204409
Emeritus

Reviews 100
Approval 97%

Soundoffs 33
News Articles 108
Band Edits + Tags 67
Album Edits 64

Album Ratings 619
Objectivity 86%

Last Active 12-24-22 10:06 am
Joined 09-21-01

Review Comments 3,998

Average Rating: 3.34
Rating Variance: 0.85
Objectivity Score: 86%
(Well Balanced)

Chart.

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...Who Calls So Loud ...Who Calls So Loud3.5
1208 Feedback Is Payback2.5
1905 Voice2.5
A Day In Black And White My Heroes Have Always Killed Cowboys4.0
A Static Lullaby ...And Don't Forget to Breathe2.5
A Wilhelm Scream Career Suicide3.5
AFI Sing the Sorrow3.5
AFI Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Eyes3.5
AFI Very Proud of Ya3.5
AFI The Art of Drowning4.0
AFI Black Sails in the Sunset4.0
AFI All Hallow's E.P.4.5
Against Me! New Wave2.5
Against Me! Searching for a Former Clarity3.0
Against Me! The Disco Before the Breakdown3.5
Against Me! As the Eternal Cowboy4.0
Against Me! Reinventing Axl Rose4.5
Alcest Souvenirs D'Un Autre Monde3.0
Alexander Scriabin Preparation for the Final Mystery3.5
Alexisonfire Watch Out!2.0
Alexisonfire Alexisonfire3.5
Alexisonfire/Moneen The Switcheroo Series2.5
Algernon Cadwallader Some Kind Of Cadwallader3.0
Alias Resurgam2.5
Alien Ant Farm ANThology4.0
Alkaline Trio From Here to Infirmary3.5
Alkaline Trio Alkaline Trio3.5
Alkaline Trio Good Mourning4.5
Alkaline Trio/Hot Water Music Alkaline Trio/Hot Water Music Split5.0
ALL Problematic4.0
ALL Mass Nerder4.5
American Nightmare We're Down Til We're Underground3.0
American Steel Jagged Thoughts3.5
American Steel American Steel3.5
American Steel Destroy Their Future3.5
Amesoeurs Amesoeurs2.0
Ampere All Our Tomorrows End Today3.5
Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion1.5
Antigua y Barbuda Try Future3.5
Aphex Twin Classics2.0
Aphex Twin Come to Daddy2.5
Aphex Twin Richard D. James Album3.5
Aphex Twin Drukqs4.0
Arcade Fire Funeral2.0
Arcade Fire Neon Bible2.5
As Cities Burn Son, I Loved You at Your Darkest2.5
ASVA What You Don't Know Is Frontier2.5
At the Drive-In Relationship of Command4.0
At the Drive-In Vaya4.0
At the Drive-In In/Casino/Out4.0
Atreyu Suicide Notes and Butterfly Kisses3.0
Aussitot Mort 6 Songs3.0
Aussitot Mort Montuenga3.5
Austrian Death Machine Total Brutal1.5
Avenged Sevenfold City of Evil2.5
Avenged Sevenfold Sounding the Seventh Trumpet3.0
Bad Religion New Maps of Hell2.0
Baths Cerulean4.5
Beach House Teen Dream3.5
Bear vs. Shark Terrorhawk3.0
Bear vs. Shark Right Now You're in the Best of Hands4.0
Belle Epoque A La Derive3.5
Between the Buried and Me The Anatomy Of2.0
Between the Buried and Me Alaska3.5
Between the Buried and Me Between the Buried and Me4.0
Between the Buried and Me Colors4.0
Between the Buried and Me The Silent Circus4.5
Blaqk Audio CexCells3.0
blink-182 Enema Of The State2.5
Blue Sky Black Death Jean Grae: The Evil Jeanius3.5
It's a strange thing that such a good album could come out of such unofficial collaborative circumstances. Jean Grae, rapper with a dark, subdued style, and Blue Sky Black Death, trip hop gone post-rock producers from San Francisco, are releasing this album outside of their authorized canon (BSBD's Late Night Cinema and Jean Grae's Jeanius were both "official" releases earlier this year) but don't have some catchy name to acknowledge the team they've created (e.g. Deltron3030). The resulting music finds Blue Sky Black Death producing music that is notably truncated, chill, and reserved, which puts it at odds with the cathartic and epic content of Late Night Cinema. The production sounds like it's been reduced to complement Jean Grae's coy but depressed flow and lyrics. The sound slays on the lighter, placid tracks like "Take It Back" and "Lights Out," and only falters on the bombastic opening track, "Shadows Forever."
Blue Sky Black Death Late Night Cinema4.5
Bon Iver Blood Bank3.0
Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago3.5
Bon Iver Bon Iver, Bon Iver4.5
This is one of my top albums of the year. Makes For Emma look like the livejournal poetry it always was.
