Reviews by apollo

E.V.O.L is an album that i have somewhat mixed feelings on. This album has an incredibly abstract sound to it where it seems to be picking some of the most random noises and putting them together with mixed results. The album does lack accessibility meaning that it can feel overly forgettable due to the album trying to be so artsy-fartsy. However, there are some pretty solid melodies here and the album definitely sounds cleaner than the last Sonic Youth album i have heard (Sister if you didn't check and i doubt you did anyways). This isn't the worst album but it isn't really the greatest one either.
Best Song: Starpower
Worst Song: Green Light

Who knew that Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness would be such a banger of an album. This album is very long clocking in at more than 2 hours which would be something i had a problem with but when the album is 2 hours of some of the greatest grunge music i have ever heard, i don't have any problem with it. The songs consisted of nonstop amazing guitar riffs, vocals that were a bit weird at first but still managed to fit the songs really well and that i eventually really started to like and enough quirkiness to give the album even more charm without getting annoying. The fact that this album is 2 hours long and every single song managed to be so great easily makes this one of my favorite albums i have done for this project.
Best Song: Bodies
Worst Song: Take Me Down

Scream, Dracula, Scream is such an amazing album. I already really like punkish sounding albums but even this album goes beyond those lofty standards. The album is of course fast, fun and frenetic and the vocals really do fit these songs well. But the main two things that really steal the show are the guitars and the trumpets. Both elements heavily support the album in very different ways. The guitars are what really carry the album with them being pretty heavy but still keeping the songs really catchy. The trumpets also help differentiate this album from a lot of other punk album by giving this album a more extravagant feel. Not every decision made with this album is perfect but i still absolutely love it.
Best Song: Come See, Come Saw
Worst Song: Misbeaten

American IV: The Man Comes Around was an album that i actually liked quite a fair bit. I was pretty surprised to learn that this album was just covers (with one original song) but these covers are some pretty good covers. This album also seems to have songs from some of my favorite albums on this list like Hurt from Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral, Personal Jesus from Depeche Mode's Violator, and Bridge Over Troubled Water from Simon And Garfunkel's album of the same name. While i do like the original versions of all those songs more than these covers, I still cannot deny that they are very good and the other songs were quite good as well. Definitely a really good listen.
Best Song: Personal Jesus
Worst Song: Tear Stained Letter
Side note: Am i the only one who thinks that Johnny Cash's lineup of albums on this list is a little weird? He has 2 live albums and 1 studio album 99% consisting of covers.

Slanted And Enchanted wasn't an album i hated but i didn't really love it either. Typically, i am quite a fan of this rough indie rock style that this album is going for but i just feel it could have been executed quite a bit better. The music is mostly good but sometimes, it could get a little noisy and had a few questionable moments. But the main thing that hampered my enjoyment of this album is the singer's voice. I feel like he gets a little too into it and it makes some of the songs get kinda annoying. Like i said, i didn't hate this album as there were some solid songs but i just feel that too many things hold it back for me.
Best Song: No Life Signed Her
Worst Song: Chesley's Little Wrists

Rain Dogs is certainly an excellent album. I always liked Tom Waits' style of music and how unique it is and this album does a really good job in capturing that style. It also just does every aspect that you would ever want in an album right. There are plenty of different styles of music here which all sound great, Tom's vocals which all are varied and gave the songs their intended feel and then some, the lyrics in every song are interesting and the production here was surprisingly very good, even better than Bone Machine even though that album came out 7 years later. I don't think i can think of a single problem that this album has so it gets full marks from me.
Best Song: Gun Street Girl
Worst Song: Time

I gotta say, I like Buffalo Springfield Again quite a bit more than i was expecting. At this point, I am pretty familiar with two of this band's members being Stephen Stills and Neil Young but it is clear that this is where they brought out their A game. This album did so many things right, It had good instrumentation, great melodies, a good amount of singers all of which sounded great and brought their own little touch to each song and good variety between every song while still sounding like they fit together nicely. I'm not the biggest fan of when the songs suddenly stop and start with no rhyme or reason to but other than that, this is a surprisingly really good album.
Best Song: Mr. Soul
Worst Song: Broken Arrow

