JohnnyoftheWell
Staff

Reviews 371
Soundoffs 76
News Articles 102
Band Edits + Tags 1,316
Album Edits 673

Album Ratings 4468
Objectivity 75%

Last Active 01-01-70 12:00 am
Joined 01-01-70

Review Comments 60,533

 Lists
05.17.24 GHOST folk ♦05.11.24 what's good sputnik
05.10.24 Aquemini ranked04.25.24 REC me glitch/downtempo/IDM
04.16.24 All Blonde Redhead songs RANKED ♦03.28.24 OED Japanese imports RANKED (Q1 2024) ♦
03.22.24 Sputnik's Sacred Cows03.14.24 POP ALIGNMENT
03.09.24 Discogs that peak on song #103.07.24 new staff + contribs RANKED ♦
03.03.24 MARCH of JAZŽŻ ♦02.16.24 G L I T C H genre tag
02.01.24 FEBRUARY of ambi2ent (REC me) ♦01.01.24 well_2023: "YES" albums (2/2) ♦
12.31.23 well_2023: "NO" albums (1/2)12.27.23 (be)rate my LP 'collection'
12.03.23 2023 BNM: cringedex ♦12.01.23 New users :: REVIEWED ♦
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dolphins ranked by body mass index

It is a new listening log how far will we go this time let's go all the way!!
1Lenny Valentino
Uwaga! Jedzie tramwaj

#2301
Dream pop / slowcore

WOW what a great album to start off on this is very great and you are all sleeping on it apart from Boney. Title track and the closer are both S-tier dream pop, but the atmosphere on most of this is gorgeous. Excellent softboi sadhrs pillow fluff. Better than any album budgie has ever heard by a factor of 7/6.

3.9
2The Beatles
Rubber Soul

#2302
folk fauxFrench pop rock girl music

I am a child of the 1 compilation and a Beatles CASUAL, having only heard that and Revolver. Until now. Currently midway through a discog binge and this is definitely my favourite overall. Not much to say here; every song here is either a miniclassic or an above average filler track by early Beatles standards, which I'm cool with. Norwegian Wood is maybe a bit overrated but eh, love the book. Closer is kinda gross but it's also a bop so I guess that passes in the same way as Glassjaw or whatever. Great album.

3.8
3The Who
Who's Next

#2303
rock music

I actually checked this a few times years ago but forgot to rate it! Whoops! Thought it was a 3.5 and relistened - I was wrong! Whoops! Great album, best opener of all time etc. nice.

3.9
4White Lung
Deep Fantasy

#2304
punk indie noise rock

big up to mboi PANGEA for delivering a scorcher when I asked for an album under 30 minutes long. this is very fun and quite loud but also surprisingly clean at the same time and it rips for 22 minutes. good stuff, I should jam this a few times more. check it :"

3.6
5Chiyono Ide
みんなの高校生活

#2305
alt-idol artpop

Heard this way back when it dropped at the start of the year but forgot to rate it whoops. Chiyono is my Shizuoka pref. homegirl and I love her and this is fun but also I prefer her weirdout shit with 3776 and her other new solo album has a 10 min postpunkgaze closer and is therefore better.

3.4
6Micachu and the Shapes
Jewellery

#2306
lofi pop indie indie indie indie pop lofi

this is like a really fun kooky headache and I guess it is good.

3.5
7The Church
Of Skins and Heart

#2307
jangle pop / post-punk

'80s Aussie band with a Cure fetish sortof play jangle pop. It is okay. Last two songs are great, rest are fine to meh. I should hear more from them.

3.2
8Sete Star Sept
Bird

#2308
grind

pure and wholesome 2021 grindcore in this bounteous year - https://shop.7s7.org/album/bird

3.5
9moreru
粛 粛

#2309
skramz / noisecore

Good EP from last year. First track is perhaps the best recent skramz track I've heard in years, closer is huge, rest is good-okay. Nice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00Z9_Umu68s

3.7
10moreru
itsunohini...

#2310
skramz / noisecore / lofi

uh YES been a long while since a kill-urself heavy record blew me away like this. this is a frantic fucking mess and i wrote a messy review because i adore it a little bit. definitely check.

https://moreru.bandcamp.com/album/itsunohinikabokunokotowoomoidasugaii

4.1
11Yellow Machinegun
Father's Golden Fish

#2311
thrash / hardcore

japanese '90s crossover thrash girl group. it is fun but not my favourite thrashcore. should check their other albs.

