Last Album you listened through

Various Artists - Music for Dancefloors: Cream of the Chappell Sessions. More 70's library music. Is it weird that a major reason I appreciate this so much is that I like having stylish instrumental music on my ipod so I can make my commute feel like a movie? Action-movie-style jazz funk is still pretty prevalent, but there's a healthy dose of exotica-ish tracks *

, and some just plain weirdness: For instance, "Erotica 1" by Sonia Bazanta is a minute of immodest orgasming and a bassline that sounds a lot like 'Help I'm A Rock', while uncredited track "Whispers" is exactly that. Some of this is quite a bit spacier too - Brian Bennett's "Discovery", Paul Dupont's "Rainbow Bridge", and Sven Libek And His Orchestra's "Misty Canyon" all sound exactly like the kind of thing that would get sampled in that DJ Frane album we somewhat recently listened to in the album exchange thread.

edited 24th Jan '12 6:02:09 PM by MikeK

Would you say that's a disco album? I'm getting interested in disco.

On the Ladytron album I reviewed: it's a 5/5 now. Best they've ever done. It's perfect.

Ladytron - Velocifero 4.5/5

Absolutely brilliant and wonderful album. I'd rate it a 5 but the song "Kletva" and "Season of Illusions" feel like filler and aren't as good as the other songs on the album. It has a hard electronic-rock sound with wonderful and hard-hitting synths.

It starts off with the song "Black Cat" which starts off as an instrumental song and halfway through begins its lyrics which are in Bulgarian.

Great album, I really like it.

Suggested songs: "Ghosts", "I'm Not Scared", "Runaway", "Burning Up", "Deep Blue", "Predict the Day", "They Gave You a Heart, They Gave You a Name", and "The Lovers". Basically the whole album.

edited 24th Jan '12 11:51:12 AM by Completion

Showbread: Nervosa. They can still lay down some sick riffs, but this album is overshadowed by their breakout album (No Sir, Nihilism Is Not Practical) which remains a Tough Act to Follow.

Starflyer 59: Can't Stop Eating EP. Short, sweet, and weird.

Sixteen Horsepower: Folklore. You can hear the band transforming into Woven Hand.

edited 24th Jan '12 2:22:30 PM by MetaFour

I wouldn't really call it disco, but there are some pretty disco-ish elements at times, I guess? This is sort of what I mean when I talk about "cop show funk":

edited 24th Jan '12 3:12:02 PM by MikeK

Over the last few hours:

• Flaming Lips, Hit to Death in the Future Head—Pretty darn poppy, but odd. Very good.
• Gastr Del Sol, Mirror Repair EP—Extremely solid, exceptionally odd. Great.
• These Are Powers, All Aboard Future—Alternately annoying and fascinating. Good.
• These Are Powers, These Are Powers—Noisy yet disappointingly straightforward. OK.
• Throbbing Gristle, D.O.A.: The Third & Final Annual Report—Much better than I remembered. Great.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

The Slackers - Redlight. If I had everything instead of just most of their stuff, I'd consider adding them to my whole complete discography liveblog thing - as it stands, I'm sorta trying to listen to what I do have in order of release for the hell of it. What I liked about this band when I saw 'em open for Mighty Mighty Bosstones was that they sort of mixed their ska with some soul elements, and while that showed up sometimes on Better Late Than Never, it seems much more prevalent here.

So, basically, third-wave ska by people that actually listened to second-wave ska...?

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

It's more likely than you think.

Just wrapped up Utah Saint's self titled album. BEST OLDSKOOL RAVE ALBUM.

The 5 geek social fallacies. Know them well.

• Rainbow's Long Live Rock 'n' Roll: I liked this album. L.A. Connection, Kill the King, Sensitive to Light and the title track were particularly good. I thought Rainbow Eyes made a great finisher
• Iron Maiden's self-titled debut and Number of the Beast: The debut was good but not great; only Running Free and Prowler really stood out. I might have to listen to it again. Number seemed kind of disjointed structurally. I think this was the first Maiden album I ever got, so I used to like it a bit more. Aside of the big 3 hits, Invaders and Children of the Damned were good.
• Nirvana's Nevermind: This is another album I seem to have liked more years ago but now not as much. I probably hear every one of these songs too often on the radio.
• Faith No More's Angel Dust: What can I say? It's pretty eclectic and strange. Mike Patton's vocal range never disappoints.
• Def Leppard's Pyromania: I tried to give this one more of a chance, but once again I only really liked Photograph, Foolin' and Rock of Ages (though I happen to really like Rock of Ages). On the bright side I listened closer this time than last and grew a bit fonder of certain songs
• AC/DC's The Razor's Edge and For Those About To Rock We Salute You: The Razor's Edge had plenty of entertaining songs (the title track in particular was pretty unusual for them). For Those About to Rock on the other hand was difficult to get through; it suffered heavily from AC/DC-itus.
• Aerosmith's Permanent Vacation and Pump: I tend to turn my mind off when listening to Aerosmith. No major opinion here (though What It Takes was pretty nice; I didn't know the name but knew the tune).
• Guns 'N Roses' Use Your Illusion II: Still mostly golden all-throughout. No new opinions since I've always liked this album.
• Black Sabbath's Paranoid and Reunion: It's hard not to like Paranoid, even outside the major hits. No new opinions on that. Reunion was a great performance. Ozzy's vocals were mostly top-notch, but he spent half the show telling the crowd to move faster and shout louder, even during mellow parts.

