Album Rating: 2.0

"feels like you’re not engaging with the record on the record’s terms"



If I may defend myself from all the hootenanny that has gone on in my absence:



The off-color comment about KK and Hetfield was moreso a dig at the uninteresting rhythm sections throughout this album than any attempt to compare this really to Slayer. This doesn't sound like Slayer, and it wasn't my intention to suggest that it not sounding like Slayer would be a problem for me (and it is only INCIDENTAL that I think Infest the Rats' Nest is way way better than this). Johnny, I didn't namedrop those bands because, frankly, all of those bands have far too much character to compare to something as bland as this. Maybe if the bass had ANY presence I could hear the Motorhead comparison, maybe if the weirdness felt natural and earned instead of coming off as a band in arrested development I could hear the Voivod, and outside of a couple disparate riffs I really don't hear much Tool here either. What I think this sounds like is a band who are a few generations behind the progenitors of genre who really like the ideas at play and completely lack the creativity or ambition to sit down and do the work to advance the genre: if this is heavy metal its boring heavy metal, if its stoner rock then I don't wanna smoke enough weed to get it, and apparently its not thrash metal which is good because oh boy I would really hate this thing if thrash metal were its intended result



But, if I were to get better at comparisons, I'd say this sounds like Metallica with the prog swapped for Kyuss and with a hearty helping of Iron Maiden influences (hmm, y'all may have a point this is doing a way better job of expressing what I do like about the album -- the stuff that doesn't sound like Metallica -- and what I dislike about the album -- the stuff that does sound like Metallica and the stuff that is bad like Stu's singing and the production. I think this is a big step for me)



Edit: https://twitter.com/kinggizzard/status/1648467246069710848?s=20 Deceit! Deceit and lies!

Album Rating: 2.0

Upon further research I really could have improved my criticism of this record by diving into its promotional interviews. How could I hate on this record and not include this gem of a quote which is fundamental to why this is a big ol' stinker of an album:



"We wrote a song a day, and we came into the practice space with no riffs, no tunes, no ideas, and started from scratch. And we jammed, and recorded everything, and pieced the songs together from that. I’d sketched out the story the songs would tell, and I’d portioned it out into seven song titles, with a short paragraph of what would happen in the song. I guess we kind of made the record backwards.”



What's funny is they also left the studio each day with no riffs

Album Rating: 1.5

so essentially this sounds so half-arsed, because it IS half-arsed, lol...

well, I suppose considering their prolific output you'd either have to be incredibly dedicated to your craft, or do as the Gizz do and cut every corner available to you

fair play to them if people will lap it up anyway, win win

Album Rating: 1.5

never trust a band that genre hops like this

Album Rating: 3.5

I will definitely say if they calmed tf down and really worked on a single album a year at least they could come up with some top notch quality music and not some average to pretty good shtuff

Album Rating: 2.0

"never trust a band that genre hops like this"



bands that do song to song different genre I can get behind usually, but yeah bands who go album to album picking up a genre, hardly making anything decent out of it, then moving onto the next thing are almost always abysmal. Some of my problem with Devin Townsend since he started the Devin Townsend Project for example.

Album Rating: 2.0

Alright I polished up the review a bit. I re listened to some of this and some of the points made have been very fair, this is much more heavy-metal than thrash. I added a few more references to other bands and tried to give a broader idea of why I think this sucks outside of just going "It's not thrashy enough!!!" but any more criticism is more than welcome

Album Rating: 4.0

Np my guy didn’t intend to ruffle feathers, I think you’ve got a great general prose and voice and for sure focusing on those specific lines of critique would have helped flesh out your pov, which reads a little (as you say) as “grr why this no thrash like the best thrash from the 80s thrashes”. Picking apart lazy songcraft = good point, and helpful counterpoint to the usual praise thrown at KGLW prolific release schedule. Tl;dr KEEP WRITING I would like to see/read more of your stuff.

Album Rating: 4.0

I also get that different reviews warrant different levels of effort and if this was mostly just a fun bomb drop to follow up the negative review trend then I salute you for the memes.

Album Rating: 4.5

when all is said and done

album is gud

why gud? becuz i said so

checkmate atheists

Album Rating: 4.0

oh shiii

Album Rating: 2.5

"They feel like a band that are knowingly 'for proper music fans or musicians' ahead of uh, regular folk, "

this is probably the most inaccurate take I have ever seen on the band tbh - bulk of their fanbase are norm as hell, the band's songwriting wears extremely thin through most of the genre flirtation they force it through, and I don't see how being competent musicians or *occasionally* making music theory an overt focus of their records does much to offset that. far more common to see Serious Fans of whichever palette they're tackling on Album X calling them out as exhibitionist and superfluous at worst or inessential at best (while the bulk of the demo they actually cater to (ie online genre tourists) are most likely being introduced to it))

if you mean that Online Music Listeners are not 'regular folk', then full points ig, but it's absurd to suggest that this somehow makes them a connoisseur act

Album Rating: 2.5

hey piglet that's a cute take you've got there, and i know exactly the right place to put it



"Maybe if the bass had ANY presence I could hear the Motorhead comparison, maybe if the weirdness felt natural and earned instead of coming off as a band in arrested development I could hear the Voivod, and outside of a couple disparate riffs I really don't hear much Tool here either. What I think this sounds like is a band who are a few generations behind the progenitors of genre who really like the ideas at play and completely lack the creativity or ambition to sit down and do the work to advance the genre: if this is heavy metal its boring heavy metal, if its stoner rock then I don't wanna smoke enough weed to get it, and apparently its not thrash metal which is good because oh boy I would really hate this thing if thrash metal were its intended result "



woof. *100 emoji* now you need to put this in the rev lmao

Album Rating: 4.5

Tbf you need have a really high IQ to enjoy this

Album Rating: 4.0

*looks at own rating*



Can confirm this logic checks out

Album Rating: 4.0

'if you mean that Online Music Listeners are not 'regular folk', then full points ig, but it's absurd to suggest that this somehow makes them a connoisseur act'



hmmm, I always thought they had a load of in-joke'y muso stuff going on, released a load of additional albums only on vinyl, have quite a lot of studio and quasi virtuosic wankery in their sound, plus let's all agree true norms don't listen to much stuff prog adjacent.



no normal person would have listened to over 50% of their discog simple as that - has anyone on this site done that? and that's a demographic that isn't 'regular joe' music listeners. I'm sure they get a standard festival crowd going but I doubt many of them would claim this band are huge for them.



this is the vibe the band give off to me but I haven't researched and I could be wrong sure.

Album Rating: 2.5

theory refs and levels of shred/prog (which I'm not treating as interchangeable with the jammy psych wank that defines them more on the whole) are far less representative of why most people don't both with over half their discog than the baseline reality that their songwriting template yields rapid diminishing returns once you've heard it through a couple of wardrobe changes

if a band is using stuff like budget microtonal variations of tbqh very basic riffs, and modality as part of their novelty, then it's not a hot take that they're pitching at the crowd that knows little to nothing about theory and likes a chance to feel educated rather the nerds who live and breathe that shit on their own terms

Album Rating: 1.5

i literally could hear my neighbor listening to mushrooms, wank, shit, etc. whatever through the walls i think they are pretty mainstream

Album Rating: 2.5

now we're talking research

my first experience listening to this band was trying to impress a girl who made acid part of her personality on her tinder bio and featured song'd them, and this was back in fuckin 2018

Album Rating: 1.5

this is the type of field work you need to do to back up your takes on sputnikmusic.com