Brand New Your Favorite Weapon1.0
Brand New Deja Entendu3.0
Burial Untrue1.5
Burton Wagner 213.5
Burton Wagner In the Realms of the Unreal4.0
Burton Wagner A Sentinel's Eyes4.0
By The End Of Tonight/Tera Melos Complex Full of Phantoms3.5
Calexico Feast of Wire3.5
Callisto Providence3.0
Capsule (US) Blue3.0
Cave In Until Your Heart Stops2.5
Cave In Antenna4.0
Cave In Jupiter4.5
Charles Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus4.5
Circa Survive Juturna3.0
Circle Takes the Square Circle Takes the Square4.0
Circle Takes the Square Rites of Initiation4.5
Circle Takes the Square As the Roots Undo5.0
City of Caterpillar City of Caterpillar3.0
Clint Mansell, Kronos Quartet and Mogwai The Fountain4.5
The Fountain's soundtrack is a wonderful amalgam of post-rock, minimalism, and modern classical music. Composed by Clint Mansell and performed by Kronos Quartet and Mogwai, this soundtrack can simultaneously deploy touching piano, pounding strings, and powerful rock music all at once. Overall, it has a majestic, celestial feel that perfectly suits the film, and beyond that, the music is awesome independent of the movie.
Coheed and Cambria From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness2.0
Coheed and Cambria No World for Tomorrow3.0
Coheed and Cambria Year of the Black Rainbow3.0
Coheed and Cambria In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 34.0
Coheed and Cambria The Second Stage Turbine Blade4.5
Comadre More Songs About The Man3.0
Comadre The Youth3.5
Comadre/Trainwreck Split3.5
Comeback Kid Wake the Dead3.5
Converge Axe to Fall2.5
Converge No Heroes3.0
Converge Jane Doe3.5
Covenant Northern Light3.5
Cursive The Ugly Organ4.0
Cursive Mama, I'm Swollen4.0
Cursive Domestica4.5
Cymbals Eat Guitars Why There Are Mountains3.5
Cynic Traced in Air3.0
Daddy Yankee Barrio Fino En Directo1.0
Daft Punk Human After All3.0
Daitro Des Cendres, Je Me Consume2.5
Daitro Laisser Vivre Les Squelettes4.0
Dalek Gutter Tactics2.0
Damien Rice O4.5
The more and more I listen to Damien Rice, the more I realize that there is no way to dislike his music. It may be sentimental and sappy, but there is a tangible yet inexplicable honesty and softness to every performance of his that validates any amount of sappiness he slops onto his songs. The end result is beautiful, wonderful balladry. He's not a bad storyteller either.
Damiera Quiet Mouth Loud Hands2.5
Dan Deacon Bromst4.0
Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse Dark Night of the Soul3.5
Dangers Messy, Isn't It?3.5
David Gilmour On An Island3.5
De Facto Megaton Shotblast3.0
De La Soul Are You In?: Nike+ Original Run3.0
De La Soul Stakes Is High3.5
De La Soul The Grind Date4.5
Dead to Me African Elephants3.5
Dead to Me Cuban Ballerina4.0
Dead to Me Little Brother5.0
Deafheaven Sunbather5.0
Deerhunter Microcastle2.5
Deftones Adrenaline2.0
Deftones B-Sides and Rarities3.0
Deftones Deftones3.5
Deftones Around the Fur4.0
Deftones Saturday Night Wrist4.5
Saturday Night Wrist features a new Deftones. Here, instead of emulating past nu-metal success, or completely
lapsing in a post-Team Sleep paralysis, Deftones hit hard somewhere between the two, leading to an album that is
strangely beautiful. Nine of the twelve songs are immaculate and powerful.
Deftones White Pony5.0
Deftones Diamond Eyes5.0
Dela Changes of Atmosphere4.0
Deltron 3030 Deltron 30304.5
This is probably my favorite hip hop album of all time. The production feels incredibly organic and compelling and complements the nerdy rap of Del tha Funkee Homosapien, who's distinctive voice feels especially at home with the overall aesthetic and flavor of the album. My only gripe is the presence of skits, which are much more funny, musical, and satisfying than skits on other rap albums.
Destroyer Kaputt4.0
Dirty Projectors Rise Above3.5
Dirty Projectors Bitte Orca3.5
Disturbed Ten Thousand Fists1.5
DJ Shadow Endtroducing.....4.0
Do Make Say Think You, You're a History in Rust4.0
Dolcim We Carry the Fire4.0
Dr. Octagon The Return of Dr. Octagon1.5
DRACULACORE sp�l nation5.0
DragonForce Sonic Firestorm2.5
dredg The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion3.5
dredg Leitmotif4.0
dredg Catch Without Arms4.5
dredg El Cielo5.0
Drowning With Our Anchors Demo4.0
3 tracks. 22 minutes. Below average quality recording. Sometimes it seems like that's all it takes to make a powerful emo album. Drowning With Our Anchors' Demo feels like a wonderful trip through both post-rock and melodic post-hardcore and emo. The songs are expansive and long featuring large instrumental breaks between the vocals. The most quiet and pensive portions of the album are both beautiful and eerie. There are faint voices in the background that set a ghostly mood that is complemented by the somber instrumental passages. When they hit hard, Drowning With Our Anchors crescendos are gorgeous and don't use the dissonance and distortion of other emo bands to get the point across. They seem content to push the point across melodically, using touching and simple guitar lines. Also, the vocals shredddddd. This album, while obviously not a full release, feels like a full gesture. Hopefully Drowning With Our Anchors will put out a more complete release in the future to capitalize on this initial promise.
