I remember when I was like 15 or something I tried listening to Grizzly Bear and I didn't like it very much. I didn't hate it, it just felt like pure nothing to me.
This is the first solo album of one of the guys from that band and it reminds me a lot of my reaction to listening to that music when I was 15. It's fine, but it doesn't leave any real emotional impact on me. It's composed well, the melodies are fine, but it just goes in one ear and out the other, I really want to like this more than I do, but thems the breaks.
Best Track: footjob
Rating: 5/10
The above post has a 50% chance of being useless. Potentially. Maybe.
BEST AAAs: WANDERLUST, Pandora, Necropotence, Mourning The Lost, Eradication, Feldschlacht
I don't know how to describe this album whatsoever. When it's danceable shit akin to hardcore breaks or throwback rave genres, it's great. Breakcore shit, it's great. Mashcore type stuff, meh. Stuff that leans more towards hyperpop, well, I don't HATE it but I don't love it.
What drags this down is whenever it gets annoying, which is some of the hyperpop-esque stuff and ALL of the nightcore influences.
Also, I still don't know what HexD is.
Best Track: the last two tracks
Rating: 6.5/10
Originally posted by Trogdor!!!!
I'm gonna need some explanation on your current opinion of the new Beach House record.
it sucks and is boring
The above post has a 50% chance of being useless. Potentially. Maybe.
BEST AAAs: WANDERLUST, Pandora, Necropotence, Mourning The Lost, Eradication, Feldschlacht
A friend of mine recommended to me the EP this guy made in 2001 many years ago but many years after 2001. The one he made before disappearing for over a decade. I haven't listened to anything he's made since his return.
I think New York City has given me conflicting emotions about minimal techno/house type stuff, where I spend so much time around it because that city has a hard-on for music with absolutely no changes to rhythm or melody for 20 minutes or longer (that and dubstep). In certain contexts, I can vibe, but I wish there was more old-school rave stuff, or more Drum and Bass, or more breakcore, or more trance (I know of one small club but it's only good on weekdays), or really anything more than just the genres I listed.
None of these songs are over 10 minutes and most DO have some changes in them, I would say I enjoyed about 70% of this album, and that's going to be my rating (oh whoops spoiler alert). Only 2 or 3 tracks were REALLY good though, and an equal amount were boring. I went back and listened to that 2001 EP again to compare and that was WAY better.
Best Track: Beyond the Pale
Rating: 7/10
The above post has a 50% chance of being useless. Potentially. Maybe.
BEST AAAs: WANDERLUST, Pandora, Necropotence, Mourning The Lost, Eradication, Feldschlacht
At first, I was like "wow goddamn this might be the worst album I've heard all year".
Then, around the middle where there was a song with virgin in the title, I started thinking "actually, this is kinda fun".
Then, a few minutes later, I went back to thinking "wow goddamn this might be the worst album I've heard all year".
This album REALLY had to sample all the worst of not-quite top pop hits from last decade like Tik Tok and Bonfire? Were people asking for a mashcore-esque remix of the worst era of one of the worst rappers today? Or Ke$ha? I say the latter without thinking of the real world atrocities she went through, just how bad her 2010 music was.
This album makes me wonder when generation Delta or Gamma or whatever will start saying "okay zoomer" the way I say "okay boomer" to people in their 40s today.
This album made me wonder if being on a cramped ass international flight was making me more cynical, and I mean, it probably is, but I think if I was at home in my bed I wouldn't even finish this shit.
This album made me contemplate the fact that what gets me pumped the fuck up in live music settings often sounds TERRIBLE when I'm listening alone and motionless.
This album really made me confront the fact that in under 3 months I can only half-assedly claim to be in my "early 20s".
This album made me wonder if the flight attendants were watering down my drinks because after 3 I enjoyed Licorice Pizza a lot more than sober but between 3 and 5 this album remained booty crust.
This album is asscheeks.
Best Track: pick a song from the latter half and it has a 50% chance of not being asscheeks, pretending the bonus tracks don't exist. Why does this 2022 album already have bonus tracks? Whose listening to the standard version?
