the lemon of pink!!! yay!!!

anyway here's my chart:



i decided to go ahead and be a nerd and do a number ratings system even though i dont believe an opinion can be measured mathematically. again, i'll try my best to do 3 albums each week, i think i can handle that many.

looking forward to the next month : ) these are all albums i've never listened to before, except for the case of Dean Blunt's Redeemer and Merzbow's Pulse Demon. The Redeemer is a record I used to love but I haven't listened to in over a year. Pulse Demon is a record I listened to a good while ago and don't remember really at all. I love a lot of Merzbow's work and since Pulse Demon is one of his most (if not THE most) popular albums, so i wanna give it a go.

Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank

Bear with me a bit, I'm not a professional so these are just my thoughts, so I'm still going to give it a score.

Pretty catchy and accessible. I think you'll either love or hate the vocalist but he's growing on me. The riffs are catchy, if a bit repetitive across songs. The sound is altogether pretty simple and I think it works. I prefer it to Good News For People Who Love Bad News. Stand out tracks were March Into the Sea, Dashboard, Fly Trapped in a Jar, Steam Engenius, Spitting Venom, and Invisible.

7/10

Towk, you've got some sweetass albums lined up. Good stuff

Hello Everyone, Nice To Meet You, We Are Midori by Midori
also known as "that album with the anime tits"
Preview: Yukiko San

This album's f***' crazy. There's a lot of jazz and loudness and screaming and yelling and Japanese s*** I can't even understand. It's a pretty wild ride. I'd seen this album around a lot and liked the cover ( ;^) ) but I wasn't totally sure on most of the preview tracks I'd heard. It's a lot of fun though once you go through the whole album.

Rating: Good

By the way, you don't have to have some pro-level of review detail. Christ knows I'm not that good at it. Just let us know what you thought, y'know?

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West
I don't really listen to a lot of rap/hip-hop/whatever but I thought it was pretty good. I feel like I need to listen to it again eventually because I wasn't paying enough attention to the lyrics, which I imagine are a lot more essential to enjoying the music than I'm typically used to. Chris Rock's cameo was hilarious. I liked Power, So Appalled, and Runaway the most.

Rating: Good But I Probably Wont Go Back To It For A While

Especially since I always picture him as the zebra from Madagascar during that part

Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone? by Harvey Danger
Preview: Flagpole Sitta

Apparently Flagpole Sitta was a pretty popular song, but I'd never heard it until somebody gave it a spin in the Plug a while back. It's a f*** great little rock song, but I can't say I expected a whole lot more from the album. I wasn't really surprised! Outside of the singles it's not an especially interesting album, in a true pre-internet marketing fashion. Granted, it could just be that I'm not a fan of the punk/pop/rock/whatever thing they have going on and the groups they're clearly inspired by, but whatever. I thought it was kinda boring.

Flagpole Sitta's f*** great though, it's been playing in my head for a few days now.

Rating: Bad/okay

I was too lazy to make a chart and I've already been listening to new music every day lately so I'll just write about that instead

Ved Buens Ende - Written In Waters
Slint-inspired prog black metal from norway. i really like this album but i've somehow never listened to it in full. time to do that. taking notes as i listen.

• the way the first track transitions from dissonant grooves in odd time to the more vocal-driven second half is basically seamless
  
• the drums are f*** insane and that cymbal/tom work is orgasmic
  
• many complaints have been given about the vocals over the years but i think they work perfectly within context. though the delivery can be kind of hammy especially during the spoken word parts (where you can tell they're trying to sound like Slint)
  
• vocals are mixed in a weird way where sometimes harmonies will come in from different speakers and that's probably the only ultra cool thing this album does from a production standpoint
  
• some call this jazz inspired for some reason but i don't hear it unless everything syncopated is suddenly jazz now
  
• there are so many passages where they devolve into standard minor pentatonic tremolo riffs and blast beats i guess to give the album some "black metal" context but it ultimately just sounds like they ran out of ideas (they didn't)
  
• the clean channel parts sound like the guitarist's distortion pedal started acting up during the recording session and they needed to find another way to sound brutal. it worked.
  
