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User
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Soundoffs 238
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Last Active 12-23-19 9:27 pm
Joined 09-16-14
Review Comments 22,503
| July 2017 resumé
I've skipped a lot of stuff this month. But on the other hand, not a whole lot of worthwhile records were released. So as of right now, I can't say, whether this month has been as discouragingly weak as June, but it sure doesn't seem to be extensively fruitful. As always, if you're reading any of this, write "I like your big hairy cat, mate." in the comment section. This is no best-of list, it is just a bunch of records I've heard, that were RELEASED this month. Not the ones I've heard this month, but ones that were RELEASED this month that I've heard. Therefore, as the time goes, I'll be adding more items on the list, since I listen to stuff constantly. By the way, the names occasionally written under the comments are titles of songs that I recommend. If there are none written, it's either because I didn't like enough of them or because I can't point out a highlight. And now a score guide: 10/9 - 5; 8 - 4.5; 7 - 4; 6 - 3.5/3; 5 - 2.5; 4 - 2; 3 - 1.5; 2/1 - 1 | | 35 |  | Laibach
Also Sprach Zarathustra
Yeah, I don't get it. 5/10 | | 34 |  | Impure Wilhelmina
Radiation
This album certainly has charisma and songwriting worthy of a praise, but there is just that something that keeps me from enjoying it fully. I can't put a finger on it, but it is just there. Or maybe it's a lack thereof. Whatever that 'of' may be. 6/10
Great Falls Beyond Death, Torn, Meaningless Memories, Murderers | | 33 |  | The Americans
I'll Be Yours
Quite a standard fare, decently put together, well played, fantastically sung and nicely arranged. It's not groundbreaking or anything, but it is an enjoyable little ride. 6/10
The Right Stuff, Stowaway, Bronze Star | | 32 |  | Plagues (Noise)
Death Is Salvation
Death is indeed the only possible salvation from this mess. It's the single most purposefully unbearable thing I've heard all year. 6/10 | | 31 |  | Dame
Dame
Underproduced, but rapid. DIY-like, but not without its charms. Brief, but striking. It's not a perfect EP, but it is also quite inoffensively decent. Fine enough to hear and not be annoyed. 6/10
Lines | | 29 |  | Afterbirth
The Time Traveler's Dilemma
For as intriguingly heavy the instrumentation is, the vocals are just atrocious. 5/10 | | 28 |  | Sun of the Sleepless
To The Elements
Quite a dismal little piece, it definitely has its moments, but overall lacks some sort of zing that would sway me over into loving it. Too many Ambient interludes, I guess. 6/10
Motions, Where In My Childhood Lived A Witch, partially Phoenix Rise | | 27 |  | HAIM
Something To Tell You
Weirdly enough, I have nthing to tell you. It's really boring and forgettable at the most disappointing level. Just a really dreary record. 5/10 | | 26 |  | Profundis Tenebrarum
Disciples of Venomous Death
A messy, over-the-top Death/Black Metal, with some boring Ambient detours thrown into the mix. Nothing special, but fun if you look for a mindless Death/Black Metal craziness. 6/10
Exsanguination Smell, Beyond This Tormenting Life | | 25 |  | Public Service Broadcasting
Every Valley
While not redefining the genre of Post-Rock (cause nobody can do that anymore), PSB still came through with an adveturous and visceral record that is not shy to show off its influences, from GY!BE (All Out) to some Manic Street Preachers like vibes (Turn No More). And while their use of vocals is limited, it is in no way distracting. Overall, it's quite a landscapic album with some nice sociological undertones to it, from what I can surmise; message of human reliance on natural resources, both as a tool of progress and as a means of employment, and all that comes with it. It has a pretty homely feeling of those closed mining communities in England. And that's just a tip of album's charm. 8/10
Every Valley, The Pit, People Will Always Need Coal, All Out, Turn No More, They Gave Me a Lamp, Take Me Home | | 24 |  | Bullion