edited 24th Jan '12 10:37:41 PM by Alucard

• Goldfrapp - Head First

It's a good electronic-pop album. Very chill. No song stands out, but the album as a whole is good. 4/5.

edited 24th Jan '12 10:23:54 PM by Completion

Meshuggah — Catch Thirty Three

Holy crap it's awesome. I mean, there's parts where it sags and drags a little (as usual for Meshuggah) but there are so many great moments that just have "AWESOME" written all over them... it's like one huge song and it rocks.

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Ozma - Rock And Roll Part Three

I can't listen to this band and not think of when I was kind of at my height of Weezer fandom. A lot of Weezer fans were into them at the time, though I remember there was some Hype Backlash too. They're kind of in the same "Power Pop for lovelorn geeky teenagers" vein, I guess. I now also sort of think of Sloan though, primarily because both have a tendency of throwing lots of puns into even their most earnest material (best example: "an apple pie, the number pi / I studied you in math class / I did all my work but never got your digits")

edited 26th Jan '12 12:25:25 AM by MikeK

Just got done with the self-titled debut by Flight. The best stuff—i.e.: the two long instrumentals—is very good symphonic jazz fusion, not dissimilar to some of the stuff off of Chick Corea’s My Spanish Heart (although “Latin Dippy Doo” has to be one of the worst song-titles ever!). The...um...less good stuff is pure 70s cheese, reminds me of Gino Vannelli a bit but with much weaker vocals.

Now starting on the first Barclay James Harvest album. One of those rare instances where I prefer the CD bonus tracks (the band’s pre-LP single releases, mainly) to the album proper.

Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883!

Errors - Have Some Faith In Magic:

The first two full length albums from Scottish Electro-Post-Rock wizards Errors, It's Not Something But It Is Like Whatever and Come Down With Me, were both thumping good listens. This was primarily on account of the precise, intricate nature in which the layers of catchy-as-hell guitar riffs and caustic synths weaved in and out of each other, like spiderwebs made out of spun-sugar. This much anticipated third album, however, adds several new elements to this already potent mix to create something altogether more impressive. Firstly, the ghostly, wordless chanting vocals that permeate many of the albums' standout tracks, whilst heavily borrowing from the 2011 Chillwave zeitgeist, do lend this album a heady, magical quality that ensures the album lives up to its name. The second major change in Errors' sound is that where It's Not Something... and Come Down With Me were at times rather robotic, Have Some Faith In Magic feels much more organic. Whilst still remaining upbeat, they are much more soulful in tone, with less of the frantic, scattershot and yet strictly regimented rhythms of albums past, and a more relaxed ebb and flow. These tracks feel like they have been put together through a much more human song-writing process of trial and error, resulting in an album that is still as intricate, danceable and fun as ever, but to which another adjective can be added - spellbinding.

edited 26th Jan '12 6:50:21 PM by Saeglopur

Listen to Music with Tropers at The Troper Turntable!

Just got done with Journey’s Look Into the Future. People talk of these early, pre-Steve Perry albums as, “OMG JOURNEY GOES PRAAAAWG!” but don’t you believe them. Sort of Led Zeppelin wannabee hard-rock stuff with some jazz fusion touches and a bit of Latin influence (not surprising, considering they were a Santana spinoff). This is definitely their best album from that early period (the worst being Next, which pretty much just sounds like a regular Journey album with crappier songs, minus Steve Perry).

Now playing: Eclipse, a self-titled release from 1976. Francophone Canadian band. A weird album that starts off being a wild, cosmic space-rock affair with lots of Pink Floyd influence and crazy Moog synthesizer effects, but then starts throwing inappropriately bouncy French-language pop songs at us. Montréal conceptual artist Pierre Tremblay is on this album.

Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883!