• "Remembrance of Things Past" is the most old school black metal song title ever. fits nicely next to "Det som engang var" ("What Once Was") | edit: i forgot while writing that this was an alternate translation of Proust's In Search of Lost Time which makes this slightly less kvlt but even better

overall not as wondrously layered as Gorguts' Obscura nor as otherworldly as Demilich's Nespithe but it still carves its own niche and fits nicely within that canon of weirdo 90s metal that i love so much. this is what post-rock influenced metal should sound like, not boring "atmospheric" riffs and 10 minute crescendos. granted i am a huge Slint fan so i am biased in that regard.

i hate grading music but if i needed to this would get a generous 8 out of 10.

Classics by Ratatat
s***, I really loved this album. It's probably in my top 10 favorite albums ever. I don't know how I'd describe the genre, but wiki says alt rock/electronic so I'll go with that. I thought every song was great and different enough from each other that it never got boring. My favorites were Loud Pipes, Lex, Tropicana, and Swisha. Some songs kind of reminded me of the soundtracks to some games I've played. Like if someone told me this was the OST to a Cave Story/Metroid inspired indie game I would have believed them. I'll have to go through and listen to all their other stuff now.

Rating: So Good I Added Every Song To My "Favorites" Playlist

Was out all day yesterday and busy setting up my new laptop so I didn't listen to The Colour Spectrum, but considering it's size I'm going to break it up into EP's.

Ten by Pearl Jam

Great album and a solid first impression of a band I'd heard none of at all. I liked how it had this weird underlying ambience in a lot of their songs, and I think that's where the album worked best. Lots of very relaxing tracks, strong vocals, great production, way better grunge sound than Nirvana, who get really boring imo. Standout tracks were Alive, Black, Oceans, Garden, and Release.

8/10

Yellow, White, and Violet EP's from The Dear Hunter

Going off memory here cause it's been a month or so since I've listened to these. All beautiful tracks with different moods. I thought the vocals were the best part, Casey Crescenzo is really talented. The EP's were all pretty experimental but still super accessible and enjoyable. I loved the symphonic elements and atmosphere and I thought all the tracks were great. Favorites off each are Mr. Malum, Misplaced Devotion, and Fall and Flee.

9/10

Bat Out of Hell by Meat Loaf
Preview: Paradise by the Dashboard Light

Some of the songs on this record are brilliantly structured, with what my uneducated mind wants to call some kind of classical composition?? s*** idk but some of these songs are brilliantly put together. There was a point early on where I felt like I was really listening to something special -- but disappointingly, that feeling actually went away as I continued listening. This album is momrock as f***, with most of the songs being slow, contemporary (maybe? that's the word I want to use anyway) songs about love/relationships/bangin'. I thought it actually got kind of boring at parts. The album hits some highs, but my first listen impression is that I honestly feel like most of it is a lull. I'm not sure how much I'll revisit it to be honest. I'll be sure to give it another shot, but it might just be a select few great tracks that make the album what it is. I'm feeling a lot of filler, to tell the truth.

Rating: Good-Okay

Red, Black, Orange, Green by The Dear Hunter

Probably shouldn't have gone out of order cause I see the progression definitely tones down for the album as a whole. Slightly more biting, kind of poppy tracks off Red and Black. All still good, but I think I prefer the serenity of the later EP's. Green was wonderful and had some very moving tracks. I'm definitely going to revisit this album, properly this time, because the change in tone is mesmerizing. The acoustic and vocals are fantastic and I preferred the tracks that focused on them a bit more. Stand out tracks here were A Curse of Cynicism, Never Forgive Never Forget, But There's Wolves, Deny It All, Things That Hide Away, Crow and Cackle, and The Inheritance.

