Rated 6/10
Magazine feels like a free trial of an album. "Oh, here's a minute snippet of our song; pay 4.99 for the full album." It has nice ideas, but it's all over before it really goes anywhere. Stick with the debut lads.
Rated 7/10
Orpheus Listening Challenge 2025: #10. An album from 2025.(21st Album)
Not often do I say this for a modern release, but I applaud the creativity on this one. The combo of EDM, and post-punk is something you'd think is widely done, but I've yet to find something like this one.
It's jerky and melodic, unlike other math-rock experimental outfits which go and try this angular industrial aesthetic, which is a breath of fresh air. While we're on the topic of air, the vocalist might turn off some people due to his way of an almost choked out delivery, but I find that manic and aggressive style to be good.
Overall, this one sounds like a demo you'd send to record execs in hopes they would sign you, and with a runtime of 21 minutes, it feels like it. But it's still a good demo of a band that's worth returning to once they build up on this sound.
Thank you, [~SpeedKills], for the recommendation!
Rated 8/10
I've not listened intently to albums before this one, but even without listening to them, The Yes Album feels like a band that finally struck gold: epic instrumental passages that radiate confidence with cheerful and joyful singing. All landmarks of a critical moment of everything clicking together. An "Eureka!" moment, if you will.
"Yours Is No Disgrace" and "Starship Troopers" are the main highlights, but an underrated song in my opinion is "Perpetual Change," which showcases the band's elation. It's a grand finale that unites the entire band as one. I can only imagine how the studio must have felt after recording each passage. Probably only a tenth of the joy I experienced while listening to this.
Rated 8/10
It's maybe due to Fragile being the first album, and Roundabout being the first Yes song (and maybe the first prog song, now that I think about it) I've heard with mature enough ears, but this album has it all.
Fragile has memorable licks, beautiful vocals, and enough constraint to not sound like a bunch of jagoffs. It revolves around three, long-form, tracks. "Roundabout", the first one, is a showcase of the technical abilities of the instrumental backbones of the band, "South Side of the Sky" always struck me as the band trying to find a harder edge to their craft, which I deduct mostly from the nasty, deep tone of the bass and the drums that follow it, and the closer "Heart of The Sunrise", while not my favorite track, is the most ambitious and emotional track of the bunch.
What I see here, is Yes taking the approach from their previous album and pushing into new territory. It's another reason why I love it: Fragile expands and brings the progressiveness into pop!
Also, Long Distance Runaround is an underrated bop on this one.
Rated 8/10
It's not my favorite, but Close to the Edge sees Yes at their most expressive and their most artistic (from the albums I've heard, at least). "Close to the Edge" offers memorable and quotable moments that feel almost like pop songs, and not a monolithic 18-minute progressive sprawl. "Siberian Khatru" is the closest they get to a pop song on this album, and it's great and precise, with a load of funkiness that vaguely represents the sound on Fragile.
There isn't a dull moment on here, just punch after punch of great ideas executed perfectly. Objectively, a pantheon of prog music.
Rated 5/10
Orpheus Listening Challenge 2024: #20 An album you think you'll hate just from the cover art (13th album)
Y'know, there were tons of moments of a flipping coin in my head regarding this album before my listen. On one side, because of the damn album cover, and my distaste for the anime style so many people seem to be repping, this could've been exactly how I envisioned it to be, while on the other, covers do tend to be a bad representation of the album.
And imagine the coin had landed on its bloody side. That's my relationship with this one.
On one hand, the goofy beats mixed with hardly audible rapping is by far one of the worst tropes to come out of rap. But on the other, it kinda works? Don't get me wrong, it's nothing spectacular at the end of the day, but its atmosphere is mind-numbing and really dumbs down the whole listening experience, and not in a bad and harmful way, but in a way that I could see myself putting something like this in the background. Minus the whispery vocals, which are more bad than good, honestly. I guess you could say the coin does lean a bit on one side.
Rated 3/10
I try not to overly expose myself on this site (and on the internet in general), but once you experience some "extreme" moments in life, this album becomes as scary as seeing a cockroach in the corner of your room.
