Reviews by galway_rat

HL: "Ladyfingers", "Taste of Honey", "Bittersweet Samba", "Lollipops and Roses"

(hearing the title track for the first time) I feel like I'm losing in a game show

I was interested in seeing Herb Alpert this month, but remaining tickets were dummy expensive.
Hm, well what are the odds that 90-year-old Herb Alpert will return to Winnipeg, Manitoba in the near future?

3.5/5 for now, the hokier arrangements are held up by truly beautiful brasswork

October 22, 2025

HL: "Goodnight Alt-Right", "All Day & a Night", title track
Not as crazy about: "Let's Make a Deal", "Strange Fiction", "The House Always Wins"

"the price is wrong bitch!"
- Happy Gilmore
- Stray From the Path

"Who's your leader? Trick question: none of the above"
I started out onboard with the rage, while accepting that I'm stomaching another screamo record, but when they start bothsides-ing in "The House Always Wins", it confirmed just how hollow and useless this record is to me. Especially this year.
I'm not lionizing the Democrats either, as almost the entire party has revealed themselves to be feckless and complacent in the clear shift towards an authoritarian state.
But when your white-hot, screaming indictment boils down to "oh I can't tell either of these parties apart, and I'm so mad!", and only one of those has
a) threatened the sovereignty of MY country, and
b) announces to heavily tariff American film companies that work in my country- which, if that isn't just a dementia word salad of a policy, would destroy an industry that me and many of my friends are dependent on,
it kinda seems to me like your two parties ARE different.
idk- maybe that's too much text to waste on a pretty short song. What else does this album offer?
"If you preach hate, than expect hate." I like it
"They want the pawns to fight each other and say we're not the same / Well I say, don't hate the player, hate the game!" Hell yeah, chess, like the album cover. Also war is bad.
"Join or die. I won't pick a side"... ah, starting to sound like all those who sat out the American 2024 election again. Maybe political rap rock isn't your thing.

The more I think about this album, the less I think Slipknot's debut deserved the 1 I gave it. At least that had some creative musical arrangements.

1.5/5

For contrast, I put on Wake the Dead by Comeback Kid, another hardcore band on my radar, and within minutes I felt like flipping a police car. And I don't even know what that album is about!

bad idea to listen to late at night. Even worse idea to watch the video for "Faceshopping" late at night.

I suspected I might like this for her prod. work with Vince Staples and Charli, and I really did for the most part. Every time I think I've defined the limits of what music I like, along comes someone like SOPHIE who says "Reconsider."
Rewarding once I got past the eardrum-shattering, distorted percussion

HL: "It's Okay to Cry", "Faceshopping", "Is It Cold in the Water?", "Pretending"

October 11, 2025

While I was dimly aware of Elfman’s band Oingo Boingo, I more recognize him from such films as A Nightmare Before Christmas, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the Tobey McGuire Spider-Mans (in case you can’t tell, I grew up in the 2000s).
He was also involved in a movie called Forbidden Zone, which I watched this year; it probably altered my brain chemistry. I think about it semi-often.

Today I found an infectious, groovy album that I hope to put on at future October gatherings. Yet I had to temper my expectations that this was going to be on the spookier side.
See, my problem is I zoned in on “Dead Man”, where the real emphasis should have been on “Party”.
Also, I suppose certain eccentricities were toned down, compared to his aforementioned movie work, to get more of a dance party feel.

October 10, 2025

HL: "Beth/Rest", "Beth/Rest", "Beth/Rest"

Not first listen
"Beth/Rest" is a pretty good song

I don't know why I should complain, having added like 5 white guys to this list myself- but I can't believe I'm hearing Dutch garage rock covers of "Spoonful" before any actual Howlin' Wolf here. At least I can't accuse Q65 of sanitizing the original, since the fuzzy riffs and decent imitation of Wolf's rasp keeps it somewhat sleazy.

The studio album ends with "Bring it On Home" (14 minutes dear Lord), but I'll keep to the bonus tracks since several of their actual charting hits were non-album singles, such as "You're the Victor", and "I Despise You".

They brought me back with the Bolero snippet. I was fading. That's a long-ass time without any chord changes

As 60's blues rock, I can't really fault it. The singles/bonus tracks are definitely worth a listen, but... it's just the Yardbirds again.

If you rearrange the letters of Joop Roelofs it spells Jeff Beck

HL: "The Life I Live", "Just Who's In Sight", "Get Out of My Life Woman", "Sour Wine", bonus tracks "You're the Victor", "World of Birds"

October 17, 2025

October 17, 2025

HL: "Lie and Wait", "Can Opener", "Transparent"

Seconding Apple Music's comparison to At the Drive In, but Slip is muddier and more morose. Can't speak for the comparison to Deftones, as I STILL haven't given them a proper listen. Honestly, I expect them to show up on this list one day, based on how much I've heard about them recently.

The singer is a bit one-note, but the half-sung, half-shouted vocals are powerful, so I chalk it up to a genre rather than personal limitation.

I could bitch about this genre known as "post-hardcore", and how dreary and beige a lot of it sounds to me, but doing so would ignore the fact that a lot of these songs had my head bobbing against its will. So it can't be that bad...

***

Not the first listen! It'll be interesting going back to this album, as I didn't really give it the attention I gave her debut SOUR (2021).

Now, when Rodrigo finds a better muse than Taylor Swift, I think she’ll release a perfect album. As it is, it’s still really fecking good for a Disney pop star. I found the slower songs a little drab today, but the poppier/rockier ones better than I remember. “Vampire” took a while to grow on me, but its odd, bombastic moments are a definite highlight. “lacy”, “love is embarrassing” & “pretty isn’t pretty” are also songs I didn’t realize I enjoyed.

