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What have you been listening to this week?
What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)
Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.
You can make a chart if you use last.fm:
http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/
Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.
Vitriol, Hulder, Zwielicht, singles from upcoming Skeletal Remains
For a complete left turn, also Kim Petras
Crawlers' debut album The Mess We Seem To Make came out today and it's a brilliant album. Going to see them perform the whole thing live at Pryzm next Thursday and I can't wait!
I was talking with a friend about the fierce independence of our daughters, and he put me on to Josh Ritter's "Getting Ready to Get Down" from
Sermon on the Rocks.
The album is kind of a folk rock / Americana vibe, but the lyrics feature a lot of Christian imagery while exploring a rejection of Christianity. (At least, that is how I understsnd it)
I've written elsewhere on Tildes about my own deconstruction (still a work in progress), but things like this are good for finding words for feelings that I sometimes have trouble naming.
sample of lyrics for "Getting Ready to Get Down"
[Verse 1]
Mama got a look at you and got a little worried
Papa got a look at you and got a little worried
The pastor got a look and said, "Y'all had better hurry:
Send her off to a little Bible college in Missouri"
[Verse 2]
And now you come back, saying you know a little bit about
Every little thing they ever hoped you'd never figure out
Eve ate the apple cause the apple was sweet
What kinda God would ever keep a girl from getting what she needs?
[Chorus]
And l'm
Getting ready to get down
Getting ready to get down
Getting ready to get down
[Verse 3]
Now, people cross the street when you walk in their direction
Talk between their teeth and throwin' epithets
And the doctor thinks the devil must've got you by your senses
But to live the way you please doesn't sound like possession
[Verse 4]
It's four long years studying the Bible Infidels,
Jezebels, Salomes and Delilahs
Back off the bus in your own hometown
Say "you didn't like me then, you probably won't like me now"
I finally gave boygenius's The Record a listen. I was only somewhat familiar with Phoebe Bridgers from her SNL performance, which I thought was pretty cringe-worthy. I've seen pretty overt criticism of this group but I'm not into music to the point where I'm able to break stuff down like that. I really didn't like it. There's this line from 10 Things I Hate About You where Heath Ledger, in regards to music labeled as "indie girl music of the angry variety" says "so I'm supposed to listen to chicks who can't play their instruments." And that's basically how I felt about this album. None of the songs feel like anything to me, it's not even like a pleasant sound. It sounds like someone trying to be Elliot Smith without any of the skill. Even if I find the artists themselves to be annoying personalities I would at least give them credit if there was credit to be had. But as it stands, nah this isn't good.
On the other hand, Prelude to Ecstasy from The Last Dinner Party is good. As I understand it this band is getting pushed as the next big thing in the indie rock/pop scene. I don't know enough about industry plants or whatever to comment on that. But I liked it a lot, I thought it was very well put together. I can actually listen to a lot of these songs over and over.
Anyone remember Skindred? Yeah, they're still around and they sound great. I've been hooked on their album Smile that was released last year. It has a similar sound to their Babylon album, but it's different enough to sound fresh.
Not all week but I've been slamming Tangk from Idles since last night.
In anticipation I've been deep diving their other albums: Crawler, Ultra Mono, Brutalism, and Joy
feeble little horse - girl with fish.
Pennsylvania has given us everything from Title Fight to Tierra Whack to Japanese Breakfast to the Roots. I've also been really into nosier side of the Philly indie scene over the last few years (think bands like Alex G, Blue Smiley (RIP), Spirit of the Beehive, Empath, and They are Gutting A Body of Water) so why not look to Pittsburgh to see hear their take on it.
Within Temptation, almost exclusively, with Boy George and Ariana DeBose's 'Electric Energy' here and there.
I'm late to the party for discovering this band but Smoke - Freak. They were an indie/folk (not something I normally listen to) band from Georgia whose lead singer was unabashedly a cross-dresser. We don't think much about it now but then and there, that was a really brave thing to do. RIP Benjamin. They have so many good songs but another favorite.
Last Chance to Reason (progressive metal) recently dropped two new singles after a ~13-year hiatus. I had no idea who they were, but they popped up on my Spotify Discovery playlist and my immediate thought was, “Wow, this vocalist sounds a lot like the guy from The Contortionist.” Then come to find out that it is the same guy (Michael Lessard), and LCTR basically went on an indefinite hiatus while Michael focused on The Contortionist. Both new singles are great, and I’ve really enjoyed hearing their evolution over their three very different sounding albums. Their first release is radically different than their newer stuff, and sounds like it was extremely heavily influenced by early Between the Buried and Me, which is a big plus to me as you might guess.
This week I decided to give the Cold Lake album by Celtic Frost a couple of spins. In the world of heavy/extreme metal, Celtic Frost is one of the pioneers. From early on in their output they already started to get a bit experimental. Then this album dropped. At its core it's a hair metal album which was a massive letdown to their reputation considering that they were formulaic in the now rising death and black metal scenes.
I'm already forming a soft spot for it. Thomas Fischer is a true riff lord and his vocal style is iconic but, hoo boy, do they not mix well in this style of super sleazy and dirty hair metal.
I get it why this is one of the biggest maligned metal albums of all time, but with my defective brain I can see the charm and am now a Cold Lake apologist.
I'm a recovering proghead of many years who just finished his first course of medical treatment: Carly Rae Jepsen's studio discography. I'm on the road to recovery.