3.3
12Iosonouncane
IRA

#2312
Experimental ambient electronic

I've spent quite a bit of time with this now and have most defs enjoyed it, but honestly don't have too strong an opinion on it as a whole. Very much gravitating around a few highlight tracks, which I can see getting a lot of future plays, but I'm a little vague on it as a whole beyond "yeah I guess it works"?

Boring take tbh. It's very good and easily one of the better 2021 records I've heard ~so ~far. Not as sold by the intense bits, but most of it holds up and there's some exceptional shiz yes. Some of it reminds me pretty much directly of Ulver's Blood Inside, and this is always good?!

3.95
13The Beatles
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

#2313
The Beatles

Yeah sorry, I've enjoyed my Beatles run quite a bit so far even though all their albums aside for maybe Rubber Soul have been highlight affairs, but this is the first time I'm gonna have to park the bus and press the overrated button with BOTH HANDS. A Day in the Life is obviously one a GOAT and the backend has some great gems, but this thing takes until She's Leaving Home to pick up (sorry Ringo :[) and I'm not convinced that the tame psych pop stylings on most tracks have aged particularly well.

Would take A Hard Day's Night and maybe Help over this. Looking forward to Magical Mystery Tour.

3.5
14Guerilla Toss
GT Ultra

#2314
Dance punk

Realised I should probably have heard this band by now and that they might be fun. Half-right on both counts.

3.0
15INVT
Prendida

#2315
Electronic

Peeped this from Wolfe's 2021 list and was not disappointed. Slick shit. Should jam more.

3.5
16Dir En Grey
Kisou

#2316
Alt-metal/Industrial

Came back from work in a really bad mood and threw this on on a hunch. Good hunch! It's a little overlong, but this is as gritty and passionate and nasty as anything I could have expected from early '00s DEG. It's overlong but has enough highlights to make up for it - especially impressed by the slow tracks, but there's a pretty impressive spread of ideas across the board. Dare I say it's somewhat overlooked? The production gets a bad rep, but holds up okay if a little thin. Much more excited to comb through the rest of this discog now.

3.9
17King Crimson
Lizard

#2317
Prog jazz prog classical prog prog

Still wrapping my head around that closer, but the opener on here is a total fucking stunner and middle run is good jazzwank funsongs. Lovely lovely.

4.0
18Pere Ubu
The Modern Dance

#2318
Post p u n k xperi

Wow this record is cool. Sentimental Journey is maybe a masterpiece? I like it a lot? Wish I'd gotten into this at the same time as the Fall back in the day. Primary motivation for not rating higher is that I don't like it as much as Pink Flag atm so there. Nice.

3.8
19Black Midi
Cavalcade

#2319
Nupostpunk wankhaven

This should be good and sometimes is but often sucks. Overcooked and dry, no fun no cool. See: review.

2.8
20Anadorei
Pussy Cannibal Holocaust

#2320
Garage punk / noise rock

Hahahahahaha if you're gonna cover Sister Ray in its entirety it should be 1) good 2) not twice as long as the rest of your album combined. This is almost pretty fun but also a scrappy mess. Lol.

2.5
21Sweet Trip
A Tiny House, In Secret Speeches, Polar Equals

#2321
Dreamgaze glitch beauty

The new Sweet Trip is very good. It's not the best thing ever and it's *barely* better than You Will Never Know Why, evermore their weakest album. It occasionally feels like a retreat and some points border on fan service (Polar Equals hey there); it overuses YWNKW's dualing octave-vox over indietronica (!!hooray!!) arrangements that start to feel a little bogged down once the same trick's been played on every other track. It benefits from its moments of space (Eave Foolery), forcefulness (Chapters) and stylistic departure (Surviving A Smile) so clearly that much of the rest feels overly faithful to *every* idea of what Sweet Trip should be and winds up a little jack-of-all-trades-y. Its glitch codas feel gratuitous where once that sound was maybe the band's strongest suit.

Otherwise it's very fucking good and I like it a lot. Hooray for tempered hype.

3.98
22Hurry Up, Brothers
All is Beautiful. I'm Okay to be Alive..

#2322
post-rock

Unexpected 2021 revival of tepid Explosions in the Sky fluffcore. Did it ever go away or did I just avoid it better? It could be worse. There is always worse.

2.5
23Perturbator
Lustful Sacraments

#2323
synthwave/darkwave

Never listened to this project before, but this made a great first impression on me; really strong integration of darkwave and gothic tones of the kind that spark joy. Yum. Hasn't done as much for me since but I'm feeling good about exploring this discog a bit moar

3.8
24Perturbator
I Am The Night

#2324
Synthwave

Not as into this thrills and spills darknight//bigbop sound as much as Lustful Sacraments, but it is good and fun. A bit overlong, mind.