Dustin Kensrue Please Come Home3.0
Efterklang Parades3.0
Efterklang Tripper3.5
Emery The Weak's End2.0
Engine Down Under the Pretense of Present Tense3.0
Engine Down Demure4.0
Engine Down To Bury Within the Sound4.0
Envy Insomniac Doze3.5
Equus Osaka Rose1.0
Esbjorn Svensson Trio Leucocyte3.0
Escape the Fate Dying Is Your Latest Fashion1.5
Every Time I Die Gutter Phenomenon2.0
Every Time I Die Hot Damn!3.5
Extra Life Made Flesh3.0
Extra Life Secular Works3.5
Face to Face How to Ruin Everything3.5
Fang Island Fang Island3.5
Fantomas Delìrium Còrdia2.0
Feral Children Second to the Last Frontier4.0
Finch What It Is to Burn2.5
Flying Lotus 19833.5
Flying Lotus Los Angeles3.5
Flying Lotus Cosmogramma4.5
For the Mathematics The New Science3.0
fordirelifesake Breathing in Is Only Half the Function4.0
Four Tet There is Love in You3.0
Four Tet Rounds3.5
Frank Zappa Lumpy Gravy2.5
Frank Zappa Zoot Allures3.5
Frank Zappa Strictly Commercial4.0
Frank Zappa Zappa In New York4.0
Frank Zappa Hot Rats4.5
Frodus Conglomerate International2.5
Frodus And We Washed Our Weapons In The Sea4.0
From Autumn to Ashes Too Bad You're Beautiful1.0
From Autumn to Ashes Holding A Wolf By The Ears1.0
From Autumn to Ashes The Fiction We Live1.5
From First to Last Heroine2.0
Frou Frou Details3.0
Fucked Up The Chemistry of Common Life2.0
Fugazi The Argument3.5
Funeral Diner Doors Open3.0
Funeral Diner The Underdark4.0
Further Seems Forever How to Start a Fire4.0
Future Islands In Evening Air4.0
Ganon As Above, So Below3.5
Gatsby's American Dream Volcano4.0
Gatsby's American Dream Ribbons and Sugar4.5
Genghis Tron Dead Mountain Mouth3.0
Genghis Tron Cloak of Love4.0
Ghastly City Sleep Ghastly City Sleep4.0
Ghastly City Sleep Moondrifts4.0
Ghostlimb Ghostlimb4.0
Sometimes I listen to hardcore bands and they just throw around a bunch of dissonant notes and make super sparse
but beefy breakdowns. Ghostlimb is heavy as fuck at all times without sacrificing melody or succumbing to typical
hardcore fare. The album has 11 songs and is 15 minutes long. "Palimpsest" is a perfectly complete 55 second
hardcore nugget. These guys also don't take themselves completely seriously with deions of their music on myspace
being "Influences: none, traffic; Sounds Like: unreasonably mad" unlike other similar sounding artists. The result is a
hardcore album that understands that brevity and brutality can coexist with melody and sensibility.
Ghostlimb Bearing & Distance4.0
Giles Corey Giles Corey4.5
It is imperative that you get this album and its accompanying booklet. Immense.
Giraffes? Giraffes! More Skin With Milk-Mouth3.5
Girl Talk Unstoppable3.0
Girl Talk All Day3.5
Girl Talk Night Ripper4.5
Girl Talk Feed the Animals4.5
Feed the Animals picks up where Night Ripper leaves off, but is much more than a deflated, lackluster sequel. Gillis is all over the board with his influences, dipping his quill into a wide variety of rock (Thin Lizzie, Radiohead, The Band, Nirvana), trip hop (Aphex Twin), and even slow-burning crooners (Sinead O'Connor). Despite, or maybe thanks to, all of these new opportunities for sampling, there is no loss of danceability or catchiness. Girl Talk, nothing compares 2 u.
Glassjaw Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Silence4.5
Glassjaw El Mark4.5
Glassjaw Worship and Tribute5.0
Godspeed You! Black Emperor Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven3.5
Godspeed You! Black Emperor F♯ A♯ ∞4.0
Gojira From Mars to Sirius2.0
Gold Panda Lucky Shiner4.5
Gonjasufi A Sufi and a Killer2.5
Gorilla Biscuits Start Today3.5
Gospel The Moon Is a Dead World5.0
Grade Under the Radar4.5
Grails Burning Off Impurities2.5
Grails Doomsdayer's Holiday3.5
Grails Red Light4.0
Instead of having huge climaxes, bright major keys, and max e-bow action, Grails chooses to withdraw a little more, focusing on modal tonalities, very natural instrumentation and more subtle dynamic swells. The end result is incredibly compelling, if goofy on some tracks. The middle portion of this album has some truly beautiful songs.
Green Day Dookie3.0
Group Bombino Guitars from Agadez, Vol. 23.5
Gruvis Malt ...With the Spirit of a Traffic Jam3.0
Harvey Milk Life... The Best Game in Town1.5
Have a Nice Life Deathconsciousness4.5
Equal parts post-rock, dark ambient, and industrial, but mostly shoegaze, Have a Nice Life's debut album Deathconsciousness is a double-disc concept album of epic proportions but without pretention. Throughout the course of its 85-minute run time, the album treats the listener to a varied collection of songs; there are slow-burners, there are epics, there are anthems. This album is so packed with different ideas that they all blend beautifully into the reverby, distorted soundscape that defines this album's aesthetic. All of this is topped off by the fact that the concept is wonderfully executed and supported by a 70+ page booklet that charts the life and works of a near mythical religious figure from the 13th century named Antiochus. Though Deathconsciousness is an intense listen, and not for the weak-eared, it is ultimately a very likable and human album, never forgetting shoegaze's pop roots. There are moments on Deathconsciousness that are grating and dissonant, but there are far more that are beautiful and even catchy. At its core, it's an album that is very intimate with all of its ideas and soundscapes.
