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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.
I've been listening to a lot of Spiritbox (progressive/djent/metalcore/"modern metal"). Can't wait for the new album to drop!
Perfect Soul is their first release to feature Josh Gilbert's (formerly of As I Lay Dying) backing vocals and it sounds heavenly.
It's been mostly a Bolt Thrower and Beherit week for me. I forgot how good Beherit's Electric Doom Synthesis album is. Very strange mix of black metal aesthetic and feel but soundwise it's something like noisy ambient with programmed drums.
Ooooooo forgot about Bolt Thrower! Thanks for the reminder :)
I go on a big Bolt Thrower buzz every couple weeks, usually locking in a particular album each time (Those Once Loyal being most recent). Absolutely untouchable band.
Lotta metal in here so I'm gonna bring it down a scoch and say I spent today listening to Pedro the Lion's Control.
I discovered Wonderful Life by Black just this week. Love it.
I got this 45rpm Squeeze single called "Labeled with Love" from the record store just yesterday. Kinda lame country-ballad which deals with some sort of post-war heartbreak story, it was 2 bucks. It was also produced by Elvis Costello which is the only notable thing about it.
The B-side was this completely awesome mash-up of their previous songs (Cool for Cats, Goodbye Girl, Is this love) which was much, much better. I had a squeeze comp cassette somewhere but I unfortunately returned it back to the store for some reason, wish I kept it.
Besides this I also found a Bryan Ferry album (His debut), Heaven 17 (How Men Are), and a Cars album (Panorama). Pretty good selection, and it was all under 15 bucks.
Having a bit of a gap in new music so I’m coming back to my classics.
A mix of metal (stoner metal? noise rock? Idk how to describe this sub-genre) and thrash/powerviolence. Druids, Sandrider, Helms Alee, Red Fang, and Baptists for column A, and Power Trip, Demolition Hammer, ACxDC, and Municipal Waste for column B.
For a good solid week or so my main listens have been grunge-era MTV Unplugged albums, and Kryptan's debut LP, Violence, Our Power. The latter doesn't reinvent the wheel but it delivers the goods throughout with some early Watain style aggression and melody with some tasty synth work underneath boosting the nasty black metal atmospheres. Great fun.
I'm now locked into Havukruunu's new one, Tavastland, which finally dropped after an agonising five year wait. Epic riff-focused black metal that recalls the glories of Bathory and Moonsorrow.
Yseult, gonna see her live next month, I wasn't so impressed by her album initially but she seems like really intense live :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTODVkdoLEw
Australian Steve Smyth. Blues / Folk / Rock.
Take a listen to this song: Yours Sincerely
Discovered Louis Cole and Jabberloop recently and I've just been listening to them nonstop. Two of my favorite songs from the week:
Both songs are just so catchy I can't stop listening.
Check out KNOWER and Clown Core if you haven't. One has a clown with a suspiciously close drumming style to Louis Cole, the other is Clown Core. KNOWER FOREVER is a fantastic album from start to finish, and Van... If you don't like it, it's only 17 minutes long! But if you do, oh man.
Ooh will definitely give those a listen, thanks for the recommendations!
A friend put me onto the band Kalandra and they’re not normally the preferred genre (Nordic folk/prog) but they are so well composed they’ve become my latest obsession.
...heard abel selaocoe on morning edition this week: pretty cool south african cello throatsinging mash-up, not at all gimmicky despite how that description comes across...
Binging more Squeaky Feet. Really enjoyed 2024-04-25 - The 8x10 - Baltimore MD
One long set of four songs. Look at these track times.
The brief descriptor they use on their bandcamp page is "Prog-rock w/ a pocket."
I've found myself in the world of tranquil nordic / english jazz... or something like that. Anyway, if you have Spotify, check out Bremer/McCoy radio and you'll get a taste. Its excellent... and tranquil.
I’ve been listening to... uhm... I don’t actually know if it has a genre name, but to me it’s very distinctive. I think it’s related to synthwave and vapourwave and lofi, but it’s diverged a bit from each. I suspect ancient roots in trance perhaps? Maybe vibes from industrial? But that’s not super clear. Often uses ambient samples of city and train sounds, or conversations in Japanese or Korean.
Things like 2 8 1 4 or 猫シCorp. or telepathテレパシー能力者 or Remember
Somehow I’ve been listening to this playlist for years and never actually added HKE, even though they were featured on a bunch of the other albums I’d already added. I’ve finally gone through today and added a bunch of HKE, and I’ve been slowly listening to what I’ve added.
I'll bite. Mostly since I can't convince anyone around me why this song is so great.
Aespa - Supernova
I'm linking a video version by youtuber TastiK. They have managed to do what I could not, which is to provide some sort of visualization to illustrate the vocal line. It is very percussive, intertwined, beautiful, and very satisfying. Check out the full bonkers MV as well.
Big Brave – A chaos of flowers.
The album has a massive sparceness. This seems to be something the band excel at. These monolithic waves of droning guitar that are accompanied by airy vocals. This album seems to have captured that better than the previous one. I saw it described by a fan as doom and folk. This is what prompted me to to give it another go and I must admit it has hit the right notes this time round. A melancholic and introspective listen from start to finish and one I look forward to experiencing live if I get the chance.
Pissgrave – Malignant worthlessness
Honestly there’s not much thats too heavy for me these days so Pissgrave has not managed to take that title. Their artwork however does. Its absolute filth everytime. It’s probably the reason I havn’t bothered to listen to them. So why start now? Well I needed something angry and filthy and I saw some good reviews about the album. Yea it’s and angry and relentless album for sure and managed to scratch the itch. Overall id say its similair to concrete winds in that its non stop from start to finish. Vocals are filthy but if you really listen it could just be an angry donald duck. I might go back and listen to the previous 2 albums but then again if they sound like this one then why bother. There are a few stand out moments on the album but overall its just brutal so it does what it says on the tin.
High vis – Guided tour
This album has earwormed its way into my head over the last week or so. I saw them recently for the 3rd time and they delivered the goods once again. Seriously their show is so much fun. The best way to describe them is a mix of oasis and punk. Obviously if you don’t like oasis then that description won’t do much for you but arguably the first 2 oasis albums are bangers. This being the 3rd high vis release I can safely say all three are bangers. Its a matured album for sure but still has traces of the earlier angrier stuff. I think this one is going to be on rotation for a while still.
Havukruunu released their new album Tavastland and since Havukruunu is one of the greatest new black metal bands, I have had really high expectations. It didn't blow me away immediately like with Kelle surut soi as I rank as one of the best black metal albums ever, but it is growing on every listen. It seems slightly slower and less aggressive, but still have plenty of those melodic heavy riffs and their distinctive pagan sound.
It's been out a while, but I really like Hwasa's song Star and have listened to it several times this week. I like the way this song starts so simply, with just her voice and an acoustic guitar, and then gradually grows and fills out.
Hwasa is a member of Mamamoo, and they are some of the best singers in Korea.