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[gdrar]

3/20/24: Rocket Overdrive by Rocket Overdrive

Alright, back. I actually got home last Friday but I forgot about this for four straight days and then was busy yesterday.

Anyways, some rockabilly (I think that's the term) today. I really don't know about this one… everything's perfectly competent but it's just not a sound that interests me. Maybe some moments with a more punk-y feel get close, but nothing really hits here. It's definitely got some of that classic-feeling rock charm, though, and the percussion did make me tap my feet occasionally while listening. I really don't have anything else to say, really; I mean, I could, but feel like I always say the same things when writing about rock. There's really not much point. That's all! See you tomorrow maybe because I might make this a weekly thing because the break did not want to make me do it more!

[gdrar]

3/4/24: Phosphene Dream by The Black Angels

Psych rock today. 

Pretty damn solid, honestly; I do enjoy some psychedelia sometimes, and this album definitely hits the spot. Maybe a bit more melodic than the average, but still keeps it's vocals and instrumentation slathered in enough reverb to kill a herd of elephants (and to maintain the vibes. None of the songs really stand apart from the others for me besides maybe the title song itself, 'Phosphene Dream', which just really hits the vibe at the end.

That's all! I won't be seeing you tomorrow or for the next 10-12 days because I am going on vacation! Hopefully the break will make me want to do this more than I want to right now!

[gdrar]

3/3/24: No Retaliation (Pt. 1: The Solo's) by Radical Redemption

Hardstyle EDM today. This is the sort of music I'd need every strobe light on earth and the ever-rare willingness to dance to enjoy, and even then I still might find it irritating. if I'm not in the right mood. Needless to say, I did not have access to any of those three things and was thoroughly bored throughout this album. Weird samples (including one from, I think, South Park(???)) constantly repeated, intense synths on the border between grating and not, and an either incredibly simple or nearly incomprehenisble story crammed in there with three tracks just being storytelling with very little integration with the actual music. That's all! See you tomorrow for! Something!

[gdrar]

3/2/24: "damn" by goob

Sorry, no review for today. I was too busy having real human connections (a rarity for me) and spaced it. My bad.

[gdrar]

3/1/24: Novelty Forever by Bracket

A standard pop-punk album. I really wouldn't call this anything special, but it's nice on the ears. I do appreciate the level of which they're willing to crank the distortion of the guitar in some of the songs. The singing sounds like a lot of 90's punk, which is fine I suppose. There are also some nice gimmicks usually for the start of songs- these can be annoying if done improperly, but they're all good here. Overall I feel like they could just use a little more originality? Maybe lean into the more heavily distorted sound, definitely get some more interesting rhythms going in the guitar and bass. There's certainly some of that, but not nearly enough. 'I Won't Mind' has a cool synth section and a interesting solo guitar sound that they definitely could've utilized more heavily. Other things, I like the little bass riff at the beginning of 'Optimist'. I also like the decision to reprise 'Little Q&A' at the end of the album- it's definitely one of the more catchy songs on the album, though maybe that's just the power of repetition, and works to round the experience off.

That's all! See you tomorrow for! Something!

[gdrar]

2/29/24: Home Again! by Doc Watson

Very pleasant little americana album.

There's only about four instruments in this album; there's Watson's voice, his acoustic  guitar, his banjo, and his harmonica, and only two are ever used at a time. He has a nice voice and in conjunction with his very clean, virtuosic playing makes for simple but nice-to-listen to music. He mixes it up quite a bit two, with some more bluegrassy music in 'Katie Morey,' some traditional voice+guitar storytelling in songs like 'Froggie Went A-Courtin'' or 'Matty Groves', and some instrumentals/solo vocal songs, my favorite being 'Rain Crow Bill' where he goes absolutely ham on a harmonica for 1:47.

The lyrics are all quite charming, especially in the previously mentioned story-songs. I do feel betrayed by 'Froggie Went A-Courtin''; not only were the lyrics on spotify completely wrong, but they tricked me into thinking the song had a happy ending, dammit! This album does seem to have some weird mis documentation to it; on top of the incorrect lyrics the site says it's from 1996 which, while maybe providing some comedic value, is clearly a typo (the real date is 1966). Hell, looking up; 'Winter's Night' isn't even the right name! It's 'A-Rovin' on a Winter's Night!' Someone had it out for this record, apparently.