Hawthorne Heights The Silence in Black and White1.0
Heiruspecs A Tiger Dancing4.0
Helios Caesura3.0
Hella The Devil Isn't Red2.5
Hella Hold Your Horse Is3.5
Herbie Hancock Head Hunters3.0
Herbie Hancock Maiden Voyage4.5
Hollywood Undead Swan Songs1.0
Hopesfall Magnetic North3.5
Hopesfall has written an album that exists as an extension of their 2004 album A Types. The taut songwriting and amazing vocals are back, and sometimes even better. The production is awesome and every song is packed with wonderful ideas. Hopesfall are essentially the best band to mix pop-punk and post-hardcore still actively working on that amalgam today. However, Magnetic North has too many unfortunate moments like the cheesy chorus on "Paisley" or the occasional nu-metal breakdowns to let it eat at the big kid's table with their previous two LPs A Types and The Satellite Years. Keep in mind though that that isn't stopping awesome songs like "I Can Do This on an Island" from picking up 40+ plays in just over a week.
Hopesfall The Satellite Years4.0
Hopesfall A Types4.0
Hopesfall No Wings To Speak Of4.5
HORSE the band A Natural Death2.5
HORSE the band Pizza3.5
HORSE the band R. Borlax4.0
HORSE the band The Mechanical Hand4.5
HORSE the band Desperate Living4.5
Hot Cross A New Set of Lungs3.5
Hot Cross Risk Revival4.0
Hot Cross stuns again, but this time the instrumentals are slightly stripped down and rugged while the vocals are the haymaker. Overall, the album has a much more youthful, straight-forward sound, which is likely the result of losing a guitarist, Josh. There's only one lame song ("Cardiac Silence") and a handful of godly ones ("Turncoat Revolution" and "Blame Truth" being among them). Even if it doesn't challenge as much as Fair Trades and Farewells, Risk Revival finds its niche and shreds away all the same.
Hot Cross Fair Trades and Farewells4.5
Hot Cross Cryonics5.0
Hot Water Music A Flight and a Crash4.0
Ill Nino Revolution/Revolucion2.5
In Pieces Learning to Accept Silence4.5
In Pieces Lions Write History5.0
Incubus (USA-CA) S.C.I.E.N.C.E.4.0
Indian Summer Discography3.0
Ishmaël Ishmaël3.5
ISIS Wavering Radiant2.0
ISIS In the Absence of Truth3.0
ISIS Celestial3.5
ISIS Oceanic4.0
ISIS Panopticon4.0
Jaga Jazzist One-Armed Bandit4.0
James Blake James Blake4.5
Jedi Mind Tricks Visions of Gandhi3.5
Jedi Mind Tricks Violent by Design4.5
Jeff Buckley Grace4.0
Jesu Conqueror1.5
Jesu/Battle of Mice Split2.0
Jneiro Jarel Fauna3.5
Jonny Greenwood There Will Be Blood OST3.0
Justice †4.5
Justice's † is the best mainstream pop/dance album since Daft Punk's Discovery. Though at moments it rips off Discovery's catchiest moments, Justice find their own niche in the grimier and more aggressive moments found throughout the album. Though pop tracks like "D.A.N.C.E." and "Phantom pt. I & 2" are perfectly sweet, tracks like "Genesis," Let There Be Light" and "Waters of Nazareth" steal the show with their immaculate sampling, sandpaper synths, and relentlessly catchy and pulsing beats.
Karate Unsolved4.0
Kayo Dot Blue Lambency Downward3.5
Kayo Dot Dowsing Anemone With Copper Tongue4.5
Kayo Dot Choirs of the Eye5.0
Kelly Clarkson Breakaway1.5
Kidcrash Snacks3.5
Kidcrash Jokes5.0
Sort of like a smoother version of Off Minor with some fossils from when they were a Midwest indie band. The flows, tempos, time signatures, and feels are all convoluted, making it the mathiest album I've heard in a while. What makes it even more amazing is they don't sacrifice their solid songwriting and the sound is fairly accessible against the dissonance and chaos the likes of a Dillinger Escape Plan. If anything the album feels a little homogeneous, though any individual track will shred your face into pulp. This is perfect for Tera Melos fans who were a little underwhelmed by the mere 19 minutes of Drugs to the Dear Youth, those awaiting Ire Works later this year, or really anybody who considers themselves fluent with post-hardcore or emo.
Koenji Hyakkei Angherr Shisspa3.0
La Cosa Nostra Demo EP3.5
Lagwagon Resolve3.0
Lagwagon Duh3.0
Lagwagon Blaze3.0
Lagwagon Hoss3.5
Lagwagon Trashed3.5
Lagwagon Double Plaidinum4.0
Lagwagon Let's Talk About Feelings4.5
letlive. Fake History1.5
Whatever instrumental skills or interesting ideas these guys may have are completely suffocated by overproduction (how many reversed cymbal crashes can one album have) and a near fetishistic influence from early 2000s post-hardcore and metalcore (double-bass drum fills should be applied with ironic br00tality a la Between the Buried and Me, not seriously). Fake History is a strong example of when worship and tribute goes too far.