Blue Pedro
Just a fun little Electronic adventure. Its instrumentation is rad and energy dancy. It has all the things that would make up for a good and fun Electonica album, and that comes from a guy, to whom a trajectory of a vast majority of Electronic albums is right over the head. 7/10
Blue Pedro | | 23 |  | City of Caterpillar
Driving Spain Up A Wall
One outstanding thing about this EP is that it makes 16 minutes flow by like 6. That's how dense and compressed this EP is. The first track, starting off slowly and building up intrigue, so that it can later spill a whole bucket of rapid fire brutality on you. The second, much shorter, still displaying the same amount of patience. It doesn't break into the same monstrous musical beat down, but is still quite pleasant instrumentally. So, for what it's worth, thi two-piece EP intrigues and excites enough to raise your expectations of what is possibly to come. 7/10 | | 22 |  | Tchornobog
Tchornobog
The most hellish, dismal and monstrous record this year, no doubts about it. However, with its demonic nature, it also quite quickly becomes almost unlistenable. It's an extremely tedious and overlong hell-crap-fest that pretty much gives you nothing more than pain in your ears. 6/10 | | 21 |  | Neun Welten
The Sea I'm Diving In
While vocally quite weak, this album is musically exquisite. All the emotion and feeling of abandonement you can surmise from the riveting musicianship. And in that sense, the vocals start to make sense. They are as if a compressed and sophisticated version of the music. While all the instruments are blasting with torture, the vocals signal that with their quietness and patience. It's not for everybody, but if you manage to get throguh that unlikely pairing, you might just stumble on something wholly beautiful. 7/10
The Dying Swan, Nocturnal Rhymes, Lorn, Human Fail, In Mourning | | 20 |  | Tyler, the Creator
Flower Boy
I guess I'm not as head over heels for this one because of the rather sleepy and unadventurous music and mostly the delivery too. While the lyrics reach from quite odd to Tyler's usual dose of down-to-earth confessional, the music they are set to, again, is just not always that interesting. Sorry. 6/10
See You Again, I Ain't Got Time | | 19 |  | The Murlocs
Old Locomotive
King Gizzard meet the 60s Psychedelic Pop. This album has some nice melodies set to some pleasantly distorted production and gently nostalgic instrumental sound. It's definitely odd to a certain extent, but it is also a great deal of fun, albeit not as wild as their previous album. Still, just another great addition to this new wave of Australian Lo-Fi Psychedelic renaissance. 8/10
Empty Nester, Waiting to Rise, Violent Dreams, Far From Fine, Wondrous Star, Oblivion, Domino Effect | | 18 |  | The Fall
New Facts Emerge
Do you remember that scene from Walk the Line, where Johnny was so fucked up, he couldn't play properly? And the band kept playing, but amidst all of that you just heard that it was off and wrong and everyone played out of step and all that... That's what this album sounds like. They ight have fun, but nobody knows what the fuck is going on and half of the sound is just noise of either somebody collapsing or people reacting to somebody collapsing. 4/10
Fol De Rol, Brillo De Facto, Nine out of Ten | | 17 |  | Avey Tare
Eucalyptus
Of all the Animal Collective's solo projects that have ever been released, this one might just be the sleepiest; even sleepier than last year's Deakin album. But that is not to say that Avey Tare's dreaminess is as boring as Deakin's. In fact, this album is quite meserising in just how obscurely it is constructed instrumentally and how flat-out dizzying its songwriting is. Not anything memorable, but still quite an odd little treat. 6/10
UPDATE: After repeated listening, I can say that this is not as good as my initial reaction led me to believe. It's a tedious disorganised mess and nothing more than that. 5/10
Season High, Ms. Secret, When You Left Me | | 16 |  | Nine Inch Nails
