Hello, welcome to the Digbox. This is a [potential] blog(!) series where a person throws down a few epic jams and talks about them a little bit, or a lot. List is digs, and all that. The only rules I’m gonna set for it are 1) no more than nine songs, to keep this succinct for the readergang, 2) this is primarily about songs, not albums or other things(?), and 3) at least most of the songs have to be really, really good for reasons that aren’t ironic. Cool: Digbox: begin:
[Digbox – colourised 2021]
Spangle Call Lilli Line – “Mio”
This song is mid-key the catalyst that got me writing this to begin with. Its name is *deep breath* “Mio” (phew) and it’s one of the best and most sophisticated dream pop songs I’ve heard in a long time. I’m obsessed enough not to want to write on it any further. Ugh. Let’s start on the surface: this ultra-clean style of production is something I usually associate with overbaked bilge, but Spangle Call Lilli Line’s veteran songwriting chops, flair for killer melodies, and sensitivity to balancing sparseness and intricacy in a complex arrangement give them the footing to knock this one out of the damn ballpark. Take that, shoddy indie-lounge!
“Mio” is teeming with great melodies and instrumental nuances, but there’s never too much going on at any one time; it has the hooks…
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By Sowing
Tuesday February 9, 2021
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Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of February 12, 2021. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
A.A.Williams: Songs From Isolation (Post-Rock/Alternative Rock/Gothic)
Ad Nauseam: Imperative Imperceptible Impulse (Death/Black Metal)
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: New Fragility (Indie-Pop/Rock)
Django Django: Glowing in the Dark (Indie-Pop/Psychedelic)
Emptiness: Vide (Death/Black/Doom Metal)
Fire!: Defeat (Jazz/Psychedelic)
Florida Georgia Line: Life Rolls On (Country/Pop)
God Is An Astronaut: Ghost Tapes #10 (Post-Rock/Ambient)
JPEGMAFIA: EP2! (Hip-Hop/Lo-Fi)
Love And Death: Perfectly Preserved (Nu-Metal)
Luca Brasi: Everything Is Tenuous (Punk/Emo)
The Obsessives: Monastery (Punk/Emo/Post-Punk)
Pale Waves: Who Am I? (Indie/Dream Pop)
Pentatonix: The Lucky Ones (Pop)
The Pretty Reckless: Death by Rock And Roll (Hard Rock/Grunge)
Robin Thicke: On Earth, and in Heaven (Pop/Soul/R&B)
Sia: Music (Pop)
Sirenia: Riddles, Ruins & Revelations (Gothic/Metal)
slowthai: TYRON (Hip-Hop)
Teenage Wrist: Earth Is A Black Hole (Shoegaze/Alternative Rock)
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By Sowing
Monday February 1, 2021
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Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of February 5, 2021. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
Black Country, New Road: For the First Time (Post-Rock/Experimental/Post Punk)
Cult of Luna: The Raging River (Post/Sludge/Progressive Metal)
Deiquisitor: Humanoid (Death Metal)
Eyesberg: Claustrophobia (Progressive Rock)
Foo Fighters: Medicine At Midnight (Rock/Grunge)
J. Cole: It’s a Boy (Hip-Hop)
John Carpenter: Lost Themes III: Alive After Death (Rock/Ambient/Soundtrack)
Korpiklaani: Jylhä (Folk/Metal)
Loathe (UK): The Things They Believe (Metalcore/Progressive Metal/Shoegaze)
Octo Octa: She’s Calling EP (House/Electronic)
Psychedelic Porn Crumpets: SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound (Psychedelic/Stoner Rock/Grunge)
Roy Montgomery: Island of Lost Souls (Psychedelic/Drone/Post-Rock)
The Ruins of Beverast: The Thule Grimoires (Black Metal/Doom Metal/Ambient)
The Staves: Good Woman (Folk/Alt-Rock)
Transatlantic: The Absolute Universe (Progressive/Hard Rock)
The Weeknd: The Highlights (R&B/Electronic/Pop)
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By staff
Monday February 1, 2021
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After years of procrastination, deep into my 2020 lockdown, I decided to turn my love for album artwork into something concrete. Drawing off of my previous quarterly lists, I’ve spent the past year curating a compilation of the 100 most impressive and beautiful album covers of the year. The art is not ranked, but ordered through vague aesthetic similarities from color to framing to iconography. This list is not exhaustive, of course, as there were a plethora of stellar works that made it extremely hard to boil it down to just these albums. Special thanks to the user someone for his huge help in finding some of these hidden gems. Here’s to another year of beautiful artwork!
