Reviews by deksametazon

The addition of Scott Travis behind the drums rejuvenated the band by at least 10 years, if not more. It's back to a more raw form of thumping, dropping the synths for the most part, adding screeching speed metal (and almost thrash-like) guitars, and double bass drums which added a sound that never lets up.

The lyrics are still the same old leather daddy, fantastic horrors creeping around-kind, and if you didn't like them 10 years prior, you won't like them now. The only minus I could think of is the synth in A Touch of Evil. It sounds very cheesy. The rest of it is amazing, but my 2nd favorite track isn't even on the original track list. Living Bad Dreams was left on the cutting room floor, and it's honestly a very great ballad that's sorely missed.

A lot of frustration here.

Not from the band.

But from me.

I've always been a fan of Judas, but this album is a weird steer into Accept-tier commercialization, which was bound to happen some day to achieve their later albums. All the songs feature the same idea of a pop rock song with teeth showing and veins bulging, but with a substantial lack of muscle.

Which in a more straight-forward approach means: a recycled formula for 35 minutes. Basically a "chorus-verse-chorus-solo-chorus-fade" fest from beginning to end. Hell, If there's one song you can take away from here as a nice representation, it's "Hell Bent For Leather". It has that aforementioned formula perfected, added speediness, and a penchant for leather, which is a big theme here.

At most, this is a reflection of what our society has come to. The anthem to the "10-second attention span" generation.

What was I thinking when I put this album on my favorite albums list ([List1011436] for the uninitiated, though it's been updated last time around 2021).

Certainly not worthy even near the praise it gets, due to the abnormal amount of choppiness and angularity to it, which turns it from an album with a quirk, to an album with a serious flaw that JPEG beats to death with a stick on some of these tracks.

But when he actually does invest time into rapping and not making an aimless and bad RnB pastiche, you best believe it's good with a lot of energy and with a lot of power which I believe is an integral part of hip-hop.

Simon Joyner has that same trajectory Bill Callahan has: they both started out as songwriters in the indie vein, but as they grew older, they more or less ditched the whole idea for the classic singer-songwriter approach.

Even though it's probably his most well known release, for me, it's near the bottom of his discography. The songwriting is somewhat here, but the rest of it is lacking. The raw, overamplified guitar is an annoying, almost bad, quality that's being beaten to death. It does have hints of the vocal style that suits him best, like on "Montgomery" and "Target", but the album is mostly in the key of "whiny slacker rocker".

Heaven's Gate marks a turning point, in which Simon takes off the slacker rocker persona and don's on the clothes of a singer-songwriter.

Shame this album is a snapshot of the transitional period where he's neither truly, and his naked body sits on full display. Take it how you will, but for me personally, I love the bold approach of putting yourself out there, but staring at a man's body with all his attributes on display is an intense experience, not for everyone, and certainly not worth examining for long stretches of time.

In more human, down to earth, and certainly easily digestible words: it's okay.

Simon Joyner doesn't bring anything new or special that we haven't heard from him (or most singer-songwriters) at this point. But what he does bring is a sense of calamity, wiseness and emotion. Might be because this is the first album've heard from him, but it's his best. To me, at least.

This is one of those albums that raise the whole "did I listen to this because I was depressed, or was I depressed because I listened to this album?" conundrum for me.

Needless to say, a big part of my life. Though I always felt Disorder was the odd song out, due to the nature of its somewhat upbeat tone compared to the rest of the album, which creeps and prods its way through.

The album is absolutely filled with bangers. From Disorder and Interzone and their punky roots to the slow atmosphere of Candidate, Day of The Lords, and New Dawn Fades, the album has something for everyone, and the playing, singing, and thematics of the album is a definitive essential for nocturnal listenings whilst walking through the odd streets of your town, wherever you are.

The thing that baffles me with this album is that nobody stopped in the recording process and asked: "Ian, you good man?". There's no way these guys finished recording such a dark and visceral album and just went "Yep, that'll do." and just went on their merry way.

Side A is mostly a cold, mechanical odyssey, and side B has some of the most beautifully haunting tracks I've ever heard. Heart and Soul has such a good drum sound alongside the tribal one in Atrocity Exhibition, and the mangly, menacing machine gun-esque guitars present in most songs are amazing, but those final three songs are some of the most beautiful moments in music. From the switchy punk feel of Twenty Four Hours, to the slow and gut-turning piano and synth behemoths of the Eternal and Decades, choosing a favorite is hard.

But the biggest draw towards this album is the lyrical content, which almost feels like a suicide note with its heavy introspective and tiresome lyrics detailing alienation, and being sucked in by the vortex of being sucked in by different currents, ultimately ripping you apart.

An album that will chew your heart out and then throw it into a cold deep dark ditch. Closer is not for the faint-hearted, but for those whose hearts are immune to the constant artillery shelling of life.

Jolly Joker was one of the more obscure bands coming from the Rijeka rock scene. As the story goes, this album appeared and caused somewhat of a shake in the local scene in Rijeka. Apparently, it was recorded by a man called Damir Pandur, taking the alias of Jolly Joker.

As for the content itself, it doesn't have anything new, especially not new for 1984. The music most closely resembles Denis & Denis and pop virtuoso Oliver Mandić on the local level, except it does not have the flavor of any of them. Not bad, in fact, it has some nice tunes that had potential, like the opener, third, sixth, and final two songs, but they lacked any real substance besides them being synth-pop ditties.

The joker behind the Joker mostly retired from music after this one, making a few albums under his new name Jol, and now teaches guitar in his hometown.

Daniel Johnston has a shitton of albums. 37 to be exact, if we take RYMs numbers. And he does them all in the same lo-fi, almost Neil Young-ish, manner, and this one is no exception.