Rated 7/10
An avant garde prog album. Love A1 and A2 and those are the tracks that for me, are far above in terms of quality here. The duo of "Alifib" and "Alifie" are almost the same, the only difference being that the latter has a darker feel to it. The lyrics are not my cup of tea ("Pip pippy pippy pip pip landerim?") but the instrumentals are very reminiscent and akin to some free-jazz albums out there. The closing track has beautiful instrumental passages and some of the more motivating and thought-provoking lyrics.
I recommend A1, A2, B3 if you're a casual listener, but if you're a prog/canterbury nerd, I don't need to recommend you anything here, you already know this one by heart.
Rated 7/10
Good, but for me, not as amazing as many put it out to be. That's mostly due to how uneven it sounds. The first half is blurry, with only the opener and maaaybe Wu-Tang: 7th Chamber that go hard, and then you have the second half from 6-11 which are a collection of songs that put to shame most rappers careers. Because of that disparity of quality, I find it hard to love the album, but easy to like it.
Rated 3/10
Orpheus Listening Challenge 2025: #39 An album from a Eurovision winner (44th Album)
It's weird how a person who caused such a stir through the musical spheres when they first appeared, only has around double digit ratings.
Oh, the album is dogshit, by the way, but hey, somebody's gotta get through these.
Rated 8/10
The Wrens have the basis for me to consider them a meh band, but surprisingly they're far from it. I haven't listened their previous works, but this last hurrah does feel like all the emotions that were brewing to that point started boiling over and spilling everywhere.
The revolving door of emotions, going from introspective silent wailing to the polar opposite of a triumphant escape of a bad situation, all while still remaining under the same umbrella is worthy of praise, and the cryptic lyrics intertwined between the respectable indie instrumental work is what keeps me invested and makes me relisten to it over and over.
The whole album is an ode to a period in life most of us have experienced, and that's what also great about it. It's not pretentious, and it never tries to rise above the original thematic idea. It's an inspirational album that makes the best of a shitty situation, and I'm all in for it.
Rated 7/10
There's a reason this one is thought of as the pinnacle of:
- Stevie's career
- Soul music
- Music in general
This is some great stuff. Usually I roll my eyes when I see an album with a movie worth a music crammed inside, but Songs in The Key Of Life tightly walks around that by throwing groovy melody after groovy melody that makes the whole album worthwhile and shrinks the running time immensely.
The wondrous vocals of Mr Wonder also do magic, with his color being one to replicate, as is seen with a lot of modern RnB singers. Add all the previous to the fact that this is mostly a one-man showing (and I mean that, look at the credits), and this is easily one of the most impressive works of art out there.
Rated 5/10
While it does have the elements of a grandiose album mixed with dark and melancholic melodies (which I enjoy most of the time), I find it too heavy and long for me to digest and enjoy properly. Definitely see the appeal, but listening to Chelsea's witchy vocals and droning/apocalyptic instrumentals during a particularly hot and sunny summer day, it mostly just falls short. Maybe on a dark and rainy autumn night it'll click? Who knows...
Thank you [~CaptainPlasma] for the rec!
Rated 6/10
Orpheus Listening Challenge 2023: #16 An album from an artist whose name starts with P (27th album)
Apparently, a lot of people who were around knew of Patrick as this angst-ridden youth whose first two albums resonated with a certain crowd at first, but as time passed, his songs oozed more and more into the mainstream, which ultimately culminated in him making The Magic Position in 2007, fully embracing the fame, whatever comes with it, and using the beast to shine light on his struggles.
Patrick reminds me of in many ways, especially in his brand of music: sad motives intertwined with moments of bliss and being purely self-confessional, but in entirety celebrating life and finding good in the misfortunes around you.
The depth of the album is lacking though, and that's what I find most frustrating about it. The Magic Position really had the potential to be a pillar around which the musical landscape would revolve, and Patrick had all the tools and moments aligned to turn himself into a second coming of and with his unique presence, but instead, he succumbed to the media monster and shut himself with his vices and bad life circumstances.
Still, The Magic Position stands as exactly that: a wonderful album in a magical position some stood in, but very few leaped from into pure stardom.