Click or tap the 10×10 grid to see the high-res image.
For a high-res image with each album listed, click or tap here. –neekafat
Black Thought // Streams of Thought, Vol. 3: Cane & Able
Kesha // High Road
Misery Signals // Ultraviolet
Within Destruction // Yōkai
Invent, Animate // Greyview
Zombi // 2020
The Vamps // Cherry Blossom
upsammy // It Drips
Kairon; IRSE! // Polysomn
Silverstein // A Beautiful Place To Drown
Psychonaut // Unfold the God Man
HHY & The Kampala Unit // Lithium Blast
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By staff
Saturday January 30, 2021
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Yon Interview
Paving a path out of the underground is a difficult achievement to attain. With new domains cropping up across the internet, discovering new music has become an easier task than ever before while simultaneously making the life of an artist all the more challenging; the expansion of the game has caused ‘making it’ to be a distant goal. Adding in the unfortunate circumstances of the past calendar year, the performance sector has certainly had to struggle to get their voices heard. Out of this scene emerged the triumphant debut of German collective Yon. In the midst of a typically slow January, the intrepid quintet quietly introduced their first full length — an effort five years in the making — to whatever audience was lurking around the darker corners of bandcamp. Considering how silent the first month of the year tends to be, as well as the obscure status of the group themselves, a release this powerful and professional was incredibly unexpected at such an early time. It packed emotion, grit, and musicianship into a potent 37-minute package, encapsulating the spirit of a youthful crew.
Desiring to learn more about exactly what Yon is and their mindset behind Order of Violence, I reached out to see if they’d be willing to answer a handful of questions. During a celebratory Zoom call for their latest CD, the German gents collectively responded to a series of inquiries to help paint a better picture. The following is the conversation I…
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By Sowing
Wednesday January 27, 2021
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Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of January 29, 2021. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
Accept: Too Mean To Die (Heavy Metal/Hard Rock)
Ani DiFranco: Revolutionary Love (Folk/Indie-Pop)
Ariel Pink: Odditties Sodomies, Vol. 3 (Psychedelic/Indie-Pop)
Ariel Pink: Sit n’ Spin (Psychedelic/Indie-Pop)
The Besnard Lakes: The Besnard Lakes Are the Last of the Great Thunderstom Warnings (Psychedelic/Indie-Rock)
The Body: I’ve Seen All I Need to See (Sludge Metal/Drone)
Buke & Gase & So Percussion: A Record Of... (Indie-Folk/Rock)
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: New Fragility (Indie-Pop/Rock)
Crazy Arm: Dark Hands, Thunderbolts (Punk/Folk/Country)
Dr. Dog: Live 2 (Psychedelic/Alt-Rock/Indie-Rock)
Goat Girl: On All Fours (Psychedelic/Indie-Rock)
Harakiri For The Sky: Mære (Black Metal/Post Metal)
Katie Dey: Urdata (Indie-Pop/Experimental/Lo-Fi)
Keaton Henson: Supernova (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Indie-Folk/Classical)
LNZNDRF: II (Psychedelic/Indie-Rock/Post-Rock)
Lucero: When You Found Me (Country/Alt-Rock/Punk)
Martin Gore: The Third Chimpanzee (Electronic)
The Notwist: Vertigo Days (Indie-Rock/Indie-Pop/Electronic)
PJ Harvey: Is This Desire? – Demos (Indie-Rock/Folk)
Portrayal of Guilt: We Are Always Alone (Black Metal/Hardcore/Emo)
Soen: Imperial (Progressive Metal/Rock)
Steven Wilson: The Future Bites (Progressive Rock/Psychedelic)
Tamar Aphek: All Bets Are Off (Indie-Rock/Indie-Pop)
Tribulation: Where The Gloom Becomes Sound (Death Metal/Black Metal/Gothic)
Weezer: OK Human (Alt-Rock/Pop-Rock)
Young Thug: Slime Language 2 (Hip-Hop)
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Blonde Redhead
Arthouse.
