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Gene Gol-Jonsson
Contributor

Reviews 34
Soundoffs 3,365
News Articles 3
Band Edits + Tags 724
Album Edits 1,784

Album Ratings 3337
Objectivity 74%

Last Active 01-05-23 6:04 pm
Joined 05-30-20

Review Comments 6,618

 Lists
02.07.24 Gene's 2023 list yadda yadda11.21.23 23 2023 sub-23
07.25.23 fine, i'll also make a mid-year list04.20.23 TAG 𝔭o҉𝔴e҉𝔯 𝔢l҉𝔢c҉
03.27.23 big bois no review01.26.23 what are you playing now?
01.23.23 REVIEWING your worst REVIEWS 01.01.23 Gene's 2022 Bash: Full Throttle
06.25.22 these damn covers04.11.22 Users REVIEWED
02.24.22 gene's 2021 gigathread. shit's going do02.23.22 gene's gone nuts: 2021 honourable menti
01.28.22 21 2021 sub-2101.23.22 Gene is EP-keen: 2021 whatever
12.26.21 global warming general thread12.21.21 listening to your top albums of 2021
11.30.21 feminist literature recs10.24.21 best album covers September 2021
More »

users' 2010s list: listening party

fella by the name TundraL5Z is already doing it, but why not do it with him. join us in trying to decipher your choices, most balancing between baffling and predictable. few of these i listen to constantly, some i've heard enough, some i've heard and liked, some didn't like, some don't remember, a few didn't hear. one way or one of the others, it is not unhealthy to revisit them and understand what locals deem decade-defining material.
100Thrice
Major/Minor


I wish I could say I was anything above entertained. 'Major/Minor' is a thoroughly entertaining album. Melodically and in production I have nothing to scorn. But I fear that might be it. See, this album is fun, it engages you start to finish and you never feel even a hint of boredom. But I struggle to find any attributes other than fun and entertainment. It is not particularly memorable, lyrics aren't the most profound or clear-cut I've heard, vocals are wonky, song structures often repeat. And yet the band knows how to deliver and hit hard. 50 minutes fly by.
BT: Promises, Call It in the Air, Trading Paper, Blur, Anthology
99Cult of Luna
Vertikal


This album is half two things: either truly epic engrossing music (like holy hell the latter half of "Vicarious Redemption") or needlessly long uneventful passages that feel like musical exposition (like the first half of "Vicarious Redemption"), but that's kind of always been the problem with Cult of Luna. If this were a television series, it'd be very divisive for its filler episodes and groundbreaking effects.
BT: I: The Weapon, Synchronicity
98Fleet Foxes
Helplessness Blues


I remember this album, but apparently not well enough not to be surprised by its jazziness, breezy summery warmth and surprising songwriting depth. I remember it as a decent folk album, but not much else. Odd, considering I relistened to Crack-Up about a thousand times. I am certainly glad to have come back to it after the years and rediscovered its avant-garde magic hidden under the fabric of easy-going gaiety. It's pretty.
BT: Sim Sala Bim, The Plains/Bitter Dancer, Helplessness Blues, Lorelai, The Shrine/An Argument, Grown Ocean
97Typhoon (USA-OR)
White Lighter


Greatly ambitious in combining folk and arena rock sized production. I like a lot of the songwriting and some of the more intimate songs feel very warm. But it all comes off tawdry. A lot of flash a lot of flair, also plenty of over the top songwriting and excessive theatrics. The intimacy and tenderness always has to be interrupted by the arrangement getting up its own about itself and the vocals never quite can catch up with the instrumental's grandeur. The word 'bloated' comes to mind. But bloated and morbidly obese. Like Fleet Foxes on steroids and whinier.
BT: Possible Deaths, Dreams of Cannibalism, Hunger and Thirst
96Grimes
Art Angels


The biggest problem dragging Grimes down is not her style of futuristic deranged glitter-spraying love-maniac, but that she cannot make this exhilarating surfeit of glamorous insanities compliment each other. This album only wins over her others for its less all-over-the-place construction. Which in turn leaves it feeling more inessential than Grimes' ballsy aesthetic would like you to believe. So it is her more straightforward project, but even then a less than substantive work.
BT: Flesh Without Blood, Kill V. Maim
95Alcest
Écailles De Lune


Alcest were always mere feel-good easy-listening band. I never found their songwriting compelling, I never saw them as particularly engaging, and I rarely felt the need in returning to their music. But to the latter point, if I ever did, it would have probably been for the exact express purposes of finding something profoundly calming, despite the heaviness of its genre. Blackgaze or post-black metal or however you'd like to categorise this "angry boi toedipping in a gentle creek" kind of music, it is pleasing to the ears. I should sometimes try putting it on to go to sleep. Not because it is boring (although it can be), but because it has a pacifying energy. Bedtime bm.
BT: Solar Song
94Weyes Blood
Titanic Rising


First album on the list that I knew very well. What absolute heaven Weyes Blood gifted us here. As if to summon the god(ess) of love and beauty, 'Titanic Rising' sounds like a celebration of the absolute life, love, lovelife, love of life and life full of love. Even in moments of lyrical drowsiness, I feel like the album wants me to be happy, safe and warm in every and all case.
BT: Andromeda, Everyday, Movies, Mirror Forever, Picture Me Better
93The Chariot
One Wing


Surprising amount of versatility for a screamo hardcore album. I feel weird not knowing what else to say. It really is good. All those people praising it were right.
BT: Not, First, Love., Speak, Tongues, and, Cheek.
92Night Verses
From the Gallery of Sleep


