The first band of the month I've had little to no experience with. I heard their song "Best Friends And Hospital Beds" a while back and thought it was okay. Besides that, I've heard nothing else by them so I was looking forward to checking out this album.

I liked this album. It's nothing groundbreaking, but it's very solid from start to finish. Opening with Rookie Of The Year, the album kind of keeps to the same formula: fun guitar melodies, catchy choruses and good-but-not-outstanding playing from the drummer and bassist. It's not until Your Revolution Is A Joke that there's a noticeable change in style. The sole acoustic track, it's a very welcome change of pace near the end of the album, and is a standout not only because it's acoustic, but because it's very good.
Escape Artists Never Die is the best of the post hardcore tracks here, reminds me of The Illusion Of Safety era Thrice.

I feel like I should talk about the vocals a bit here. I think they're fine, but throughout the album I couldn't help but think "these sound almost out of place, like they're a tad higher than you'd hear from a post hardcore album". I've seen the Emo tag thrown around in some discussions of this album, and while I don't think that it fits 100%, it's something to think about.
There's some harsh vocals too. While I don't outright hate them, I do think they sound a bit dry. The previously mentioned Rookie Of The Year makes good use of them. They don't wear out their welcome and enhance the cleans directly after them. Red Is The New Black uses them more than any other track on the album, and suffers because of it despite having catchy guitarwork.

Overall I'd give it a 6/10. It's catchy, but it doesn't really do anything I haven't heard before. Not added to my main library but I'll probably listen to the standouts every now and then.
Recommended Tracks: Rookie Of The Year, Escape Artists Never Die, Your Revolution Is A Joke

#1 - 64 ready
Starts out very upbeat, with very chippy instruments, but the bass doesn't really fit the rest of it.
It's interesting and strange, certainly, but it's not particularly enjoyable to listen to, as far as I'm concerned.
Most of it works okay, and it's not a bad song, but it's not something I'd choose to listen to again.

#2 - DNA
The pattern it starts off with, straight away, I like a lot. It reminds me of a whole bunch of things, from other artists to music from old games.
All of the layers work together, and the sound overall is fairly consistent.
When the bass comes in, it fills out the song a lot, and it really improves the atmosphere of the song, and it only goes up from there.
It's definitely one of my favourite tracks from the album and I'd definitely recommend it, if not the album itself, but sadly, it's also the shortest.

#3 - Mea Culpa
Dragoide occasionally does more Industrial sounding stuff, and this is an example of it, although, not a very good one.
His album "Plumbeum" definitely sounded very industrial inspired, but that album is one of my favourites, while this one isn't.
A fairly creepy and distorted voice sample plays near the start, and I guess it kinda works, but not very well.
It changes a lot, around the middle, to a more common Dragoide sound, and I like it a bit, the pattern and synth used is nice, but it's a bit bland, and the percussion doesn't really fit it, I believe.
Sections of it are pretty good, and overall it's not that bad, but it's definitely not a favourite, which is a bit disappointing, being one of the longest on the album.

#4 - The Butterfly
The beat at the start is very loud and punchy, which I didn't really like that much.
It changes up a little bit, throughout, but nothing really special.
It's not a bad song, but I didn't find it very interesting or noteworthy, at all, and I couldn't think of much to write about it.

#5 - Brand New Feeling
I thought this was one of the better songs of the album, but still not really a favourite.
I liked how it started, and it was sort of catchy, and had a nice feel.
The glitch elements and percussion in this song has a lot of high end, and is really clicky, which I kinda like. It sounds alright with the rest of the song, at least.
I feel like it went downhill from around the middle to near the end.
The end itself, I thought was really good, though it only lasted about 30 seconds, and I really wish it had gone longer.
The best parts are the first half and the last 40 seconds, with everything inbetween being fairly bland. I'd recommend those parts, at least.

#6 - Poor Ram
One of my least favourites from the album.
I imagine it was intentional for it to sound slightly off, which it did well.
It improved a little bit by the end, but I didn't really like any part of the song much at all.
Won't be listening to this one again, now that I'm done this review.