What the hell?
Back at university, I remember there being a point at which my dissertation tutor told me to put the whole thing on hold and read up on the meaning and application of arthouse. I spent approximately two hours of my life reading relatively uncomplex definitions and unpackings, but damn would it have been easier if he’d just sent me away and told me to check out Blonde Redhead (I’m sure he could have done, too – he pitched surrealist film to me using Pixies lyrics and half the reason I originally asked him to help me out was over a rant we had about the bonus tracks on Sonic Youth’s Bad Moon Rising, but I digress).
Sorry, what’s arthouse?
One big hybrid, innit. A bastard product of ‘high’ and ‘low’ art that’s not pure enough to satisfy elitists, too edgy to sell to the mainstream, but an exciting box of treats for anyone who doesn’t mind getting their paws a little muddy. It derives most of its innovation from pastiche and appropriation rather than groundbreaking originality, and the styles it draws from are often both a little behind the times in their sourcing and a cut above in the way they’re dealt with. Bonus points for any cross-cultural, trans-geographical or oh-it’s-quite-hard-to-label-comprehensively content, all of which amounts to a notoriously broad collection of categories. You get the picture.
Sorry not sorry for the wank onslaught, but all this fits Blonde Redhead down to…
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By Sowing
Thursday January 14, 2021
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50-31 | 30-11 | 10-1 | EP/Live/Compilation
[Bandcamp] // [Spotify]
The modern era of The Ocean Collective — a settled aggregate as opposed to the revolving door era of the early 2000s — forced audiences across the metal world to pay attention with Pelagial. Unlike the prior -centric series, it was a record that combined the band’s growing emphasis on atmosphere with their crushing post-metal soundscapes, threatening sludge background, and emerging vocal talent in Loic Rossetti. No longer did an identity crisis plague the group; their newfound individuality, birthed from the novel ambient and progressive leanings, had been solidified in perhaps the crew’s best flowing and paced output in a titanic discography. Striving to succeed such a laudable effort with yet another concept release dual threat seemed like a second chance, correcting the criticism of years past. Armed to the teeth with members that had now begun to cooperate at a high level, the run began with the promising Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic, which was designed with consistency in mind — a goal that the record, what with its stunning sonic environments populated by massive riffs and evocative moods, certainly excelled at reaching. Per the band’s own admissions, cliché as it may be from a marketing perspective, a treasure trove of surprises awaited in the anticipated second part. Eyes were predictably rolled in anticipation, yet what emerged precisely as advertised: a product that aimed to…
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By Sowing
Wednesday January 13, 2021
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50-31 | 30-11 | 10-1 | EP/Live/Compilation
[Bandcamp] // [Spotify]
You’d be hard-pressed to pick Mass VI Live out of a lineup of Amenra’s studio records were you not already well acquainted with their 2017 release of the same name. The live rendition of the Belgian post-metal legends’ most recent opus is sublime, sporting better production values than most bands’ core albums whilst still packing in all the immediacy, wonder and passion you’d expect from an ‘in the moment’ performance, even with the notable absence of a live audience. “Children of the Eye” still hits like a freight train, “Diaken” bristles with all of the same gorgeous little details and “A Solitary Reign” is “A Solitary Reign” which, as you’ll know if you’ve heard the original, is all that it needed to be. It may have only made it onto this list at the whim of two particularly determined users, yet it deserves to be recognised amongst the most impressive releases of 2020, whether live or otherwise, because Mass VI Live is an event. Come and witness it. –Asleep
[Bandcamp] // [Spotify]