The Clash: Combat Rock. Punk rock, from the period when punk was less about 3 chords and more about playing whatever the heck you felt like. "Rock the Casbah" is as catchy as ever.

Decided I'm gonna start posting a sample track or two via youtube if one is available, at least if it's something I haven't already written about that I assume not everyone would have heard.

Jawbox - For Your Own Special Sweetheart. One of those bands who I ended up trying to get into because they always get mentioned in tandem with bands I already do like, either contemporaries in the same genre (Fugazi, Shudder To Think) or bands that came later who they supposedly influenced (At The Drive-In). I should have saved this for when I was in the mood for something fairly harsh-sounding, but I do like their overall sound. Sample track: Savory, which I just learned Deftones did a cover version of

Mean Creek - Around The Bend*

. Pretty mellow and folk-influenced in comparison to what I remember about their more rockin' live show, but in a nice way. What I really like about this band is all the male female harmonization. Sample track: I can't find anything off this album on youtube, but here's "Strange Man", which is from another album but is pretty similar in sound.

The Slackers - Live At Ernesto's. Really good live album in terms of capturing the band's sound. The arrangements are pretty similar to the studio versions, but there's a little bit of undefined extra "live energy" there. The sound is clear, you can hear the audience but not the point of it being distracting, and overall it just feels like you're there watching them play at a small but packed club.

Various Artists - Music for Dancefloors: Cream of the Bosworth Library Sessions. There's still plenty of funky bass, but this one is noticeably loungier and more laid-back than the previous volumes - basically if the other two albums are theme songs to action movies, this is more like the classy intermission music. Pan-flute, sax, and bongos are all mainstays. Actually, the vibe of certain tracks almost reminds me of all those instrumentals on Check Your Head and Ill Communication too. Sample Track: Paolo Zavallone And His Orchestra - Sparkling Music (Speedometer Mix)

edited 29th Jan '12 5:01:36 PM by MikeK

• Rush's A Farewell To Kings: I mainly listened to this because I absolutely adore Closer to the Heart and Xanadu. The others didn't jump out at me the same way (I'll have to give them a better chance).
• Anthrax's Sound Of White Noise: I came to appreciate John Bush as Anthrax's lead singer a bit more, but still he's no Joey Belladonna. Only remains the best track to me. Very catchy.
• Slayer's Christ Illusion: What do you expect me to say? It's a Slayer album; the songs kind of bleed together, but they're all (more-or-less) high-quality. I liked Jihad the most.
• Slipknot's Iowa: This is still my favorite album by these guys. I tend to shut it off after the first 5 or 6 songs, and I kind've noticed the industrial influences getting stronger near the end. The title-track struggles pretty hard to be scary, but other than that the final songs are ultimately valid. New Abortion was the best song from that end of the album (probably because I'm most familiar with it since there's a live performance of the song I've had longer than this album).
• Iron Maiden's Somewhere In Time: I'll have to listen to this more since only Wasted Years and Déjà vu really stuck out to me.
• Alter Bridge's Ab III: Unfortunately this one struggles to live up to Blackbird, even in the slightest. It's a heavier album, but it also gets so caught up in its own darkness and gloom that slogs along clumsily without much thought or point. I've given this album plenty of chances, but this is just the sort or creative vision the band was going for. One thing to note is that I only listened as far as the final track of the normal album, not including the two bonus tracks I got with the special edition (bonus tracks have a way of breaking flow)
• Black Sabbath's Master of Reality and The Mod Rules: I'm not sure how many times I've listened through Master of Reality, but my favorites are the same: Sweet Leaf, Embryo/Children of the Grave, Orchid/Lord of this World and Into the Void. I've only listened through Mod Rules a few times, so I can only say my favorites are probably still Turn Up The Night, Sign of the Southern Cross, Falling Off The Edge Of The World, Over and Over and the title track.
• The Doors' self-titled debut: I find this album strangely calming (something about Ray Manzarek's catchy key-work). Overall it was quite good all the way through but I'll have to listen to it more since I'm having trouble naming any particularly favorite parts.
• The Scorpions' Love At First Sting: So aside from the anthemic Rock You Like a Hurricane, Coming Home and maybe Still Loving You stuck out. The rest feels kind of filler-ish, but maybe I haven't listened to them enough.
• Lamb of God's Sacrament: This is my favorite Lamb of God album. Yet there's a pretty significant gap in quality between certain songs. That can get pretty jarring. Maybe the order just needs to be rearranged?
• Hellyeah's self-titled debut: This is bouncy, happy, groovy, machismo-filled party-metal. It's fun for a while but kind of silly after a while. It's still pretty fun in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way. The title-track is my favorite
• Judas Priest's Angel Of Retribution: I really like this album. It maintains an excellent level of quality all-throughout (pretty good for a band's first outing with their original lead singer for over a decade). My favorites were Judas Rising, Deal with the Devil, Revolution, Demonizer, Hellrider, Lochness and Angel (this song sounded incredibly heartfelt).
• Disturbed's The Sickness: I'm actually listening to this because of a funny incident recently when I was helping babysit my 3-year old niece. We tried playing Rock Band on No-fail to entertain her (I sing, someone else sings, she steals the mic whenever she wants, etc.) and she for some reason fell in love with Stupify. She somehow learned some of the Motormouth lyrics and now she shouts the RAH! noise all the time (we brought her back to her mother shouting "STUPEFY!"). Unfortunately, she also kept shouting "AGAIN!", so I probably sang the song 4 or 5 times in that day. Exhausting but amusing (those RAH! sounds aren't easy).
• Iron Maiden's Powerslave: Still can't get enough of this album.
• Judas Priest's Killing Machine and British Steel: Both classy-sounding albums. I found the whole of Killing Machine thing pretty catchy except for Rock Forever and Evening Star. It really picks up after Hell Bent For Leather. I happen to own the 24-karat gold version released nearly two years ago. I cost quite a bit but sounds crisp. British Steel is one of my favorite albums of all time, so I'm just going to say it feels like an even stronger, heavier version of Killing Machine.