I know i have been giving out 4s like I'm Oprah Winfrey giving out cars lately but that's just because these albums have been so good and Pictures At An Exhibition is one of those albums. This album genuinely shocked me with how not only good, but weird it is. Each of the songs had a very different vibe from each other (except for the ones with the same name) and each of them had quite a lot of quirkiness to them from the bleeps and bloops of some songs to the heavily blues inspired songs. The sound quality was also very good and it never at any point got tedious. This is just another album i really like.
Best Song: The Old Castle
Worst Song: The Sage

Bad Company is an album i really have a soft spot for but i don't feel like i have a particular reason for it having a soft spot in my heart. Lets get one thing out of the way, this album is incredibly basic and simplistic especially for a hard rock album from the mid 70s (mainly when you consider that there were hard rock albums with more interesting elements that came out earlier) but i still really enjoyed this album. There were some unquestionably good songs and there wasn't a song that i would consider bad. It was also a pretty short listen too meaning that the album never had a chance to get repetitive. This album gets a really mild 4 mainly because i just don't really have a big reason for liking it yet i still do like it.
Best Song: Bad Company
Worst Song: Movin' On

La Revancha Del tango is certainly a really fun album. This album definitely has one of the most unique ideas of all the albums here with it combining French tango music with modern (well, for the time) dance music. And the results paid off as this album managed to be a really good one. This album always knew how to keep itself interesting even if it did rely on the same formula by adding subtle nuances to keep most of the songs feeling different. It also managed to do this without sacrificing listenability as there wasn't a single bad song here even if some songs were better than others. I really did enjoy this one.
Best Song: El Capitalismo Foraneo
Worst Song: Chunga's Revenge

Lost Souls was such a great album because it was just so relaxing. This is genuinely the perfect album to listen to after you had a long day because it just has everything that makes an album relaxing. It has a slow pace with some beautiful melodies with just the right style of guitar playing to help give this album it's feel. I got this album during the specific scenario i mentioned that would be perfect to listen to it so it got to a point as to where i wasn't bothered by the repetition and length of the songs all that much. Some of the songs are a little weird due to a somewhat unorthodox vocal style but it was never enough to make me not enjoy this album. This album may hit hardest during a specific scenario but when it does hit, it hits hard.
Best Song: The Man Who Told Everything
Worst Song: Lost Souls

I gotta say, I was not expecting to like L.A. Woman as much as i did but good lord this is genuinely a glorious album. In my eyes, this album represents everything a psychedelic rock album should be. A fun, catchy, ever-changing experience that anyone using psychedelic drugs can enjoy (not that i was using any, I'm only 20 years old as of writing this which is probably underage for these drugs) with a good dose of quirkiness but not too much to make the album annoying. The songs, at worst, could be a little repetitive but even that flaw was very rare as the songs always had elements to help keep themselves from getting stale. This is easily one of the best psych rock albums i have heard.
Best Song: L'America
Worst Song: Crawling King Snake

Calenture is an okay album that doesn't go all the way but is still an alright listen. This is basically as typical 80s alt rock album as typical 80s alt rock albums get. You have all the ingredients for them, Theatric sounding vocals, check. Slow, sometimes melodic guitars, check. Drumming that's only really there to help progress the melodies, check. Some other instrument like a piano or violin, well, they are both here so check. This album never really does anything unique or different to help itself stand out from it's contemporaries but i still can't call this album bad. The songs here could have some pretty good moments so it is an album that i can say is decent but there is better out there.
Best Song: Kelly's Blues
Worst Song: Bury Me Deep in Love