Rated 7/10
For a band of 9 to 5 guys, this is pretty good. Santana-esque psychedelia and avant-folk melodies with a rock foundation make for a really decent debut. Very atmospheric with a lot of cresecendo moments. Giants' Grave is a cut above the rest. Check it!
Rated 8/10
Beautiful punk record. A pure essential that combines the soul of the OG punk ethos and the acrobatics of dissecting the body of it and just running with it. Minimalist riffs, krautrock rhythms, and noisy backgrounds, you can find all the good stuff
It has a dark presence around it. Not like This Heat with its apocalyptic portrait through music, but like a decrepit lived-in basement type of presence. I love how while listening, you can think two diametrically different things about it:
1. This is punk
and
2. This is not punk
And I think that conundrum is one of the most beautiful aspects of it.
Rated 7/10
Orpheus Listening Challenge 2024: #49 A punk album from the 1980s (3rd album)
Youth of America is one of those albums I should've listened to earlier, but it's better late than never.
Taking Too Long has a krautrock motorik with a-esque psychedelic tonality in its instrumentals and the vocals by Sage, Can This Be is the only true punk number here, and Pushing The Extreme combs through noise rock and filters it through a punk sieve.
The second half, though, is where things get a bit more interesting. When It's Over is an uncommon, 6-minute, almost entirely instrumental blazer of a song with a beautiful noisy guitar solo that transcends those garage rock influences, No Fair is almost a predecessor of goth-rock with its darker undertone. The trademark noisy guitars also do a whole lot to pump up my enjoyment of this one.
But the track that gets the most praise is the closer, Youth Of America, and I can definitely see why. It's a unique take on punk: taking the thing which made it unique, that being the quick nature of it (which is the basis of punk, if we're being frank) and substituting it with a jam that sounds like being. The apocalyptic instrumental, which sounds a lot like fray wires shooting out electricity mixed with a lot of post-nuclear radio static and the screams of the damned, in duet with a potent lyric power which resonates a lot even today, makes for an amazing song. Nauseating in the best way possible.
The entire album is on an upswing motion, with it being front-loaded with songs that are, not necessarily duds, but are not a lot different from what other punk bands were doing, but it really picks up the pace later on with the final three tracks, all of which are trailblazers of different styles, ranging from noise rock to gothic-style post-punk.
It's really a shame that the opening to it is disappointing, because the ending is astonishingly good.
Rated 6/10
Orpheus Listening Challenge 2023: #36 A Christmas album (49th Album)
Why is it that every time I try to review a Christmas album, I get pissed off that it's spring weather in the middle of December? It has nothing to do with the album itself, but it is a shitty feeling when you hear the Christmas carols in spring weather. Anyway, this album by George Winston is not your typical “Night in New York” type of Christmas album. Instead of the busy streets of New York, we venture into the vast rural fields of Minnesota, with only the piano to guide us through the snow storms. Although not strictly a Christmas album, The piano notes do a perfect job in a minimalistic illustration of the atmosphere of the Christmas day. Not deep at all, but like a specialist player on your basketball roster, it does exactly what it's supposed to do, when it's supposed to do.
Merry Christmas to you all!
Rated 6/10
There are much better Macca albums out there but also much worse ones. This holds somewhere in the middle, maybe nudging into the better side of the coin.
It's mostly a Beatles album through a "tired artist" filter, with a few notable songs like Wild Life and Dear Friend. The rest is a hodge-podge of mindless lo-fi ditties and a selection of good pop songs
Rated 8/10
Reaaally good throwback to the likes of Nina Simone and the 60s RnB and soul craze.
Soaring vocals and great backup gelling by the Dap-Kings, Back to Black is a document that perfectly encapsulated Amy's struggles throughout her short life. A really personal document that was held together behind the scenes by multiple people.
A real powerhouse of an album that's great both in the front, with singles like Rehab and Back to Black, to some lesser known gems like Some Unholy War and Just Friends. All the songs tell a story on their own, but nicely snug in and intertwine together to form a real look into the vices that surround us.
Also, it's weird how this revival never went the meaningful distance. We had Duffy, who had one great single, and this Amy album, but that's really it. Maybe it was never meant to be.
