Album Reviews

I remember last year at some point Tom told me about Amber Run, saying he knew I would love it. I listened, curse Tom's name, and then ended up loving it. But they had these three EPs they dropped and I hadn't heard any of them until they all had dropped, so I was confused on what to write about them because it was like a pile of cookies. Sure, I like cookies, but I didn't want to write about the whole pile because they were three separate projects, but I didn't want to write about each EP because I discovered them all at the same time. So I did some digging and discovered they were about to drop a re-release of some of the same songs but on a major label. Well, what ended up happening was that they re-recorded some of the songs I loved from the 3 EPs, but it was fucking plastic as shit....

This is the time of year that I review something I've completely missed. And I missed this one because I wasn't listening to people. Our photographer Tif told me about Lady Lamb a while ago and the only reason I remember this convo was because I said that Lady Lamb (Aly Spaltro) looked like Kate Mara. And I'm positive some of my virtual friends played it via our online DJing community.  The last straw was seeing this album hit many year end lists so I had to grab it.  Once I got all the way through...I could see the hype. Fuck, after the first song I could see what the hype is about.  Aly's voice is so perfectly fucking natural. It's as moist as a brownie and as clear as pickle jar. The notes effortlessly slide out of her throat hole. There are singers like Grimes who sing through her...

I’m not gonna sit here and list all the names involved in this Kneedelus project. Who has that kind of time and access to google?  All you need to know for now is that fucking Daedelus is a god of a producer and his collaborations with the jazzy geniuses of Kneebody go back a while.  Kneedelus is their first official team up and it is like a tidal wave. The future crested and washed up artifactual bits from an age we’ve yet to live in.  “Loops” starts out frenetic and organ-driven. Machine-gun drums hit your body in a seizure-inducing barrage. “The Hole” brings the pace down a bit and adds a gravely bottom to its heavy kicks and horn stabs. The hare, breathless from sprinting, takes a moment to catch its breath. The widely shared, “Drum Battle” is the pulse of this...

The best thing about writing for Syffal, beside the lifetime supply of bacon, beard balm, and honey sticks in the break room, is that there isn’t any homework. Show up, learn the lesson, and then go do that shit. This shit. Writing about music. Any music. Just as long as it vibrates my cochlear’s cockles like my cochlear’s cockles like to be cuckolded. I don’t have to know every little detail about the band. I remember a time when you literally couldn’t know anything about even your favorite artists. And most of the time that was better. I don’t have to know if anyone else likes the music or not. I don’t care. I didn’t get like this by caring about what people think. I don’t think about what you think about when I think about what I think about. THINK ABOUT IT!? It’s liberating to be...

Shit been suckin' ass all over the place lately, yea? From the international to the national to the state to the community in front of my fucking face, ASS IS BEING SUCKED EVERYWHERE.  Where the fuck do I start? Terrorist attacks overseas. Terrorist attacks here. Rich racist white men running for president on the platform of being rich and racist and white men. Anti-Muslim fucking everything. Physically and politically violent attacks on Planned Parenthood. The fight against using common sense climate change. Cops in America killing people. People in America killing cops. Cops in America committing suicide after we've already crowned them hero.  Fuck. It's hard to write about the music you love when you're too fucking sad to get the fuck out bed. It's hard to WORLD PREMIERE something when...

Any band that encourages me to use my dash board as a drum kit has officially earned their way into my heart. This is exactly what happened when I was listening to '15 Years' by Houndmouth and I almost completely lost control of myself mid-dash-board-jam when I started to use the accelerator as the kick.  WHOA. WHOA. WHOA. What the fuck Houndmouth? Where is the warning label? I could've sued you for a class C misdemeanor of uncontrollable dashboard battery and assault. How dare you contract a hit and and run on my nervous system like that? Thankfully, the next heart-rendering track 'For No One' put me at ease, and eventually into tears, as I pulled off the shoulder and continued my journey to pick up the Saturday night pizza. BUT it did force me to go 25 mph in a 40 with the wipers on...

"You know how I know you're gay? Because you like Coldplay." ...Thanks a lot Judd Apatow.  I know it's super easy to hate popular shit forced on us. I'm guilty of it too. Fuck Justin Bieber. (Seriously though, I can't understand how anybody can enjoy that 'What Do You Mean' song) And while The Biebs may be the king of irrational hate. Coldplay is in the second tier. And before I even heard their new (and believed to be last album) A Head Full Of Dreams I already made up my mind that I was going to review it in a positive light after seeing Stereogum's Facebook post: "The new Coldplay album fucking sucks.....here's our review." Why so much hate Stereogum? It "FUCKING" sucks? I'm going to give you a stat that I just pulled out of my ass. And it's true because I perceive it to be...

Germany Germany is a perfect example of someone I've grown to love over every single release of theirs. Literally anything in GG's catalog is applicable to nearly every interaction or life event I experience. In fact, one time I ate a small dish of cottage cheese while listening to Germany Germany's last album Reconnect and now whenever I hear that song I taste cottage cheese and peaches, and every time I imagine or imbibe in some cheese of the cottage I think of that song.  Review over. Shove this on your media pitch sheets you cocksmokers: "Germany Germany, cottage cheese and peaches bitches." I mean, this dude's music has fucking matured alongside me over the last five or six years. While I have yet to fully mature, (and while I may never) the consistent and evident evolution of...

The world is small.  People's hearts are big.  The creative heart might be the most pure.  But vulnerable.  Reinforced Steel's The Dictator is a declaration of war against those who would deny that vulnerable heart, that pure heart its rightful outlets.  Vulnerability becomes tyranny in unnurtured circumstance. Post trauma, the creative heart turns inward and only the truly strong learn to radiate that hate outward again, in life's unspeakable magic, as love!  Reinforced Steel, through all its grinding, creeping, for all its knocks and granite, for all its grandeur and chest-thumping, Reinforced Steel is love!  "The Dictator is a labor of love, created by love, sustained by love. It feels fueled by angst, hurt, pain, but I see right through all that. This is a duo of...

Beats, guitars, and samples. Normally I'm thankful as shit when music has even one of these. But when these things work together to get my pants and pizza delivery uniform off like Sorbmal has here, I'm almost too entranced by the ear tickling to put up much of a fight. Sorbmal's Arctic Giraffe is everything I've ever wanted in an instrumental hip hop album, but the fucking guitars on this shit are killing me. The deliberate pickage of Sorbmal's right hand is so fucking tough, I'm almost intimidated by how crisply hard this guy picks a guitar. I'd wager seven loose cigarettes in prison this dude has 11s strung up on his shit, because if I tried strumming a guitar as intentionally as him I'dve already broken a few strings and ripped the skin off my pickin' fingers.  Shit.  I'm...