#7 - Ospati Bosemoi
I liked how it started, with wind noise and stuff, and the synth that sounds a little bit like strings.
This song reminded me a lot of Dragoide's latest release, "Low", which had a lot more drone-y sounds on it, which I liked a lot, after I listened to it a few times.
As the song goes on, it doesn't really improve that much, until the end, which is a bit sad, but it's never really bad.
It ends off the way it started, which I have no problem with, because the start is fantastic.
The majority of the track is pretty great, which is a good thing, being the second longest track.

#8 - Winter Twilight
Really big bass-y beat, right at the start, which doesn't really sound great, especially just after Ospati Bosemoi.
As the song filled out more, the beat felt a lot less out of place, too.
Throughout the middle of the song, it got quite cheery and, sounded fairly "wintery" which is fitting of the name.
I felt like this song wasn't bad, but it's nothing spectacular.

#9 - No Compute Love
The start is basically just drone, which is a good thing, I think.
It didn't really transition into the main part of the song very well, though.
The bass in the song only plays occasionally, but when it does, it's really loud.
A beat and synth start, later, but the beat is pretty boring, the the synth doesn't really sound right with the rest of the song at all.
Eventually, it basically just drops off, into a much more pleasant piano-like tone.
In the last parts, quiet voice samples play in the background, which works well, but mechanical noises also start around this time which take away from the rest of it, which was disappointing.
It's an okay song, overall, as well as the longest track of the album.

#10 - Sphera
I could tell I wouldn't really like this one from the start. It was very bass-y, and felt a lot darker than most of Dragoide's stuff.
It reminded me of "stadiumencore", the final track off Dragoide's release "Pop", which I never really liked, either.
The majority of the song doesn't really change, with only a few background melodies occasionally being switched out with other layers and stuff.
It makes the first noticeable change after the middle of the track, which isn't great, either.
There's a lot more glitching near the end, which is nice, I guess, but it doesn't redeem the rest of it.
One of my two least favourites.

#11 - Coleskova
This one gave a good first impression, which it followed up well.
The beginning repeated just a few too many times, which I can overlook, I guess, since the rest of the track is great.
It felt calm and pleasant, which I approve of.
Most of the album feels fairly emotionless, except for a couple tracks, which kinda sucks. This definitely being one of those couple tracks.
It gets more fleshed out around the last third, which is much appreciated.
What I didn't like, though, was that near the end, the song basically tuned down, which sounded very unpleasant, before going back to normal again, to finish off.
In general, I really enjoyed this track, and I felt it ended the album pretty well.

Overall Rating: 5/10
There were some nice tracks, but most of it wasn't anything I'll probably listen to again, considering the rest of Dragoide's discography is better than it.

The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground

So here we are, the follow up album to TVU's infamous "The Velvet Underground and Nico." While their debut album may have sounded to some like they were just playing it safe or just uninspired, you have to think of the music in context of the time it was created in. On that album they had fantastic production, mixing, and mastering, very bright and shiny guitar tones that hadn't been used by too many big bands at the time (not to mention go on to inspire future generations of twee and indie pop), interesting use of reverb and distortion which could have inspired the entire genre of shoegaze itself (especially on Venus in Furs), as well as some early forms of sampling. Although it may sound like nothing out of the ordinary by today's standards, you have to respect it for what it did for music for the years to come.

Now, "The Velvet Underground" is a whole new beast. No, the production/mastering/mixing isn't as on point, but I have a feeling that's not what they were shooting for on this album. It doesn't provide the new ideas and original sounds that they used on their debut, but I feel as if the songwriting has improved a lot. There's not as much going on, sometimes their will just be guitar and Lou Reed's vocals instead of having a ton of different sounds going on at the same time, making it feel more folky. Maybe some piano and drums every now or then, but nothing too noisy or intrusive. I really can't find a weak spot on this thing, and Jesus may in fact be one of my favorite TVU songs ever.

Both Albums are great and original, but in their own ways. I feel like the quality of the albums over all are about equal, however. This one might be an instant favorite of mine, and I'm glad that I took the time to listen to it this month. I feel like I'll come back to this album time and time again.

Rating:10/10