Average Rating: 3.50 Rating Variance: 0.75 Objectivity Score: 79% (Well Balanced)
Sort by: Rating | Release Date | Rating Date | Name2023 Metallica 72 Seasons2.0Heartworms A Comforting Notion3.5Periphery Periphery V: Djent is Not a Genre1.5Riverside ID.Entity2.0decided that in 2023 I would listen to everything that got a decent review. mmmm I may already have to alter that policyKatatonia Sky Void of Stars3.0Ahab The Coral Tombs3.5Anna Orchid Orchids3.0constantly-peaking zoomerdustrial with its toes in a million squillion annoying genresNag Human Coward Coyote3.5lots of feedback and slowly decaying guitarbeams to this punky affair, I like their style a whole lotAsian Glow and sonhos tomam conta dreamglow2.52022 David Maxim Micic BILO IV2.0Tallah The Generation of Danger2.0Fleshwater We're Not Here To Be Loved2.0Polyphia Remember That You Will Die1.0wow! completely on top of all their shit, thriving and hydrated, optimal 'til it becomes poptimal, sympathetic and well-lit yet malign agents of Anime Intros (Technical)Ghost Funk Orchestra A New Kind Of Love4.0Red Hot Chili Peppers Return of the Dream Canteen1.5Cloud Rat Threshold4.0Magma Kãrtëhl3.5biggest concentration of "Dezoveloi"s so far!!!!!! too musical-minded to be boring but it's not really a statement album as far as I can tell, just some neat late 70s-ish zeuhl tunes that sound like the original soundtracker for "Last of the Summer Wine" discovered jazz-funkCity of Caterpillar Mystic Sisters4.0Alex G God Save The Animals2.0The Mars Volta The Mars Volta2.0Preoccupations Arrangements3.0the atmosphere doesn't gel with the songwriting and there's phrases that practically sound like Kings of Leon, agh, plenty of better goth this year where you can hear the bassThe Garden Horseshit On Route 663.5The Callous Daoboys Celebrity Therapist2.0Chat Pile God's Country4.0Priest Body Machine3.0cheese electro/EBM but it's fun and all the songs have something gnice about them! wow!Viagra Boys Cave World2.5Stiu Nu Stiu New Sun3.5Porcupine Tree Closure/Continuation1.5Petrol Girls Baby4.0Executioner's Mask Winterlong3.5gorgeous 'n goth as heck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! more echoey and produced than some contemporaries, definitely more full than the 80s breed, if you like that sorta thingYoo Doo Right A Murmur, Boundless to the East4.0Deliluh Fault Lines4.0owns. amulet owns. lots of different approaches to these downer punk goth genres from minimal synth to big discordant post-punk things, all of it ownsBilly Howerdel What Normal Was2.0pours massive energy into the production but that somehow pushed me away. forgot what this sound like basically. has that I'm Achingly Intelligent feelSinead O'Brien Time Bend and Break the Bower3.5PIG Baptise Bless & Bleed3.5total soft spot music for me. better than kmfdm themselves right now, the cooler deep voiced blasphemy guy. and he's an edgy lad of course but having "fuck me jesus" lyrics is always cool and always funnyDecapitated Cancer Culture1.0Rosa Anschutz Goldener Strom4.0Just Mustard Heart Under3.0Cola Deep In View2.5The Smile A Light For Attracting Attention3.0"Free in the Knowledge" is torture of the sort that restricts what I can rate this otherwise-gnice set of jamsGospel The Loser4.0Ibaraki Rashomon1.0De Arma Nightcall2.5The Web of Lies Nude With Demon3.5noisy duo play downer tunes and get hung up on the murky stuff you can do with a guitar. "The Wasp" is a killer tune heyyyyyMurderbait Nostalgia Like Cancer3.0long doomy goth epics, really good feeling. songs are pretty similar to each other thoughCrime of Passing Crime of Passing2.5lovely desperate goth sound but the songs are scraps, sounds like the whole album was written in one sesh. hunting knife = incredibleFontaines D.C. Skinty Fia2.0Meshuggah Immutable4.0Gnod Hexen Valley3.5GGGOLDDD This Shame Should Not Be Mine3.5Spike Hellis Spike Hellis3.5get spun round by ebm scaffoldwork n watch the tunes get built around you. loose and old-school, the ultra observant beatMammoth Weed Wizard Bastard The Harvest (as MWWB)3.0any point at which this album tries to rock out it loses me. they should amp up the goth elements even more imoVR Sex Rough Dimension4.0SOUL GLO Diaspora Problems3.5The Legendary Pink Dots The Museum of Human Happiness3.0more food for my dots compilation tape!!!!! as ever, some of this is luscious n weird psyche, some of it goths, some of it does a secret regrettable third thingLeatherette (ITA) Fiesta4.0on first impressions this is a messy n vibrant combination of hundreds of things I already love, with the added bonus of bearing the best album cover I have ever seenIKARUS (SWI) Plasma4.5very light but very deep jazzy zeuhl-prog. it's all in the textures and the crescendos; Ikarus have no time for heroic rock composition, absorbed as they are in gorgeous semi-improv gamesADULT. Becoming Undone3.5Cheer-Accident Here Comes the Sunset3.5what the heck is dream police ahahahah hahahhahahahahsjhdgjsdbjobkvshidojfjbvzyvuxygsdihn. killer record though, really seductive and Robert Wyatt-ish takes on complicated progressive musicThe Birthday Massacre Fascination2.0Voivod Synchro Anarchy3.5well-made and extensive tunes, lacking in a sense of relief or build. don't wanna punish a band for reusing their own iconic style but Voivod sound best here when they're not being as atonal as usual. still fairly brilliantNapalm Death Resentment is Always Seismic...4.0Hangman's Chair A Loner3.0reliably goth but a bit too simple. i like their sounds and moods, their songwriting compels way lessCult of Luna The Long Road North1.5Spoon Lucifer on the Sofa2.0Big Thief Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You2.0Exek Advertise Here3.5cool vibed-out zost punk with lots of horns and matter o' fact voices. motorik funk sarcasm we loveThank Thoughtless Cruelty3.5s'nice. starting to be the year of fun abrasive annoying yorkshire punkers lolRolo Tomassi Where Myth Becomes Memory1.5Black Country, New Road Ants From Up There3.5Cassels A Gut Feeling3.5noice prose-punk like a less pub bloke Art Objects/Blue Aeroplanes. another uk document of administrative misery but i've lived it and the theme never gets boringKorn Requiem2.0(DOLCH) Nacht2.5Bursting Into Gloom Coven3.0psyched out spacegaze doomnsludgers riding one long atmospheric tune, it's cool n sparse. follow the weedian 'n all thatVaura Vista of Deviant Anatomies4.0real goth rock is coming back and happy boys are running scaredVulk Vulk Ez Da3.0semi-epic semi-indie post-punk things going on here, got big Midnight Oil vibes and it also made me think of that 80s Stormy Six album in places. everything's brash and hopeful, apparently a little political (on the topic of Basque independence?) generally cool but can feel too arena for me cos im a little goblinNarbo Dacal Narbo Dacal3.5way better than I originally gave it credit for. well written proggy sludge with places to go, not afraid to go gothKyoto Kyoto Mirror Flexing Jaw3.5slightly jazzier end of uk post-punk, can feel indie-ish, Interpol-ish and noodl-y all in one song, in a totally different way to the way Squid can do thatBad Optics Pax Americana2.5can't get into. got them devolved cardiac touches but the lyrics clunk and everything's *pronouncedly* mocking from the vox to the riffs to the rhythms, to the point of inflicting misery louder than it satirizes the causeCollectif Incertain Analyze Non Standard4.0hahaha I massacred the album cover upload. do I look like I know what a jpeg is? do I look like I know what a jpeg is? do I look like I know what a jpeg is? do I look like I know what a jpeg is? Don Bolo BAHAMUT4.0this is really fucking cool. charismatic weirdo music that's not entirely out on the peripheries, very hooky and sweetHonningbarna Animorphs4.0Shapeshifter (JPN) Dark Ritual3.5Manual de Combate El Encierro Dentro del Encierro3.5very furious, seemingly semi-improv'd long form punk dirge, really killerCrime Cellar Night Lust3.5Deaf Club (USA-CA) Productive Disruption3.5Give My Remains to Broadway Beyond the Gates of Xouztoth3.0Desert Corbusier Walked Up and Down the Stairs, Searched the Buildi4.0insanely cool and ignored bit of mood goth, bass high up the nekk, nonpropulsive machine beats, chords used for scene setting, seemingly informed by poetic camp and by industrial. just really fucking good & only 12 minutes long. full title is "Walked Up and Down the Stairs, Searched the Building All Over" but sput had its fill2021 Kayo Dot Moss Grew on the Swords and Plowshares Alike4.5Dream Theater A View from the Top of the World1.0virtuosically constructed wall of completely unsurprising shit. these guys have hated music for at least ten yearsSquid Bright Green Field4.0irony's back to being the only shit that's funnyThe Offspring Let the Bad Times Roll1.0Unschooling Random Acts of Total Control3.0this is somewhere uh between art-punk, math-rock and post-hardcore which is to say the bridges are better than the verses. giggle. semi-talking vox, sarcastic style, some interesting ideas and twists. probably bumpable higher than this rating if I get into this kinda thing more, everything's solid2020 Zan-zan-zawa-veia fran tall ear5.0Napalm Death Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism4.5their genius just keeps building. goth rock deathgrind, absolutely contemporary in its anger. it's stupid that the best metal band of all time is a punk band but it also makes perfect sense and it's what you deserveEinsturzende Neubauten Alles in Allem3.5without a grasp of german this latest EN album just sounds gorgeous and wistful. past the lead single Ten Grand Goldie everything's placid and gently dramatic, musically speaking. 