| 5.0 classic |
| ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead Source Tags and Codes |
| 0edit Neotokyo OST |
| A Tribe Called Quest The Low End Theory |
| Air Moon Safari |
| AJJ People Who Can Eat People are the Luckiest People |
| AJJ Knife Man |
| American Football American Football |
| Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion |
| Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works 85-92 |
| Bauhaus Bela Lugosi's Dead |
| Sounds like a silent horror film or a hanuted house. Windows rattle, floorboards creak, the music fuzzes and crackles like poor film stock and dat vocal. |
| Bjork Homogenic |
| Blur 13 |
| Boards of Canada Music Has the Right to Children |
| Bob Dylan Highway 61 Revisited |
| Bon Iver 22, A Million |
| Boston Boston |
| Brand New The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me |
| Brand New Science Fiction |
| Built to Spill Perfect from Now On |
| Chance the Rapper Acid Rap |
| Charli XCX Pop 2 |
| Creedence Clearwater Revival Green River |
| David Bowie The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars |
| David Bowie Hunky Dory |
| David Bowie Station to Station |
| David Bowie "Heroes" |
| Dead Kennedys Give Me Convenience Or Give Me Death |
| Deafheaven Sunbather |
| Death Symbolic |
| DJ Shadow Endtroducing..... |
| Earl Sweatshirt Some Rap Songs |
| Frank Ocean channel ORANGE |
| Frank Ocean Blonde |
| Frank Zappa Apostrophe |
| Glassjaw Worship and Tribute |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! |
| Grimes Visions |
| Grizzly Bear Shields |
| Guided by Voices Bee Thousand |
| Howard Shore The Fellowship of the Ring: The Complete Recording |
| Interpol Turn on the Bright Lights |
| Jamie xx In Colour |
| Jeff Buckley Grace |
| Joanna Newsom Ys |
| Kate Bush Hounds of Love |
| Kendrick Lamar good kid, m.A.A.d city |
| Kendrick Lamar To Pimp a Butterfly |
| King Crimson In the Court of the Crimson King |
| King Crimson Red |
| Kyuss Welcome To Sky Valley |
| LCD Soundsystem This Is Happening |
| Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin IV |
| Love Forever Changes |
| Low Double Negative |
| M.I.A. Kala |
| Madvillain Madvillainy |
| Magnolia Electric Co Magnolia Electric Co |
| Manic Street Preachers The Holy Bible |
| Marvin Gaye What's Going On |
| Massive Attack Mezzanine |
| maudlin of the Well Bath |
| Meat Puppets Meat Puppets II |
| Megadeth Rust In Peace |
| Metallica Master Of Puppets |
| Modest Mouse The Moon & Antarctica |
| My Bloody Valentine Loveless |
| Nas Illmatic |
| Neil Young On the Beach |
| Neutral Milk Hotel In the Aeroplane Over the Sea |
| Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds Skeleton Tree |
| Nirvana In Utero |
| Oneohtrix Point Never Garden of Delete |
| OutKast Aquemini |
| Panda Bear Person Pitch |
| Pavement Wowee Zowee |
| Pavement Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain |
| Pavement Watery, Domestic |
| Pavement Slanted and Enchanted |
Do you like The Pixies? Silly question really. Pavement are a slacker alternative band from the 90’s who do the short, catchy, timeless and bloody odd in much the same way as Doolittle. The one difference is this album is honestly better in my opinion, which is no mean feat considering how often Doolittle crops up on best ever lists.
It’s warm and fuzzy throughout, “Summer Babe (Winter Version)” is slow and mellow with a dizzy, spastic solo at the end, breaking out into fun, nonsense melodies. Melodies and nonsense are recurring themes; “Trigger Cut” sees the band sing “sha-na-na” and don’t get me started on “Conduit For Sale!”, which is some kind of history rap with panicked chorus.
On other tracks the album absolutely wears it’s heart on its sleeve, “Here” and “Zurich is Stained” are spacious laments, very much for the slacker.
Throughout the bass is fuzzy and you can hear the drummer have a great time as the melodies grow bigger; on “Lorretta’s Scars” the beat is certain to move anyone. This is a through and through a lo-fi marvel, but the album quality is very good unlike, say; Dinosaur Jnr.
