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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.
Things I've been listening to:
Knocked Loose, Wormwitch, TW Walsh, Rage Against The Machine, various Aug 2 releases mentioned below.
Things I liked most from the week of August 2 (I'm a bit behind, will post August 9 later):
Non-metal
Poison Ruin - Confrere
Alongside their dungeon synth project mentioned below, Poison Ruin released a new album at the same time. Pennsylvania punks that sound straight out of the 80's UK punk scene (The Clash, for instance). Stompy gallopy rhythms, a very UK punk sounding vocal, and fun riffs and tempos to match. Super catchy and fun.
Metal (clean-sung or metal-adjacent genres)
Shadow Knell - Selftitled
Dungeon Synth from the old-school punks in Poison Ruin. Mournful and magical fantasy synths with a doomy atmosphere. You can hear majestic and grandiose melodies but they're buried in a haze, like you're seeing it as a sad, distant memory.
Extreme Metal
Acid Mass - Worship
Black/thrash from Ohio with a very raw production. Fast speed-metal-influenced riffs, reverbed angry vocals, blazing guitar solos. Features guest spots from members of Wraith, Savage Master, Faithxtractor and Hellripper, which are all bands I'd recommend you check out too if you like this. This is great. Filthy, heavy, and fast.
Sturmwachter - Klagelieder
Some melodic, atmospheric black metal that keeps some aggressiveness layered in with it all. Though at first, the name or aesthetics could raise a slight concern of this being a sketchy/fashy project, it is not. Same person as is behind other projects like Carathis.
Pvrgatorii - Marching Through Thee Night Guided By A Black Fire
Dark and murky black metal with an atypical black metal vocal that sounds rather croaky and growling. An occasional, and likely unintentional humorous moment from some of the vocal screams at times that almost sound like evil laughs. This is a really strange record but I enjoy it. YMMV.
G.O.O.N - God's Only Option Now
Denver hardcore punk. Aggressive, feedback-filled, and fast. Has a lot of character and stands out for me.
I've been on a RATM kick myself, Renegades of Funk came on my YTM last week and I decided to just dive right in.
Metal-wise, these aren't new songs, but I've been looking at world metal and have been listening to Alien Weaponry from Aotearoa - I added Kai Tangata to my workout playlist, there's something very powerful about Indigenous metal. I also recently found the group Bloodywood and I'm into it. Oh, and the Our Last Night cover of Please Please Please - it makes me smile :D
I've had Heartbreaker by Purple Disco Machine on repeat - it's such a summer song; and Quezacotl by deadmau5 - I think I'm responsible for maybe 300 of those 1.3M views 😅
JPEGMAFIA - I Lay Down My Life For You - Here's probably my favorite track from the album
OSO OSO - life till bones - "that's what time does" is excellent and the album as a whole is pretty solid
beabadoobee - This Is How Tomorrow Moves - interesting to see Rick Rubin on this. Definitely a more polished album than Beatopia but if I'm honest, I enjoy Beatopia a bit more
vince staples - dark times - I need to revisit this one but Vince Staples features on JPEGMAFIA's new album and the song sample Seniorita
I went back to Caroline's Spine and Tonic today to get in touch with my inner teenager.
Listening to Work Song (lyrics) is a fascinating look at how the technology of office culture was perceived in the 90s.
Two other quotes:
– Mr Golden Deal, Tonic
– Monsoon, Caroline Spine
I've been listening to a bunch of The Beaches! They're a queer rock band i heard open for Girl In Red a couple months ago. You can check them out here:
Edge of The Earth
Blame Brett
Just saw the Mountain Goats a little while ago so I've been going hard on their most recent album- Jenny From Thebes. It didn't click for me on my first listen but it's been stuck in my head since then. As for a specific song, I love Murder at the 18th St Garage.
I've also been listening to what I'd define as Southern Fried Emo in All Get Out. Windows 98 by them has been an in and out earworm.
Glass Animals latest album 'I Love You So Fucking Much' has been on repeat. It's really beautiful, and there are deeply vulnerable lyrics. It explores the way one feels in different types of relationships. How it is being with someone who has explosive unpredictable anger. Or loving someone who is kind of walled off. Or the kind of love where you feel totally and completely held hostage by it. I've been really enjoying this one. I feel like I'm reading someone's secret journal.
Why? just dropped a new album called 'the Well I Fell Into' that is worth a listen. The song G-dzillah G'dolah is so nice. And the song Marigolds. Both of these are also kind of about vulnerability.
I was extremely bored at work today and ended up watching a bunch of live sets on hate5six's YouTube page, and that got me through the work day.
Watched sets from Counterparts, Pool Kids, La Dispute and part of an Oolong set that I cut short because the day was ending. Also watched a few songs from Old Gray's 2014 set at Bled Fest because I saw that live and it was one of the coolest experiences for me and wanted to relive it a little.
A couple thoughts:
Counterparts absolutely kills it live. Brendan sounds so good all the time and they're just really sincere dudes. I saw them once many years ago, hoping to catch them again now that I live somewhere again where bands frequently hit up on tours.
Pool Kids was better than they were when I saw them earlier this year, but I think maybe their song Swallow just doesn't work live. There's a complicated polyrhythm in the bridge and when I saw them I thought either the sound mix was a little muddy or the drummer was off beat, but hearing it again live in this setting, I think the recorded version benefits from some better fine tuned leveling. (I do think the mix at the show I saw them at wasn't great and the drums kind of buried everything, which sucks for their intricate riffs.)
I've seen La Dispute a few times and Jordan tends to sound terrible when he's moving around and really great when he's standing mostly still. This set was from their Wildlife tour and holy shit Jordan sounded out of breath within the first verse. I love LD and I love Wildlife, so I'll go see them whenever I get the chance and I'm glad this video exists, but damn dude just hold the mic to your mouth for a whole verse.
This Old Gray set (I don't think the whole things exists anywhere) is so much fun to go back through. I really wish more existed from them, but An Autobiography gets a full listen every couple of months.
103 by The Kills off of last year's God Games. It came on my radio the other day and immediately dug itself in my brain. It didn't stick last time I heard it but something about the heat right now and that song just reminds me of those comedown days where you're just melted to the couch after a bender. It's got that "you can veer your car into a ditch at 70mph, as a treat" vibe and I just enjoy letting it rattle all my mirrors.
Anyway, I can't find anything else that gets me in that "drug soaked day" vibe, so it's been that song then frantically skipping over to Natural Child or Eagles of Death Metal until I skip back to whatever audio book or YouTube video I'm listening to at the time.
That said, there was some singing and dancing to Cake's Fashion Nugget while cooking dinner tonight.
Louis Cole's nothing just came out so I've mostly just been listening to that.