Reviews by deksametazon

Orpheus Listening Challenge 2025: #28 A HexD album (9th Album)

Six songs, three artists. Anthony1's songs are melodic and very nostalgic, Exodia's Lumina is a real abrassive club banger, while Sienna Sleep is both subdued, yet really hardcore. I think Exodia has the most listenable tracks, followed by Anthony1's injection of nostalgia. Sienna Sleep is a whole lot more hypnotic and repetitive, which currently misses the mark for me, but may be enjoyable at some other moments in the day. Overall decent

Totally get where love for this album can be derived from. It has that early neo-psych tonality prevalent in the whole Britpop and baggy music sphere, which is most evident in Evolution #7 (Parts I-IV) and its multi-suite approach that covers almost everything from musical concrete, neo-psych, noise rock that's sprinkled all around the rest of the tracks.

Orpheus Listening Challenge 2024: #40 A 2010s album from El Salvador (11th album)

And now for the REAL review to the entry of the 2024 listening challenge:

Boring as all hell to the point that I turned it off mid-album. It's just shredding riffz with Rush and Yes vocals. Listening to the sounds my walls make is a more enjoyable and thought-provoking.

That is all.

I still have no idea why Eitzel doesn't acknowledge this album. For me, it's a very competent 42 minutes worth of tracks. Maybe it's the difference in style that sways him towards his opinion? This album borrows much from post-punk bands like JD, The Cure, both of Nick Cave's bands (especially on Mr Lucky), but still has that slowcore flavor underneath it.

It's definitely far away from AMC will be known for, and that's the three sided coin flip of twangy, strong or dreamy instrumentals with Eitzel's mixed bag of sometimes whiny, and sometimes poetic lyrics, but it still has its merits. For example, Away Down The Street and Point Of Desire gives us a glimpse of the slow, brooding atmosphere that will become AMC's signature, and When Your Love is Gone is another one that has a somewhat slow romantic and dreamy instrumental sprinkled with Marks whiny lyrics that actually work. But on the other side, the album is slow to start, with the first two tracks being a hard to listen experience that might deter you from further continuing on. Plus, it has such a strong post-punk vibe that the originality the band built gets overshadowed and at times feel like a copy of a copy of what made post-punk good.

With that being said, The Restless Stranger is still an overall net positive. Sure it can feel a bit clunky at times, but it has its moments on which the band would build later on.

relied on its punk roots to convey the message, but Engine relies on the newfound love for the country and folk twang (with some proto-grunge aspects?) to say what it needs to say. As with before, there are moments that stand out, but as an entire project, it's far too full of up-and-down series of songs, which ultimately weighs it down.

Folk rock flavored slowcore, on the more upbeat side as opposed to the more popular anemic, droney subgenre.

A lot of songs tell some kind of story, with a lot of them having a bittersweet quality about the breakdown of the human spirit to the different burdens in life. Eitzel's voice sometimes seems directly broken with only a faint whisper to convey the message, but sometimes jovially depressed. His tone to some is annoying, but I find his voice comforting in a sense that it's familiar and not bombastic or unique, which fits the aesthetic of an everyday man down on his luck in a world that's changing in an unfathomable speed.

I think it's the best AMC album. Mark easily paints pictures of the world, and the songs flow seamlessly into different moods,

A bloated amalgam of generic drums, female vocals, and jangly guitars that was done to death before.

Each song on here has 5-10 seconds of redeeming quality before shitting its pants and retreating back to MBV-core shoegaze and generic indie junk melodies. Though to be honest, the solo on Pomeranian Spinster hits the spot, but of course, it was put at the end of the song and it faded away before really putting any kind of mark. It's disappointing, to be honest. I had much bigger expectations from it, but alas, not all expectations can be met.

Three songs interpreted, two artists present, with each having half of the album to show their prowess. Both of them do their own thing well, Alvarius B. has that energy of a cult leader, and his songs reflect that, While Cerberus Shoal has the harmonies of said cult. Both sides are good, but both have things they excel at better than the other.

An amazing set done by the Allman Brothers Band at the height of their power. Plenty of blues licks, southern dance jams with a quality that's pretty much unparalleled.

"Stormy Monday" is a beautiful slow burner of a blues track, "You Don't Love Me" is a jam masterpiece with a solo that transcends blues and enters funk, and even metal territory, and how can we forget the monolithic, epic, and downright just plain huge, Whipping Post.

I'm not a fan of live albums, or double album wank fests, but this here is basically a tutorial on how to wank your life out on a double platter and still leave someone like me amused. Props to the band, and especially Duane, who leaves me captivated with every listen.

Gotta thank my friend Hendrix for introducing me to the power of Luther Allison.

Bad News Is Coming relies on vibes, which is not bad, blues is mostly vibes and guitar playing, and Luther has the skill to make the guitar sing. Really passionate stuff, especially the B-side opener, aptly titled, Bad News is Coming, a slow and moody 7-minute burner.