3.6
25Tokenai Namae
Seifuku Kanro Club

#2325
Shoegaze/indie pop

Neat rec from Sint - rly bright Japanese candyfloss indie with supertasty shoegaze integration. Yes.

3.7
26Paramore
Brand New Eyes

#2326
POP PAWN ALT PUNK

finally listened to this. some of it bops. nice. the lyrics explain neekafat. eh

3.4
27Indigo Jam Unit
Independent

#2327
j a z z

Trif showed me this band ages ago and the album i checked was good and this album is maybe even better. nice.

4.0
28Tomaga
Intimate Immensity

#2327
postrock vibey beats

hurry up brothers was one midass postrock record too many from this year, it was time for some quality ghandhi-backed ghandhicore. this is good.

3.5
29Black Eyes
Black Eyes

#2329
postpunkNOIZ

forgot to rate this because I'm an idiot. awesome album it might be more than a 4 I should jam it more shit slaps

4.01
30Perturbator
Dangerous Days

#2330
synthwave nerd darkgamer

gonna vent here for a mo, but I wasted like 3 hours of my fucking life last night trying to take down honda tadakatsu's solo fight on the highest difficult on nioh 2, with a stone of penance plus1 weighing me down. shit was basically impossible because his spear has a special health restoring property and hits like a truck, plus he can bulk heal himself on top of that, which means that he's 1) a tank and 2) literally uses the same strats and moveset as i repped through half the game which idk how to counter bc i'm bad at selfawareness in virtual reality. i switched my set up to get the susano's grace bonus over a water spear, which almost did the trick but i got melted again and again and again but i didn't regret it somehow because this album is very good and i listened to it yes sir. don't fight honda tadakatsu at top difficulty with a stone of penance plus1. nioh 2 is the best bullshit sometimes. maybe this is my fave perturb album

3.9
31The Church
The Blurred Crusade

#2331
Jangle-pop / post-punk

Eyy the blessed commentfolks who said to carry on with this band were *right*! This is a fab record through and through, lovely jangled reverbtimes with quaint vocals and an Atmosphere that I like a good deal. Epic. "Field of Mars" reminds me vaguely of, idk, Nighttime Birds-era Gathering, or something else semigothic and pretty. Good.

3.8
32The Fall
Live At The Witch Trials

#2332
postPUNK

This is ~good, but a lot more of a warmup act than I expected from the first Fall; their best shit for me channels huge homogenous arsehole energy and mouths off to high heaven, but this just feels like MES gearing up his penmanship over a few relatively conventional post-punk skeletons. Not bad - pretty solid tbf - but not one I think I'll return to that often. Rebellious Jukebox shows off their knack for a good hook, and that is good. Great band.

3.5
33Atreyu
Baptize

#2333
ghostmallcore

Gloriously corny as Atreyu's peak shit is, I get a kick from revisiting approx. 1 song every 5 months. It is trash but good trash in its dumbass way. This is overpolished garbage with some of the most embarrassing writing on any record you'll hear this year. It is a metal record, but trust me even on that basis it lands worse than can be believed. Caliggy 3.5'd it. Delete.

1.5
34Kaonashi
Dear Lemon House, You Ruined Me: Senior Year

#2334
prog mathcore jank opera

Mixed feelings about this. On the surface it's an impressively batshit Sikthcore jank album ft. Sikth squawkdeath vox. On the floor it's an overwrought mess, full of tight twists but very fucking Much and a little grating. On the core it's a superemo concept record about a depressed high school finalist whose life is shit and whose human relationships are inadequately and who loses their shit and shoots up their school (??????) in the final track. SPOILERS? is it convincing and probably kinda important: yes. is it good: kinda.

3.3
35Vienna Teng
Dreaming Through the Noise

#2335
indie folk

[REDACTED by Review a Random Album Committee]

3.?
36Xploding Plastix
Amateur Girlfriends Go Proskirt Agents

#2336
trip-hop/jazz/big beat

ABSOLUTELY YES big fuck. this album fucks. very sexy very fun very pushy very mood shut the fuck up and check it it is awesome

4.15
37NECRY TALKIE
FREAK

#2337
pop J rock

yeaaaaah I kinda understood the hype on their album last year even if I didn't feel it, but this is a real genkislump. I get very 75% energy on a lot of these tracks, but genki is a discrete state so it counts for nothing

2.5
38The Chemical Brothers
Exit Planet Dust

#2338
BIG BEAT

I have lived my entire existence in awareness of the Chemical Brothers, but it took me this long to listen to any of their albums fking rescind my citizenship. This is great. I won't say very great q, but I vibe it solidly across the board and am excited to play further catchup. Yay

3.5
39Burzum
Uruk Hai (Unreleased Material 1988-1994)

#2339
shambient bedroom shred

epic meme deep lore

1.4
40Mathias Eick
Ravensburg

#2340
Family board game jazz

This is nice and pleasant and I enjoy it and there are *some* rly nice melody/chord changes and I like those.