20 years on from Silence is Sexy and not much of the flair has been lostAksak Maboul Figures3.5strangely killer for a near 40 year reunion. playful avant-pop with not much skronking or pain, just the joy of music approached from a strange angle2019 Battles Juice B Crypts4.0Kim Gordon No Home Record4.0Fontaines D.C. Dogrel3.0promising. nice spread of indie family genres. needs more lyrics and less overhead cymbal crashing because i don't think the music wants to be hypnotic - keep me engaged! these guys could make an album that'd sit alongside Art Objects "Bagpipe Music" as one of the great, cool post-punk poet discs if they really wanted toThe Budos Band The Budos Band V3.0really fun extended psyche rock band, horns are the best bit. all instrumental, the tunes sound like they'd add up to a badass soundtrack for some 70s road movie but they're just not that fascinating on their ownSolange When I Get Home3.52018 Daughters You Won't Get What You Want1.0Whispering Sons Image2.5decent tribute act to the completely unexperimental end of new wave post punk minor key posingVOLA Applause of a Distant Crowd2.0IDLES Joy as an Act of Resistance4.0Death Grips Year of the Snitch3.5FACS Negative Houses3.5the songs don't do anything but contain this really lovely post-punk dub feel, lots of bass and echoing and snareless beats. pretty sensualAnna von Hausswolff Dead Magic3.5Cirith Ungol Witch's Game4.02016 A Tribe Called Quest We got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your service4.0The Dillinger Escape Plan Dissociation4.0Solange A Seat at the Table5.0FUBU's progression is A++. love the amount of song titles that start with "Don't", it's a good message in 2016Kayo Dot Plastic House on Base of Sky4.0Radiohead A Moon Shaped Pool2.0Deftones Gore2.0deftones don't really have anything left at this point. enjoy Chino and a good drummer doing their usual effortless stuff very lazilyDavid Bowie Blackstar4.02015 Napalm Death Apex Predator - Easy Meat4.0Magma Šlaǧ Tanƶ4.52014 Manic Street Preachers Futurology2.02013 Anamanaguchi Endless Fantasy2.5Primitive Man Scorn3.52011 Magazine No Thyself2.5Death Grips Exmilitary4.5Radiohead The King of Limbs4.02010 Daisuck and Prostitute Shinu Made Odori Tsuzukete3.5people seem to exaggerate the wildness of this release - the grooves stay focused, and the skronking over the top only awards D&P a little credibility as true, wild rock music, rather than pub rock, stadium rock, indie rock or what have you. perfectly listenable release with lots of enthusiastic playing and kraut-ish deviations2009 Manic Street Preachers Journal For Plague Lovers2.0Super Furry Animals Dark Days/Light Years2.52008 Magma Studio Zünd4.02007 Einsturzende Neubauten Alles Wieder Offen4.5Radiohead In Rainbows3.0Super Furry Animals Hey Venus!2.0Battles Mirrored4.0Bjork Volta4.0Manic Street Preachers Send Away The Tigers1.02006 Muse Black Holes & Revelations2.5Kayo Dot Dowsing Anemone With Copper Tongue5.0floaty and thoughtful, anemone rarely constrains itself to any type of rigid song structure 'cos there's endless beauty to be doodled in the margins. the tunes are cleverly arranged and you'll breathe in harmony with them through every well-earned interval, intense despite their looseness. one of those rare albums that never wears off me, no matter how familiar or recently played2005 Super Furry Animals Love Kraft2.5Jamiroquai Dynamite2.5big fan of their first two discs and I can't help but feel disappointed by the total reversal in lyrical stance. i guess i am late on the "Jay Kay doesn't care about environmental and social issues anymore" train by at least two albums but lemme say it anyway. music is still competent and catchy though, just not really superb or meaningfulThe Mars Volta Frances the Mute3.5Frantic Bleep The Sense Apparatus4.02004 Magma K.A. (Köhntarkösz Anteria) 3.5Mare Mare5.0killer little post-metal/sludge/prog cd, jams like mad, every song provides contrast to the last but suits the whole. just a miniature slice o' genius that never got reprisedZebulon Pike ...and Blood Was Passion3.0weird album. it's like stoner doom finger-exercise mastered loud. good playing, some good ideas, but 40 minutes of it wears ya down. transitions often make no sense apart from in a Fuck yeah, harmonic abandon! kind of way. that's OK. from here I think they delve in a more atmospheric directionKelli Ali Psychic Cat3.5Deathspell Omega Si Monvmentvm Reqvires Circvmspice1.0Napalm Death Punishment in Capitals3.0*screams the name of every track while the crowd giggles*Manic Street Preachers Lifeblood3.02003 Muse Absolution2.5SikTh The Trees Are Dead and Dried Out, Wait for Something Wild4.0Super Furry Animals Phantom Power3.5The Mars Volta De-Loused in the Comatorium4.5Type O Negative Life Is Killing Me2.5Radiohead Hail to the Thief4.5King Crimson The Power to Believe3.0i might think facts of life is the worst king crimson song. the lyrics here are tired in general, would've nice to hear this be instrumental aside from the mantra. musically fascinating as ever, it's KCBeyond Dawn Frysh3.5really pretty n gentle at times, lyrics often seem disconnected or deliberately oneliner-ish, maybe to keep you in a daze? Righteous Underground's beautiful in particular. love their earlier doom metal work too2002 Red Hot Chili Peppers By the Way2.0The Mars Volta Tremulant3.0Agalloch The Mantle2.02001 Radiohead Amnesiac4.5Jimmy Eat World Bleed American1.5Super Furry Animals Rings Around the World4.5Tool Lateralus2.5Unwound Leaves Turn Inside You4.5Tomahawk Tomahawk3.0Manic Street Preachers Know Your Enemy4.5this isn't a forgotten gems situation. it's the scrapbook of a lifetime. forget richie's final binder, this is where the good stuff lies, be it too REM-ish, too underbaked after Tell Me Yours's 64 channel symphony, nothing they had done before this point really prepares you for Wattsville Blues, their catchiest song. if only it had been the fulcrum for what happened next. the alternate reality history of the Manic Street Preachers2000 Linkin Park Hybrid Theory2.5Radiohead Kid A4.5Bjork Selmasongs4.5At the Drive-In Relationship of Command4.0Mudvayne L.D. 502.5Mansun Little Kix2.0Coldplay Parachutes2.5Deftones White Pony3.5King Crimson The ConstruKction of Light4.5Super Furry Animals Mwng3.0Einsturzende Neubauten Silence is Sexy5.0i swear i'm gonna review this thing someday. its probably the EN disc with the most english on it too, perfect for a monolinguo philistine like yours trulyShellac 1000 Hurts3.5hey man i wanna have a fight with you, and from the way that you behave it is clear to me that you'd like to have one [[[to-ooo]]] and that to-ooo is one of the cutest and unthreatening denouements ever and it makes me adore this album even after a bunch of filler1999 Korn Issues3.0Their best - the funky and adventurous rhythm section peaks on Issues, where each song distinguishes itself from the next with offbeat, effect-expanded sections amid all the distortion and bassclicking. (aside from Hey Daddy, a one chord jam only saved by hilariously explorative bass playing.) Very experimental in terms of nu-metal - interludes split the disc up into small acts. Lyrics are mostly terrible but what did you expect? The follow up, Untouchables, tips all the way over into lifeless radio rock - stop here, the quirkiest Korn CD.At the Drive-In Vaya4.5Mr. Bungle California5.0Super Furry Animals Guerilla4.5Gramme Pre Release4.01998 Super Furry Animals Out Spaced4.5evolution stops right here with me, my descendents will be fiiiiiiishhhhhhhThe Offspring Americana1.0fuck this garbage! i'm at war with your stupid band Manic Street Preachers