That's all! See you tomorrow for! Something!

[gdrar]

2/28/24: Ubuntu by Piso 21

This album is the equivalent of a stock photo album for latin pop. It's just boring, man. It sounds like every piece of latin pop I've ever heard, and it does the bare minimum to be original by occasionally using a slightly different instrument. The only point that even barely made it feel like I was listening to music made by someone who cared was the very beginning of 'Tiempo', which was slightly above average in the amount of effort put in (at least compared to the rest of this album). There's also an aberrant hi-hat sound in 'Dejala Que Vuelva' that's really high, squeaky, grating, and makes it sound like my headphones are broken, so this album can't even properly claim the well-produced defense (though really that's the only issue like that).

This album single-handedly counteracted the caffeine from the soda I drank right before listening. Don't bother, unless you want to be in a bad mood.

That's all! See you tomorrow for! Something!

[gdrar]

2/27/24: Undergrowth by Lil Dusty G

Emo rap(?) today. I don't really know if that's a good descriptor but it's what the randomizer said it was, so I'll stick with it. It was a little scary to see that at first; really, I need to be less fearful of arbitrary words used to describe music.

It's fine. The flow of the singing and the vibes overall work and fit with the emo image, nothing special or especially impressive throughout but it works. The rhythm is expectedly strong and there are some surprisingly pleasant riffs in songs like 'PREACHED', 'BELTANE', or 'INBETWEEN'. I'd say as the short album goes on the sound thins out a bit from the fullness of the first couple of songs to a more standard arrangement of mostly drums+singing, which is also okay but I prefer the more complex sound.

I didn't really pay much attention to the lyrics, but from what I heard alongside the vibes of the album it's definitely emo. A bit of a tangent, as long as it's not too stupic or problematic I really don't care what the singer says. There's only ever been one song where knowing the lyrics have made me like the song more, and it certainly ain't on this album.

That's all! See you tomorrow for! Something!

[gdrar]

2/26/24: Summer Strike (Original Soundtrack) by Various Artists

I don't usually listen to film soundtracks, but I saw this one and thought why not. This one's from some Korean film. I'm also totally out of it today because I stayed up till midnight last night watching Capcom Cup so do not expect much from me.

It's all pretty well produced, good singing, good instrumentals. Nothing particularly interesting; some of the guitar work is pretty good, and some of the sounds they use with those guitars surprise me, especially on the more pop end of the spectrum of styles. If I were in a better mood I might try to guess at the sort of movie this soundtrack goes to. The most I'm giving is that it's probably a romance, pretty obviously. I'm not going to bother to look it up.

That's all! See you tomorrow for! Something!

[gdrar]

2/25/24: Naturally by J.J. Cale

Some straight blues.

This album confuses me. The instrumentation? Pretty good. The lyrics? Fine. The singing? Utterly inexplicable. Cale sings with the same quiet tone through the whole album, and the way he does so makes it sound like he's either sick or has lost his voice. It kills any energy this album could've had. It only nearly works on the most relaxed songs like 'Magnolia' but songs like 'Woman I Love' or 'Nowhere to Run' have the other instruments practically begging this man to put any enthusiasm into his tone. Some other parts of the mix are also strange; the guitar in 'Crazy Mama' is WAY too loud compared to the rest of the song at points and even peaks the mic at one point.

Ignoring all that, the bass and rhythm are generally pretty solid, especially when it deviates from standard blues fare like at points in the opening track 'Call Me the Breeze'. The use of drum machines in this album is intriguing from a historical standpoint, if not in its actual use in the music. The only point where I'd say the weak singing is bypassed is the choral singing in 'Clyde', and note that I say bypassed, not fixed or avoided.

A final note, the album cover is sick. Love me some dapper forest animals.

That's all! See you tomorrow for! Something!

[gdrar]

2/24/24: A Cruze Era pra Mim by Cicero Nogueira

Gospel today. Now, doing some research, it's apparently also Christian music, which I would usually avoid because I don't like being preached at but I don't understand Portuguese, so who really cares. 

My commentary on this one is strangely similar to yesterday's, despite being an entirely different genre. There's not much variation from song to song but the vibe of the album was strong enough that I liked it. It's that slow, calm, almost melancholy feel that can really hit if you're in the right mood, which I'd say I was. That feeling of powerlessly watching everything around you slowly fall apart while still knowing you have time yet to enjoy yourself before it catches you too…

I hate to say it, but the temptation to scroll Reddit to pass the time while this brazilian guy sang at me for half an hour overwhelmed my dedication to focused music reviewing. No, this is not an apology for that.