Life at These Speeds To Your Health3.5
Life at These Speeds Life at These Speeds4.0
Maybe it's because I've seen them live but I seem to have an inflated opinion of Life at These Speeds. They play a brand of punk that seems to be quite unpretentious and fun but still maintains emotional gravity. Their live show also embraces this notion as there's joking around and good energy but the band and audience sometimes can lose it and go crazy at the crescendos. Their best songs are their epic crushers like "Knives" and "Ground Gives Out" but there isn't a weak track on this album. This album is also slightly better than their 2006 album To Your Health.
Life in Your Way The Sun Rises and the Sun Sets...3.5
Lifetime Jersey's Best Dancers3.5
Light This City Remains Of The Gods3.5
Light This City Facing The Thousand3.5
Lightning Bolt Hypermagic Mountain2.5
Limp Bizkit Three Dollar Bill Y'all2.5
Linkin Park Hybrid Theory EP2.5
Liquid Tension Experiment Liquid Tension Experiment3.0
Loma Prieta Dark Mountain3.5
Loma Prieta Last City4.0
Love Like... Electrocution Love Like... Electrocution3.5
Lovedrug Pretend You're Alive3.0
M83 Before The Dawn Heals Us3.0
Mamaleek Kurdaitcha3.5
Maps and Atlases Tree, Swallows, Houses4.0
Imagine the songwriting of a Midwest-Emo-influenced band like Don Cabellero or Denver in Dallas crossed with the
indie of My Morning Jacket. But that's just the surface. There's the crazed rhythms and tapping guitar of Tera Melos
and Hella, and riffs sweeter and smoother than ones heard from Minus the Bear. It seems like a freaky hybrid of styles,
but Maps and Atlases pull it off well, never becoming too relentlessly mathy or too ironically indie for their own good.
There are a few moments of incongruity and awkwardness, but overall this album is a wonderful example of genre-
bending.
Mastodon Crack the Skye2.0
maudlin of the Well My Fruit Psychobells... A Seed Combustible3.0
maudlin of the Well Leaving Your Body Map4.0
maudlin of the Well Part the Second4.0
maudlin of the Well Bath4.5
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes Are a Drag3.5
Meet Me in St. Louis Variations on Swing3.5
Memoryhouse The Years4.5
Meneguar Strangers in Our House3.5
Mesa Verde The Old Road4.0
Messiah J & The Expert From The Word Go1.0
Metaform Standing on the Shoulders of Giants4.0
Metallica St. Anger1.0
Metallica Reload1.0
Metallica Load1.0
Mike Jones Who Is Mike Jones?2.5
Miles Davis Bitches Brew3.5
Millencolin Pennybridge Pioneers3.5
Millencolin Home From Home4.0
Millencolin Life On A Plate4.0
Million Dead A Song to Ruin4.0
Ministry Rio Grande Blood1.0
Minus the Bear Omni2.5
Minus the Bear Planet of Ice4.0
Minus the Bear's Planet of Ice is an unwelcome yet surpringly impressive departure from their patented hammer-on clean tone style. Here, the guitar riffs are not repeated as background music but are much more of a driving force in the songwriting. The synth is a presence as well and make the songs feel like prog anthems, big guitar and all, instead of sensitive indie songs. There are throwback moments, but most of this album is inventive and new. I like the old Minus the Bear and I like the new Minus the Bear. If only they could combine the emotion and songwriting of the old with the progression and production of the new; then we'd have something a classic.
Misery Signals Controller3.0
Misery Signals Mirrors4.0
Moderat Moderat4.5
Modern Life Is War Witness3.5
Modern Life Is War Midnight in America3.5
Mudvayne L.D. 502.5
Murder by Death In Bocca Al Lupo3.0
Murder by Death Red Of Tooth And Claw3.0
Murder by Death Who Will Survive and What Will Be Left of Them?4.5
My Chemical Romance Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge2.0
My Chemical Romance I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love2.5
My Morning Jacket Z3.0
My Morning Jacket Evil Urges4.0
Nahvalr Nahvalr3.0
Nas Illmatic3.0
Native Wrestling Moves3.5
Nervous Light of Sunday 弱心光景3.5
New Found Glory From the Screen to Your Stereo2.5
No Doubt Tragic Kingdom3.5
No Use for a Name The Feel Good Record of the Year3.0
No Use for a Name Hard Rock Bottom4.0
Nobuo Uematsu Final Fantasy VIII: Original Soundtrack4.0
NOFX I Heard They Suck Live!!2.0
NOFX They've Actually Gotten Worse Live2.0
NOFX The War on Errorism3.0
NOFX Heavy Petting Zoo3.0
NOFX S&M Airlines3.0
NOFX Liberal Animation3.0
NOFX Wolves in Wolves' Clothing3.0
NOFX 45 or 46 Songs That Weren't Good Enough3.5
NOFX Surfer3.5
NOFX The Greatest Songs Ever Written (By Us)4.0
NOFX Pump Up the Valuum4.0
NOFX White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean4.0
NOFX Punk in Drublic4.5
NOFX So Long and Thanks for All the Shoes4.5
NOFX The Decline5.0
NOFX/Rancid BYO Split Series Vol. 34.5
Norma Jean Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child1.0
North What You Were3.5
Off Minor Some Blood3.0
Off Minor Problematic Courtship3.5
Off Minor The Heat Death of the Universe4.0
Ohana Dead Beat3.0
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez A Manual Dexterity: Soundtrack Vol. 14.0
Opeth Orchid2.5
Opeth Damnation3.5
Orgy Candyass3.0
Panic! at the Disco A Fever You Can't Sweat Out1.5
The more I am forced to hang around this album by way of my younger brother, the more I realize that it is just a derivative, linear version of Gatsby's American Dream, and the reason Gatsby's American Dream is so great is because of their ability to balance the Panic at the Disco catchiness with much more fresh and cmoplex song structures. Only listen to this album if you only recently learned how to read.