This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours4.0everyone was so devastated that they learned to write pop songs but almost every example here is incredibly well done. the lyrical attack has necessarily changed and the biblical fury simmered off but the manics are still excruciatingly disappointed in you and that owns. The Everlasting is actually very boring though lolBauhaus Crackle: Best of Bauhaus3.0i mean i still adore Bela Lugosi's Dead and a few other tracks, the opener and Silent Hedges especially, but a lot of Bauhaus' old tunes reveal themselves to be pretty flimsy and lazy on repeat listens. very cool thoughSuper Furry Animals Ice Hockey Hair4.0Mansun Six4.5Nightstick Ultimatum4.0Slow, sludgy stoner CD with its scant lyrics adding up to a strong criticism of the G. W. Bush years. Menacing enough to not slip entirely into Sabbath worship. Contains three versions of the same song, certainly, but that song has a magickally simple riff which is welcome to repeat as many times as it pleases. Gets freaky in places with squalling saxophone or sound collage to accompany the drone-wall. Vox are not strong but nor are they continually present. Seems pretty obscure for some reason, I hope a few people look these guys up!Boris Amplifier Worship5.0sludge you can walk on, that doesn't bury you but carries you forwards. no glacial movement, no choruses, all perfectly judged and perfectly paced. huge, like the song says. this is a book that's also a five course meal and it stays in your memory forever1997 Super Furry Animals Radiator4.0Godspeed You! Black Emperor F♯ A♯ ∞4.0Radiohead OK Computer4.0Melvins Honky4.0Mansun Attack of the Grey Lantern3.0Art Zoyd Haxan4.51996 Super Furry Animals Fuzzy Logic3.0they have absolutely no idea what they're doing here but it's adorable. Mario Man and Fuzzy Birds are mega keepers and the "Fields of Industry... Death by Misery" line is immortalPantera The Great Southern Trendkill2.0Manic Street Preachers Everything Must Go3.0immensely important to the band and to the contemporary accompaniment of football coverage. I have come to dislike this album's style, although the opener and closer and Kevin Carter still hit like brickBurzum Filosofem1.51995 Mr. Bungle Disco Volante5.0a comprehensive multi-vitamin of music, always threatening, always seedy; the soundtrack for reading the writing on the toilet walls, in a good wayMoonspell Wolfheart3.5Meshuggah Destroy Erase Improve4.0Bjork Post4.0King Crimson THRAK4.5Radiohead The Bends3.0Faith No More King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime3.5A Guy Called Gerald Black Secret Technology3.51994 Tiamat Wildhoney4.0gonna tell future generations this is pink floyd "dark side of the moon"Manic Street Preachers The Holy Bible4.5quasi-perfect album lightly tanked by the brutality of "Yes"'s lyrics... I never know what the manics' angle on sex work, sex positivity etc. is cos on things like So Dead and this they sound 50% supportive, 50% hammer of the fucking witches. like if Diane Abbot was a rock bandBuzzov-en Sore4.0Robert Prince Doom II Soundtrack2.51993 Queen Latifah Black Reign3.5KMFDM Angst3.0Jamiroquai Emergency on Planet Earth4.0Manic Street Preachers Gold Against The Soul4.0bumped to a four outta five. I love the style so much more than the debut, where songs had to be seriously good to rise out of the murk; here, the production is fine and its down to the songs to disappoint you. Yourself and the closer have gradually revealed themselves to me as killer tunes and La Tristessa Durera has always been one of their top best tunes. Life Becoming a Landslide and From Despair are a bit pub rock1992 Faith No More Angel Dust3.0Manic Street Preachers Generation Terrorists3.0early Manics lives and dies on the power of the lyrics. here they are fucking lethal! otoh the only musician in this band who does anything is JDB which means there's too much room in these glam rock-finished tunes and not enough accompaniment to fill it1991 Mr. Bungle Mr. Bungle3.0Melvins Bullhead5.0get speechless as the combined vision of Crover and Buzzo unfurls its language-bending wiry riff glaciers all over the room. their best album. doom's best album.The Prodigy What Evil Lurks3.5Front 242 Tyranny (For You)3.5really solid neurobashing. giggle. they sound a little less exciting here than on the previous album to me, still super confident in their style but experiencing slight narrowing. or like a "thank you for buying our previous album" feeling throughout? after this one they change style a little cos NIN and industrial rock are eclipsing this kinda stuff in popularityMelvins Eggnog5.0Silverfish Fuckin' Drivin' or What... E.P.4.5big bad baby pig squeaaaaaaaaaal. kinda one of the top noise rock tunes, weirdly forgottenSlint Spiderland4.51990 Manic Street Preachers New Art Riot3.0New Fast Automatic Daffodils Pigeonhole3.0funky manchester indie stuff with good grooves. Fishes Eyes rules but a lot of the other tunes are lesser variations of it - some with bongos, some with psychy strumming - the same set of chords all the time and the dwindling lyrical content gets you bored by the saminess before longThe Sisters of Mercy Vision Thing2.01989 The Cure Disintegration3.0After Dinner Paradise of Replica5.0gorgeous and sneakily noisy, a deep warm well packed with toy instruments that get strummed once each on the album. a distant satellite of avant-progressive music with a playful nature but with all the spikes shorn off - just half an hour of genuinely beautiful nestbedding music, acoustically-lead with lots of comforting strings and woodwind. Haco's weirdly unknown on a lot of music sites and maybe this is the coolest thing she's on?Thinking Plague In This Life4.0In Sotto Voce In Sotto Voce3.5collects two EPs. first promises howling party EBM, much noisier and less piccolo than the bigger names, but we eventually settle into electro dirges with leather vox, that froggy glossolalic cyber punk feel. and they do it so well. don't expect chords changes this is strictly a procession directly forwardMelvins Ozma4.5Godflesh Streetcleaner4.0the core of my maladjusted being adapted to drum machineMy Life with the Thrill Kill Kult Kooler Than Jesus4.0The Young Gods L'eau Rouge4.51988 Sonic Youth Daydream Nation4.0Jean-Michel Jarre Revolutions4.0Skinny Puppy VIVIsectVI4.0Killing Joke Outside The Gate3.5messy synth rock magnum opus thing. Jaz's songwriting amps up like crazy but because the music now has stuff like credible transitions and variation it sounds fairly unlike Killing Joke. really inventive but with less power than usual - the mastering's bombastic on the synths and the guitars kinda fuck off (along with half the band members) and a lot of the lyrics are gigabrain stuff which can sometimes sound like pagan construction of a personal belief system and sometimes sound uh libertarian Queensryche Operation: Mindcrime3.0Front 242 Front By Front5.0i can't hold back the max score any more. the felines need to be fedWorld Domination Enterprises Let's Play Domination3.5searching for this album title is about equally likely to find you abrasive post-punk or a german guy playing an old strategy game in dosboxCabaret Voltaire Eight Crepuscule Tracks4.0Front Line Assembly State of Mind3.0A Guy Called Gerald Voodoo Ray3.5"rhapsody in acid" is a bit smashed-up, like an atonal bolero with squirt bass. the other three tracks own1987 Candlemass Nightfall4.5Severed Heads Bad Mood Guy4.5Melvins Gluey Porch Treatments4.0The Sisters of Mercy Floodland4.5Expo (JPN) Expo's Great International Strategy4.5corporate video package makers turning their nose up at the early high watermark of idiotic chiptuneAlgebra Suicide The Secret Like Crazy3.5omnibus of wry little punk poems, oh-so tempting to join in with her lazy-vicious judgments & too addictive not toCabaret Voltaire Code3.0The Neon Judgement Horny as Hell2.5stupid. a big pitfall of EBM, electro-industrial, sampler electro etc. is that the music is often stupid as sin. ok, this is sex-themed, meant to be fun, taken as tongue-in-cheek, not as self-cutting and philosophical as Deathconsciousness (this is a joke, don't take this seriously) awoo one of the songs here even has a teehee beep-the-swearword moment!!!!!!!!!!! you can't make music like this cool if yr sense of humour works like that. imo. generally the less lyricism you can hear and the less sampled guitar there is the better the tune is; title track is bestNumb Blue Light3.0is this the first thing they did? recorded 86-87? I love how there's still some scathingness to it but you can feel the rock arrangement tendencies bubblin' under; it's not "industrial