listening to 2011: wishlists & ignores: Saturday 8 January

I'm going to try out doing this kind of posting every weekend day (assuming I'm not too busy). Why? Well, I feel I should listen to a whole album in order to rate it, and listening to many, many full albums doesn't work. This is an intermediate solution: check out some songs, then wishlist or note them here (or ignore them). Ignores will be labeled on RYM. I wont write about them unless there's a good reason to do so.

This weeks' postings will be kinda full, since there are a lot of albums coming up and I haven't looked at 2011 much except for this post. I'm using this RYM custom chart as a reference (its updated once every X, I think X=1 week). Currently I'm trying to check everything in the top 25 and everything coming out in January.

Now, on to music. First off, handle what I've already checked today. First the 'decent, but...' things. Then some wishlist-worthy stuff (marked by the use of an image). And then more (note: there is one slightly NSFW cover).

Quintessence Mystica - The 5th Harmonic of Death was decent, but not really my thing. Listen to it if you're into symphonic black metal, though (spotify has it)!


Earthship - Exit Eden has some sludgy goodies, but doesn't really deliver much more than familiarity.


Over the Rhine - The Long Surrender may appear on the wishlist later. HYPEM has the song The King Knows How.


The Dark Water Hymnal - Collapse the Structure has some decent pop tunes; Chandeliers and Center of The Spark (both myspace).


The Carrier - Blind to What is Right delivers some melodic hardcore: myspace has the title track. Maybe I'll look some more into this later.



The U.V. Race - Homo (no cover at RYM), via two songs: Lost My Way (myspace) and Burn That Cat (youtube); apparently there's also a cassette version (cover pictured).


Fujiya & Miyagi - Ventriloquizzing
Intresting stuff. Four tracks (Minestrone, Tinsel & Glitter, Yoyo, Sixteen Shades of Black and Blue) are on HYPEM. There you can also find older tracks.

Universum - Mortuus Machina is solid melodic death metal, by the sound of this song anyway. Christian Älvestam does something on this track (presumably vocals). Wikipedia says he's known from Scar Symmetry.


Young Prisms - Friends for Now
You dig yourself some shoegaze? Some Neo-Psychedelia? You'll probably want this on your wishlist, then. HYPEM has four tracks (I Don't Get Much, Sugar, Eneli, Feel Fine).

Monster Rally - Coral. I hereby predict a massive shitstorm of hype around this album. This is something I would see music websites like pitchfork shitting themselves over.

Drive-By Truckers - Go-Go Boots. This sounds kinda like Kings of Leon (on Because of The Times), judging from one of the singles, Used to Be a Cop (youtube).


Isolée - Well Spent Youth
Microhouse, eh? I think I'm finally starting to see the differences between it and Minimal Techno. Anyway, HYPEM has some tunes (note their search fails; a properly spelled Isolée gives no relevant results).

Macabre - Grim Scary Tales: hey, guess what, these suckers are still around. I remember when I was a good ol' metal kid and first heard Dahmer (ages after it came out, of course, but still). It was hell-a funny, with that humour and that sick vocal style no other band had. Now, that still applies, but its kinda annoying too. This release seems to mark less deathgrind, more actual songs and some with clean vocals (Nero's Inferno), as well as their trademark style(Locusta).