9/10

You shouldn't have gone out of order. One of the most impressive things about that album is the way it transitions so smoothly between colors, despite how drastically different they become at the end

Definitely give it a proper listen sometime yo

City to City by Gerry Rafferty
I went into this one with some pretty high expectations due this being the album the fantastic Baker Street is from, as well as Gerry Rafferty being one of the founding members of Stealers Wheel. These high hopes probably had something to do with the fact that I was pretty disappointed. Most of the tracks are alright but none of them are nearly as good as Baker Street, which peaks the album at the second track. The second best song is the first track, The Ark, so the album really just starts good, then becomes average and stays there. The title track is especially odd because it's about halfway through and is a random southern rock song.

Rating: Baker Street Is A Diamond In The Very Rough

yo i got all three down

The Devin Townsend Project - Ki
this album is pretty varied, like it feels like a prog metal album but it's really tranquil and laid back. musically it's generally quite pleasant, something i can imagine talking a walk and listening to. there weren't any parts i thought were bad, instrumentally. townsend's vocals are good when he sings quieter and more passive on tracks like "terminal", but they're less good when he gets slipknotty and screechy. you know what i mean. nothing wrong with screamy screechy metal vocals but townsend should stick with regular singing, he's far better at that. the woman that sings on some of these tracks has a pretty great voice, a lot more interesting than townsend's for the most part. "terminal" was really nice all the way through. also "ain't never gonna win" was groovy as heck. i liked the frenetic almost jazzy parts in songs like "heaven send". lyrically i noticed a few clever lines ("master debating" in disruptr, lol) but nothing really stuck out to me that much. overall it was pleasant, and in some places really fun and interesting. some parts were more interesting than others for me, like the experimental parts and the more passive songs like terminal and winter and quiet riot. some parts were less interesting but nothing was terrible at all.
rating: 6/10
fav track: Terminal

Tangerine Dream - Phaedra
insanely engaging and atmospheric ambient/krautrock music. the progression is intense and hypnotic and the soundscapes are pretty goddamn amazing and bring to mind a lot of vivid imagery. it's a really good album to space out to. i listened to it with the lights turned off as i lay down in bed and it was a really wicked and memorable 40 minutes. highly recommended.
rating: 8/10
fav track: Movements Of A Visionary

Merzbow - Pulse Demon
it's loud and it's overwhelming and chaotic (in some places), but for a merzbow release it's a lot longer than it should be, and surprisingly not as hardcore or interesting as some of his other albums. both woodpecker pieces and "my station rock" are good, and "worms plastic earthbound" is pretty f*** fantastic, albeit the second half of that track is a lot more interesting than the first.
the crazy hardcore parts are definitely interesting, even if the album overall wasn't super engaging. it's a decent record, not one of masami's best but far from his worst. veeery far.
rating: 6/10
fav track: My Station Rock

and thats it 4 this week, although if i'm feeling adventurous and manage to have time to listen to more stuff as the week progresses i'll add it to my chart and share my thoughts on it. it'd be cool if i managed to do an LP for every day again.


f*** same lol

Nice to see my connection went down RIGHT as I hit submit on this the first time.

Master of Reality by Black Sabbath



Not as good as War Pigs, but I can definitely appreciate this album for what it is. It's short, it's melancholy, and it still has that loud Black Sabbath sound. But it's still very different from their other work. Some of the songs were actually quite peaceful and atmospheric. The second to last track Solitude was a very blue-sy, experimental song and probably the highlight of the entire album. Children of the Grave is their usual metal song with horror themes and a sinister tone, but it's pretty catchy and it shows off Geezer Butler's bass pretty well. Actually, the whole album has a great bass sound. It fits with their blues riff's way better than the usual metallic, "stringy" sound metal bands like Metallica and Megadeth use. Just about every track was great, but the one's I enjoyed the most were After Forever, Children of the Grave, Solitude, and Into the Void. Considering two of the tracks were interludes, that's 3/4 of the album. Definitely give it a listen, cause despite how different it is, I think it's a better place to start with Black Sabbath than War Pigs.

7.5/10