rock", not yet, but it could be if reapplied to different instruments. badass EP, sometimes electro, sometimes industrial, sometimes holding hands with good KICKING throughoutThe Tear Garden Tired Eyes Slowly Burning4.0Front 242 Official Version3.0strange how they pushed Masterhit so hard but didn't think to make it all that interesting o:3 definitely my least fave early F242; they sheared off all the cool shitMark Stewart Mark Stewart3.0wow wow! wow! everything with Mark Stewart on it has this sexy dubby indignant mixture of feelings and all the songs wear out half-way through; something about his delivery drags teh perceived bpm down to 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000001Wiseblood Dirtdish2.5Front Line Assembly The Initial Command3.0Die Form Es Lebe Der Tod3.0Skinny Puppy Cleanse Fold and Manipulate3.5The Young Gods The Young Gods3.5Borghesia No Hope, No Fear3.5Tackhead Tackhead Tape Time3.5Click Click Wet Skin and Curious Eye4.0Ganzheit Hammer4.0Klinik Plague4.0Webcore The Captain's Table3.5strangely rapturous, strangely sensual, strangely indefinable! v strong music from non partisane genre origin. saxwave??????????????????????1986 Skinny Puppy Mind: The Perpetual Intercourse3.0Candlemass Epicus Doomicus Metallicus4.0Camberwell Now The Ghost Trade4.5Metallica Master of Puppets2.5KMFDM What Do You Know, Deutschland?3.0Severed Heads Come Visit The Big Bigot4.0synth-pop tunes positively cluttered with industrial thinking. everything's great, last three tunes seal the deal as an amazing album. not forthright and focused like Depeche Mode, rather more whimsical and messy like Edward Ka-Spel stuffMinistry Twitch3.0Fifth Column To Sir With Hate4.5inventive writing, good energy, "modern diseases" is unbelievable, essentialPortion Control Purge3.0Click Click Party Hate3.5Njurmannen Cerebral Player3.0Die Form Fetish3.5Keith LeBlanc Major Malfunction4.01985 Psyche Insomnia Theatre3.5fairly badass industrial synthpop with a lot of fad gadget influence, i think? combines the power of being fast and brash with the power of not really knowing how to resolve anything or finish the songs at all, entirely carried by exuberanceThe Sisters of Mercy First and Last and Always3.5Einsturzende Neubauten Halber Mensch5.0on Zeichnungen they master mood... on Halfy Menschy they learn how to hook you in. still madcap but bolstered with focused beats, they're more or less deploying the same instruments and allowing their natural eclecticism to distil them this time into more substantial songs. you can hear exactly what grew Silence is Sexy in the bones of this album, which I think's the best of their 80s workDie Krupps Entering the Arena3.0Cabaret Voltaire Drinking Gasoline4.5Killing Joke Night Time4.5Severed Heads City Slab Horror3.5Tuxedomoon Holy Wars4.5tuxedomoon are just so fucking good, just unhoning all my fave types of music and sticking the corners back on the sphere and being gorgeously weird and unstoppableAttrition Smiling, At The Hypogonder Club3.5i know what they think of meeeeeeee i shot john f kennedyyyyyyyyFront 242 Politics of Pressure4.5fave period of F242. Don't Crash is genius, once in a lifetime tune, which promises brilliance they don't really return to (but that's me being a post-punk nerd more than a rivetnerd and not a real criticism)Skinny Puppy Bites4.5some of the best gibbering, wailing and gnashing I've ever heard on record. really fascinating how sparse the beats are and how thickly this is wallpapered in unsettling samples. "The Choke" is killer, a ten star trackArt Zoyd Le mariage du ciel et de l'enfer4.5Bone Orchard Penthouse Poultry3.0The Neon Judgement The Neon Judgement 1981-19842.5Revolting Cocks No Devotion3.0Foetus Nail3.0Klinik Sabotage3.5Portion Control The Great Divide4.0Test Dept. T.D.A.: The Faces of Freedom 1 2 & 34.01984 Magma Merci2.0Iron Maiden Powerslave4.0Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds From Her To Eternity4.5Tones on Tail Pop3.0closing tune is so good it's worth enduring most of the silly stuff beforehand. but it is very silly stuffKing Crimson Three of a Perfect Pair2.5Hymn (FRA) Tired3.0really messy really enthusiastic french goth rock. retains its punk feel cos it's so blurry but also vampy and ambitiousThe Master Scratch Band Dégout3.5low-res sampler electro is slowly returning to its rightful place as my fave genre everDalis Car The Waking Hour4.0delightfully strange! you could call this synth pop if you ignored its whimsy and refusal to be locked into the simple rules of songwriting. wanders through some rarely heard melodies, performed on some playfully inspired synthesizer patches. peter murphy sings with personality as ever. it's amazing how many of these tunes feel like they've slid slightly out of time and it's all down to great arrangementAyizan Dilijans3.5silky smooth 'n jazzy. extended songs with hints of afrobeat: those guitar shapes, the interplay between front man and backing singers. read 'em up and saw them categorized as Haitian street-festival music so call me a dabbler cos I have nothing much to compare this with save Fela. just want to say that I really like itCabaret Voltaire Micro-Phonies3.0really cool messy punk electro, good bassline of quality but I just never got on with Blue Heat, just really claustrophobic and unenjoyable compared to everything else here. get the version with the 12" version of Sensoria, one of their defining moments, which mashes up the original song with Do Right n gets some good backup vox involved. total singalong stuffCirith Ungol King of the Dead4.0Trouble Trouble/Psalm 94.0Jean-Michel Jarre Zoolook4.0In Excelsis Ladder of Lust4.0furious gothic whirring with nary a backbeat to be found, just WADATDATDATDATDATDATDATDATDAT with a guy howling, guitars going where they like, super deconstructed, more disintegrated than any stupid album called disintegrationFront 242 No Comment4.5fucking iconic. first four tunes on this are imho flawless. hard hitting yet atmospheric, mega mega-future god band confidently hitting post on very long-form music and then making the repetition into blissPortion Control ..Step Forward2.5something about this one makes me impatient. the track order might be to blame? but I never get to land on this one, just keep orbiting. an ebm scrapbook with less atmosphere than it thinks tbh. some moments sound like carter USM lolAttrition The Voice Of God3.5with the accompaniment being so monomanic, Voice of God's back-and-forth vox justify this whole EP, strange and confident, EBM toad croaks to vampire opera register runs, nothing professional or refined about any of it (her vox are often leaden and out-of-tune but that rules.) accomps, drum machines and fairly inaudible samples can only cling smokily to the skirtingboards cos of the wailing sphere of force in the middle of the room. really compelling, don't know whyPortion Control Rough Justice3.0Borghesia Clones3.0Robert Görl Night Full of Tension3.0The Flowerpot Men Jo's So Mean3.5SPK Machine Age Voodoo3.0CTI Elemental 74.0Skinny Puppy Remission4.0Portion Control Go-Talk4.5Severed Heads Dead Eyes Opened4.51983 George Clinton You Shouldn't-Nuf Bit Fish3.5Einsturzende Neubauten Zeichnungen des Patienten O.T.4.5outdo most serious musicians with this one simple trick! wear leather trousers and decant a boxful of spanners! composers hate them!Cabaret Voltaire The Crackdown4.5Metallica Kill 'Em All2.5Killing Joke Fire Dances2.5just a relatively dud batch of songs here, less like themselves and more like other post-punkers. you can hear their drummer just get more and more powerful though, guy is never not hitting somethingNew Order Power, Corruption and Lies2.0Mark Stewart And The Maffia Learning To Cope With Cowardice3.5V-Effect Stop Those Songs3.0fun, punky, loopy avant-prog/no wave with some good sax skronks, groovier than many of their peers. vox aint that strong thoughLifetones For a Reason4.0killer weird dub for this heat and african head charge folks, you know who you areRichard H. Kirk Time High Fiction4.0blissed out, boomy n all dubbed up. more maxxed than Cabaret Voltaire but even less song-like. creative, diverse and wordlessly miserableSuicidal Tendencies Suicidal Tendencies4.0RAH Band Going Up3.0super slick funky arrangements, very musical n sweet, eventually starts to cloy thoughBourbonese Qualk Laughing Afternoon3.5bass guitar bounce under indust.electronics, project who got in the same time as cabaret voltaire got out? sorta spare and longing, beautiful moments, surreal groovesCybotron Enter3.5just rec'd this based on how good it was as electronic music based on the famous tune "Clear", rejam the