3.5
41Pizzicato Five
Happy End of the World

#2341
Shibuya-kei / indie/art-pop / drum and bass

So this record is mucho iconic and I was ready to love it, but it isn't that easy; feeling a strong side-a/side-b split here, where the chill pop of the opening tracks isn't doing much for me but the bolder shit later on is often awesome. There is a 10 minute spoken word odyssey called Porno 3003 about having ear sex in your heart and I am extremely glad it has entered my life. I'll definitely need more time with this, especially given that Bossanova 2001 also took a while to grow on me. It will probably rise. And it is very very cool.

3.5
42Paik
Satin Black

#2342
Shoegaze / drone / spacerock

Midkey OBSESSED with this record right now, absolutely stunning rock soundscapes. Shit sounds like Hum covering Boris covering My Bloody Valentine and I haven't got this lost in a (largely) drone record for quite sometime. The opener is a relatively succinct slowcore piece (lol) that you should ALL check out as a bare minimum. You could call some of this post-rock, but frankly it deserves better.

LISTEN to this album it is so fucking good.

4.1
43Thy Catafalque
Roka Hasa Radio

#2343
Avantjank black folk metal

I didn't really have any expectations for this, but if I HAD formed any based off purely knowing this dude's latest album, I'd have imagined that record's palette but less fully realised and with rawer production. That's exactly what this record is, and it's almost awesome! But not quite. Alas. It's an often awkwardly segmented string of metal, electronic and folk sections that are mostly individually great but don't have that convincing a dialogue between one another - often the melodic threads are there, but the arrangement and tones are kinda "why not" and I'm iffy on how much the metal rhythm guitars add to any of the nonmetal sections for which they are present.

tl;dr read Milo's Holy Fawn review

3.0
44Floating Points
Crush

#2344
BENCHMARK idm and other shit

it's okay. floating points is talented and has a good sound and will probably make something really great one day when he's not busy pressing elevator floor buttons for pharaoh sanders. maybe he already has (gotta check). this is carefully crafted, but i don't think it has much character. most of the best bits remind me muchly of other artists (LesAlpx = Four Tet) and some of the Invidvvviulaistic flair bits feel a bit like Big Decisions and not particularly cohesive pieces (Bias).

whatever. it is clean and crisp and maybe it will grow on me. or maybe i will explore stuff from other idm artists instead.

3.2
45Wolf Alice
Blue Weekend

#2345
indie alternative trenddreampop rock

The latest 6/10 hip album that some label exec bought off swathes of critics to hype is actually...pretty great. Nice! I'm jaded af over Brit landfill indie tbh, but this has some great writing (How Can I Make It Ok), great hooks (Delicious Things), mature slowsuccinct shit that sounds appropriate for a 3rd album band (Lipstick On The Glass) and good bookends (the bookends). carefully versatile but mostly plays to its strengths - except when it doesn't! there are cringes and nothing songs, but the good bits are many and shine through. good landfill indie.

3.5
46Forsaken Autumn
Whenere

#2346
shoegaze

chinese band makes loud beautiful shoegaze sounds with whispery softgentle vocals. that is what it sounds like. it is ok.

3.3
47Paik
Hugo Strange

#2347
slowcore/post-rock/shoegaze

Paik's debut is a pretty good debut - less of the massive glacierscapes of Satin Black, much more SY/Low-esque slow heavy moodjams. It is great. What a good band.

3.8
48Poppy
EAT (NXT Soundtrack)

#2348
post-pop fking Metal

POPPY HAS MADE A GOOD ALBUM.

ok it isn't an album, it is an EP.

and of the 5 tracks here, only 57% are good. but they are very good and this (mostly) meme-free claws-out look suits her so much better. obsessed with the opener. maybe other western artists will make good pop-metal now. pow.