Three years after the fantastic Asheran, these UK proggers added a string to their bow by further smashing together metal genres. On top of their sludge/stoner recipe, some death, thrash, and even blackened elements spice up a formula that
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By Sowing
Tuesday January 12, 2021
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50-31 | 30-11 | 10-1 | EP/Live/Compilation
[Official site] // [Spotify]
Abel Tesfaye always had the ’80s flair in him. Instead of the blatant hedonism of his reference decade, he uses the same tropes to criticize the lifestyle he lives. Self-loathing his way through new wave-y, dream-poppy R&B, Tesfaye appears less dysfunctional than ever, yet fails in becoming the man he strives to be. It seems he possibly can never become that man: the night never ends, the drugs never stop, and plastic surgery isn’t unaffordable anymore. Under such conditions, it’s no surprise his newest collection of songs falls into the category of the nocturnal mega-bangers, the kind of songs that ravage everything in its path thanks to its intelligent fusion of 808s rhythms and ’80s nostalchic elements. I bet this guy will crush the competition at the upcoming Grammy Awards. –Erwann S.
[Bandcamp] // [Spotify]
Naas Alcameth is part of a restricted niche of artists who manage to embody their spiritual dimension in all its fullness. Those who are aware of his many musical projects know that his own private reality roams between consciousness and dream, trapped within a disturbing parallel existence. It is simply not enough to add some random dark tone to a composition to make it terrifying; it must be able to genuinely reverberate that unsettling dimension. Melinoë…
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By Sowing
Monday January 11, 2021
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50-31 | 30-11 | 10-1 | EP/Live/Compilation
[Bandcamp] // [Spotify]
Intronaut’s rise to fame over the last decade and a half has been anything but luck, but in a year as turbulent as 2020, the band’s Fluid Existential Inversions somehow moved past the success of their 2015 release and a change of drummers (normally a spanner in the works of any established band). Largely, the group’s newest piece offers up most of the familiar progressive nuance of the scene while adding a heavier all-around presence. Fans will find the likes of “The Cull” and “Speaking Of Orbs” more familiar — their mood reaffirms Intronaut’s more introspective, natural songwriting patterns — but it’s deeper cuts like “Contrapasso”, “Pangloss” or “Sour Everythings” that showcase a bunch of well-practiced musicians moving forward in a truly successful direction. Intronaut continues to meld a clinical display of rhythms into wonderfully crafted melodies while resonating with the success that’s followed them since their debut. –Robert Garland
49. Slift – Ummon
[Bandcamp] // [Spotify]
The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for black hole discoveries that revealed the “darkest secrets of the universe,” but Slift are the ones truly challenging the stretch of cosmic confines. With their blend of psychedelic space rock, stoner, and krautrock, the French riffaholics created an epic journey through space, time, and many, many mushrooms. –Erwann S.…
50-31 | 30-11 | 10-1
[Official site] // [Spotify]
This album could be Ichiko Aoba’s identity crisis, though on the subtlest of terms. I could be projecting. There just seems to be less of… her on it; but, in all fairness, that’s contingent on the singer being personally defined by a voice and permeable space, not also the denser surrounding arrangements and instrumental narratives. Which might be a bit unreasonable. While I’ve mostly known Aoba’s music to feel cloistered — burrowed in contentment, mostly alone — this album is one of a select few cases where the singer achieves a sort of induced wanderlust, though still often doubling back on the realization of self. “Prologue” sounds like meditating mid-air in a failed zeppelin as it disintegrates in slow motion, and pardon the silly specificity. “Pilgrimage” sounds like a world’s worth of joy failing to directly resolve a deep, esoteric personal anguish, and instead fortifying the gaps around it. “Dawn in the Adan” is resilient, and one of the more grounded pieces, even as Aoba’s voice soars. It’s weird to say this as someone who’s made a bit of a hobby of overanalyzing songs, but Windswept Adan is somewhat of a rare case, where superfluous words can indeed do a disservice (more so than I’d normally admit, anyway). I don’t want to talk about it much, as I’d much rather listen to it; and, I don’t…