album for old time's sake, half of it is new wave/post-punk. lol. even when I am trying not to rec based on the exact centre of my taste I still do :DDDDDDDDDDDD ps it still rulesPortion Control Hit The Pulse3.5portion control tipping over from silly synth experiments into silly EBM. tis fun. tbh I feel like I am on ignore on this website or I am going mad and irritating everyone, think I will leave for a long while byeePortion Control Simulate Sensual3.5Front 242 Endless Riddance4.0David Harrow The Succession3.0Pankow Throw Out Rite3.5Camberwell Now Meridian4.01982 Michael Jackson Thriller3.5George Clinton Computer Games4.0its so hairy and ridiculous. clinton's already a hype man for his ridiculously talented band at this point but the songs are just fucking drunk and brilliant. apart from track 3 which is absolutely torture hahahahahahahahahsabh bnd c xmkscDie Krupps Volle Kraft Voraus!3.5The Cure Pornography4.0Cocteau Twins Garlands3.5Front 242 Geography3.5i respect fat german party boys more than the prev sound-off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this album is gnice, though, still lots of punk and experimentation on it; easily more lush and maximal than DAF and with tougher beats than The Cabs. some of the tunes don't actually do anything though; Geography strikes me mostly as an exhuberant industrial scrapbook with a couple of hitsLaurie Anderson Big Science4.0Paralisis Permanente El Acto2.5punk rockish, goth-flavoured power pop act with lots of variety between the songs. fun and extravagant but too much rock'n'roll cliche tbhAloa Aloa5.0uwu through the roof 100! try the raspberry icecream track, no wonder prog died! no wonder prog died! no wonder prog died! no wonder prog died! edit: this is a terrible sound-off, what I meant to say was that Aloa make very creative synth, uncommonly harmonic without being film score crapSavage Republic Tragic Figures4.0great post-punk bass album with perfectly human vocals. the beats are enthusiastic with no robotic parts, layered with lotsa various African percussive tools. the riffs are tense and often avoid rock intervals which would release the tension. has a song called "Kill the Fascists!". very goodKilling Joke Revelations4.0they search for new chords on this one because they will never change their powerful repetitive formula so most of the songs feel suspended and weird, which is cool, but usually suspended-sounding music eventually resolves somewhere, whereas Revelations just chugs ahead and revels in the tension. side one in particular sounds strangely like Voivod at times for that reason, super murky, sloganeering and tritone obsessed. original bassist left the band after this one? or because of the critical reception to it? but it's the most experimental of the first three and I cherish it tbhUnknown Gender Exposé4.0incredibly funky and incredibly sarcastic and slightly no-wave damaged and that's beautifulPortion Control I Staggered Mentally4.0primitive, industrial, echoey n dalek-proclamative early electro. feels drum circle-esque, albeit performed on synths and accomps, where the beat is layered, and constant while melodies weave in and out like spontaneous chants. just as cool as cabaret voltaire and throbbing gristle, part of such an essential scene to me. (listed as EBM on some sites but EBM had a slow gestation process which this ain't part of - look at Alles ist Gut for how this could be stripped back into intentional dance music)Virgin Prunes ...If I Die, I Die4.0sexily, sneakily gothic. virgin prunes don't cling so hard to the fast punk rock formula; the rock's often pushed back behind fx, atmospherics, eclectic instrument choices and pointillist guitar scree. they can party but half of everything that transpires on If I Die is more mantra than songLydia Lunch 13.133.0Cabaret Voltaire 2x454.0Warning (GER) Warning3.5Tommi Stumpff Zu Spät Ihr Scheißer. Hier Ist: Tommi Stumpff4.51981 The Stalin trash2.5lost on me - gimmickless punk approaching hardcore, with probably the bulk of the meaning locked away in its lyrics. Not bad or anything, apparently pioneering in terms of being early Japanese hardcoreBlack Flag Damaged4.5Japan Tin Drum3.5Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark Architecture & Morality2.5Queen Greatest Hits4.0African Head Charge My Life in a Hole in the Ground3.5pushes dub towards the avant-garde - this isn't necessarily all chilled-out and smoky, sharp saxes and phasers will push you out of your narcotic mood. interestingly they settle for sub-bass in the era of brutal, loud post-punk bass clunksMinutemen The Punch Line4.0Plasmatics Metal Priestess3.0sweet spot stuff, heavy-for-1981, gimmicky (horny and ranty), goes kinda undermentioned on the topic of formative metal considering it's basically the same as maiden "killers", wendy's vox have this fun strangled punk approach. trashy as it needs to be tbh, has a strange way of prefiguring GWAR's most fun stuffCommando M. Pigg Commando M. Pigg3.5spiky and super-tight collection of post-punky new wave tunes with a great, dominating singer. includes the occasional adventurous time-sig but most of the songs are rooted in repetition so you'll groove along no problem. Tom Puss has an all-time simple bass muscle riffLiaisons Dangereuses Liaisons Dangereuses4.5every electronic subgenre specialist claims Los Ninos del Parque as a valid starting point for their thing and maybe they're rightKing Crimson Discipline4.0Cabaret Voltaire Red Mecca4.0This Heat Deceit5.0no album better decries our ceaselessly militarized lives than this one, Deceit, a tight and justifiably paranoid web of post-punk tension, laden with variously wry and grave observations about how we've been conscripted from birth. The best album I've ever heard.Simple Minds Sons and Fascination2.5Massacre (USA-NY) Killing Time2.5some people see this as a math-rock blueprint but it sounds to me like Fred Frith failing to attune himself to the 80s. like... there is cool stuff occurring here, but most of it has zero groove, some of the songs have no personality and just exist to stop. all the musicians were relatively young here but in places it still sounds like yer dad playing post-punk. maybe my complaint is that it sounds crap musically rather than crap sonically? the improvisation is definitely better than the form on this one23 Skidoo The Gospel Comes to New Guinea4.5Wall Of Voodoo Dark Continent4.0Seru Giran Peperina2.5very confident and jazz-tinged pop music, with an occasional passion to rock out rising to teh top of the soup. cheesy though, like the Argentinian Steely Dan. nice one if you can bear to listen to music this sophisticated and perfectionistThe Korgis Sticky George2.5in a world of synth and shoulderpads this might still be the cheesiest thing outta 1981. big pop song ballads with suffusive synth-washes EVERYWHERE. singer has the voice of an angel who used to be a cute little mousy. "Can't We Be Friends Now" is Beatles-ish. all the tunes are secretly great but it's impossible to admitMission of Burma Signals, Calls, and Marches4.0Einsturzende Neubauten Kalte Sterne4.0special shout-out to the closing track "Schwarz" which sounds like Blixa adlibbing over the dungeon music from Daggerfall. elder scrolls never dieFad Gadget Incontinent4.0a set of vicious and cynical lyrics enhances the dark, mocking atmosphere of Incontinent. all songs are uncommonly well-arranged and if they are a little long, any repetitious feeling is sidestepped by the large and assorted arsenal of instruments their accompaniments bring to bear. underneath all the trappings, this is essentially good pop-rockThe Specials Ghost Town / Why? / Friday Night, Saturday Morning4.0one of the best singles of all time and yet it contributed to the band's demise. ghost town's a musically adventurous tune, deservedly famous, speaking volumes despite its vanishingly short set of lyrics. the b-sides have their own stories to tell and don't falter eitherOingo Boingo Only a Lad2.0Big Boys Where's My Towel/Industry Standard3.0interesting punk act with some slow, grooving tendencies. vocalist has lots of personality which enhances the great songs and smooths over the moments where the band over-reaches (there are certain tracks where the Big Boys' lack of musical know-how betrays itself, but never disastrously.) Complete Control is a bit of a dip in an otherwise fun album which stands up for itselfScientist (JAM) Rids the World of the Curse of the Vampires2.5Siouxsie and the Banshees Juju4.5im listening to this at xmas, trick or treat baby The Raincoats Odyshape3.5gets lumped into the post-punk dub-reggae axis but is far more