Univers Zéro - Clivages

A very impressive release with an insane amount of intense moments and western classical music styled grandness. Seriously.  This is, HUGE. You thought Boris sounded huge? Sure, they may have bigger guitars, but the sheer atmosphere and scale of this album surpass almost anything I've heard.

That said, this album also suffers from being stretched. After 'Straight Edge', one of the most epic hi-lights off the album, finishes, it kinda feels like the album ends. There are more such moments that augment the intense and epic hugeness of 'Warrior' and 'Straight Edge' with calm music. While this works, I think there's a little too much of it.

So in conclusion, this album is great. Maybe a little too great, even. But definitely worth a listen. I could see the average 'open-minded' metal fan enjoy this, in particular (apart from fans of this genre, of course).

github repository of random code I wr(i|o)te

clicky

listening in 2011: Sunday 9 January

Hi again. This blog continues from 'yesterday' (= before 0:00).

The Cave Singers - No Witch. This is decent. HYPEM has some tracks. Maybe you'll dig it. Vaguely bluesy, kinda folky. Name reminded me of our ol' buddy Nick Cave.


Braids - Native Speaker
This sounds intriguing. It's also getting hype. I can see why. Can you? HYPEM will help you determine that.


James Blake - James Blake
HYPEM. Gotta hear more of this; Limit to Your Love is pretty awesome, but looking at the RYM reviews I think it doesn't cover the style of the whole album.

The Go! Team - Rolling Bloackouts offers some up-beat mixture of electronic and rock music. It's kinda loud, though. Could use some work on the production side of things.

The Decemberists - The King is Dead is an album that probably isn't for me. But even so, the songs are impressive. Down by The Water (hypem) is particularly interesting (more @ HYPEM).


Destroyer - Kaputt (HYPEM)
Well, this is new. I've never heard of 'Sophisti-Pop' before, but apparently it's a Jazz and Soul influenced pop genre. It kinda sounds like the 80s. The jazz is kinda in the background, while in the foreground we find calm, slightly dreamy vocals, backed by a very solid rhythm section. I wanna hear more!

EPs
Dimlite - My Human Wears Acedia Shreds can be heard on bandcamp. Kinda glitchy, hip hop-esque. Decent.

Hammock - Longest Year: well, here's some post rock for ya. Actually, it borders on ambient music; you can barely make out the guitars. Check  Longest Year (youtube). I'm not a post-rock fan (not anymore, anyway), but this is worth checking out.

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).

DK - Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegitables

Note: this is a review-during-first-listen. You should try making one. Its fun.

So here we go. I've been forgetting about DK for a little while. Maybe too long. I recently heard Plastic Surgery Disasters / In God We Trust, Inc. again (which just contains the album and the EP), so I figured I would try their other 'landmark album'. Most of what I heard so far is decent... but what lacks is DK's touch for good songs. Sure, the lyrics are probably good - I'm not that good at making them out, but the titles speak for themselves.

California Über Alles is a great song (fuck you jello, for fucking pronouncing Über wrong). After that, things seem to go back to the hardcore/punk mixture we're used to hearing from DK. Sure, it's entertaining, but it doesn't have that edge to make it a great album.

My conclusion? Go with Plastic Surgery Disasters / In God We Trust, Inc. first. If you want to hear something like the EP, though a little calmer and (imho) less lyrically interesting, go for this. But, you need to hear California Über Alles, just like you need to hear Nazi Punks Fuck Off (and the Napalm Death cover)!

Hey guys, guess what

its 2011 !!!!1

Time for a 2011 album.

You love you some trip hop sounds, but think all those big albums are a touch too boring? You think there should be more 'hop' in trip hop? (An) Earthling might just be your new pet.

album on bandcamp.

Also, fucking bandcamp and their motherfucking paypal. Note that 'buying without paypal' also goes through paypal. I do not want paypal.
Seriously though, why can't there be a simple system like the iDeal we have here in the Netherlands (shh, don't tell apple!), which just provides an API-like service between the seller and the bank. So I log in to my bank, pay, the seller gets an 'he paid' message, I get my stuff. Why do we need the evil that is paypal?
<insert huge rant here>.

Oh right, a blog

Happy new year, blog.

Time for a review of 2010? Well, I dislike top lists, especially when I'm the one making them. I always feel its hard to draw a line of what goes in and what doesn't. Some stuff is 'just good'. Some stuff is old ratings, things I thought I'd listen to more than I did, things I have to hear again before I put them on the list and before I know it's the end of the next year.

