Reviews by galway_rat

January 28, 2026

HL: "Grand Paradise", "Gameshark", title track, "Trapped At Dillard's", "Won't Drown"

I had the phrase "I rate this four horses out of five" in my head before I heard a second of this band. I think I'm funny. But the more I hear (listening to "Won't Drown" atm), the more that rating might be serious.

The first rough patch after a pretty great start was the meandering "Five Cups", though it does its best to hold the lush soundscape the whole album offers.
Kind of similar to TV on the Radio, in that it mixes radio-friendly hooks with off-kilter production choices.

Just because it resembles some of the indie picks from the 1001 doesn't mean I am not glad to find this here.

HL: "Omaha", "Mr. Jones", "Rain King"

Solid

Never heard of Koritni- but I remember when "Runnin' Wild" by fellow Australians Airbourne started playing on rock radio, and naive preteen me probably thought it meant classic hard rock was back, baby.

Lex Koritni's voice kinda reminds me of the guy from the Black Crowes, which is a plus imho

Fun, not sure how much of this I'll remember after today.

OP's album summary will haunt me for a while, though. 1- and 2-starring almost every single album on the list, stayed on the user list long enough to give this 5 stars, and was never seen again.
Sir, what motivated you? I have a harder time sticking to a routine of things I actually enjoy (like playing piano).

3/5, could use more piano

HL: "By My Side", title track, "Tornado Dreaming II"

January 27, 2026

P.S. no I'm not done whinging. GnR didn't even get 5 stars from this dude. ROCKS by Aerosmith got 3 only. What even is this album without those two? I'll convince myself OP is a troll, because the alternative is too hard to bear

January 24, 2026

HL: "Skeleton Tree", "See", "Underthing Solstice"

This band is named after a character in The Name of the Wind... God I read that like 10 years ago. There's somebody named Auri in it?
Oh, she's this mysterious waif that lives in the "Underthing", this labyrinth hidden below the magic university.
And here's a song literally called "Underthing Solstice". Neat

I didn't want to start the second book until there was any promise of a conclusion to the trilogy, which there still isn't a decade later. (It's also very fun to be an ASOIAF fan) Point is, maybe Auri is more important later on; who is to say. That 2nd book continues to gather dust on my shelf.

At least we got this agreeable set of Celtic-inspired ditties in the interim between The Wise Man's Fear and, um, the death of the Sun

It's two hours. Which is pretty brief for a Springsteen concert, so I've heard... but still.

I listened to it. As long as you're happy. You're happy, right? 'Cuz I sure want you to be happy!!!

Idk why my knickers are in such a twist. I gave Born to Run 5 stars; I would have been just fine if OP had offered The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle instead. The lengthy jam of "Kitty's Back/Moondance" was an unexpected high point. But... idk. Never could be a hardcore Bruce follower. I'd probably be the yokel clapping along to "Waitin on a Sunny Day"

As I think with every decent live album, "Happy for the people who were there"

HL: "Born to Run" (as always), "Kitty's Back"

January 26, 2026

January 22, 2026

HL: "I. Crawl", "II. Worldstar", "Sweatpants", "3005", "Zealots of Stockholm"

"Sweatpants" and "3005", previously the only songs I really knew from B.T.I., probably kept me from being utterly lost.
My Bino longplays before this were Awaken My Love!, Royalty (mixtape), and Atavista in that order, and I would say all are easier listens than this. But I have to say, like the aforementioned albums, I did enjoy the creative twists n' turns here.
Either a 3 or a 4 but I'll bump it up today.

HL: "Hello City", "Enid", "Brian Wilson", "Be My Yoko Ono", "The King of Bedside Manor", "If I Had $1000000"

Someone added the Ladies!
"You Did It. The Crazy Son of a Bitch, You Did It" - Jeff Goldblum, Jurassic Park

At a whopping total of TWO times, the Barenaked Ladies are perhaps the live act I've seen the most. Both times after their co-lead singer Steven Page left the band in 2009, which remains a bummer second only to Great Big Sea's great big breakup in 2013.

They never needed to make this a full hour, I will admit. The goofiness of many of the tracks clashes a bit with the sincere melancholy of "Brian Wilson" and "The Flag". I never even paid much attention to this full album outside of the hits. But where would Canadian rock radio be without classics like "If I Had $1000000" and "Enid", hmm?
To illustrate my point, let's go back to the early aughts, when I gained sentience and some rudimentary form of music taste. Next to the post-grunge soup of Theory of a Deadman, Three Days Grace, and Our Lady Peace, BnL were an absolute godsend to me.

Imperfect, yet essential

January 19, 2026

HL: “¡Ay! Dolores”, “En una Patera”, "Hablando Con Mi Cerebro", "La espiral", "Domesticao"

The closest thing I can think of that I listened to recently is the Bad Religion album someone else posted. In other words, a punk band that chose a more mainstream rock sound without totally sacrificing their edge. I hate that those are the "punk" albums I gravitate towards, but 'thems the breaks'.
The album cover and song titles give me the sense this is a political album. My Spanish is basically nada, so how political, and what politics, I cannot say.
But this still rocks! 🤘
Sometimes I forget I was raised on a more straightforward rock diet (thanks, Mom), so the pleasures of an album such as this shouldn't come as a surprise to me. Even if my own tastes have drifted over the years...