reminiscent of folk and indie rock. really delicate and thoughtful and feminist - very easy to get lost in all the wanderlust because it's not a catchy record, but it IS greatly rewardingKilling Joke What's THIS For...!4.0most solid album with their early sound. side one has the good stuff, four stars for that alone, while the second side just idles along, with tunes running out of lyrics and refusing to change or end. that's fine, though, cos at their best the mood they summon up kinda renders variation unnecessary. i mean im a huge fan of Adorations off of Thousand Suns, and an Outside the Gate apologist from hell, but the first four tunes on What's THIS For are still essential to me, especially the tune "Butcher"Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft Alles Ist Gut4.5Public Image Ltd. Flowers Of Romance5.0Wha Ha Ha Shinutokiwa Betsu4.0bored genius supergroup slotting together experimental pop and jazz with jejune attempts at predicting the game soundtracks of the future. lots of humour and comfy momentsNeonbabies Neonbabies3.0witty, punky NDW with a bizarre mix, all suffused in saxomophone and lead by a great, confident singer. their cover of Big Spender is perfectly Residential. songs are short and scattershot and as a result some cuts do feel a little inessentialRobert Fripp Let The Power Fall3.5gorgeous, and yet imagine what this album could be with just a little dirt or atonal naughtinessMalaria! Malaria!3.5simple n hypnotic n punky. Verfurhung makes the best impression imoP-Model Potpourri3.0magazines typically call music like this "spastic" or "herky-jerky" but i consider that really rudeGang of Four Solid Gold3.5Brian Eno and David Byrne My Life in the Bush of Ghosts3.5Iron Maiden Killers3.0Robert Fripp The League of Gentlemen3.0the vocal clips threaten that the album may be something more challenging and radical than what it is - an instrumental combo featuring Fripp's unique way of playing guitar whose basic compositions get whisked into identical pudding by his tendency to lean on those equidistant note math riffs. "Cognitive Dissonance" is at least noisy and strange, would fit on any Crimso albumAdolescents Adolescents3.5Wipers Youth of America4.0Social Climbers Social Climbers4.0First four tunes are some of the best mutant-funk/post-punk tunes ever put to record. Quality tails off from there but the band never loses tension.Art Objects Bagpipe Music3.5at times garage-y, at times funky rock accompanying good observational poetry. for velvet underground fans? some of the tunes are dud but the lyrics never falter. Who Switches Off the Light should be considered a classic of post-punk but this CD seems to have been brushed aside. Passengers of Fortune is deservingly pretentious - you'll agree it couldn't have been done in a humble manner. a weird little gemDun (FRA1) Eros4.0Lethe (NLD) Lethe3.0nice instrumental prog LP splitting teh difference between pastoral woodwind things and jazzy blues rock things. just comfy stuff for when yr an elf, not challenging beyond a few jazzy flourishesFischer-Z Red Skies Over Paradise2.5A Certain Ratio To Each...3.5wonderful rhythm-obsessed mutant funk from a time when most were more taken by the motorik beat. gets sparse as heck at times - the beat is often accompanied only by resty funk bass and trumpet squawks, and occasionally by sussuration alone. that's a good thing, thoughSaccharine Trust Paganicons4.0Stern Meissen Reise zum Mittelpunkt des Menschen3.5prog rock awash with synths of a thousand colours. the composition sounds like it took a lot of work, although some stretches suffer from overly regular changes and the search for something as babby's-first-prog as, you know, a cadence, amongst all the jazzy and disney-esque chord digressions. certainly doesn't fuckin sound like Camel, though, which is a giant plus - closer to the ELP-loving Italian school of prog but with a little more time for funky drum & bassy directions. impressiveArt Bears The World As It Is Today5.0utterly scathing commentary on the nature of the modern world set to wonderfully floaty arrangements, incidental music performed mostly on acoustic instruments with a free, atonal bite to them. Dagmar's voice is astounding and while her delivery might initially be off-putting it's hard to imagine the lyrics working properly if they were pronounced any less sternly. Frith and Cutler are superb accompanists but we all already knew thatEinsturzende Neubauten Kollaps4.5the sounds of deep frustration and cabin fever unleashed on a scrapyard of possible instruments. side A is anger put to record, while B is reserved for exhaustion. their most chaotic and noisy work yet not totally without structure - you can see the industri-pop arrangement of later EN albums shining through on side B. if I ever come to understand more of the German language you might well see me bump this to a perfect scoreFranco Battiato La voce del padrone2.0insubstantial attempt to switch to new wave by an old Italian master with a lot of great experimental proggy albums under his belt. the songs are too cheerful and mostly just breeze by - not exactly the best pop album of 1981Eskaton 4 Visions3.5one of them zeuhl albums, zeuhl being a genre term for a very specific brand of spiritual prog fusion with hypnotic bass and orchestral movements, which tries to hit all the highs that Magma reach without really being willing to indulge in all the crescendo work to get to those points. still, the album is great fun and accessible - just follow the bass if you get lost, it's spectacular!Glenn Branca The Ascension4.0Tuxedomoon Desire4.5strangely orchestral, culturally-knowing post-punk wanderings sitting just slightly askew in teh gap between postcards of holiday destinations and how they actually are - an album that giggles at modern culture and makes me giggle along with it. perfectly strangeSoft Cell Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret3.5over time i've become charmed by his voice. kinda the vox version of trans keyboard smashingAgent Orange Living in Darkness2.0Yellow Magic Orchestra Technodelic4.5ignore my previous soundoff this is incredible Giuni Russo Energie2.5a really fantastic and well-trained singer crying out for more interesting song arrangementsSuburban Lawns Suburban Lawns3.0very smart new wave where some of the tunes have that first-LP Devo playfulness while others... don't. the female vocalist is a joy to listen to, I just wish the songs had received more compositional attention.Eider Stellaire I3.0compulsive zeuhl in its strong moments, close to disco when it lapses into lazinessMartha and the Muffins This is the Ice Age3.0check this fun little new-wave album for the great track "Casualties of Glass"! a lot of the more earnestly pop-oriented writing on this album doesn't measure up to the moodiness of that song but it is all very well performedFehlfarben 33 Tage in Ketten2.5at their best when they play guitar-heavy, minor key songs, all angular like you're witnessing the song just before the scaffolding comes off. Fehlfarben can sneak subtle synthy elements into their music when they're trying; when they're not the music is a little too generic to bear. check Hutschlager and Schlaffos NachtsExperiments With Ice Experiments With Ice3.5elements of synth pop, mutant funk vie for dominance on this playful disc. relatively rare, hopefully you can buy this in mp3. band is british but the sillier arrangements smack of continental Zolo, if you really think that's a genre dudeThe Flying Lizards Fourth Wall4.0lots of sites list this as an avant-garde album, which may or may not be the case, but what it sounds like is electic rock, with 50s and 60s influences as well as the funk&dub tips typical of the era, except rendered fragile and floaty, flirting with the fairground atmosphere in places, and elsewhere perforated by loud interjections of seemingly inappropriate instrumentation. some of the shorter pieces are gorgeously ambient & a bit "Frippertronic". it's up to you to decide whether the Flying Lizard sound is refreshing or just too out-of-left field for you but Fourth Wall is very definitely worth a listen.Von Lmo Future Language2.5this is actually really dumb, both lyrically and in terms of monomaniacal composition, with bass, sax and guitar all playing the same note so continuously that when you get a cheesy-ass rock'n'roll noodle solo over the top of something you're thankful for the variety. zero introspection, zero respite, basically a Motorhead album in a silver boilersuit.. On the other hand the frontman is a high-energy psyche lunatic who shouts LONG LIVE HEAVY METAL at the