3.5
49Poppy
Choke

#2349
qUirKyyy darkpop

realised I hadn't checked Poppy's other good EP. it is almost good. some nice touches here and there, but the shape and sentiment of these songs is still in antiseptic meme territory + that FEVER 333 feature is trash (her bits are dec on that one tbf). dec bookends, more of an Artistic Development ep than a good'un ig, but still better than I Disagree

2.8
50The Beatles
Magical Mystery Tour

#2350
psychedelic beatles rock pop

Okay, this is everything I was hoping for throughout my Beatles journey so far. Wow. Just one fantastic song after another. Baby, You're a Rich Man is a pretty conspicuous weak link, but everything else is absolute a-game Beatles, miles better than Sgt Peppers and easily my fave of theirs rn. If this is their peak I'm happy tbh. Bloody wonderful album.

4.2
51Millennium Parade
The Millennium Parade

#2351
hip-hop/indiepop

picked this up on a whim thinking it might be a hot awesome Discovery. instead it was a pretty solid album. nice 2021 padding, good stuff.

3.5
52The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground

#2352
Dad Rock

Realised I never jammed this one oops. Standard TVU mishmash of absolute classics and boring wallpaper rock, although both are now in a relatively conventional gear. WH/WL is better, but this at least avoids the lows of their debut. Ok.

3.5
53The Chemical Brothers
Dig Your Own Hole

#2353
big beat breakbeat

Great album. Reminds me a little of the Music for the Jilted Gen exp of one long heavy dance banger after another, and while these trax are neither as intense or as infectious for the most part, they most certainly do bop. Not sure how I feel about the q aggressive use of spoken samples, but they aren't too prevalent across the alb as a whole. Cool.

3.7
54Japanese Breakfast
Jubilee

#2354
pop indie pop indie

REALLY liking this, what a gorgeous album! Such a concise, even tracklist, lovely bittersweet sweet sad sounds and great great songwriting. Easily up with the best of the year for me, highly recommended. Main issue is that I could probably spin the last 3 GEMS on repeat on their own and not feel like I'm missing ~too much, but this is a gift through and through whenever I go there

4.0
55ZOC
PvP

#2355
alt-idol synthmelt poprawk antipop

Speaking of the best of 2021, uh, this was a surprise. Oomori Seiko's idol group's debut is a 90min mountain of excess and energy, militantly girly, and packed with sass and savagery that (unfortunately) make Japanese a pretty big Must. It is also stacked with huge bangers and feral vibes; it's too damn much, but also p excellent. I will now go and finish a chonk review for it.

3.95
56Nadja
Corrasion

#2356
Drone Metal

I like Nadja. Sometimes they are sinister and atmospheric, sometimes they smell like a metalbasement with too much mould, but mostly the former and the opener on this is very epic.

3.5
57EMPiRE (JPN)
THE EMPiRE STRiKES START!!

#2357
SYNTHPOP/J-idol

Yes oh heck this is perfect sugargoodness. Lil hit or miss, but much less so than most stuff I've heard in this vein. Awesome.

3.7
58King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard
Butterfly 3000

#2358
(not) tame impala

KGLW now use more synthesisers and fewer microtones, but every song still feels like it was microwaved in about 5mins from the KGLW jumblebag of readysongs. It is boring. I can almost remember some hooks though, so it's (probably) better than L.W. at least.

3.0
59The Beatles
The Beatles

#2359
The Beatles

The Beatles went into a studio and like all of them made an album, apart from Ringo who left for a bit because he couldn't make an album, and then they stuck their albums together, uh, some poor sod put their songs in an order.

Lennon's album was half the greatest thing ever and half spangled shrapnel; Harrison's was a highlights-only thang; Macca's was actually surprisingly badass and probably would have fared best in its own space. Together they are exciting and often flooring and even more often frustrating and mismatched and stubbornly averse to translating as anything close to a coherent journey, but mostly just long.

I feel that my rating could be 0.5 higher or lower, so it's probably perfect.

3.7
60The Kinks
Lola vs. Powerman and the Moneygoround

#2360
Rock Opera Satire Rock

Dad rock is good after all. Neat concept album with a couple of classics. Nice.

3.8
61Rebecca Black
Rebecca Black Was Here

#2361
post-PC deadpan blandsynth pop

I'm happy this exists n all, but it has zero character and is devastatingly boring, so I'm also unhappy. RIP 2011 memes.