I've been made aware of Digable Planets, but only when people are talking about their sophomore release Blowout Comb.

Well I’ll get to that eventually; in the meantime this debut is so, so good. As I learned from the 1001, jazz rap is a pretty easy sell for me, and this trio won me over pretty quickly. I’ve definitely heard the hit “Cool Like Dat” before, though I didn’t know it was theirs!

Smooth like butter

HL: "Pacifics", "Where I'm From", "Rebirth of Slick", “La Femme Fetal”, “Escapism”

January 18, 2026

January 17, 2026

HL: "Lander", "Camel Crew", "Here's the Thing", "The Races"

7/10, maybe more down the line; my darn brain kept drawing comparisons to other bands so I couldn't fully immerse myself in this album, but it also takes some of my favourite elements from British and American indie rock and runs with it.
"Here's the Thing" is so fun

January 21, 2026

HL: "Abrazado a la tristeza", "Tres puertas",

Listened on YouTube since Apple Music only has part of the album available

Hm, anyone else hear Alturas de Macchu Picchu? It's another Spanish-language, ambitious rock album that honours a poet. In that case, it's Pablo Neruda; here it's Manolo Chinato. Most of the Google search results of Chinato lead right back to this album.
As a unilingual dummy, I appreciated the former band's ability to fuse prog and South American folk, which hooked me even if the poetry the music was built around is lost on me.
Here, there are certainly hooks beyond the poetry, like the bombastic orchestra in "Tres puertas", but the genre changes makes this feel like a compilation moreso than an album. Whiplash aside, its ambitions, for the most part, translate to some good tunes.

Like a 7/10 for now

January 15, 2026

HL: "The Same Old Rock", "Me and My Woman"

Hats off to Roy! I'm sorry it took this long to hear this.
I've been guilty of "one and done-ing" a lot of these albums, but this one took 2 full listens just to process what I was listening to.
That is, some dense, tangled, proggy folk. And I am here for it! Have a cigar, boy

January 18, 2026

HL: “Girl in the War”, “Monster Ballads”, “One More Mouth”

Idaho

J-pop and death metal.
"The scientists, they could, but whether or not they should, they didn't stop. Dinosaur." - Geff Joldblum, Jurassic Park

Was kind of hoping "Song 4" would just be Blur's "Song 2" twice

I think some part of me wants to give Babymetal a fair shot, due to the insane cognitive dissonance I experience listening to this genre fusion; at the same time if someone close to me suggested I listen to this album I might trust them a little less, without knowing why

HL: "Megitsune", "Headbangeeeeerrrrr!!!!!!!", "Gimme Chocolate"

January 12, 2026

January 11, 2026

HL: "Venus", "Fashion!", "Applause"

Happy for Lady Gaga fans, that this is on the list

January 10, 2026

HL: "Sweet Year Old", "Earthquakes Come Home", "X-French Tee Shirt", "Chakka"

Ending kinda meanders past "Chakka"/"Own Me", but a lot of 90s albums are too long, so it's in good company.

But y'know what, I enjoyed this considerably more than a lot of the post-hardcore/noise rock picks from the 1001, so kudos to thee.

January 9, 2026

HL: title track, "Euchari", "Sorgsen ton", "Brun"

I figured I would like it from what little I know of Scandi folk- the electronic elements came as a surprise, though a welcome one.
Medieval druids... in space!

Not my first Yoko; Double Fantasy and her version of the Plastic Ono Band were heard first. So my understanding of her music ranges from surprisingly good, to what I remember being, to put it kindly,
absolute pigshit.

I can't tell if this is here out of genuine appreciation for the avant garde, or an exercise in sadism -_- Guess I'll just have to spin this to find out!

Edit: to paraphrase Mr. Lennon, “Fly (1971) is a concept by which we measure our pain”

There’s no easy entry point into Fly, and unfortunately it was more of an endurance test than something to be enjoyed, but also had some neat moments like the proto-electronica in Side 3, assisted by a Joe Jones. Kind of like Ornette Coleman’s unexpected involvement in Plastic Ono Band (Yoko’s Version), it reminded me that most of the best moments come from an outside contributor.

As someone who has been somewhat intrigued by the weird shit Yoko and John composed in the late 60s/early 70s (“Number Nine, Number Nine”) , it is remarkable how… empty it feels across two discs. The decent bits are separated by truly bleak stretches of, whatever-you-wanna-call-it. Protopunk, avant-garde minimalism. I call it pigshit

HL: “Don’t Worry Kyoko”, “Mrs. Lennon”, “Airmale”

January 5, 2026

December 26, 2025

HL: "Await Rescue", "Climbing on Roofs", "Radio Protector"

Respect for its mix of brooding prog, IDM and D&B, though found I couldn't really engage with this LP at a deeper level. I couldn't tell if it needed to get to the point quicker or *sprawl*. I'm surprised that no songs crack the 6-minute mark.

“What’s cooler than being cool?”
“Vince Guaraldi”