start of the first song which, when in certain moods, might make "Future Language" an essential classic at that moment in timeArt Fleury The Last Album3.0inconsistent but all the more fascinating for it. Art Fleury are talented and expressive, pairing *that* gorgeous new wavoid bass tone with all manners of washes and atmospheres. Just makes me wish I knew Italian, I'm very sure there's more layers of treasure in all the gibbering... too bad that the long songs Lilith and Berlin Charlottenburg release the tension by being unhelpfully conventionalFactrix Scheintot3.5listen if you want to relive your memories of working in an abbatoire in a half-dreaming state. a psychedelic haze separates you from all the bleakness and squalling and depravity. drum machines. unmentionable lyrics. bizarre, possibly guitar-sourced noises that sound like automated slicing implements. but this record is not harsh on the ears, just on the psycheAu Pairs Playing With A Different Sex4.0addictive, snaky bass serves as a platform for some perfectly true lyrics about exhausted women carry "Playing With a Different Sex". each tune drills its message home through post-punk-ish repetition and confident singing - don't expect great composition or variation, there's more important treasureClock DVA Thirst3.0frustrating, really - the band are clearly great at assembling sounds in an artistic, expansively atmospheric manner but as soon as they start rocking out it descends perilously close to conventionality... maddeningly, they can switch gears in the space of a tape splice. bat these dudes with a newspaper every time they slip in a four chord loop and it all works out finePeter Hammill Sitting Targets2.5Crass Penis Envy3.5lyrical tour-de-force, not optimistic feminism but rather a litany of society's atrocities that show little sign of going away. most of the accompaniment doesn't impress, but Systematic Death is a 5/5 song and a punk classicNekropolis Musik aus dem Schattenreich3.0some distinctly gothic ambient cuts, equal time dedicated to simple drones and rock-driven crypt grooves. there isn't a wrong note on this album but that's because there aren't all that many notes at all - very simplistic music! can't beat the moods thoughUK Decay For Madmen Only3.5a good chunk of gothic bedrock here, with waily, proclaimative vocals and guitar tones you thought you'd only ever hear on Big Black records. not every song is actually good but the songs swagger and all the accompanists get their moment in the black sunTolerance Divin3.5i really adore this LP but, uh, nothing happens for the entire length. lots of synth squirts and radio-sourced sounds as rendered in boomy layers of echo floss. call it a precursor to ambient techno and to IDM if you like. album sounds like a series of bubbles bursting into a classic effects unit. has just enough of an industrial edge to bestow a questionable dark natureMother Gong Robot Woman3.5conceptual musickal story about a robotic maid who awakens to the unfairness of the world. Mother Gong is a continuation of the 70s band Gong with some Hawkwind guys added to the mix and they come up with a sort of Gong-lite sound with a little Funkadelia stirred into the cauldron. the lyrics are harsh and blunt but the music is a little too safe in places. weirdo curio you probably need to hear anywayMinimal Man The Shroud Of2.5good tempting slice'o'industrial but it feels a bit tribute-ish, almost a sampler for more defining bands as recreated by a loyal fan, uhhh. would have greatly preferred longer tracks with enough time to build in intensity - shouting rarely achieves a powerful industrial atmosphere in and of itselfShiny Men Again!3.0it's one of those post-punky puzzle prog albums which is compositionally interesting and relatively varied BUT it has those stupid arch lyrics which wreck everything in the entire genre (f.e. Cardiacs, Diagram Bros, et al as well as, in a larger scope, a good swathe of modern avant-garde rock;) can't you say something which isn't dumb as shit? still nice as an art exercise, but imagine a record this inventive accompanying biting protest lyricsFred Frith Speechless3.0Frith backed up with some RIO stalwarts here, but it's easy to question how much effort really went into the songwriting - many of the pieces descend into free improv without bothering to first establish any sort of lure, or sometimes into rather makeshift Beefheartianism in dire need of vocals to pin everything together. progarchives.com, at some point, started throwing every slightly abrasive piece of music into their "Avant-prog" section after one cursory listen and you can point the blame at albums exactly like this one - musos with no plan heading into the studio and treating us to their most annoying tendencies. still, thanks to their sheer talent some cuts are, irritatingly, fascinatingBPEOPLE BPEOPLE3.0god, if only the whole disc was as good as "Can Can't"... they try, though, and their particular style is more expressive than the typical post-punk fare, featuring walking bass, rocky sax and even the occasional solo. BPEOPLE are one of a squillion short-lived bands of the era who demonstrated a quick flash of brillianceYello Claro Que Si4.0incredibly moody and peculiar for an album by a "pop" band, this! Claro que Si is one of Yello's earliest albums, released on the Residents' Ralph record label for a reason, it retains a touch of the alien - the whole album is saturated in peculiar (and, at the time, maybe revolutionary and astounding) synth noises, sculpted into one perfectly catchy tune after another. unlike Kraftwerk, Yello do not shed their sense of playful rhythm, nor their cultural attachment to nearby forms of music. much more of a world record than the dull Computerwelt from the same year!Half Japanese Loud2.0Chris and Cosey Heartbeat2.5Lindsay Cooper Rags4.0a mini-Henry Cow reunion takes place on this disc, Frith and Cutler among those accompanying Cooper's wonderful composition. i've always found the way that Cooper can use incredibly modern compositional tricks to evoke folk and everyday dystopia in the modern world and this is a fine example of that, being a tale concerning exploited textile workers, half demonstrative political song, half film score, all gorgeous and thoughtfulMagma Rétrospective Vol. 1 & 25.0Two fantastic progressive rock epics back to back! the live sound quality is fine, it sounds like a long form alien hymnal symphony etc, the P-Funk of prawg... MDK has been previously recorded as a studio album but I think the band line-up here is different enough that each version is its own experienceMaterial Memory Serves2.5there's some good funky, adventurous music here, but the drummer is having no truck with it, mostly just playing basic rock beats, totally out of character with the, uh, material being played which craves a more minimal, syncopated rhythm - the player sounds very skilled and solid, just not at all willing to allow the rest of the band any space, it's all metronomically hammered hi-hats all day which makes it feel way too fast and ultimately fucks everyone else's efforts in a profound and unsalvageable mannerThe Nits Work3.0these guys have that Beatles-ish talent to paint a complete picture using very simple arrangements and a set of lyrics stripped down to the essentials. the back to basics approach can miss heavily since all the songs go verse-chorus-verse-chorus forever, many receiving no further compositional attention, but about half of these songs are catchy and charming anywayRenaldo and the Loaf Songs for Swinging Larvae2.5now here's an act that finds their own work absolutely hilarious. there are some decent extra-terrestrial tape experiments and fields of sound on the tape but regrettably there is an equal amount of tweeter-destroying helium-enhanced folk nonsense songs, all too short to evoke much besides annoyance. everyone who said The Residents got boring when they started showing signs of ambition would be perfectly at home with this... stuffMidnight Oil Place Without A Postcard3.5essentially just rock with a Clash-y twist, but the songwriting is fairly nuts, guitarists approaching the tunes with a large amount of harmonic abandon! album starts slow but the last four tracks pay off wellMedium Medium The Glitterhouse3.5tense and snappy post-punk funk from somewhere in England, as usual, Medium Medium have an ultra-solid rhythm section and a saxophonist who adds all manner of flourishes without pouring on too much cheeseWasted Youth Reagan's In3.0cool and energetic punk rock but their lyrics are mean i feel a bit upsetRed Krayola with Art and Language