Like Doolittle every song is a hit, you wish there was more of it and whoever you are there is no way you cannot love this beauty. |
| Pixies Doolittle |
| PJ Harvey To Bring You My Love |
| PJ Harvey Rid of Me |
| Portishead Dummy |
| R.E.M. Murmur |
| Radiohead Amnesiac |
| Radiohead In Rainbows |
| Raekwon Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... |
| Refused The Shape Of Punk To Come |
| Run the Jewels Run the Jewels 2 |
| Sigur Ros Agætis byrjun |
| Slint Spiderland |
| Sonic Youth Daydream Nation |
| Sufjan Stevens Illinois |
| Sufjan Stevens Carrie and Lowell |
| Sun Kil Moon Benji |
| Suzanne Ciani Seven Waves |
| Talk Talk Laughing Stock |
| Talking Heads Remain in Light |
| Television Marquee Moon |
| The Antlers Familiars |
| The Avalanches Since I Left You |
| The Band Music from Big Pink |
| The Beach Boys Pet Sounds |
| The Beatles Abbey Road |
| The Clash London Calling |
| The Cure Disintegration |
| The Dear Hunter Indigo |
| The Dismemberment Plan Emergency & I |
| The Dismemberment Plan Change |
| The Feelies Crazy Rhythms |
| The Field From Here We Go Sublime |
| The Flaming Lips The Soft Bulletin |
| The Jimi Hendrix Experience Axis: Bold as Love |
| The Microphones The Glow Pt. 2 |
| The National Alligator |
| The National Boxer |
| The Rolling Stones Let It Bleed |
| The Seatbelts Cowboy Bebop |
| The Stooges Fun House |
| The Zombies Odessey and Oracle |
| Tom Waits Rain Dogs |
| Tool Lateralus |
| Tool Ænima |
| Vampire Weekend Modern Vampires of the City |
| Vince Guaraldi Trio A Charlie Brown Christmas |
| Visible Cloaks Reassemblage |
| Weezer Weezer |
| Wilco Yankee Hotel Foxtrot |
| WU LYF Go Tell Fire to the Mountain |
| Wu-Tang Clan Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) |
| Yo La Tengo I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One |
| 4.5 superb |
| A Perfect Circle Thirteenth Step |
| Alice in Chains Dirt |
| Anderson .Paak Malibu |
| Andy Stott Faith in Strangers |
| Animal Collective Sung Tongs |
| ANOHNI HOPELESSNESS |
| Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works Volume II |
| Arcade Fire The Suburbs |
| Archy Marshall A New Place 2 Drown |
| At the Drive-In Relationship of Command |
| Beach House Bloom |
| Beck Odelay |
| Belle and Sebastian If You're Feeling Sinister |
| Beyonce Beyonce |
| Beyonce Homecoming |
| Big Star #1 Record |
| Big Thief U.F.O.F. |
| Bikini Kill The Singles |
| Bill Callahan Dream River |
| Black Midi Schlagenheim |
| Black Sabbath Master of Reality |
| Blondie Parallel Lines |
| Bob Dylan Bringing It All Back Home |
| Bob Dylan Blonde on Blonde |
| Bob Dylan Blood on the Tracks |
| Bon Iver Bon Iver, Bon Iver |
| Bon Iver i,i |
| Brian Eno Ambient 1: Music For Airports |
| Broken Social Scene You Forgot It in People |
| Bruce Springsteen Born to Run |
| Bruce Springsteen Darkness on the Edge of Town |
| Built to Spill Keep It Like a Secret |
| Burial Rival Dealer |
| Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band Trout Mask Replica |
| Car Seat Headrest Twin Fantasy (Face to Face) |
| Caribou Swim |
| Cheap Trick Cheap Trick |
| Creedence Clearwater Revival Willy and the Poor Boys |
| D'Angelo Voodoo |
| D'Angelo Black Messiah |
| David Bowie Low |
| David Bowie Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) |
| David Bowie Blackstar |
| Deerhunter Halcyon Digest |
| Deftones White Pony |
| Deftones Diamond Eyes |
| Diamond Head Lightning To The Nations |
| Dinosaur Jr. Bug |
| Dinosaur Jr. You're Living All Over Me |
| Disclosure Settle |
| DJ Rashad Double Cup |
| Drive Like Jehu Yank Crime |
| Elliott Smith Either/Or |