50-31 | 30-11 | 10-1
30. Mac Miller – Circles
[Official site] // [Spotify]
I worry, listening to and writing about Circles, that I contribute unhelpfully to the celebration and mythologisation of the young, dead artist. I was never a particularly big Mac Miller fan — total discretion, I’m still not — but I think that, like much of the rapper’s expansive, largely unreleased catalogue (ask Rowan), Circles has much to offer. This is in spite of Miller’s death, not because of it. Ideally, Miller would still be alive; he would not have succumbed to his addiction; Circles would have received some kind of follow-up. As his (unfortunate) finale, however, the album feels remarkably conclusive. Not because it stands out in any particular way from the rest of his discography, but rather, because it doesn’t. That is, Circles doesn’t feel, necessarily, like the end of Mac Miller. Chronologically, yes (unless someone were to sort through the hundreds of unofficial loosies [expect, maybe, a wave of fan-made mixtapes]). Ultimately, though, as a continuation of Miller’s gradual shift into funk-inspired R&B, Circles does not (like many posthumous albums) feel at all out of place, or like an awkward cap on what the artist was doing, or where he was going. Its magic is that it could and does work either way. There’s significant comfort in that. –BlushfulHippocrene
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50-31 | 30-11 | 10-1
[Official site] // [Spotify]
One of the biggest surprises of the year, We Are Chaos sees Marilyn Manson entering a new chapter in his life, reinventing himself as a glitter Goth cowboy. Filled with mature reflections and a newfound peace of mind, the frontman seems at his most relaxed in his skin so far. His partnership with Shooter Jennings brought the best in him, often covering the bluesy mindset of The Pale Emperor with a sweet country flavor. Overall, the results are miles away from most of his albums, yet this unexpected twist came together with a rejuvenation. Whereas a bit hard to digest for a fair number of fans, the LP is actually a major grower featuring some of his most layered tracks in a long time. There is something for everyone here, as each song boasts a catchy groove — whether aggressive or mellow — and the storytelling is kept to the point, making for an enjoyable record. –Raul Stanciu
[Official site] // [Spotify]
To me, Katie Crutchfield’s career floundered after Cerulean Salt, a record I was obsessed with upon its release, especially the affecting closer “You’re Damaged”. Saint Cloud, then, represents a revitalization of the Waxahatchee brand for me as well as for Crutchfield, recently sober and in love with…
2020 hasn’t been a great year for much of anything… music was no exception. This is my favorite of what they decided to release during this dumpster fire. 2021 might be marginally better in the same way getting punched in the face a second time isn’t nearly as jarring as the first punch you didn’t see coming. Drink up!
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50. Ulver – Flowers of Evil
 Genre: Electronic/Art Pop
Recommended Track: Little Boy
**A laid back extension of their ’80s goth/synthpop style with more guitars and steady rhythms pretty much from beginning to end. While the unpredictable shifts in tone and experimentation from The Assassination of Julius Caesar is missed, this is still a solid effort from the wolves of Norway. Flowers of Evil is a dark yet inviting “pop” album and a highlight of 2020 music. — TalonsOfFire
Until now, it never felt like Ulver had created the same album twice. On Flowers of Evil, though, they pick up right where The Assassination of Julius Caesar left off, except with less experimentation and no real surprises. Having said that, I’ve always liked Ulver more when they use vocals and I’m also a big Depeche Mode fan. This album is 90s-era Depeche Mode with a bit of an Ulver twist.
49. Within The Ruins – Black Heart
 Genre: Technical Death Metal / Metalcore
Recommended Track: Domination
**Although not as great as their magnum opus Phenomena, this album doesn’t trail too…
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