Kangaroo?3.0a lot of the tunes with rockier composition undermine what could be a more powerful statement. at its best Kangaroo reminds of both Crass and Art Bears; if only they'd had a less cavalier approach to the songs!Tom Tom Club Tom Tom Club3.5danceable and smart electro-funk from half of teh Talking Heads. it's a style that, while light, is experimental and eccentric enough to not get dull, but which doesn't exactly tip over into the shambolic brilliance of Parliament/Funkadelic. they tend to stick to one groove and rely mostly on vocals and layering to create variationFamily Fodder Schizophrenia Party!2.5daft as hell toy new wave stuff where they're not even trying apart from on the first song, i was kinda into it tbhJon and Vangelis The Friends of Mr Cairo2.5Rip Rig and Panic God3.5brilliant but bitty, lotsa raw potential and talent but a not-entirely tantalizing scrapbook of an albumBlacklight Braille Electric Canticles of the Blacklight Braille4.5MX-80 Sound Crowd Control4.0Was (Not Was) Was (Not Was)3.5Fela Kuti Coffin for Head of State4.5The Cure Faith3.5Appliances Paranoia Rap4.0holy shit this is actually from 1981? it even has a classic "and ya don't stop" and the funk stomp is unbelievableTrouble Funk Super Grit3.5title track is mesmerizing, xtra-fun, xtra-parliamentary go-go funk with a wonderful sense of humourGrauzone Eisbaer4.0Kraftwerk Computer World4.01980 Talking Heads Remain in Light4.0Killing Joke Killing Joke4.5before they were ultra-heavy they were adorable and gothy punky and they had some serious tunes, played without feeling busy. definitely feels like a response to those first two Banshees albums, but so much stuff from this period does that it can't really be a criticism. plus it's just hooks all the way through and Killing Joke's DIY minimal approach stays with me more than the next three albums where they practise being heavy and maximal Cabaret Voltaire Three Mantras4.5my fave thing about this album/ep/thing is that people here, discogs and RYM interchangeably call both of the tunes "Eastern Mantra" or "Western Mantra" so working out which side they are actually complaining about is coinflip cityCirith Ungol Frost and Fire3.0happily this is much more insecure than troo metul has any right to be. dominated by loud bass and confused emotions conveyed through some seriously frustrated goblin vox. the instrumental on the end is nothing special, though - stick to the bits that metalheads dislikeLydia Lunch Queen of Siam3.5really good gothy-poetic undermining of songstress jazz, lydia's a legend. total mood record. without knowing anything about any of the other performers i can say they're all pretty snapped too, they have the most sarcastic lurch possibleThis Heat Health and Efficiency5.0Peter Hammill A Black Box3.5fogwalking is genius, hammill staying current as a musician and being insanely cool and slightly goth, rest of the album has nice momentsAttic [UK] All Plans Exist2.5gawd I love uk post-punk, new wave, industrial, art-punk dance-punk dub-punk everything but you can't hide an unimaginative song with sneering vox alone. Attic wanted to be cool but too much convention gets in, too much Sparks gets in. check the first tune though, its outro is really good, no problem saying that's a killer tuneCabaret Voltaire The Voice of America4.51979 This Heat This Heat5.0P-Model In a Model Room4.0high energy cutesy riffing n seasick organ in weird keys, punky n silly, have the first half of this album totally memorized and its fun to have in yr head. also cyclotron has 2'd this so you know it's essentialJoy Division Unknown Pleasures4.5Art Bears Winter Songs5.0i think it's beautiful that these very well-trained musicians can construct brilliant rock miniatures from spite and incidental music techniques alone. that's all you need baby. the compositions are dramatic and urgent and Chris Cutler's one of the best Fuck You drummers of all time. plus the whole time you feel like you're being skewered by the lyrics, especially as delivered by Dagmar's uniquely piercing voice. Six out of fiveHenry Cow Western Culture4.0Cabaret Voltaire Mix-Up4.01978 Cabaret Voltaire Extended Play4.0one of the most forthwrite 'n crucial instructions in music: make as much shit as you can before you fall prey to knowing what you're doingDevo Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!4.5Jean-Michel Jarre Equinoxe4.0Art Bears Hopes and Fears5.0bleak as hekk but so original they've tempted you out of the act. In Two Minds is this band's one attempt at a rock epic and they still make you navigate entire minutes of augmented chords before you receive any form of release. i respect thatMagma Attahk2.5Devo Mechanical Man4.0from back when they liked music. i say this with love lol1977 John Greaves, Peter Blegvad and Lisa Herman Kew. Rhone.4.5this pisses me off so much and I don't like it at all, it's too coy, giggle, and the music is fucking incredibleParliament Funkentelechy Vs. the Placebo Syndrome5.01976 Van der Graaf Generator World Record4.0Magma Üdü Ẁüdü3.0Marijata This Is Marijata3.5super loose afrobeat with a groovy rock element. lead singer shrieks like crazy, all the instruments are slightly out of tune with each other, everything's based on a two-chord jam (although the final track has significantly more arrangement), the brass lines are effective without being slick, plenty of solos and good drumming and just all around a really good time1975 Parliament Mothership Connection4.5Gentle Giant Free Hand4.0Kraftwerk Radio-Activity4.0Henry Cow In Praise of Learning5.0for a 37 minute album there's a staggering amount of serious writing here. Living in the Heart of the Beast is an extended piece that barely repeats a phrase until its call-to-action coda, preferring to spiral into mockery and tension adding up to one long chromatic nightmare. elsewhere Beautiful as the Moon / Terrible as an Army with Banners is as sweet as can be. and the words? the words are undeniableSlapp Happy and Henry Cow Desperate Straights3.51974 King Crimson Red5.0always impressive how these guitar skronkers with their dangerously overdriven bass tone have such a melodic sweet spot; they're restrained here compared to Larks and a kinda paranoid melancholy atmosphere pervades everything. not much singing but that means you have to sing along more urgently when the time comesMagma Köhntarkösz5.0Robert Wyatt Rock Bottom4.5Magma Ẁurdah Ïtah3.0The Residents Meet the Residents4.0King Crimson Starless and Bible Black4.5Fela Kuti Alagbon Close5.0great place to get on board with Fela and his band, famed for their super-tight mesh-work of muted guitar, reaching bass and inspired drumming which rocks without at all resembling rock drumming. political, energetic and important, Alagbon Close's grooves seem to elevate the listener to a higher state of awareness, not in a narcotic way so much as a paramilitarizing one. the release I bought comes packaged with "Why Black Man Dey Suffer", an earlier LP where Ginger Baker collaboratesGentle Giant The Power and the Glory4.01973 Herbie Hancock Head Hunters5.0*beatboxes the turn-around from chameleon* DAAA-NAAA tak taka dobom do KLAK DAAA-NAAA tak takatabokatadukatadom KLAK DAN-DAAA DAN-DAAA wana DANAWAMAAW MAAAAW dub dubudumMike Oldfield Tubular Bells4.5Magma Mekanïk Destruktïẁ Kommandöh5.0King Crimson Larks' Tongues in Aspic5.0king crimson when they weren't afraid to be unapproachable or idiosyncratic. the music boils and spills over, one instrument sprawls into the space of the next and everything gets primal dead quick. they can jam, they can write beautiful little ballads and they can create landscapes which almost deprive you of a place to stand. Larks part one is possibly their best work1972 Genesis Foxtrot4.5prog genius. best thing about Genesis is their skill with quiet passages; most bands in this vein try to keep it solid but these guys'll break a song down to almost nothing if it helps. Phil Collins can drum like crazy but he's silent for about half this album because composers understand dynamics 'n stuff. Get 'em Out by Friday I think is the overall best Genesis tuneYes Close to the Edge4.5Gentle Giant Three Friends4.0Jethro Tull Thick as a Brick3.51971 Genesis Nursery Cryme4.0Magma 1001° Centigrades4.5gorgeous avant jazz with a seriously pissed off gnomeVan der Graaf Generator Pawn Hearts4.5Black Sabbath Master of Reality2.0Gentle Giant Acquiring the Taste4.0Can Tago Mago4.51970 Van der Graaf Generator H to He, Who Am the Only One4.0King Crimson Lizard3.0Magma Kobaïa4.01969 King Crimson In the Court of the Crimson King2.5
Bands: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