So instead, I give you here a non-exhaustive list (last updated: 12 January 2011, last new addition: 12 January 2011). Of noteworthy albums(/EPs) from 2010. This is in the order of this list nevermind that. I left out a lot of albums that are either not noteworthy or that I need to hear again. You should hear all these albums, or at least some portion of them. For your (my) convenience, I've partitioned the list in roughly 3 broad sections;
Metal and punk, aka loud; Hip Hop, soul, R&B and jazz pop (it just happened to be convenient); Folk, indie, alternative, rock, aka (usually) hyped stuff.

note: I will probably add reviews and/or sample songs later

Metal, punk

Aeternam - Disciples of the Unseen

This album is currently the highest rated 2010 album I have on RYM. Does that make it my album of the year? Yeah, I guess so. It's pretty awesome. Oh, some sources have this album as being from '09. But fuck those sources.


Melechesh - The Epigenesis

More "middle-eastern" metal. Pretty awesome, though maybe a little over-the-top in terms of length. Like melodic black metal? This might just be your "album of the year".


Winterhorde - Underwatermoon
Some pretty amazing melodic black metal with a healthy dose of prog metal right here. You think melodic black is kinda boring and repetitive? Listen to this, think again.


Stam1na - Viimeinen Atlantis

Despite the l33t name, these guys make an interesting mixture of fast, technical thrash metal backed with ideas from progressive metal. Also, note the awesome clean Finnish vocals.


Taperedmind - Breathe Again

Kick-ass Alternative Metal.


Fear Factory - Mechanize

First 2010 album I bought; Fear Factory is back!


Heidevolk - Uit Oude Grond

Heidevolk kicks the shit out of your favorite folk metal band.


Kvelertak - Kvelertak

Hipster scene kids from Norway playing a fusion of black metal and sludgy punk. Points for uniqueness.


Magrudergrind - Crusher

Magrudergrind on a big label. Controversy, the grind scene shits itself. Music fans cheer for the win of good free music.


Mael Mórdha - Manannán

First 'Celtic' Metal album I've heard. Doomy, too. Try it.


Star One - Victims of the Modern Age

I like Ayreon. I like this side project. You like Ayreon? You'll like this. subject to change


Electric Wizard - Black Masses
Electric Wizard progresses their sound after witchcult today. Heavy Psych sounds remain. Sounded better live.


Årabrot - Revenge
Sludgy metallic Norwegian noise rock.


Karma to Burn - Appalachian Incantation

More stuff I heard live. Wohoo, new Karma to Burn! ... Except Almost Heathen is quite a bit better. Sure, this has some nice production touches, and it's still one hell of a stoner album, but one can't help but expect more.


Trap Them - Filth Rations

Seizures in Barren Praise was good; so is this. Slightly different sound. Also, WTF, what is Southern Lord doing here.

Hip Hop, R&B, jazz pop

Zwart Licht - No JuJu

Dutch hip-hop/grime release. First I've heard. Picked it up last week. subject to change


Janelle Monáe - The ArchAndroid

Wow, an Contemporary R&B album I actually really like. Granted, it is hardly your average R&B tune, but still. Plus, at the moment of writing, RYM has this genre as the main genre for this album (with 73 positive votes and 7 negative votes, along with art pop at 61+/20-). Anyway, try some.


Cee Lo Green - The Lady Killer

Surprisingly not shit. subject to change


Caro Emerald - Deleted Scenes From the Cutting Room Floor

Great Dutch jazz pop.

Folk, indie, hyped stuff

Ólöf Arnalds - Innundir Skinni

Contemporary Folk music from Iceland. Hyped somewhat for Björk being on this track. Care. But anyway, Vinkonur is a pretty great song.


Marnie Stern - Marnie Stern

Marnie goes (more) listen-able and pop.


Big Blood - Dark Country Magic

Weird, psychedelic, folkyness. subject to change


Mass of the Fermenting Dregs - ゼロコンマ、色とりどりの世界

Hyped from heaven to hell and back again. Great vocal delivery. Good sound.


Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky

Swans is back. subject to change


Anathema - We're Here Because We're Here

This gets a little soft and slow toward the end, but overall its worthy alternative rock.


Univers Zéro - Clivages
Here's to some epic and grand asskicking avant-prog from this French band. review