2.3
62Paik
Corridors

#2362
space post rock

ANNOUNCEMENT a tragedy has struck me and all is fucked: as of a week and a half ago (today is July 4th, happy America day) my laptop is dead from HD/OS dysfunction bullshit complications, and I can't revive it without paying a scandalous 60000yen or attempting a HD transplant myself (results tbc). This is a big deal because A) I can't get a new one until I've blown my savings making it to Osaka for a week in my holiday to see Dewi's band and B) the only access I have to music now is from my ipod, my cd collection and bandcamp streams on my phone (which is old and full of shit and doesn't need crooked Spotify on it)

Break for Paik before I run out of characters; can't extend that shit on my phone. This band is excellent, alb is perfect for staring into space and feeling the comfort of gravity crushing you into nothingness etc

4.0
63Olivia Rodrigo
SOUR

#2363
Zoomer pop

[tragedy update on hold while this gets its due]

The year is 2021 and, in spite of guitarrock pop being all but dead, someone has finally had the courage to kick off an album with a leftover riff from Bleach. People are rightly happy about this, but it's fairly unrepresentative of what's going on here: Olivia Rodrigo rips from Taylor (ok), Lorde (yay) and PhoeB (ffs), dishing out a slurry of overwrought breakup downers that I struggle to take half as seriously as she does. There's pathos, but the self-image behind her narrative here is a naive source of generosity, purity and love who inevitably comes off as inadequate and uninteresting to whichever dude is in question here, and this means the end of the world and the beginning (like, the very very very beginning) of self-awareness? Sorry, Ms. Disney, I don't buy it. Soft pass.

2.8
64Pizzicato Five
This Year's Girl

#2364
shibuya kei

ANNOUNCEMENT CONT.: the catch re. ipod music only for the most part is that my ipod had a routine minideath about a week before my laptop kicked it. This happens every now and again: it's an old boi, and whenever I fill more than approx a third of its 160gb, it shuts itself down and has to be restored from scratch. I do this gradually because it can't take too many tunes being crammed onto it at once, so when my laptop passed on I had a total of 1119 tracks drawn from my recents and a few random playlists. Not great, and I had no means of adding more. What to do? Read on, but first

Pizzicato Five are growing on me more and more - if I weren't still jamming Stereolab routinely, they'd probably fill a similar niche for me this year that that band did last year. Such smooth cosmo pastiche goodness, excellent indie/art pop vibes and effortless coolness. This was my favourite on first listen, but I'm going over their other albums more now so we'll see

3.9
65Thy Catafalque
Meta

#2365
experimental folk chugs

SOLUTION: in a frenzied mission impossible, I picked up my external HDs, sent my hero brother a list of everything I wanted soulseeked to tide me over for a couple of months (which he etransferred me), and hit up a manga cafe cubicle for 3hrs. In that time I forced iTunes and an HFS converter to read my Mac formatted HD onto their PC and reconstructed a music library from scratch, syncing my ipod as I went. Including all the stuff from my brother, I wound up with 4820 tracks and am surviving pretty well off it for the time being. More to come, but

I no longer have this on my ipod unfortunately, but I got a couple of spins in before the big purge/new lib. It's good! Some of these tracks meander into folkmetal indulgence as per, but the tone is excellent and I found it largely more focused than Rosa (43). Nice

3.5
66Modest Mouse
Strangers to Ourselves

#2366
Landfill indie

RESOLUTION: while I'm going to keep up with occasional new albums and catchups (like this) via Bandcamp, I think it's time for a semi-break from new releases and torrential archival checks. I've been feeling a bit of a burnout anyway lately, both in listening and writing - I find that the best way to deal with musical exposure is to time out, reconnect with albums I actually like (lol) and only write when I feel like it. So that's me for the time being, chances are I'll top this up with the few new albums on my ipod but otherwise chill out and enjoy a sortof break. Sput summer holiday hooray hooray, peace to y'all.

This album is okay. A few horrors and definitely the weakest MM LP at that point in time, but nothing to cry over.

3.0
67Between the Buried and Me
Colors II

#2367
butthurt jank

Reserved for when I've heard this lol but for now

0.5
68Thy Catafalque
Vadak

#2368
Chugmess ham sandwich

I really do not get people calling this one of this band's best - it's far less cohesive than Meta or Naiv for me and so heavy on often derivative riffs that it's hard not to see cheap fanservice as its primary songwriting logic. It's a shame because Naiv balanced all aspects of its palette extremely well for me, to the point that it never felt overbearingly METHUL from moment to moment, but this feels very much like a dumb wanky metal album that occasionally does other things. Many individual sections are still striking and/or gorgeous, but it does not gel as a whole at all for me and I'm more likely to bump down than up.

2.9
69Xanopticon
Liminal Space

#2369
Breakcore

Avagantamos pointed me to this so I hit up bandcamp on a whim and phwoar yes yes, icy suspense, limbo soundscapes and relentless glitchy chaos. Pissed that I can't jam this outside of bandcamp for now, but it's a winner.