| Explosions in the Sky The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place |
| Faith No More Angel Dust |
| Father John Misty I Love You, Honeybear |
| Fiona Apple When The Pawn... |
| Fiona Apple The Idler Wheel... |
| FKA Twigs M3LL155X |
| Fleetwood Mac Rumours |
| Floating Points Nuits Sonores |
| Flying Lotus Cosmogramma |
| Four Tet There is Love in You |
| Frank Sinatra In The Wee Small Hours |
| Frank Turner England Keep My Bones |
| Frank Zappa Hot Rats |
| Fugazi The Argument |
| Galaxie 500 On Fire |
| Gas Pop |
| George Harrison All Things Must Pass |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor F♯ A♯ ∞ |
| Gorillaz Plastic Beach |
| Graham Coxon A+E |
| Grimes Art Angels |
| Grizzly Bear Yellow House |
| Grizzly Bear Veckatimest |
| Grouper Ruins |
| Iron And Wine The Shepherd's Dog |
| Janelle Monae The ArchAndroid |
| Japandroids Celebration Rock |
| Jeff Rosenstock WORRY. |
| Jeff Tweedy Warm |
| Joy Division Unknown Pleasures |
| Judas Priest Painkiller |
| Julia Holter Have You In My Wilderness |
| Kanye West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy |
| Kanye West Yeezus |
| Kendrick Lamar untitled unmastered. |
| Kyuss Blues For The Red Sun |
| Kyuss Muchas Gracias: The Best Of Kyuss |
| Laura Stevenson Wheel |
| LCD Soundsystem Sound of Silver |
| Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin III |
| Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin |
| Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin II |
| Led Zeppelin Physical Graffiti |
| Led Zeppelin Houses Of The Holy |
| Liquid Liquid Liquid Liquid |
| Liquid Liquid Optimo |
| Lorde Melodrama |
| Manic Street Preachers Everything Must Go |
| Marvin Gaye Trouble Man |
| Mastodon Leviathan |
| Mastodon Blood Mountain |
| Mastodon Crack the Skye |
I have a beef with “nu-metal”. For me metal was always big, scary and complex. Songs shouldn’t be less than 5 minutes, the bass and drums ought to evoke Satan hammering on your door and the lyrics should soar effortlessly above the rest, only met on occasion by screeching solos every 3 minutes. And under no circumstance must anyone even attempt to be “gangsta”. In short I’m a devout follower of the Sabbath and Metallica models.
The problem with this is it can get boring, you cover the same ground. For this reason I forgive the music industry for its two decades of catchy chorus and grown men in dress up. Mastodon blew this situation away however on Crack the Skye. Variety is on full show here; “Oblivion” starts with a haunting, spacey synth intro. “Divinations” kicks off with rumbling banjo. Single tracks morph and change direction frequently.
The real impressive feat though is how good everyone is. The vocals are spot on, constant melodies; I still don’t know who exactly was on lead for this album. The two guitars fuzz and dance, the bass skips here and there, on the aforementioned “Divinations” all instruments gun it for a mad crescendo, which impossible holds together. Prog comes to mind very much, I’d compare their sound to recent Metallica with Sabbath. This isn’t thrash, Crack the Skye is much more focused on atmosphere and depth than moshing.
The themes have been updated too. Fantasy and the occult has been a metal staple since Zeppelin, todays it’s space and time travel. There is some kind of concept of a time travelling astronaut warning an occult of the Russian revolution or something, but all you really need to know is this is a trip album.
I’d recommend this to even non-metal fans, it’s an excellent example of the genre very much misunderstood by the mainstream. This and the Black Album should atleast be able to convert non-believers to appreciators.
