verdant
owl beanie
Emeritus

Reviews 107
Approval 98%

Soundoffs 43
Album Ratings 429
Objectivity 63%

Last Active 11-27-20 3:47 am
Joined 04-14-17

Review Comments 2,492

 Lists
02.13.19 everyone's having a really groovy time 12.04.18 My End of Year List ♦
11.13.18 life ending patent pending (13/11/2018)09.01.18 TOP 200 BEST GTA FAILS EVER (1/9/2018) ♦
08.02.18 if the sink ships (2/8/2018) ♦07.21.18 99 problems (21/7/18)
07.07.18 one foot in the time capsule (7/7/2018) ♦06.20.18 new single from this band that i play i
06.17.18 beautiful rocks, inviting hard places ( ♦06.04.18 billy corgan calls in sick for hallowee ♦
05.22.18 checking in (22/5/2018) ♦04.14.18 one year sputnik anniversary ♦
04.02.18 placeholder (it is early april, 2018) ♦12.09.17 helo this is what i liked most in 2017
10.24.17 YouTube10.15.17 An Education: Electronic
09.11.17 i got a new job :sunglasses:09.04.17 An Education: Post Punk/Noise Rock
More »

My End of Year List

nothing coming out for the rest of the year tickles my fancy very much so i'm getting in early here. no particular order.
1Tropical Fuck Storm
A Laughing Death in Meatspace

And lo the Lord said unto thee “giveth the people what they so desire: something that sneers and rattles and buzzes and self-destructs for fun”. And Lo A Laughing Death In Meatspace descended drunkenly from the heavens, and the people fell to their knees in submission, transfixed by the absence of a paradigm, the ugliness of what fell before them. The scene tremored with irony and finally the heretics felt at home standing beside the pious. And lo it was indeed an absurd unison – those who prostrated to the silence forming treatises with the noise, and those who would wake up with their ears ringing accepting the quiet ones as one of their own. As the celestial form settled itself amongst the dust, one heretic spoke words that would usher in a new epoch, of political corruption and rebellion: “woah..this shit slaps my guys lol”.
2colourblind
Move Like You

For a myriad of reasons I will always feel a little at home with this EP. Colourblind heralds in a most uncertain summer for me by pitting shouts and yells and the tenets of modern punk/emo against more traditional forms of therapy, and by the end of the record if feels like the former has a stranglehold on the latter. Normally the phrase ‘these guys have potential’ is reserved in order to be used in conjunction with a much weaker release but, even though this is a gem, I feel like this band is still to wring tr00 rock ‘n’ roll out of that stage in one’s emotional development where it would feel unfairly condescending to label their sadness and frustration as “’teenage angst”.
3Drug Church
CHEER

The genetic make-up of a band that, despite finding its way to greener pastures, are stuck in the mindset of a struggling group of 20-somethings that can barely afford a rehearsal space from week-to-week. What I like most about this album is Kindlon’s delivery – it fronts as sardonic but he can’t help but let the strained and desperate sincerity seep through. White collar punk.
4Grouper
Grid of Points

The bittersweet nature of decay captured in vignettes that try their best to float by without anyone noticing. The most heartbreaking thing about this record is the sense of alienation engendered by “Thanksgiving Song” and “Birthday Song”, with Harris spelling out the cruel irony in feeling inconsequential and alone on days apocryphally defined by communion, togetherness. All with a song title and a few fading piano melodies.
5Cursive
Vitriola

A dark tunnel of a rock record pulled together with histrionics and sardonic grins. The fact that it’s so stunning and so ugly at the same time feels like a deliberate ploy by Kasher and co. to weed out listeners that like their indie music to exist solely unto them. Vitriola is bigger than me, you, and it’s sure as hell bigger than the musicians who wrote it – like an AI that’s become sentient and turned on its creators. Frankenstinian is a word that exists I think.
6Foxing
Nearer My God

ME: “THIS ALBUM IS TRULY FOXING’S OK COMPU-“ *gets shot in the fucking face*
7Horrendous
Idol

Death metal often escapes me but this album manages to showcase its technicality without being rote and I think that balance is one that’s normally overlooked by extreme musicians. Here I find some kind of comfort in the untouchable as I realise that my relationship with Horrendous is one maintained from afar. The bass leers, the guitars perforate, and the vocals shriek the type that beckons subservience in both the listener and the host of inferior death metal bands attempting to scale the same heights.
8Raime
We Can't Be That Far From The Beginning

Experimental electronic, clocking in at under twenty minutes, that feels like a walk through a room of mirrors. Spliced together from pieces of humanity and cold steel, We Can’t Be… is a shoddy stained-glass mosaic, playing out like demos polished so pristine that they vaguely resemble finished compositions. The result resembles a dystopian future, presenting a shiny veneer that’s long since given up hiding the blackened underbelly that represents the bulk of its content.
9Yves Tumor
Safe in the Hands of Love

Yves Tumor, at least here, has two defining characteristics: complete faith in his ability as a deft and versatile producer, and complete lack thereof in the prevailing socio-political climate of the western world. Safe In the Hands of Love straddles lines I didn’t know existed to present a struggle between the bleakness of the outside world and the absolute explosion of colour that is one’s identity (see: cultural identity, blackness, queerness; i.e. the parts that Bowie presents himself and the parts that our political world directs its attention towards). In this a world manifests – one in which individualism wins and partisan issues are filed under the same category as humanitarian issues.
10Elysia Crampton
Elysia Crampton

This record is like sleeping in the pile of unwashed clothes on your bedroom floor instead of cleaning it up. Crampton makes a home inside the clutter and chaos of everyday life and the portrait is endearing and very pretty.
11mewithoutYou
[Untitled]

Mewithouyou cutting the brakes? Weiss wailing like a banshee? In 2018? Hmm I don’t know. I love this album lots but not for the reasons cited on comment threads across the indienet. Bringing back the hardcore mwY was a smart idea and it never fails to get my head banging but the highlights here are in finer details lost in the muck and mire. Like Weiss breaking the fourth wall in Another Head For Hydra, or the choir being buried in smoke and debris in [dormhouse sighs], all chills are rendered by that which will never make it to the surface. Here, it feels like the band are making a statement about the futility of enduring struggles against the inevitable: aging, consequence, retribution, losing meaning in whatever once meant the most. Andavanay.
12ITEM
Sad Light

Album of the year pulling a Steven Bradbury (google it) to find its place as a mainstay in my personal canon. The album is modest and suspended in a haze. Couched in apathy but also rich as an argentine, Sad Light is melancholic but holding on to a sliver of optimism and that’s what lends it its catchiness and absurdist humour. I’m annoying and this is what it looks like when I’m at a loss for words.
13Pemberton
Maybe I'm a friend that stuck around too long.

*BONUS ROUND*

lol, PRANKED
14DJ Healer
Nothing 2 Loose

Ask the friends I've left on read for days, I always end up forgetting the things I care about the most. *extremely sunglasses emoji*
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