4.0
70Aphex Twin
...I Care Because You Do

#2370
IDM

I realised I'd never made time for this one and got it on my Soulseek wishlist to see what the story was - this is by far the most underdiscussed Aphex in my exp, and I was curious as to why. Turns out that it's fairly self-explanatory: it makes a lot of sense as a transitional work between his ambient and jittery beat phases, but the RDJ album and drukqs nailed these sounds better. Still solid enough

3.5
71Doja Cat
Planet Her

#2371
r&b sex trap pop

Doja Cat continues to be an artist I slightly more than vaguely like who disappoints me more than p much anyone else could get away with. Planet Her is pretty cohesive in an on-and-off mediocre kinda way, but the good bits confirm everything I like about Doja and dat voice and mood enough that I can't knock it. Will probably finish a review at some point. Minus points for Dr. Luke

2.9-3.1
72Bo Burnham
Inside (The Songs)

#2372
comedy but is it actually?

These songs are often smart and sometimes funny and usually at least competent and very very self-aware and idk, I would probably laugh if I saw these accompanying a standup set, but that TV special drained the life out of me and I don't really want to think about it ever again. Is Bo the best of white American self-awareness? Probably. Ugh.

2.5
73Pan Daijing
Jade

#2373
post-industrial

sniffed this out on the off-chance it would hit similar highs to Ming Ming. it didn't. it is okay. Pan Daijing deathcreeps real good, but this thing never peaks.

3.0
74David Bowie
Hunky Dory

#2374
vintage thrift store pop

Can't believe it took me this long to get to David Bowie's wavy zany artsy campy coming of age album. I've heard about half these tracks before at some point, but it's nice to get the whole thing pinned down; I vibe it. It's quaint and thoughtful and endearing and fun. It's not a patch on Ziggy for me though; I'd set it alongside Aladdin Sane, but that's a healthy place to be. Couple of eternal classics, but hey you've heard em all before

4.0
75Haruka Nakamura
Grace

#2375
contemp folk folktronica cafe music

A somewhat overdue check, ngl. It's nice. It is better reading music than study music, and this was a category I did not know existed. Some of the skittish folk pieces don't work for me, but otherwise this is smooth and enjoyable and good easy listening and I have very little more to say about it. Mood.

3.85
76Amon Tobin
Fear In A Handful Of Dust

#2376
IDM / ambient electroacoustic creep stuff

I...want to like this record more than I do? It continues further down the path that Tobin mapped out with 2011's ISAM (which I love), but largely foregoes that album's maximalist digital trip-outs in favour of more subtle, fluid pieces with zero percussion, delicate pacing and a range of tones that will maybe stun you if you pay enough attention. I have paid it attention and it's fantastic sound design, but I don't feel quite the same stakes as with my favourite Tobin albums.

3.5
77The Wrens
The Meadowlands

#2377
Deadbeat sad indieemo that rocks sometimes

I wanna rate this album higher! There are so many gorgeous heartbreaking perfect moments here that I can't stop listening to and feel should have been in my life long before now!! There are also about 3-4 middle of the road indie clunkers that obstructs its finer moments like pockets of dead air - like, you don't have to care but they're there, man. And so...

4.05
78Black Sabbath
Master of Reality

#2378
Heavy metal u bitch

My goodkid brother dumped this on my ipod and it really is bloody great. I've heard several of these songs before, but they're all good'uns and this is a solid as hell album if I've ever heard one. Awsm

4.3
79Lightning Bug
A Color of the Sky

#2379
Dream pop / fluffgaze

Unexpected gem from the recentish sputcore newsletter, these are lovely airy driftsongs with a load of memorable melodies. Been spinning a fair bit, perfect cooldown music for muggy summer evenings. Would recommend.

3.6
80Ayumi Hamasaki
LOVEppears

#2380
Arch-Jpop of 2 decades ago

I actually heard both this and Rainbow a while back but forgot to rate either. Neither are good. Ayumi Hamasaki can't sing for shit and her vanilla dance pop is about as washed up as she is, even if this was her in her prime. LOVEappears is a million years overlong but it gets some points for occasional danceability, a couple of decent power ballads and the odd guilty pleasure. There are a couple of tracks I might include on playlists, but that's as far as it goes.

2.4
81Ayumi Hamasaki
Rainbow

#2381
Arch-Jpop of 2 decades ago

LOVEappears way overstayed its welcome, but at least it was kinda fun and has a kinda retro charm. This is not fun. It is EPIC and cringe, the kinda swill that retro will hopefully take a hard pass on. Never agan.

