moth Super Rainbow in its approach, but a lot of tracks here tend to take their time to grow and develop. Sometimes it works, like the first two tracks, sometimes it doesn't, like the dumbass ending to K.C. Yours. The only other songs that seems to be pretty stagnant in their development are Our Little Chapter minus some overlays towards the end, which is a sucky track, and , which is better than the last song I mentioned.

Overall though, this is the best Animal Collective release in a long while. Not GREAT, but not bad at all.

Best Track: Eyes On Eyes
Rating: 7/10

[robertsona]

Re: Recommend me some 2019 albums halp

kid you're going off

[rayword45]

Re: Recommend me some 2019 albums halp

Day 557: Life Metal by Sunn O))) (Album Choice: Deadlyx39)

I still hate this band's name, but I enjoyed this more than the one other Sunn (bad emoticon) album I listened to, that being Black One which I found kinda cheesy. Earth is still better but this ain't half-bad, probably because they're not going for that stupid "we're SPOOKY" vibe.

Best Track: Novæ (but this feels like one song)
Rating: 7/10 (these are getting boringly repetitive and predictable)

[dashoe93]

Re: Recommend me some 2019 albums halp

Egowerk by The Faint
LP5 by Apparat
To Believe by The Cinematic Orchestra
Distance Over Time by Dream Theater
Vol. 4 :: Slaves of Fear by HEALTH

[rayword45]

Re: Recommend me some 2019 albums halp

Day 558: The End by Shlohmo (Album Choice: I like it)

This one is pretty good. You can trim out a few tracks, mostly the ones that feel more trap-influenced, and be left with a better album. Also peters off a bit somewhere in the middle but the last three tracks are honestly the best.

Help I've fallen and I can't get up. I wish that actually happened to me school is insanity.

Best Track: The Best Of Me
Rating: 7/10

[rayword45]

Re: Recommend me some 2019 albums halp

Day 559: Ribbons by Bibio (Album Choice: dashoe93)

I thought this was gonna be electronic for some reason, this is just indie pop with a lot of folk influence in it. Some tracks sound like the late-period albums of The Books and those are the crappy Books albums. Other songs just sound like Folk Impala, or maybe Samba Impala. Some of these songs are pretty enough, especially those that are more layered, a lot are either boring or just kinda annoying. Mostly I notice that I MUCH prefer the funkier tracks, and once again, this album is too goddamn long.

Now that I look at it again, why the fuck did I think this was gonna be electronic?

Best Track: Before
Rating: 5/10

[dashoe93]

Re: Recommend me some 2019 albums halp

Day 559: Ribbons by Bibio (Album Choice: dashoe93)

I thought this was gonna be electronic for some reason, this is just indie pop with a lot of folk influence in it.

The Mind Bokeh Album has the electronic bits you're looking for, but ye it's mostly indie funk/folk stuff. Guess I haven't listened to enough Bibio, but this album is a bit softer than usual

[rayword45]

Re: Recommend me some 2019 albums halp

Day 560: GHETTOBABY by Kevin Abstract

I'm ignoring the first 3 tracks because those are the same as the last EP I reviewed. The first track covers the same ground lyrically as usual, but the beat and atmosphere are strangely chill with a nice guitar line that makes it wholly enjoyable. The other two tracks are overproduced pop-R&B crap with too much falsetto.

JOBA release a fucking solo album already.

Best Track: Corpus Christi
Rating: 4.5/10

[rayword45]

Re: Recommend me some 2019 albums halp

Day 561: Green and Gray by Pile

I was hype to see these guys at Boston Calling (as well as Mitski and Denzel Curry amongst others) for the first time in over 3 years then I realized I'll be at another concert. Lame, oh well.

Anyways, I like this more than their last album, it might even top Dripping for me with some repeat listens (although it's hard to beat Magic Isn't Real). It has some issues with sequencing, like the transition from Hair to The Soft Hands Of Stephen Miller was obviously meant to be jarring, but it still kinda ruins the flow of things. But regardless, this is a real consistent batch of songs, with some of the best screamers they've ever written and some gorgeous softer tracks. Go listen to it.