More recommendations at http://captainspacker.blogspot.com/ |
| Matthew Dear Black City |
| Meat Puppets Up On The Sun |
| Megadeth Peace Sells... But Who's Buying? |
| Metallica Ride The Lightning |
| Metallica ...And Justice For All |
| Misfits Static Age |
| Mitski Be the Cowboy |
| Moses Sumney Aromanticism |
| Neil Young After the Gold Rush |
| Neurosis Through Silver In Blood |
| Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds Henry's Dream |
| Nick Drake Pink Moon |
| Nirvana Nevermind |
| Oneohtrix Point Never Replica |
| Oneohtrix Point Never R Plus Seven |
| OutKast Stankonia |
| OutKast ATLiens |
| Panda Bear Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper |
| Parquet Courts Human Performance |
| Patti Smith Horses |
| Paul Simon Graceland |
| Paul Weller Stanley Road |
| Pavement Brighten the Corners |
| Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here |
| PJ Harvey Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea |
| Purity Ring Shrines |
| Purple Mountains Purple Mountains |
| Pusha T DAYTONA |
| Queens of the Stone Age Songs for the Deaf |
| Radiohead Kid A |
| Radiohead OK Computer |
| Radiohead The King of Limbs |
| Royksopp Melody A.M. |
| Silver Jews The Natural Bridge |
| Silver Jews American Water |
| Slayer Reign In Blood |
| Sleater-Kinney Dig Me Out |
| Slowdive Souvlaki |
| Solange A Seat at the Table |
| Soundgarden Superunknown |
| Spiritualized Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space |
| Sunset Rubdown Dragonslayer |
| SZA Ctrl |
| Talk Talk Spirit of Eden |
| Tame Impala Innerspeaker |
| Tame Impala Lonerism |
| Tame Impala Currents |
| Teenage Fanclub Bandwagonesque |
| The Antlers Hospice |
| The Band The Band |
| The Beatles Revolver |
| The Beatles The Beatles |
| The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band |
| The Chemical Brothers Dig Your Own Hole |
| The Cure Pornography |
| The Doors The Doors |
| The Jimi Hendrix Experience Electric Ladyland |
| The Jimi Hendrix Experience Are You Experienced |
| The Mars Volta De-Loused in the Comatorium |
| The Notorious B.I.G. Ready to Die |
| The Rolling Stones Exile on Main St. |
| The Shins Chutes Too Narrow |
| The Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream |
| The Stone Roses The Stone Roses |
| The Stooges Raw Power |
| The Unicorns Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone? |
| The Who Who's Next |
| The xx xx |
| Thundercat The Beyond/Where The Giants Roam |
| Tim Hecker Konoyo |
| Todd Terje It's Album Time |
| TV on the Radio Dear Science |
| Unwound Leaves Turn Inside You |
| Weezer Pinkerton |
| Weyes Blood Titanic Rising |
| Wilco Summerteeth |
| Yo La Tengo And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside... |
| Yuck Yuck |
| Yves Tumor Safe in the Hands of Love |
| 3.5 great |
| AC/DC Highway To Hell |
| AC/DC Back In Black |
| AC/DC The Razors Edge |
| AC/DC High Voltage |
| AC/DC For Those About To Rock We Salute You |
| AJJ Can't Maintain |
| Alice in Chains Jar Of Flies |
| Alice in Chains MTV Unplugged |
| Amy Winehouse Back to Black |
| Arcade Fire Neon Bible |
| Arch Enemy Doomsday Machine |
| Beck Guero |
| Black Sabbath Black Sabbath |
| Black Sabbath Vol. 4 |
| Black Sabbath Sabbath Bloody Sabbath |
| Blind Melon Blind Melon |
| Blind Melon Soup |
| Bloc Party Intimacy |
| Blur Parklife |
| Bombay Bicycle Club I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose |
| Bombay Bicycle Club A Different Kind of Fix |
| Built to Spill You in Reverse |
| Coheed and Cambria Year of the Black Rainbow |
| Courtney Barnett Tell Me How You Really Feel |
| Daft Punk Homework |
| DangerDoom The Mouse And The Mask |
| David Bowie Young Americans |
| Doves (UK) Kingdom of Rust |
| Father John Misty Fear Fun |
| Festivus One |
| Florence and the Machine Lungs |
| Foals Holy Fire |
| Foo Fighters Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace |
| Gomez Whatever's On Your Mind |
| Gorillaz Gorillaz |
| Green Day Nimrod |
| Green Day American Idiot |
| Interpol Our Love to Admire |
| Interpol Interpol |
| Jon Hopkins Asleep Versions |
| Justice † |
| Kaiser Chiefs Yours Truly, Angry Mob |
| Kanye West Graduation |
| Kanye West 808s and Heartbreak |
| Kate Bush The Kick Inside |
| Koji Kondo The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time OST |
| Mac DeMarco 2 |
| Mastodon The Hunter |
| Metallica Metallica |
| Modest Mouse Good News for People Who Love Bad News |
| Nine Inch Nails Broken |
| Parquet Courts Wide Awake |
| Paul Weller Sonik Kicks |
| Queen Queen II |
| Queen Sheer Heart Attack |
| Queens of the Stone Age Era Vulgaris |
When I think about misunderstood albums, this is the one I always think of. Perhaps that’s because of what QOTSA where when the recorded this album; Songs for the Deaf is one of the all-time best straight rock albums, I’d recommend it but chances are you already have it.