That's all! See you tomorrow for! Something!

[gdrar]

2/23/24: Flourish by Damian Lazarus

This is house, which is a genre I don't think I've ever actually listened to before now. Electronic music as a whole is so varied and so big, if just in sheer quantity of material, that it can be intimidating, especially this end of the spectrum with house/techno/trance.  It doesn't help that I don't really know what these genres actually sound like, so I apologize if I get something wrong.

This album is zone-out music of the highest order. I don't really have much to say in specifics, because there's really not much variation or specific points of interest but that doesn't really matter because I enjoyed my time listening. It was pleasant to just sit there and chill, the excellent layering of the percussion and other instruments occupying the restless parts of my mind while my thoughts made lazy circles in the lake of my consciousness… It's like a slightly louder version of meditation. 

I do like the weird vibes of the opening track, 'Beth'. The way they used the bass reminds me of how haunting something like a didgeridoo can sound. 'Into the Sun' is also a little odd just because it has a singer, and kind of almost a melody? It didn't really interrupt the effect I described but it was different, so I'll mention it.

That's all! See you tomorrow for! Something!

[gdrar]

2/22/24: The Mindsweep by Enter Shikari

This album cracks me up, honestly. It's alternative rock with a little bit of electronic rock and hardcore punk mixed in. Most of this album really fails to capture me; none of the songs are very interesting or catchy all the way through, and while the style has some twists and turns it's like doing so in a plain; you're in grass, take a sharp turn right, walk for a mile, and you're still in grass. Turn 180 degrees, walk two miles, and, you guessed it, still grass. In short, this album is grass all the way 'round.

It does have its moments, though. The part of 'Myopia' with the change in the guitar sound and the chanting is nice. 'Torn Apart' is overall a relatively okay song with a good chorus and a surprisingly striking contrast with its instrumental continuation/counterpart 'interlude', which may have been my favorite part of the whole record. The horns really add some character and some storytelling. I will also admit that the drop in 'Dear Future Historians…' does go pretty hard, it's probably the most interesting riff in the album.

The part of this album that really made it much more tolerable were the lyrics. They're very much extremely explicit anti-establishment punk stuff, which I respect immensely, but for whatever it per reason when this British man sings them I just cannot take them seriously. They're just so cheesy, and I don't know why. My favorite line is probably "the invisible hand no longer guides, it chokes", from 'The Bank of England'. Honestly, go off Enter Shikari, I can feel capitalism quaking in its boots. The comedy I find in this album is not helped by stuff like the stock airhorn sound effect in 'There's A Price On Your Head', or the goofy speech that opens the album. Parody is always closer than you think, and this album is not afraid.

That's all! See you tomorrow for! Something!

[gdrar]

2/21/24: Yaşlı Amca by Yaşlı Amca

Turkish alt rock. Writing down these Turkish song names is going to be a little irritating, but I'll manage.

This is an excellent album. All the songs flow really well, which is vital in this genre; 'Yıldızlara Bak' is a good example of this. There are some nice musical ideas, which does a lot for the variety of the album; 'İstasyon' with it's march-esque instrumentation and 'Benimle' with it's kinda goofy main riff stick out especially, I feel (I will note that the former did not deserve an intro as annoying as it go), though I definitely would not call any of the songs here boring or done already. Overall, the album is pretty smooth, very good for casual listening.

The basslines in this album are nearly all fantastic. Not only good for listening, but sound genuinely fun to play as well (I might try and play some of these later). It's so easy to make this part of the music simple, but Yaşlı Amca even adds nice little flourishes on top of their standard bass riff that most people would never hear, especially without headphones, all while keeping the chord-whoring to a minimum. It's really appreciated. I also like what they did for the final track, 'Nilüfer', the combination of the bass and the bass drum almost makes it sound like a synth, which is not an effect I've really heard before.

I like the intro to 'Kaybediyorum Yeniden'. It's hard to put a finger on why, it's very… folky? Yeah. folky.

In conclusion,

Rock Band

That's all! See you tomorrow for! Something!