Best Track: Bruxist Grin
Rating: 8/10

[rayword45]

Re: Recommend me some 2019 albums halp

Day 562: On Time Out Of Time by William Basinski

I saw this performed live, and the performance was definitely longer than this album. It also worked better in a church setting than on headphones while doing homework. For Basinski there's a heck of a lot of movement and change going on in this first piece especially, yet in spite of that it's one of his emptier-sounding releases somehow.

Not his best work, but I'll take it.

Best Track: The first one
Rating: 5.5/10 (funny, because the performance was pretty damn close to a 10/10, and his opener was DEFINITELY a 10/10)

[rayword45]

Re: Recommend me some 2019 albums halp

Day 563: Dorkcore 101 by Kevin and the Bikes

Yes, I actually listened to the whole thing.

Jesus save my soul.

You should do the same as I did with this album then find religion.

Rating: 8/10
Best Track: Chunky Puffs or Buddy Dorky

[rayword45]

Re: Recommend me some 2019 albums halp

Day 564: Hexed by Children of Bodom (Album Choice: Hateandhatred)

The only song I know from these guys is Blooddrunk for reasons that should be incredibly obvious to anybody that's a member of this website. This is much faster for the most part than that song, although some songs keep that slower speed.

I've never claimed to be a real connoisseur of melodic death metal, or even death metal as a whole, but compared to a lot of other releases of the same genre I've listened to, this feels kinda soulless. They've got some good riffs in there, the vocals aren't bad, but really there's just nothing that makes this stick out to me. It ultimately just feels a little too clean and safe which is a really weird way to describe death metal.

I'm gonna die.

Best Track: Platitudes and Barren Wards
Rating: 3.5/10

[rayword45]

Re: Recommend me some 2019 albums halp

Day 565: Digital Maestro by DM Ashura

This is another case where I've listened to this album before, but it's been over half a decade and I basically considered this lost media since the death of What.CD until I met the man himself at a rave he performed at and bought a copy, it was old overstock from 2007. Then I realized I have no CD drive anywhere in this house, so I asked the man himself for a digital copy and he gave me one. Nice guy, go support him by either going to a show he plays or taking his math class.

Immediately with the opening vocals of Psychosis and up until the end with that DDR Ultramix song, this hits me like a blast of nostalgia for the long past years of 2007-2008 when I first found this website and Stepmania. Long before I was depressed, long before I had to do fucking Master's projects in college, long before I gave a shit about school, long before I ever held a job, long before I got intoxicated on any substances, long before I realized I wasn't asexual, long before I had any legal scares (gee thanks high school, can't believe I got accused of bioterrorism for some fucking ghost peppers), long before personal drama between friends happened on a frequent basis, long before I developed serious social anxieties that I compensate for through unnecessary volume and extroversion, long before I basically became the fuck-up I am today. This brings me back to the days when I first found this website and Stepmania soon after, when shit like the simfile database and ITGFreak existed, when I was making terrible YouTube Poops to share with my friends on the school bus, when I had no phone or social media, when I thought smoking smarties was hilarious, when I thought swearing made you a badass, when being able to do simple maths made you feel smart and when the Wii was brand-spanking new, when I was using shitty survey websites like PrizeRebel to get my money (which in retrospect was horribly slow but hey, video games). I miss those days, life is sad now. At least my family has a dog now.

If an album invokes that kind of reaction in me, it's either fucking terrible, or it's great. I'm leaning towards the latter, because the last time I had a reaction like this was that fucking Shaggs album and to be quite honest I still don't understand that one. I also like the way this album feels somewhat cohesive, and besides the last two obviously-meant-to-be-bonus tracks, the sequencing feels pretty great, which, for an album that consists of 25% remixes, is impressive. I can see this being a great accompaniment to meditating in a dark room, sober or not.

ADDENDUM: Mental health is a fucking bitch, y'all. Fuck the United States health care system, but that's not to blame for my own problems, I just suck at doing things.

Best Track: Psychosis (Obelisk and Return Of Neon come quite close though)
Rating: 8.5/10 (In reality, it's probably not deserving of such a high rating and is quite the lengthy album, but fuck it sentimentality rules over all)