Add Violence
Trent Reznor's latest is a magnetic display of haunting songwriting, mind-twisting electronics and swirling progression. It's a record that, while being heavily relying on its melodic side, might just start off NIN's new era into a wholly new direction of less distortion and more emotion. 7/10
Less Than, This Isn't the Place | | 15 |  | Manchester Orchestra
A Black Mile to the Surface
A fairly soft and nicely smooth album that flows so seamlessly that you won't even notice how quickly it ran by you. Its only problem is maybe the fact that a lot of the times the songs don't really excite as much as they could have. But that's about it. 7/10
The Moth, Lead SD, The Alien, The Grocery, The Wolf | | 14 |  | Lana Del Rey
Lust For Life
Lana Del Rey is growing wich each record, her music becomes more exciting and she didn't even have to change her vocal delivery all that much. But the vocal improvements are apparent. Her falsetto is acceptable and the vocal/musical marriage is much more bearable now. WIth that said, it still drags a lot of the times, especially in the second half. It's pretty much a collection of tracks that show her growing as a musician and lyricist that suggest that she might just be really good one day...maybe. 6/10
Love, 13 Beaches, Summer Bummer, Groupie Love, In My Feelings, Get Free | | 13 |  | Tau Cross
A Pillar Of Fire
I'm quite fond of Tau Cross' debut album. It was an energetic and fun ride of semi-accessible and yet hardhitting tracks, so I was naturally pumped for their follow up. However, right from the get-go this album feels much more bumpy. The vocals/instrumetnation/production threeway sounds problematic at the very least and while the tracks generally have enjoyable melodies, the said production and the lack of vocal range more or less dim it all down. It's still fun and enjoyable, but simply somewhat underwhelming. 6/10
Raising Golem, Pillar of Fire, Killing the King, The Big House | | 12 |  | River Black
River Black
Dizzying and mind-meltingly brutal record that, although well-crafted, still leaves a lot to be desired. For one, it's not that memorable. It also lacks some sort of musical variety, it just sort of drags on with exactly the same energy, sognwriting style and musicianship althroughout. It's fun, but nothing above or beyond. 6/10
Shipwreck, Haunt | | 11 |  | Offa Rex
The Queen of Hearts
I enjoy the lightweight instrumentation and the soft vocal accompaniment, but the overall execution leaves a lot to be desired. It just sort of drags on with its semi-whimsical and easy-going nature and fluid arrangement. It's okay, but by far nothing special. And that is sad, considering the fact that this is the Decemberists' side-project and that some of the tunes actually have some sort of homely personality and might even be beautifully written. 6/10
Blackleg Miner, The Old Churchyard, Constant Billy (Oddington) / I'll Go Enlist (Sherborne) | | 10 |  | Selbst
Selbst
Potato Recording Company proudly present their magnum opus. An enthralling and instrumentally spastic Black Metal album that is so ravishingly monstrous and well-crafted that even the meh production doesn't ruin it. Brilliant stuff. 8/10
...Of Solitary Ramblings, Instrument Of My Own Destruction, Wandering Through Grief, Nefasto Calvario | | 9 |  | Sheer Mag
Need to Feel Your Love
From a promising fuzzy and upfront Shoegaze-Punk band to a somewhat disencouraged and flat riff-based Rock. Sure, those riffs might sometimes be decent, but overall it's really underwhelmingly produced and written to a point, where I found individual songs to be pretty much the same. 5/10 | | 8 |  | Boris
Dear
Dear god! I will come clean and openly admit that I only listened to this once. And in no way am I ever returning to this. It's a full hour of undigestable and obnoxious hardly-impressive instrumentally dizzying and vocally annoying musical equivalent of a headache. Fuck it. Just fuck it. Japan is weird. 3/10
P.S.: Guess I now have to put Drone on a list of genres that go over my head. It's already pretty extensive.