Passion Pit Manners4.5
pg.99 Document #83.0
Phaseone Thanks But No Thanks3.5
Pianos Become the Teeth Keep You5.0
Planets Planets3.5
Poison the Well You Come Before You2.0
Polar Bear Club Sometimes Things Just Disappear2.5
Portrait Discography4.0
Portraits Of Past Discography3.5
Portugal. The Man Church Mouth1.5
Prolyphic & Reanimator The Ugly Truth2.0
Propagandhi Supporting Caste3.5
Protest the Hero Fortress1.0
I had procrastinated listening to this album for a while. I really disliked Kezia but ultimately respected their musicianship and room to develop, despite the fact that they were really just a poor man's Between the Buried and Me (without the sense of humor and self-awareness). Fortress shows that Protest the Hero went nowhere with the small shards of premise they showed on their previous album. Instead of going for oddball amalgam metal or seamlessly blending together their influences, they opted to write technically impressive guitar-centric passages that are so distasteful I found myself cringing at the overtly metallic flare. The imitation Europrog vocals and the pastiche songwriting didn't help one bit either. Maybe they could do a cover album or play weddings in the future.
Protest the Hero Kezia2.0
PSY/OPSogist Suffused With Static4.0
PSY/OPSogist Souls Touch EP4.0
PSY/OPSogist Mining The Valleys4.0
PSY/OPSogist Kings Of Sleep4.0
Psyopus Ideas of Reference3.0
Puddle of Mudd Come Clean1.0
Pulley Together Again For The First Time3.5
Pygmy Lush Mount Hope3.5
Pyramids Pyramids2.0
Pyramids (PA) Through the Hourglass2.5
Pyramids (PA) Following the Tracks, Forcing Motion Thr3.5
Quantice Never Crashed Quantice Never Crashed1.5
Quiet Steps Think Aloud4.0
Radiohead Pablo Honey2.5
Radiohead The Bends3.0
Radiohead Hail to the Thief3.0
Radiohead Amnesiac3.5
Radiohead OK Computer4.0
Radiohead In Rainbows4.0
Radiohead Kid A5.0
Raein Il n'y a pas de orchestre3.0
Rage Against the Machine The Battle of Los Angeles2.5
Rage Against the Machine Rage Against the Machine3.5
Rage Against the Machine Evil Empire4.0
Ramones Ramones1.5
Ramones Rocket to Russia2.0
Rancid Indestructible2.0
Rancid Rancid (2000)4.0
Red Hot Chili Peppers Stadium Arcadium2.5
Red Sparowes At The Soundless Dawn4.0
Refused The Shape Of Punk To Come4.0
Rise Against Siren Song of the Counter Culture3.5
Rise Against Revolutions per Minute4.0
Rites of Spring Rites of Spring3.0
Rites of Spring End on End3.0
Rockets and Bluelights A Smashed City with Flames and Music in the Air4.0
Rufio Perhaps, I Suppose...3.0
Saetia A Retrospective3.5
Sailors With Wax Wings Sailors With Wax Wings4.5
Samiam Astray3.5
Saosin Translating the Name4.0
Say Anything ...Is a Real Boy2.5
Set It Straight My Favourite Words4.0
Set Your Goals Mutiny!3.0
Set Your Goals Demo 20044.0
Shai Hulud Misanthropy Pure3.0
Shai Hulud That Within Blood Ill-Tempered4.5
Shape of Broad Minds Craft of the Lost Art5.0
Shearwater The Golden Archipelago4.0
Sholi Sholi4.0
Sigur Ros ( )3.0
Silverstein When Broken Is Easily Fixed1.0
Silverstein Discovering the Waterfront1.0
Silversun Pickups Swoon3.5
Sinaloa Oceans of Islands3.0
Sir Richard Bishop The Freak of Araby3.0
Slipknot Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses2.0
Slipknot Slipknot2.5
Slipknot Iowa3.0
Solar Bears She Was Coloured In3.5
Soli i Sombra The Armadillo EP4.0
Son Lux At War With Walls And Mazes4.5
Our top album here at Sputnikmusic was Burial's Untrue. That album had a distinctively sparse, brittle tone to its atmosphere. Other than that though I found the album almost unlistenably boring. Imagine taking that one cool aspect of that album and fleshing it out in all regards. Then you'd have Son Lux's At War With Walls & Mazes, an album that blends a variety of genres and production techniques to create a glitchy, high personalized, trip hop masterpiece. At War With Walls & Mazes is a strong contender for album of the year. It is the best electronic release since Venetian Snares' Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett. It is nearly flawless, and the scary thing about all of this praise is that it's only Son Lux's debut album.
