2. Radiohead - The Bends
3. The Dillinger Escape Plan - Miss Machine
4. Rage Against The Machine - The Battle Of Los Angeles
5. Meshuggah - Koloss
It's just after 10 right now, and whilst I should go to bed and get ready for the morning, I'm just after spending the last few minutes with a bottle of scotch whilst angrily beating out vague ramblings in F pentatonic. So why go to bed right now when I can stay up and bitch about people's ill chosen taste in music.
Chris seems to be a cool guy, and by all people's accounts a gifted performer and musician. I've not seen him live, but I've been told by several people it's a sensation you will never forget. I do want to make it out to one of Illenkus's gigs sometime, also in part due to the fact that my "coffee guy", Josh, is also in the ensemble. I mostly know Chris from (surprise, surprise), Streetfighter. He was, until recently, a residing member of the Fight House. He seems to be a cool guy, sets his mind to things, and then fucking does them. I have a lot of respect for that.
REFUSED - The Shape Of Punk To Come (Liberation Frequency)
This is probably the second best album I have heard thus far this year, a very close second to Phantasmagorea by D-Styles.
The subtle and not so subtle changes, even fiddling with the volume, filters and so forth, it's an incredible album that you always seem to find something new each time.
John Carberry told me that when the band finished this album they broke up, as they reckoned they could never match it. I'd well believe that feeling, writing this now a few weeks later I want to listen to it all over again.
And probably the fucking first song sets the bar too high, but everything else comes pretty damn close to meeting it!!! A seven minute song that actually justifies the playtime, how rare is that in modern music tell me?
This is music, and this is something incredible that has to be experienced for yourself. I almost genuinely don't know what song to choose, as they all complement each other so incredibly well.
This is an album I highly recommend everyone listens to, it's fucking amazing.
RADIOHEAD - The Bends
Given that another person has nominated another Radiohead album this year, I was pleasantly surprised that this turned out to be a great album.
My only knowledge of Radiohead is seeing their name carved on school desks alongside Therapy, not knowing either band, considering the people who were carving them in to the desks I was in no real desire to find out either.
None the less, it's a beautiful flowing album, just enjoyable to listen to and drift along to. Being so impressed with this album led me to choose Chris's month immediately after, being fairly sure that there would be at least one album in the list I would most likely tolerate.
This album is probably better than OK Computer. I think I may be becoming a Radiohead fan. Maybe it's the scotch talking, maybe it's the mild depression of a breakup, but guess what, I'm wallowing in scotch and depression right now and for some unforeseen reason it seems glorious and uplifting. Not something I ever thought I'd be ever saying about scotch. Or Radiohead. As I said, this guy who's singing must be a depressing motherfucker to be around, because it all comes through in his delivery. This is really beautiful stuff, I've found myself going back to this album every now and again even from last June. It flows excellently. Who would have thought semi standard chord strumming could be used to such excellent effect? I have to admit, Radiohead have really vaulted up the ladder of my appreciation this year. I guess all those knobs in school who used to listen to them actually had a pretty damned good reason to.
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Miss Machine
OK, these guys are pretty adamant about killing their vocal chords and our ear drums. I mean I'm replaying track one, and what the fuck am I listening to? It's a guy shouting as loud as he fucking can without going in to a fit, and some guy with and over driven guitar I can just imagine drooling from the mouth as he strums out his power chords as heavy as he can. I remember years ago going to a gig with my sister in Milwaukee for what she called a "math rock" band named I don't fucking know or care. I fell asleep in the middle of the performance, and woke up as if in the middle of a nightmare. It was like waking up drunk (which is worse than a hangover). Listening to this album is like that. It feels like a load of guys playing riffs that should sound good, but ultimately don't. The real problem I have is now deciding is this album worse than RATM or not. You know, I'm at the point now where I'm starting to hate all music. I've listened to other people's crap for the last 10 months, and I have never been so fucking relieved to be at the end of something in my fucking life than this stupid blog. You want to know what I'm looking forward to now? Silence, fucking silence. I don't want to hear anymore of this pollution of fucking sound waves the haunt me at night, as I go to work, and a I drive home. I'd prefer to hear to monotonous hum of my engine on the motorway at 2500 rpm than listen to someone else's crappy choices in music. Fuck you all.
Rage Against The Machine - Battle Of Los Angeles
This feels like I'm listening to a bunch of entitled upper middle class white guys complaining about societal constructs, as they never had any actual hardships in their upbringing. And I don't even bother trying to decipher what they're saying, but from the sound that's the feeling I'm getting. These guys are trying to channel the depression of blues or the racial inequality of rap, but ultimately the have none of those experiences to draw from. They feel like a slightly better version of Linkin Park (which unfortunately, seems to emanate from our gym speakers far more frequently than I'd like). I don't think I cam really recommend this album, there's far better stuff out there to listen to. But if you've decided that you're mad at society for no reason in particular, and want to have some rhetoric to back you up, this could be the album for you. I'm pouring myself another dram of scotch here and this tool of a singer is singing about the same shit he did 15 minutes ago. There's some nice riffs in here, but that's like saying there's a good looking chick in a Hollywood film, it means nothing. I can't say that I HATE this album, but it does very little for me.
Meshuggah - Koloss
OK, I think we can definitely say this is metal, but it really doesn't do much for me. It's just some randomly kinda heavy licks with the cookie monster constantly going on and on and on until we die of exhaustion, depression, psychosis, boredom, or all of the above. I mean, really, listen to the first track (which I'm listening to right now as I type this previous long drawn out sentence in it's entirety), and nothing musically of interest or note happens. I feel like I could throw five cats in a room, drop their wails down a few octaves with auto-tune and the lyrics would make about as much sense as this plonker going on and on and on and on. And might I add, at least then I'd have the enjoyable spectacle of a few cats beating each other around their heads. It sounds like bad tribal music. Things get a little better as the album progresses, but it still seems to be one phrase per song repeated over and over as fast as a human can physically play it. Which as impressive as it may be, it feels like I'm watching a video I once saw of a man giving himself a blowjob.
No comments:
Post a Comment