Era Vulgaris is not a straight rock album at all. Era Vulgaris is offbeat, ugly and clunky. Era Vulgaris is also a record that I adore to pieces. This album however needs a fair bit of explaining. The title means “common age” and refers to the decadent, self-absorbed culture of today. Josh Homme is rarely his charming rocker self, instead taking the role of a spoilt, modern brat and sarcastically ripping them with their own tongue. If you will, this album is a satire of the YouTube generation. The lyrics have a very Tom Sawyer-ish feel about them. “I’m Designer” is a blast if you get this concept. The drums are clunky on this track, the guitar screeches repeatedly while the lyrics efferminately declare “We all have our own style and bag-age, why hump it yourself?”. In the chorus Homme’s true voice comes out, calling the verses “lies” and bemoaning his plastic existence.
The sound is appropriately off-beat; the chords sound like they were devised with random rolls of dice. This isn’t a metal album at all, but the sound is robotic and mechanical melody certainly wasn’t one of the priorities, focusing on repeating weird noises until they have dug so far into your brain they work. QOTSA have always been a hypnotic band too, I mean c’mon, they named an album “Lullabies to Paralyze”. Era sees a lot of this, the opening track “Turning on the Screw” has on odd solo (?) where Homme declares “you sound like this” before all the instruments repeat the same sustained sound over and over. It’s witty and odd stuff, the kind of thing I can see people really hating if they aren’t into some good old fashioned sound lashing. On “Battery Acid” the drums just pound the same beat over and over, the only difference is they get louder and louder as the band ramp up the intensity. Also “Robots! Robots! Brain Washed Babies!” Is the greatest hook ever.
Era is an eclectic mix too. Track 7 drastically changes gear to a straight blues song, in text slang of course, “Make It Wit Chu”. Josh is back on his charming sexy self and is a welcome return. Overall though QOTSA tongue is firmly in their cheek, I fear I have made this sound too arty when infact it is big, dumb noisy fun with a brainy twist.
This album is a divisive choice; I know people who despise it and people who love it. You won’t know which one you are until you try it yourself. Worse comes to the worse, it’s a cool bit of album art to have on you iPod.
More recommendations at http://captainspacker.blogspot.com/ |
| Radiohead Hail to the Thief |
| Red Hot Chili Peppers Stadium Arcadium |
| Regina Spektor Begin To Hope |
| Skepta Konnichiwa |
| Solange True |
| Temple of the Dog Temple of the Dog |
| The Beach Boys The Smile Sessions |
| The Beatles A Hard Day's Night |
| The Beatles Help! |
| The Beatles Beatles for Sale |
| The Black Keys Attack & Release |
| The Black Keys Brothers |
| The Black Keys El Camino |
| The Clash Combat Rock |
| The Dandy Warhols Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia |
| The Dear Hunter Orange |
| The Dear Hunter Yellow |
| The Dear Hunter Blue |
| The Doors The Soft Parade |
| The Doors Morrison Hotel |
| The Doors L.A. Woman |
| The Flaming Lips With A Little Help From My Fwends |
| The Gaslight Anthem The '59 Sound |
| The Hives Veni Vidi Vicious |
| The Hives Lex Hives |
| The Maccabees Given to the Wild |
| The Strokes Room on Fire |
| The Strokes First Impressions of Earth |
| The Velvet Underground The Velvet Underground & Nico |
| The White Stripes Icky Thump |
| Them Crooked Vultures Them Crooked Vultures |
| Thundercat Apocalypse |
| Yeah Yeah Yeahs Show Your Bones |
| Yo La Tengo Fade |