Soundgarden A-Sides3.0
Soundtrack (Film) Garden State1.5
Sparta Austere EP3.0
Sparta Wiretap Scars3.5
Sparta Porcelain3.5
Spires (USA) Flowers And Fireworks3.0
Starkey Ear Drums and Black Holes4.0
Stars of the Lid And Their Refinement Of The Decline2.0
Story of the Year In The Wake Of Determination2.0
Straylight Run Straylight Run1.5
Strung Out Exile In Oblivion3.0
Strung Out Blackhawks Over Los Angeles3.0
Strung Out Live in a Dive4.0
Strung Out An American Paradox4.5
Subtle ExitingARM2.0
Sufjan Stevens Illinois2.0
Sufjan Stevens Michigan2.5
Sufjan Stevens Seven Swans3.0
Surfer Blood Astro Coast2.5
System of a Down Steal This Album!2.5
System of a Down System of a Down4.0
System of a Down Toxicity4.0
Taking Back Sunday Tell All Your Friends2.5
Team Sleep Team Sleep3.5
Telefon Tel Aviv Immolate Yourself2.5
Tera Melos Idioms, Vol. 13.0
Tera Melos Drugs to the Dear Youth4.0
Say what you will about the technicality of bands like Dillinger Escape Plan, Meshuggah, and Psyopus, but Tera Melos is there and they don't sacrifice any listenability for technicality. They have moved slightly away from their Braid/Denver in Dallas-type style and more towards oddball progressive stuff, but overall, this album feels more like a continuation of their last album than anything else, however they seem to be one guitarist fewer than last album. If anything that absence has made the rest of the band more inventive with its playing. This album is the first great release of 2007.
Tera Melos Untitled4.5
Tera Melos Patagonian Rats4.5
The Agony Scene The Darkest Red1.0
The Album Leaf In A Safe Place2.5
The Appleseed Cast Peregrine3.0
The Beatles Rubber Soul2.5
The Bled Pass the Flask3.0
The Blood Brothers Crimes2.5
The Blood Brothers March On Electric Children3.0
The Blood Brothers ...Burn, Piano Island, Burn4.0
The Cape May Glass Mountain Roads3.5
The Dillinger Escape Plan Ire Works2.0
The Dillinger Escape Plan Calculating Infinity4.0
The Dillinger Escape Plan Miss Machine4.0
The Dillinger Escape Plan Irony Is a Dead Scene4.5
The Early November The Mother, The Mechanic, and The Path2.0
The Faint Wet From Birth2.5
The Faint Fasciinatiion2.5
The Faint Danse Macabre3.5
The Faint Blank-Wave Arcade4.0
The Fall of Troy Phantom on the Horizon2.0
The Fall of Troy Doppelganger3.5
The Fall of Troy The Fall of Troy4.5
The Flashbulb Soundtrack to a Vacant Life3.5
The Game Doctor's Advocate2.5
The Gaslight Anthem The '59 Sound4.0
The Killers Day & Age3.0
The Lawrence Arms Oh! Calcutta!3.0
The Lawrence Arms Apathy and Exhaustion4.0
The Loved Ones (USA-PA) Build & Burn4.0
The Mars Volta Amputechture3.0
The Mars Volta The Bedlam in Goliath3.0
The Mars Volta Octahedron3.0
The Mars Volta De-Loused in the Comatorium4.0
The Mars Volta Frances the Mute4.5
The Microphones The Glow Pt. 24.5
The Number Twelve Looks Like You Put On Your Rosy Red Glasses3.0
The Offspring Americana1.5
The Pax Cecilia Nouveau4.0
The Pax Cecilia Blessed Are The Bonds4.5
The Pax Cecilia's second LP Blessed Are the Bonds is forged from the same fires that gave listeners Circle Takes the Square's As the Roots Undo and Dredg's El Cielo. It is epic, original, heavy, pensive, and savagely compelling music. It is transcendent. It taps into something above normal perception and does this with a strange lack of pretention. The sound is a mix of post-rock (Engine Down), alternative (Dredg), metal (Isis), and screamo (City of Caterpillar). The musicianship and songwriting are beautiful and the emotional weight of the album is relentless. And to top it all off, the album is free (www.paxcecilia.com contacts.html).
The Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel Tower Dissertation, Honey3.0
The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower plays an odd mix of hardcore and jazz. This mix is not like that of Tera Melos'. It doesn't sound like a smooth integration of the two styles but sounds like a grinding juxtaposition. After a Red Scare-like groove has been established in the more hardcore sections of the song, the band may abruptly throw in a saxophone solo. These choppy moments make the synthesis seem awkward, but occasionally the mix comes out perfectly and stylishly. The cymbal roll section on "For Marcus" seems to be perfectly executed in its dancey catchiness and the solo doesn't bother me so much later in the song. However, overall this album isn't as solid as it could be.