Spotify has a few more songs, out of which the 10-minute It's Been a Long Time steals the crown. Another suite with raw singing and energetic guitar screaming.

The atmospheric songs here get amplified by a million. The silence and emptiness of the studio absolutely up the emotion of the songs, tenfold, giving me the perception of what voices coming from the most damned place on Earth would sound like.

As for the music that is more on the grunge, or even metal, side of the musical spectrum, they cast a shamanic, dark, psychedelic spell that pulls you around, slowly tearing you up in the process. It was a great idea for Alice in Chains to play an unplugged session, because their songs translate so well to an acoustic setting, which makes this album even better.

The entire album is great. Coupled with the intense atmosphere and the entire mythos around it (which as you know I don't subscribe to at all when it comes to music, but you have to include it here), makes for one of the best live albums of all time.

This EP feels like a rusty screwdriver slowly being jammed deep into your amygdala.

All the songs are explorations of different manifestations of emotion, be it anger, defeat, sadness, sorrow, or the feeling of inadequacy with a dash of feeling you could've done more.

It's a hard collection of songs to listen to and not be brought down by the heaviness of it all. Especially when the sound hits close to home. And that's why it's so good.

The band said the name came from an experiment Jerry did in third grade, where he had two jars of flies, one being overfed, leading to reproduction, overcrowding, and eventual dying, and the other being underfed. The flies from the second jar managed to stay alive throughout the year. Guess you can pull parallels with the life experience of living on the margins, running on fumes, with nothing on the horizons of the future, which this EP is all about.

Hello Hooray is a good rocker of theatrical proportions with its anthemic thump, and No More Mr. Nice Guy is a staple of the glam rock craze of the 70s, but the rest of the album is either stuck in the mud, or is just downright a cringe-fest.

But hey, at least the guy put cabaret on the rock map.

Very cool folk and metal blend that's on the somber side with a lot of merging of subtle guitar solos, keys, drums and a plethora of atmospheric sound ditties.

It's more folk than metal, but once I Am the Wooden Doors comes on with those metal-styled drums, it'll blow your socks off. The two longest tracks, In the Shadow of Our Pale Companion and The Hawthorne Passage to me are the main course meal that commands your attention, and the general alteration between heavy and the melancholic quieter parts are done well on the album.

Orpheus Listening Challenge 2025: #43 A K-Pop album released in the 21st century (29th Album)

Real boring, as is with most mainstream pop. It started out indifferently, but slowly crept its way into annonying territory. There's nothing overtly bad about it, I'm just not into k-pop.

Orpheus Listening Challenge 2024: #18 An album you cannot find on streaming (34th album)

First and foremost, this review would not be possible without the help of [~Zhanteimi], who hooked me up with a digital copy.

Sadly, it's nothing overly special. Fairly competent Afro-funk, with the classical formula of Western-influenced funk and spiritual African chants. The songwriting is hit or miss, but mostly miss, though I attribute that to the language barrier. Overall verdict? Okay album.

Okayish sleazy hard rock. They really missed their decade, as I think they could've been the best glam metal band there is.

Overall, there are a few standouts that dominate the first half, but the rest is "in one ear, and out the other" radio rock.

Orpheus Listening Challenge 2024: #38 An album from your birth year (35th album)

As I understand it, Neo Acoustic is a term used for indie music with a hint of acoustic guitar in the background, which in this case is mostly covered with drums and city pop aesthetics.

Advantage Lucy on Station justifies one thought I had before I sat down to listen to it: will the album have a quality playful and summery sound? The album is indeed superb in that aspect. Rich, tasty, arrangements with a lot of positive vibes led by the beautiful voice of Aiko Hiramine. It's worth a listen, especially if you love the Japanese indie sound.

Imagine being good enough for Miles Davis to be your sideman. But don't forget the rest of the guys, who are slighty below Miles, objectively, but still in the pantheon of the jazz world.

With this lineup, the album is a sturdy collection of music that leaves no room for slacking off. Very simply executed stuff with a plethora of virtuosity instilled.

Eeh, I think Ryan's fallout lingered around far longer than it needed to be, which may or nay not be due to his own actions as a musician (spoiler alert: it's due to his questionable ideas and ethics as a musician).

He started his solo career off well, with a collection of melancholic and introspective songs that are broken off with a few rockers here and there. Some characterize this one as overindulgent and a bit egocentric, but let's face it, who hasn't been a bit over the top when it comes to heartbreak?

The songwriting is decent to good, and the atmosphere is overall a net positive, but where he fails is the engagement aspect. You'll start the album, doze off, think its the fourth song, only to see you're at the back end of it. Definitely not bad, but God, does he sometime feel like a broken record on this one.