It might've left a mark if it wasnt an hour long. This style of music is much better in a 20-35 minute album format than an epic, 26 song structure.

Despite not being American, I'm constantly bombarded by a whole slew of American news. I know more about the Iran-US tennis match of a war than my local elections, Donnie's antics are more widespread across our local media than something as people not having electricity in a town fifty kilometers from me for seven days now as of writing, or how a year ago a flood took away dozens of lives, yet nobody was deemed responsibly for it despite clear evidence for the contrary.

But also despite me being a couple of thousand kilometers far from US soil, with a whole ocean dividing us, the average US and Bosnian citizen somehow share a weird feeling of being mentally paralyzed, numbed down by a constant bombardment of polarizing ideas and thoughts that go from one extreme to another, leaving us a state of daze like a concussed animal.

Where does that leave Mutiny After Midnight? Mutiny is a great musical representation of the world zeitgeist. It's like those scenes in an apocalypse movie where there's a guy sitting in a recliner chair, shorts, watching a nuclear blast in the distance. It has a venomous political coating around it, but it's mostly an audio version of a shrug with a wide grinning smile. Make America Fuk Again, Everyone's Welcome and Ain't That a Bitch are songs that protest the path the world is taking, but Sturgill doesn't take it over the top, and instead sends the message that despite everything going up shit's creek, one thing must prevail in our lives: love. I like that message.

It's a nice change of tone from all the ruckus. Mutiny After Midnight takes a different approach, and strikes it out of the park for me. Very simple, and effective way to preach the message we all need to hear right now.

Orpheus Listening Challenge 2023: #33. An album featuring the electric violin(46th Album)

Oh Elton, you sure know how to make an atmosphere and ride it to the moon and back.

The thing is: Honky Château gets stale as it moves on. It turns into this commercial soft-rock heap of songs with a vague Jim Croce-like folk sound to it. Rocket Man is OK, albeit overplayed, with the chorus being dug in so hard into my brain, I can feel the rocket fuel slowly oozing down inside my cranium, and Salvation and Slave are slow and mopey God-worshiping ballads (do I need to say more).

But there are moments that give me a reason to at least say I can "get the hype" of the guy. Amy is a blue-eyed soul banger that is much alike Hall and Oates, Mona Lisa And Mad Hatters is a folky acoustic slow burner with and the duo of Honky Cat and Mellow are the top dogs that give me reason to not trash this album to bits.

An OK listening. Not my shtick for the most part, but it's passable.

It's Winter Here is good, but not great. The Jim Yoshii Pile Up created an atmosphere full of regret and an uneasy feeling towards the future, with blunt lyrical precision, but a lot of it is just atmosphere, if you catch my drift.

It's just the way post-rock slowcore is done; slow tempos get slowed even more, and the midwestern crescendos keep piling on, which can get a bit stale. However, I understand that's the vibe it sets, and I roll with it.

In the 90s with the invention of the CDs, every artist had the fetish of filling the media with as much music as they oculd fit, often time ending up with albums that go for 70 minutes with only 20–30 minutes of material that's realistically of passable quality. I'd say hip hop was the biggest victim of this, but most genres realistically were.

The Sun Rises in the East reverts back to the "vinyl days" and gives us 39 minutes of nectar, filled with rugged beats from DJ Primo and a respectable flow from Jeru, whose style of philosophical delivery and down to Earth rapping is a great contrast to the gritty boastful nature of other East Coast releases.

In its entirety, a very simple album, which can go either way depending on what kind of person you are. I like it this way. It allows bot parties to make use of what little they have. A forgotten gem.

This shit would rock all the airwaves had it been released in the early 2010s (then again, it probably rocks current mainstream radio). The album is basically an ode to a different time. It does everything it set off to do competently enough for it to not be a chore to listen to. The songs are fairly short too and don't drag too much. The only thing is that I don't find it compelling enough, and I've forgotten the entire thing the moment I turned it off.

From what I can deduce, this was the album that cemented a new, outlaw, chapter in Waylon's career. It's a collection of standards that are really well done.

Jennings' burly vocals are a godsend, and do the songs justice. His next album will be even better, but Lonesome, On'ry & Mean is a great beginning.

The extended version adds three bonus songs, out of which "Last One to Leave Seattle" is the best, but the original 10 songs are sufficient for a passer.

After Lonesome, On'ry and Mean, Outlaw country was in full swing thanks to Willie Nelson, so naturally Waylon Jennings rode that wave into Honky Tonk Heroes.

But Honky Tonk Heroes is far from an empty chart placement. This one is a great batch of songs unified with a post-hangover melancholic feel. Although Jennings didn't write the songs, they sure feel like he did, and he sings them in accordance. It's firmly country, but I think it's also worth mentioning how it has a rocking sound at moments, evident in the electric guitar in the first song and on Slow Rollin' Low, a bonus track. It also has a tinge of singer-songwriter to it.

It's good until maybe the sixth track, when you realize this is all they do: mix a bit of Neil Young, Byrds and whatever other Laurel Canyon band crosses your mind. I mean, the melody on Sister Cry sounds like Cowgirl in the Sand minus the hunk, and the riff on Clouds is vaguely reminiscent of Come As You Are. Maybe there are more similarities to be found, but I'd rather just stop there and keep a semblance of enjoyment intact.

Orpheus Listening Challenge 2026: #21 An album from a member of the Soulquarians collective (7th Album)

Welcome 2 Detroit has some great moments, like "Think Twice", "Come Get It" and "Feat. Phat Kat" that show J Dilla's prowess and creativity behind the turntable.

It's a shame I'm not "feeling it" as much as I would love to, because the talent is definitely there. It only works as background, head bumping music, to me.

Thank you, [~SpeedKills] for the rec!