Hysteria is an album that i expected to love and my expectations were 100% right. According to this album's wikipedia page, it is Def Leppard's longest album at 62 minutes but they made sure to make each and every second count. This album is filled with nothing but amazing guitar riffs, awesome drumming, melodies that hook you and never let go and some really great vocals as well. Not all of the songs here were the best of the best but the ones that were, really were and really helped elevate this album to be a 5 star album. I have nothing left to say, just one of the best albums i have looked at for this project.
Best Song: Pour Some Sugar On Me
Worst Song: Women

Architecture And Morality is an album that didn't leave the best first impression on me but as it grew on me, i really started to enjoy it. At first, i was worried that this album was going to be overly boring or overly noisy but as it turned out, this album is neither. It has a lot of the 80s cheesiness you would expect out of 80s new wave albums in a lot of areas including the vocals to the instrumentals but this album also manages to be super melodic where said melodies can be absolutely beautiful, haunting or both. I wasn't expecting a lot from this album but it still really turned out to be a really nice listen.
Best Song: She's Leaving
Worst Song: The New Stone Age

Gotta say, due to Morrissey's stigma of not being great, I wasn't expecting You Are The Quarry to be as good as it is but i was certainly wrong. When i saw that Morrissey had a solo career, i thought that these albums were going to more or less just be more Smiths albums but this one definitely feels very different from those by dropping the a majority of the new wave elements and going full indie rock. The music here is really well done with some great The Killers style melodies and even when the lyrics were dumb, they still managed to make me wonder what Morrissey would think of next and that always kept me interested. This is a really solid album that in my eyes, gets more hate than it deserves.
Best Song: First of the Gang to Die
Worst Song: The World Is Full of Crashing Bores
Side note: I don't know why but the album and artist names being positioned the way they are kinda makes me laugh, it feels more like a statement than just the name and artist of this album

GREY Area was a pretty darn good album. I guess i should be expecting something good considering the immense critical praise it got according to Metacritic back when they still had albums on that site. I do find the lyrics a little weird in some place with how much Simz uses the n word but other than that, i don't really have that much negative things to say about this album. The instrumentals were all cool and provided something different in each one and the flows were also super well done making this a really smooth experience. I don't have much else to say, just a really good album.
Best Song: 101 FM
Worst Song: Boss

Buenas Noches From A Lonely Room is an alright album. I'm not really the biggest fan of country music so i wasn't going in with the highest of expectations but it is a decent listen. The songs are pleasant and well done with good vocals, good instrumentation, good rhythms, and the album is really well produced. My main issue with this album (like a lot of other albums like it) is the songs are not diverse enough. They all seem to rely on more or less the same formula which sounds fine but gets a little bit tiring even with this album's fairly short runtime. This album isn't a huge recommendation from me but it isn't a stay-away either.
Best Song: What I Don't Know
Worst Song: Send Me the Pillow

Good lord, i took a week off from this project to go on a vacation and then i come back to this?! Os Mutantes is an albums that somehow manages to commit nearly every no no in music possible in just 36 minutes. I'm not gonna fault the lyrics since they are in Spanish and i am still a beginner in learning that language and the vocals are about as good as they could be with the limited resources but what i will fault is the music. There is everything here from terrible compositions to awful instrumentation amplified by terrible audio recording and mixing even for 1968 and that's when the songs aren't having immense identity crises. The other aspects are not so terrible but when the music is this unbelievably bad, i can't give this album any higher than a 1.
Best Song: Le Premier Bonheur Du Jour
Worst Song: Panis Et Circenses

World Clique is definitely one of the more bizarre albums on this list. There were quite a lot of points in the album where the songs had many different things that they wanted to try with mixed results. The results were generally pretty good and had their moments but sometimes, the weirdness did get a little too much. There were definitely quite a decent bit of solid songs here which all sounded pretty unique from each other but some did go on for a little too long causing the beats to get a little bit repetitive. This is one of those albums where you have to know what you are getting into to really enjoy it but if you do, you will find quite a bit of enjoyment here.
Best Song: Good Beat
Worst Song: Build the Bridge