I know a drummer guy who won't shut up about this band and keeps showing everyone Aric Importa's performance at Guitar Center Drum-Off 2012 finale. Listening to this I can see (hear) how this would be a topper of an instrumentalist's essential listening list. The finesse these guys display is undeniable. But other than often being overwhelmed by the instrumentals to a point of the songs being inscribed on the inside of my brain, I found most of the songwriting to be unremarkable. It is not unmemorable, but it is lacking in composition. It is like a car engine catalogue. All technicality, but unless you are already well versed in the craft of making them, you will struggle to understand what to listen for.
BT: Trading Shadows, No.0, Earthless
91Phoebe Bridgers
Stranger In The Alps


This album is something strange. It doesn't really change its pace or style much throughout, and yet I still found it to be a bit of a mixed bag. Phoebe's lyricism and songwriting can be on the dam point like nobody else, but it can also be corny, a little awkward, unintentionally shy drag. And the more I listen to this album, the more some of the songs sound sleepy (like Demi Moore or Killer for the worst offenders).
BT: Funeral, Scott Street, Would You Rather, You Missed My Heart
90Amenra
Mass VI


What by and large is the appeal of post-metal to me is that it often can transmit the emotional state of utter fury while possessing the energy levels of complete emotional exhaustion. It is something I often miss in genres like DSBM, where the two aspects are seated vice versa. And more than the lot of others, Amenra closed in on this particular state of music and perfected the musical feeling of complete emotional drain and hysteria turned to rage. I cannot place this record on a spectrum on their others, as they all - for lack of a better phrasing and in the nicest way possible - are the same. It is a tried and true musical formula that keeps on giving and I am happy (to be sad) for that.
BT: Plus Près de Toi (Closer to You), A Solitary Reign
89Ben Howard
I Forget Where We Were
88Deafheaven
New Bermuda
87Jon Hopkins
Immunity
86State Faults
Clairvoyant
85M83
Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
84Brockhampton
SATURATION II
83Tool
Fear Inoculum
82My Bloody Valentine
m b v
81Laura Stevenson
Wheel
80Lana Del Rey
Norman Fucking Rockwell!
79Agalloch
Marrow of the Spirit
78Slowdive
Slowdive
77Macaroom
Homephone TE
76Anathema
We're Here Because We're Here
75Hop Along
Bark Your Head Off, Dog
74Casualties of Cool
Casualties of Cool
73Danny Brown
Atrocity Exhibition
72Between the Buried and Me
The Parallax II: Future Sequence
71Anna von Hausswolff
Dead Magic
70Damien Rice
My Favourite Faded Fantasy
69Ghost (SWE)
Meliora
68Swans
The Glowing Man
67Deathspell Omega
Paracletus
66Sophie
Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides
65Alcest
Kodama
64Ne Obliviscaris
Portal of I
63Car Seat Headrest
Teens of Denial
62O'Brother
Garden Window
61Flying Lotus
Cosmogramma
60Circa Survive
Blue Sky Noise
59IDLES
Joy as an Act of Resistance
58The Menzingers
After the Party
57The Dillinger Escape Plan
One of Us Is the Killer
56Thursday
No Devolucion
55Jason Isbell
Southeastern
54Women
Public Strain
53Ichiko Aoba
0%
52Julien Baker
Sprained Ankle
51The War on Drugs
Lost in the Dream
50Swans
To Be Kind
49Amia Venera Landscape
The Long Procession
48mewithoutYou
Pale Horses
47Danny Brown
XXX
46The Dear Hunter
Act IV: Rebirth in Reprise
45Bon Iver
Bon Iver, Bon Iver
44Trophy Scars
Holy Vacants
43Radiohead
A Moon Shaped Pool
42The Dear Hunter
Act V: Hymns with the Devil in Confessional
41Deftones
Koi No Yokan
40Ulcerate
Shrines of Paralysis
39La Dispute
Wildlife
38Gorguts
Colored Sands
37The Wonder Years
The Greatest Generation
36Cult of Luna
A Dawn to Fear
35Titus Andronicus
The Monitor
34Cult of Luna and Julie Christmas
Mariner
33mewithoutYou
[Untitled]
32The Knife
Shaking the Habitual
31Captain, We're Sinking
The Future Is Cancelled
30Sun Kil Moon
Benji
29Death Grips
The Money Store
28Lorde
Melodrama
27Altar of Plagues
Teethed Glory and Injury
26There Will Be Fireworks
The Dark, Dark Bright
25Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
Skeleton Tree
24Gang of Youths
Go Farther in Lightness
23Deftones
Diamond Eyes
22The Dillinger Escape Plan
Option Paralysis
21Frank Ocean
Blonde
20Rolo Tomassi
Time Will Die And Love Will Bury It
19Converge
All We Love We Leave Behind
18Swans
The Seer
17Carly Rae Jepsen
Emotion
16The National
Trouble Will Find Me
15Jeff Rosenstock
Worry.
14The Tallest Man on Earth
The Wild Hunt
13Kanye West
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
12The Menzingers
On the Impossible Past
11Queens of the Stone Age
...Like Clockwork
10Manchester Orchestra
A Black Mile to the Surface
9Daughters
You Won't Get What You Want
8brand new
Science Fiction
7David Bowie
Blackstar
6The National
High Violet
5Kendrick Lamar
good kid, m.A.A.d city
4The Hotelier
Home, Like NoPlace Is There
3Sufjan Stevens
Carrie and Lowell
2Deafheaven
Sunbather
1Kendrick Lamar
To Pimp a Butterfly
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