[gdrar]

2/20/24: The Beatles (White Album) by The Beatles

I definitely know these guys. I'm getting a tad suspicious of the website I'm using at this point just because currently 3/15 of the artists I've reviewed have had 10m+ monthly listeners, which seems a little disproportionate. Maybe my luck is just weird, though. First of all, this album is a fucking marathon to listen straight through the whole thing. It's a whole damn full-length movie's worth of Beatles and Beatles alone, which left me exhausted and without a comprehensive memory of each and every single song, which are not the song's fault. I definitely feel like some fat could be trimmed off, though. Because of this, I'm going to summarize in broad strokes, especially given that everything I say has probably been said before. I mean, it's the Beatles.

I never really realized how varied this band really was. Rock, folk, some dipped toes into other genres… It's fascinating to think about it as part of such a cultural pillar.

Songs like 'Ob-La-di, Ob-La-Da', 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps', and "Blackbird' are classics and need no further comment. Some personal favorites I hadn't really heard before were 'Rocky Raccoon' and 'Helter Skelter,' whose sound nearly seems out of time for 1968, if one that goes on for too long. It's not exactly regular listening material but 'Revolution 9,' a gallery of sounds that's questionable to call a song, astounded me; at point it sounds like something out of Miracle Musical or some other modern psychological piece. Maybe reversed music gets to me a little too much, but…

My biggest gripe with the album (besides its size) is its bizarre use of stereo audio. A good amount of songs don't need any comment because it's used well but others go from noticeable but tolerable to downright torturous, like in 'Back to the U.S.S.R'. Having looked this up this point is, unsurprisingly, a common thing to note. Maybe I should add 'original' to the disclaimer.

In conclusion, it's the Beatles.  That's all! See you tomorrow for! Something!

[gdrar]

2/19/24: belong by fnonose

Lofi today. To be transparent, there is absolutely nothing here that I haven't heard somewhere else before, and I have nothing to really comment on. It is certainly chillwave lofi, same as you have heard in a thousand different places, it certainly does what it is meant to achieve, and I understand why people listen to it. Maybe the only thing I noted was the high-pitched, kinda voicy instrument in 'don't leave', which I have heard similar but I like nonetheless.

The album art is cute, and fitting. 'steezy prime', a collaborator on this album, has a kinda funny name.

That's all! See you tomorrow for! Something! P.S. I might start rolling 3 albums from the random generator and allowing myself to pick one, just to give myself some flexibility. Or maybe I'll do that when I get something I really don't want to listen to that day/think won't be interesting.

[gdrar]

2/18/24: Teatro d'ira - Vol. I by Måneskin

Hey, I know these guys. This'll be the first album where I've listened to one of the songs on it before, specifically 'I WANNA BE YOUR SLAVE'. It's not regular listening for me, so it'll still be pretty fresh, anyways.

Maneskin is a band that expertly manages to walk the tightrope between having a unified sound while still having each of their songs sound unique, a problem which anyone who wants to make music has to contend with, and this album is an excellent showcase of that. The sound is a very clean one contrasted only by the singer's gritty voice (I considered also including the guitar as part of this contrast, but I'd say it's more satisfyingly crunchy while lacking the distortion/fuzz that would really make the mix dirtier). It also has a lot of interest crammed in that space between the guitar and the bass, which just makes it really engaging to listen to.

As for individual songs on this record, 'I WANNA BE YOUR SLAVE' has a really nice staccato to it that makes it stick out nicely, one that I hadn't really noted when listening to it before. 'LIVIDI SUI GOMITI' and "IN NOME DEL PADRE' both have some impressive vocal work with some fast singing while still managing to keeping it tidy. 'ZITTI E BUONI' is just a banger in general.

If I had any gripes I do wish there was a song or two that stepped a little farther outside of their comfort zone on this album. The farthest from their conventional sound on this album is the final track, 'VENT'ANNI', and unfortunately it steps closer towards the generic than to the unusual. I also wish the couple solos that are present popped a little more. They aren't bad by any means, just okay- I feel like they could do better.

I'm also rather ambivalent towards the lyrics of the two songs in English. They're pretty horny (which I imagine probably applies to the songs in Italian as well), which isn't really my thing but they keep it pretty moderate unlike some artists and they mask most of it with clever language, so I'll give it a pass. 

That's all! See you tomorrow for! Something!