Rip It Off

Another album lurking in the bottom 20, and another album that was actually interesting and quite an enjoyable listen. RYM labels the genre of this as "shitgaze", a term completely alien to me until someone helpfully explained it in the subreddit.

Times New Viking sounds like a disciple of Psychocandy's brand of pop, the album consists of cute sounding indie songs underneath an excruciating amount of noise and feedback, but Rip It Off somehow takes it further to a point where it's hard to determine it stops being a deliberate choice and starts just being a by-product of bad recording equipment.

I say the album sounds cute but this is purely from a musical perspective, lyrically the album deals with grittier topics from what I can tell. Unfortunately I'd love to expand on this point, but the layer of noise that occupies the space between my ears and the songwriting is so.harsh that it's kinda difficult to make out. The songwriting seems decent for the most part, if a little unextraordinary.

And here's where we get back to that "shitgaze" tag from the intro, the album has a similar effect to shoegaze bands of having so much distortion and walled noise that it's hard to determine any aspects of these songs apart from one another, instead feeling like a singular instrument. I felt myself zoning out from the album pretty often, not in a bad way as I was still fully paying attention to the album, but in a way where the album just washes over you. At times the album just feels like a noise album rather than a pop album, but I think this aspect is what helps the album click, at least for me.

Should it be in the list: I'm leaning no because I'm sure there's better albums in this space, but I think you could make a strong case for this being included.

Top 3 songs: (My Head), Faces on Fire, Off the Wall

Do you like fuzzy distortion, moaning, and lo fi noise? This heap of shit may be for you. Do you long to have a horrible migraine? Look no farther!

Who the fuck pops this album into a list like this? What absolute mongoloid thinks this is music? Cavemen made better music beating on rocks with sticks...

Favourite songs: Times New Viking Vs. Yo La Tengo (simply because it's instrumental, so I don't need to listen to a juvenile pillock moan in my ear)

Least favourite songs: Come Together, and the rest of this abysmal trash

1/5 (0/5 if I could).... Thanks for the headache.....

It's interesting and a little baffling to me that this one's one of the lowest-rated on the users list, but Aeroplane Over The Sea's a crowd favorite. I don't consider Aeroplane to be very different from this, and honestly, Times New Viking's even a little bit less grating, because the mix doesn't spotlight wildly flat singing

It's interesting: if this album didn't have the distortion, tape hiss, and overall static-y sound, it would probably have a lower score on websites like RateYourMusic and Album of the Year, but a higher score on here. Either way it seems no one truly loves this record, and while I generally agree it doesn't blow really anything away, there is a definitive mood this album brings, and if you're able to put up with the harsher sounds this album presents, I think you'll find a pretty solid noise rock release underneath. If the whole idea got a little more fleshed out, I think you'd truly have something special. Then again, probably goes against the general idealogy of this release, huh?

Ok this is mix is aggressively poor. These guitars are just grating. Holy shit what a chore to listen to.

Someone should let them know that the pre-demo first draft, before the words were finished, and before the songs were properly recorded, has ended up on Spotify somehow. I'm sure they'll be super embarrassed. Hopefully other providers don't have the same issue.

I'm not sure if a less noise-damaged version of the album exists anywhere, but I'd be interested to hear what it sounds like recorded properly, and maybe even with a music producer nearby.

There's some decent ideas here, I think, behind the noise and pop and hiss and fizz and rumble and feedback and crackle and (seemingly) broken microphones and lack of care taken to make sure the songs could be heard at their best.

Quite annoyingly badly produced and recorded, but not actively offensively bad, and a potentially interesting collection of almost-songs.

This one just didn’t click with me.