Rating: 2.5/10
The above post has a 50% chance of being useless. Potentially. Maybe.
BEST AAAs: WANDERLUST, Pandora, Necropotence, Mourning The Lost, Eradication, Feldschlacht
Okay I REALLY wanted to leave that as a 1 sentence review for the meme but I feel like considering the lyrical content of this album in conjunction with the controversy over her Crystal Castles contributions that would be borderline distasteful, or even disrespectful of the trauma she went through, regardless of the fact that 4 people tops will ever read this.
That being said, I genuinely don't want to talk about that controversy very much because I think that Glass deserves to be reviewed on her own merits here, because there's very little to say about that whole shitshow and because she's 100% her own artist with or without Ethan Kath, but obviously preferably without. So, instead, I'll just say this, as an abuse victim myself, I find people claiming they find the lyrical content of this album to be "triggering" to be completely valid, yes, but at the same time I think that this was 100% a cathartic release for the artist that she deserves to have and I feel as if just as many people will find content in here easy to empathize with (from a non-first person perspective to be fair) as others find it legitimately harmful to their own psyche. Maybe this should've been released with a disclaimer, but I certainly think it deserves to have been released.
So anyways, on to my own opinion! ...okay 100 Gecs for Millennials was legitimately only inaccurate as far as I'd rather call this Dorian Electra for Millennials, but as far as recorded music goes I prefer this to both. This is still very hit-or-miss, but (bias admittance alert) more personal relatibility to the lyrical content + a much less apparent desire to come off as "quirky" with the voice modulaters means I tolerate this a whole lot more. Now, don't get me wrong, for something so short relatively this has too much fucking filler and oddly enough feels borderline "safe" to me, but the majority of the tracks here I would describe as "moderately enjoyable", the rest split unevenly between "horrendously obnoxious" and "fantastic".
Genuinely though, where most people were complaining about the lyrical content, I think it actually made me more receptive to the completely unnecessary pitch shifting and recording-myself-using-Audacity-on-a-17-year-old-MacBook level clipping on display here. I wouldn't call this a masterpiece, I hope this isn't amongst my top 25 albums of the year considering how much of the album I genuinely disliked, but I think the emotional honesty of the lyrics really elevated this for me because solace in empathy and all that, right? It elicited something in me that made me feel like I've always been missing something with Crystal Castles but the truth is I still find this upon relistens to be way stronger than anything she dropped with Kath as a partner rather than a public enemy.
So, yeah, 6.5/10, thats my explanation, shove it up your butt.
I'm bumping that last one to a 7.5 because of how much I've been repeat listening to it and how much the lyrics keep hitting me, even if I don't love all of it.
Day 975: the newest Guerilla Toss album
I'll forever be glad I got to see them live on their Eraser Stargazer tour, the final album where they were weird, wild and noisy and not doing this far more accessible space age Devo/Talking Heads jam they've been doing ever since then.
That description of late period GToss, if I have to say anything, fits the least ever on this newest album, and I think taking a 4 year break from dropping a new full album was a good move on their part. This is the most polished thing they've ever released and the most tuneful, and the production is noticeably higher quality and more big-budget than anything they've done before. And if you're making psychedelic POP music, that's likely to be a benefit, especially a band that relies on electronic sounds as much as this one.
Something that I suppose caused me to sour over time on the last two albums from this band were the fact that they still seemed to be posturing as weird and daring when their music could be summed up as "sounding like The B-52s" (not my description hence the quotation marks). For the record, I love Love Shack and Rock Lobster but if I want that sound I have that band for that. This album is a full embrace of the fact that this is now, effectively, a pop band, and I think it's the strongest thing they've done in years as a result.
I still am not in love with this, probably a third of this album annoys me or otherwise leaves no real impression, but I'm coming to terms with the fact that they're never going to make Gay Disco 2.
Best Track: sug
Rating: 6.73771324/10
The above post has a 50% chance of being useless. Potentially. Maybe.
BEST AAAs: WANDERLUST, Pandora, Necropotence, Mourning The Lost, Eradication, Feldschlacht
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