2.0
82Adjy
The Idyll Opus (I-VI)

#2382
Conceptual emoindiefolk with a concept

I've both memed and effortposted this too much already, but at the end of the day I do like a lot of what this record is about. The grandiose narrative/themes sounds like the stuff of wank nightmares, but it actually represents itself very impressively on paper and way the band translate it into meter(s!) is craftful and inspired. Too bad it's a million years long, played entirely at the same tempo in the same style and with the same vocal melody.

3.0
83clairo
Sling

#2383
Indie pop

no memory only a latte stain

2.5
844s4ki
Your Dreamland

#2384
J-hyperpop / hip-hop

Hyperpop comes to Japan and it sounds as results may vary as ever. The opening pair is catchy as hell and v fun, the rest is mixed to unremarkable. This girl is like 18 and has potential, but more on that further on.

3.3
85Son Lux
At War With Walls And Mazes

#2385
Trip-hop / art pop

Finally made time for this and am glad. Really rewarding record, sunk a few plays into it already and am excited to spend more time with it in the long run. Great balance of darkness, artificial textures and a personal edge, and a lot of engaging changes of pace. A lot of the trip-hop influence is faithful in and of itself, but it's combined with a range of other stylings that makes it feel like a reinvention of sorts. A keeper.

4.0
86Hiatus Kaiyote
Mood Valiant

#2386
Neo-soul

This fancy fancy slightly overproduced occasionally disorientating collection of smooth fuckin jams is very good and I like it a lot.

3.9
87Doja Cat
Hot Pink

#2387
Doja Car

Forgot to rate this ages and ages ago. It has some good songs and some bad songs and Say So. Vroom vroom.

3.0
88Seiko Oomori
PERSONA #1

#2388
J-pop / electro pop / Reclaimed alt-idol

Seiko Oomori drops an album of (mostly) self-covers and they're (mostly) pretty good, but this is still my least favourite thing she's done since kitixxxgaia in 2017. Her album with ZOC was better, but the 9hrs of live bluray footage are the best.

3.6
89Amon Tobin
Long Stories

#2389
A m b i e n

Amon Tobin goes full-on ambient and I'm still trying to decide how much I like it. Pretty weak first impression, but I'm coming round to it.

3.3
904s4ki
Castle in Madness

#2390
Zoomer j-hyperpop

Yeah this is not what I was hoping for. Potentially higher hook quotient than her debut but also a significantly higher quotient of cringes. Also, her first one had good overproduced art for its sound but this, uh, does not. Am probably overrating this.

3.0
91Goreshit
Semantics: The Benzo Chronicles

#2391
Breakcore / atmospheric DnB

Been on a breaks kick lately. This is pretty great and a lot less immature than what I was given reason to expect from Senor Goreshit. Nice.

3.6
92Thrice
Deeper Wells

#2392
Loud transitional dad rock

More Palms-era Thrice = um did I really need this? Opener is a banger, so there's that.

3.0
93Screeching Weasel
Boogadaboogadaboogada!

#2393
Proto-pop punk / hardcore / skate punk

40 minutes in probably as many songs. Some of these are hilarious, some are catchy, some are whatever, some are stupid and all of them are snotty. Cannot decide it it's mildly annoying or actually very great.

3.4
94The Flashbulb
Kirlian Selections

#2394
Ambient breakcore odyssey

One of my favourite new finds - thought it was a little bland at first, but then I got back into RTS games and found it was a perrrrfect soundtrack. It's a long boy, but covers a wide range of styles remarkably smoothly and at the end of the day is just very pretty. Recommended.

3.9
95Alexis Marshall
House of Lull. House of When

#2395
Post-industrial

Currently procrastinating my review for this so I won't delve, but I'm impressed. Big step up from YWGWYW for A.M. personally.

3.9
96nobodyis
And I Found Nothing There

#2396
IDM

Nice wavy wavy shimmer shimmer ambient IDM stuff from this year 2021. Had this on repeat a while.

https://noagreements.bandcamp.com/album/and-i-found-nothing-there

3.9
97Atsuo
Works (作品集)

#2397
Old school breakcore / nerd techno

Slightly muddy fun but omg that Anarchy in the UK remix is too much lmao.

3.5
98The Flashbulb
Red Extensions of Me

#2398
Less ambient breakcore

Not as sold on this one; some great atmospheres and melody, but too many electroriffs. It's ok.

3.0
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