Absolutengo | | 7 |  | Broken Social Scene
Hug of Thunder
Best Arcade Fire album in years. 6/10
Halfway Home, Vanity Pail Kids, Mouth Guards of the Apocalypse | | 6 |  | Arcade Fire
Everything Now
There is something obscure about this record. Some strange demonic oddity in its inherent lack of memorability, as if every single song was designed to sound as professionally and yet forgettably as it is humanly possible. Arcade Fire's usual rhyme-play is present, even though a lot of the times it results in some truly laughable lyrical outbursts, which, in turn, almost ruins some of the songs. Songs like Creature Comfort, which has a really good progression; and even if you don't really remember the melody, you remember the energy, the lyrics are like a sore thumb there. But each song has its own share of terribleness, from unusually annoying high-pitched vocals (Electric Blue), basically formless instrumentation (Peter Pan), just purely unbearable songwriting/instrumentation marriage (Chemistry) or just a lack of passion and excitement among a pretty decent songwriting (Good God Damn and We Don't Deserve Love). | | 5 | | Arcade Fire
Everything Now
Overall, this album is everything that Arcade Fire just barely wasn't, but surely was never supposed to be. It's nearly completely devoid of feeling and interesting material. The album is extremely dull and underwhelming on pretty much every turn. Well good god damn! Nothing Now. 3/10
Everything Now, Put Your Money on Me | | 4 |  | Melvins
A Walk With Love And Death
Even considering how generally drab and soul-deadeningly boring Melvins are, this album takes the crap cake. 23 songs worth of headache. 3/10 | | 3 |  | Waxahatchee
Out in the Storm
On her newest record, Waxahatchee mixes her usual Folky approach with a tad timid and lukewarm instrumentation and songwriting. While a lot of the somngs rely on a somewhat atmospheric and aggrandising progressions, it often feels more dreary than landspacically beautiful, which is what I suppose was the aim. Even the harder tracks seem half-assed and bland. As if someone was draining the soul out of the entire band and they tried their hardest not to give in, but eventually they succumbed. Yeah, this is just a vapid and unremarkable release. 4/10
Sparks Fly, No Question | | 2 |  | Shabazz Palaces
Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines
Second of two Shabazz Palaces albums is much more experimental and dreamy effort that, unfortunately, is just as dreary and forgettable. But this time around the vocal delivery seems much more spoken-word and the music is as if taken out of some junkie's meditation playlist. Overall, this album is much more conceptually intriguing than Gangster Star, but is in no way more bearable. 4/10
Effeminence, Love in the Time of Kanye, Quazarz on 23rd | | 1 |  | Shabazz Palaces
Quazarz: Born On A Gangster Star
Shabazz Palaces have made quite a name for themselves over the years with some ambitious and still off-the-wall material, but this time around they just sound like they gave up interesting songwriting for a cosmic and dizzy atmosphere. Moreover, the delivery this time around comes off just plaoin flat and a lot of the beats were on a repeat to a point, where I just grew sick of them. It's not exactly a terrible album, after all, Shabazz Palaces do bring up a certain level of finesse, but everything just sounds extremely drab and tedious. 4/10
Shine a Light | |
Papa Universe
08.01.17 | Posting schedule:
2.8. - Good or Bad? The Competition ROUND 9
3.8. - Film/TV thread (this one's more into TV...and I kind of slacked it off, to be fully honest)
4.8. - For Better or Worse: The Competition ROUND 10 | Conmaniac
08.01.17 | very fair for 15 nice list my friend
19 looks delish | ZombieToyDuck
08.01.17 | Summer bummer is so good wish there were more hip hop features on 14 | butcherboy
08.01.17 | that Fall soundoff is sadly on point, though I'm giving it a slightly higher rating just for how tight the band is while Mark E Smith is disintegrating in front of them.. | Papa Universe
08.01.17 | It's sad, cause the tracks that aren't just unintelligible noise, are actually striking with some decent songwriting and performances. But oh well, they think the joke is funny, let them think that. | theBoneyKing
08.01.17 | Agreed on 7 | BlazinBlitzer
08.01.17 | Completely agree on 21 and 15. | anat
08.01.17 | Agreed on 20, it's a bit of a slog to get thru | Papa Universe
08.02.17 | You people need to listen to the Murlocs...like now! | ZippaThaRippa
08.02.17 | cool | ZippaThaRippa
08.02.17 | King Gizzard were good live so I will do that | Papa Universe
08.02.17 | They have much softer sound though, get ready for that. | SandwichBubble
08.02.17 | @Unique your soundoff on 7 made me bump my rating up to a 3.0 | Papa Universe
08.02.17 | Thank you...I guess |
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