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User
Reviews 17
Approval 96%
Soundoffs 16
News Articles 2
Band Edits + Tags 5
Album Edits 3
Album Ratings 1
Last Active 12-30-21 6:41 pm
Joined 11-22-05
Review Comments 2,167
| Listening to the entire 2024 Staff List - Part 3
Got there! | | 10 |  | Alora Crucible
Oak Lace Apparition
It’ been a busy year for us Toby Driver acolytes, but not all of it has been great. In addition to a remaster with some dubious post-production decisions, Driver released probably his most uninspiring work yet under his eponymous moniker. But thanks to Oak Lace Apparition, it was still a banger year for Toby Driver fans. This is far and away one of the most magical and immersive pieces of music to come out in 2024 and if you haven’t yet engrossed yourself within its frost-gilded pathways, you need to light a stick of incense, get in a yoga pose, and listen to this asap.
First impression score: N/A (been listening since release)
Desire to re-listen: high | | 9 |  | Chelsea Wolfe
She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She
I struggle a little bit with She Reaches Out… I’m here for anything Wolfe does; even the relatively uninspired Birth of Violence does something for me. But this is the first record by our favorite spooky lady that I feel lets me down slightly. There’s tons to love: “Everything Turns Blue” is one of my favorite songs she’s ever done, and the return of a more claustrophobic sound a la Hiss Spun is welcome. But much of it feels like she is going through the motions compositionally, despite my attempts all year to convince myself otherwise.
First impression score: N/A (been listening since release)
Desire to re-listen: moderate | | 8 |  | Ulcerate
Cutting the Throat of God
Speaking of struggling: I’ve been trying to convince myself to love Ulcerate since Shrines of Paralysis, and while they have managed to edge me pretty close, especially on their previous record, I’ve never quite fallen in love with them. Still, the spectacle of it remains intriguing and I like what they’re doing here with the ominous atmospheric bits, short as they may be. As is always the case with Ulcerate, it all sounds pretty monolithic and homogenous, but I respect that there’s much to discover within the misanthropic chaos here.
First impression score: B+
Desire to re-listen: moderate/high | | 7 |  | Geordie Greep
The New Sound
It would be shocking for a Sputnik staff list not to include drunken UK-based pub punk, and I was getting a little concerned until I hit this. What a breath of fresh air this is. Greep has forcefully ejected most of what I find abrasive about this little clique of bands and replaced it with an enormously appealing sense of controlled chaos, which pairs exceptionally well with the breathless storytelling and the Peter Gabriel-esque weirdness. It’s a whole that’s much greater than the sum of its parts, especially for an album that I expected to sound like “Motorbike” across the board. What a pleasant surprise.
First Impression score: A-
Desire to re-listen: high | | 6 |  | Chat Pile
Cool World
It’s been a really dark year if you’ve checked the news even once. Thankfully we have Chat Pile to keep us company while we fill our Molotov cocktails and wait for the narcissistic oligarchs running everything to melt down into a mutual dick swinging contest. To that end, Chat Pile really only have to keep doing what they did on their last album, which was great, but I was grateful to hear them expand on that sound, if only even slightly.
First impression score: N/A (been listening since release)
Desire to re-listen: moderate | | 5 |  | Foxing
Foxing
I tried this a few months ago but found the first few tracks unforgivably abrasive. As a Nearer My God stan, I always knew I’d be back but wasn’t exactly looking forward to it. Once again, I wasn’t really digging this at all until “Gratitude” and “Hall of Frozen Heads” hit me hard and reminded me that I really didn’t like the first few tracks on Nearer My God until I’d had it in my ears for a few years. I think I’ll end up liking this but I can’t deny it requires some effort.
First impression score: B
Desire to re-listen: moderate | | 4 |  | Nala Sinephro
Endlessness
Every year there’s a few albums I haven’t heard yet but have mentally earmarked as entries I was really excited to hear. This was this year’s top motivator and I wasn’t disappointed at all. What can you say that hasn’t already been said? This is just lovely and I anticipate it being something I sink tons of hours into.
First impression score: A
Desire to re-listen: high | | 3 |  | The Cure
Songs of a Lost World
Not a fan of the band going in, although I never had anything against them, but I do tend to get suspicious when I suspect the music is being held to a different standard because the artists have name recognition. Blackstar this is most certainly not, but I think it holds its own fairly well. The longer songs have a pretty nice vibe to them and I can see throwing this on again even though I don’t really feel blown away by 60 year olds singing about broken hearts (I know there’s deeper themes here but still).
First impression score: B
Desire to re-listen: moderate | | 2 |  | State Faults
Children of the Moon
To me, the most impressive thing about this album is that it is somehow even better than Clairvoyant. The band have an almost supernatural sense of melody, injecting a guitar lead or clean vocals exactly where they need to be in order to have maximum emotional resonance. All the ingredients are just so perfectly balanced and the songwriting is so immaculate; it’s the kind of thing where if I were making music like this I’d throw up my hands because this feels like the perfection of a formula, as well as an iteration of something beyond skramz revival.
First impression score: A
Desire to re-listen: high | | 1 |  | Charli XCX
Brat
Honestly I can’t believe how great this is. I’ve mentioned in previous entries how pop typically doesn’t interest me that much unless it’s going out of its way to be innovative. I wouldn’t call Brat a creative disruption necessarily but Charli is just so damn good at what she does that any sense of staleness just simply doesn’t exist here. The personal nature of the lyrics, the skillfully applied song structuring, and the often atypical and adventurous melodies come together to make this worlds better than the middling girlpop release I was expecting going in. I think this is the first time in years I’ve actually loved the #1 pick on this list.
First impression score: A-
Desire to re-listen: high | |
NOTINTHEFACE
02.07.25 | I would like to thank the staff for nursing this little website in sickness and health, for writing great blurbs, for not making me listen to the Tortured Poets Department, and for producing my favorite staff list in quite a while (maybe ever?). Tons of great discoveries here that should occupy me for the rest of the year. | FowlKrietzsche
02.15.25 | Love your brat blurb, this was a great read! |
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