The Postal Service Give Up2.5
The Program Artifical Unintelligence4.0
The Sainte Catherines Dancing for Decadence3.5
The Smashing Pumpkins Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music3.0
The Smashing Pumpkins Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness4.5
The Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream4.5
The Temper Trap Conditions3.5
The Walls You've Built The Definition of Friendship3.5
The Weakerthans Reunion Tour2.5
The Wonder Years Get Stoked on It!1.0
Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra Horses in the Sky2.5
These Arms Are Snakes Tail Swallower and Dove2.5
These Arms Are Snakes This Is Meant To Hurt You3.0
These Arms Are Snakes Oxeneers or the Lion Sleeps When Its Antelope Go Home3.5
These Arms Are Snakes Easter3.5
Thin Lizzy Jailbreak3.5
Thirty Seconds to Mars A Beautiful Lie3.0
Thrice First Impressions3.0
Thrice Beggars3.5
Thrice Red Sky4.0
Thrice The Alchemy Index Vols. III & IV4.0
Thrice Identity Crisis4.5
Thrice The Artist in the Ambulance4.5
Thrice If We Could Only See Us Now4.5
Thrice Vheissu4.5
Thrice The Alchemy Index Vols. I & II4.5
In general, the first half of The Alchemy Index points to success. There are questionable aspects to both discs, but in general the cons are vastly outweighed by the pros. The Fire disc is a great exploration of the heavier moments on Vheissu. The album is explosive and intense, with Dustin ripping his vocal cords to pieces while the rest of the band unleashes their heaviest material yet. Songs like "The Flame Deluge" act as the most brutal work Thrice has ever created. Songs like "The Messenger" and "Backdrift" are surprisingly the weirdest, blending together electronic influences into heavy, harmonic minor chord progressions. The Water disc, excepting its opening track, is nearly flawless. Interestingly, it also continues a strand that was started on Vheissu's slower, more pensive tracks like "Atlantic." It's a collection of beautiful and wistful songs that all have lush and stunning arrangements. The Water disc feels exactly like it was recorded underwater. As a collection of songs, this album is amazing for nine out of the twelve tracks. As a concept album, it's halfway to becoming an amazing cycle. There are a few flaws and the second half of the collection to worry about, but so far Thrice has produced another stunner.
Thrice The Illusion of Safety5.0
Thursday Waiting3.0
Thursday Five Stories Falling3.5
Thursday War All the Time4.0
Thursday A City By the Light Divided4.0
Thursday Full Collapse4.5
Thursday/Envy Thursday/Envy3.0
Tiger Army II: Power of Moonlite3.0
Tim Hecker An Imaginary Country3.0
Time in Malta Alone with the Alone3.0
Toby Driver In the L..L..Library Loft4.5
In the newfound popularity of Kayo Dot, it may be easy to miss Toby Driver's debut solo LP. This album contains some of Toby's compositions that he considered too weird and off the wall for Kayo Dot. Despite the inherent quirkiness implied by that premise, Driver delivers some fairly interesting and palatable pieces just left of his stuff on Dowsing Anemone With Copper Tongue. Read the full review to check out the cool techniques he used to compose and record each song.
Tool Lateralus3.5
Toro Y Moi Causers of This3.5
Touche Amore ...To the Beat of a Dead Horse3.5
Touche Amore Parting The Sea Between Brightness And Me5.0
Modern Life Is War:Blue Collar::Touche Amore:White Collar
Trash Talk Trash Talk3.5
Trash Talk Plagues4.0
Trophy Scars Alphabet Alphabets2.5
Trophy Scars Goodnight Alchemy3.5
Trophy Scars Bad Luck3.5
Trophy Scars Darts to the Sea4.0
Trophy Scars Hospital Music for the Aesthetics of Language5.0
TV on the Radio Dear Science2.5
Twain Harte A Sunny Place for Shady People3.5
Underoath They're Only Chasing Safety2.5
Underoath Lost in the Sound of Separation2.5
Unearth The Oncoming Storm3.0
United Nations United Nations3.0
Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend3.0
Venetian Snares Filth1.5
Venetian Snares My Downfall (Original Soundtrack)3.0
Venetian Snares Cavalcade of Glee and Dadaist Happy Pom Poms4.0
Venetian Snares Detrimentalist4.0
Venetian Snares Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett4.5
Venetian Snares, aka Aaron Funk, embarked on a Bartokian journey to Hungary to collect modern classical, jazz, pop, and other local music to create his own electronic reinvention of folk music. This album features these carefully chosen samples against Funk's progressive breakbeat and happy hardcore beats. The resulting sound is grandiose, epic, intelligent, and forward-thinking, all while remaining much more palatable than the typical schizophrenia and claustrophobia of the usual Venetian Snares sound. Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett may be the most intelligent electronic album of all time.
Wait What the notorious xx4.0
Weather Report Heavy Weather3.5
Weezer Make Believe1.0
Why? Alopecia2.0
With Honor This Is Our Revenge3.5
With Honor With Honor4.5
With Honor Heart Means Everything4.5
Wolf Parade Apologies to the Queen Mary1.0
Wolfmother Wolfmother2.0
Wolfmother runs on a pretty tight formula. 23% Led Zeppelin. 52% Jet. 68% suck. (The Jet elements and the suck elements overlap a lot). This album is so painfully derivative that I'm upset that I had to listen to it. Not even pay for it as I reviewed it for my radio station, but plain old wish I hadn't even bothered to listen. They ravage the most boring elements of Led Zeppelin and combine them with the obnoxious elements of Jet and other modern rock revivals of the classic rock that wasn't all that great in the first place. Stay away from this album unless you are still mourning John Bonham's death. Even then, don't listen to more than one track.
Wolves in the Throne Room Black Cascade3.0
Xiu Xiu The Air Force3.0
Xiu Xiu Knife Play3.0
Xiu Xiu Women As Lovers3.0
Xiu Xiu A Promise3.5
Xiu Xiu Fabulous Muscles4.0
Yakuza Samsara2.5
Yasunori Mitsuda Chrono Cross Original Soundtrack4.5
You and I Discography3.5
You and I The Curtain Falls4.5
Young Widows Old Wounds3.0
Zach Hill Astrological Straits2.0
Zombie Apocalypse This is a Spark of Life3.0
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