edited 29th Jan '12 11:40:34 AM by Alucard

The Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness. I was obsessed with this album as a teenager, and even now I think the hit-to-miss ratio is pretty impressive for a two hour double album. Maybe not the best Smashing Pumpkins album, but probably the Smashing-Pumpkins-est Smashing Pumpkins album, in that basically every style of music they've ever played is in there somewhere.

edited 29th Jan '12 5:15:49 PM by MikeK

Last listened to—Omaha Sheriff: Come Hell or Waters High. Man, talk about an album that Needs More Love! Producer Tony Visconti was a big time booster of this group (this was the last full-length LP released on his Good Earth label, and he played bass on the album as well as producing). I’m reminded variously of Traffic, Family and some of Van Morrison’s stuff when listening to this. Excellently played and sung with great songs. Unfortunately, they were a British band and this came out in 1977 and you know what that means. They got a little more support in the States but it wasn't enough. There seems to be a complete second album in the can that was never released! Singer/guitarist Paul Muggleton and keyboardist Bob Nobles later wound up in Judie Tzuke’s band (Muggleton went on to marry her).

N.P.: Fifty Foot Hose: Cauldron. “Summer of Love”-era SF band that experimented with home-built electronic instruments. Saw these guys (and gal) live when they reunited a while ago, opening for Silver Apples.

edited 29th Jan '12 10:47:19 PM by Bananaquit

Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883!

Yeah, I read Visconti's autobiography and I remember that was one of several pretty obscure albums he worked on that he seemed enthused about.

About halfway through: The Fugees - The Score. Some time ago I went to the gateway album thread re: 90's hip hop, and this was one of the recommendations I got. My sister had owned it when we were teenagers, but I remember she mostly played the singles. I enjoy it, but I also have the urge to break out my audio editor and cut out all the skits. I'm particularly impressed with Lauryn Hill on this album - maybe I ought to follow it up with The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill sometime.

edited 30th Jan '12 11:18:06 PM by MikeK

The Slackers - The Slackers And Friends. As the title would suggest, this album is full of guest musicians, mainly vocalists - in fact neither of their normal lead vocalists step up to the mic at all here. There's a lot more dub and reggae than there is on their normal albums, which is actually kind of cool. In fact there's a Hidden Track at the end that's basically a crazy dub megamix of other songs on the album.

edited 30th Jan '12 4:44:36 PM by MikeK

• Sigh — Hangman's Hymn. Sigh seem to have a talent for making music that really gets me pumped up, and the closing track of this one has one of my favorite climaxes of any extreme metal album ever.
• Hesper Payne — Relics of the Deep Dark Woods. Digital album. They're fronted by Brooke Johnson of the Axis of Perdition and play filthy Lovecraftian death/doom. This album is a compilation of unreleased stuff.
• Homemade 2-disc mix of stuff from the Silent Hill series. Consists of basically all the "full songs" (i.e. the tracks that aren't little 2-minute ambient incidental music stuff, not that that statement is meant to be disparaging towards said tracks) from the first game up through Shattered Memories.

Somehow you know that the time is right.

808's and Heartbreak and Late Registration, both by Kanye West.

First one is vastly underrated, and the second is, well, as good as people say it is.

edited 30th Jan '12 7:44:38 PM by Erock

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.