October 13, 2025

HL: title track "Feed the Light", "I Defy", "Flushed Chest", "Anyone"

nice

October 4, 2025

HL: "Invisible Man", "No Aloha", "Divine Hammer", "S.O.S.", "Drivin' On 9"

Haven't heard this, but I have listened to their earlier album "Pod"

Another win for the Breeders

Tell me Teenager of the Year deserved to be in the original list over this

I thought I had never listened to the whole thing before, because it's always someone else that plays this. But no, its brief 30 minutes are already quite familiar to me!

It reminds me of my aunt who passed this year, who advocated for Rodriguez and lamented that he wasn't as acclaimed as that Bob Dylan hack. :p
I wasn't particularly interested in Dylan or Rodriguez as a teen, but I found these songs grim and preachy at the time. And there's an effect on the otherwise really good "Sugar Man", that whining string/synth part, that used to bother me.
So let's say I've come around to Cold Fact. The mix of cynical blues and pastoral psych-pop is both very 1970 and also kind of unique to this album.

The horn part in "Crucify Your Mind", maybe my favourite song on the album, sounds like something Air or the Go Team would use. Also it juxtaposes with the proto-metal of "Conversation" in a cool way.

HL: "Sugar Man" (even with that annoying whistle thing), "Crucify Your Mind", "Hate Street Dialogue", "Inner City Blues", "Jane S. Piddy"

October 5, 2025

October 13, 2025

HL: "The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton", "Fault Lines", "Riches and Wonders", bonus "Answering the Phone"

Sound the bells, it's Can(adian)Con(tent)

Though it's always been a doomed affair to get this band's music outside of our home country- check out NME's smarmy 4/10 review of this album- it does amuse me some knowing there's more than one Tragically Hip on this list.

Compared to their earlier albums Day and Night and Fully Completely, this one has a little ✨polish✨. And an all-time great song in "Bobcaygeon". It doesn't stray too far from their earlier sound though; I figured from the spacey atmosphere in "Bobcaygeon" that the whole album would have a more country-pop direction. I guess that's on brand for this band: whether the hard rock, alt-rock, blues, folk, or country influences reveal themselves depends on the song, not so much the album.
"Thompson Girl" and "Fireworks" are songs I feel like I should have heard on Canuck rock radio all the time, but didn't. Don't worry, there's still PLENTY of other Hip songs that get played instead.

HL: "Poets", "Something On", "Bobcaygeon", "Thompson Girl", "Escape is at Hand for the Travellin' Man"

September 29, 2025

October 13, 2025

HL: “Mind Over Matter”, “Lay Down Your Sorrows”, “Golden Olden Days”

i liked the guitar

Not first listen- which is good, since this kinda pissed me off the first time. All I wrote about it last year was "Om, Ethan's a big fat c*unt", so I was probably less focused on the music than on the "sex crimes" section on Wikipedia.

Before hearing this, all I knew about Crystal Castles is their amazing version of Platinum Blonde's "Not in Love" (featuring Robert Smith). So finding out much of their music is more on the abrasive side was disappointing. At first.
Now songs like "Alice Practice" hit, whereas before they were just irritating. Plus the flurries of 8-bit chirping were also easier to stomach today.

Like Daft Punk's debut, it's a disjointed melange of older and newer material... and it works. Buckleys

HL: "Untrust Us", "Alice Practice", "Vanished", "Magic Spells", "Tell Me What to Swallow"

September 27, 2025

October 7, 2025

HL: "Hope Gets Harder", "Baby Does Your Heart Sink?", "FLAG // BURNER", "I Didn't Come Here to Surrender"

Hey, that's a guy singer, his name isn't Martha! Oh, they also have a lady singer. Hey, her name isn't Martha, either!

I get the sense this band are more nostalgic for the 2000s than I am rn, which is saying a lot, but they end up cutting a decent enough pop punk album nonetheless.
There are some departures from their main sound, like the jangle of "Surrender" and the lullaby tinkle that closes out the album.
I think if anything brings me back to this album, it's the overall warmness & coziness (that goes against the snowy cover).
A 3.5 at least

Also, unexpected connection with the original list, they recorded their debut album with the guy from Hookworms. What Hookworms could have been if that guy wasn't an (ALLEGED) abuser

September 25, 2025

HL: "Go", "Daughter", "W.M.A.", "Rearviewmirror"

Pearl Jam? More like SQUIRREL Jam, because, uh- these songs are so good it's nuts

-_- Once again, Pearl Jam pops up on this website and I have nothing really to say. The last PJ I listened to in full wasn't Ten, but Vitalogy, which had a lot more bells and whistles to mention- not that it made it a superior album.
"W.M.A" and "Glorified G" do demonstrate a righteous fury I forgot this band was capable of, so that's pretty noteworthy!

Iiiinteresting, I figured this was the first I heard of Why?/Yoni Wolf, but he was on the 'cLOUDDEAD' album I put on last year. (Very trippy stuff, that)

"Good Friday" has strong Beck vibes

This is neat, I'm not bowled over by it but it's something I can see myself liking more with time. The moment I heard the toy piano in "Assassin" my feeling was "ah yes, these are my kind of hipsters"

3.5/5

HL: "These Few Presidents", "Song of the Sad Assassin", "A Sky For Shoeing Horses Under", "Simeon's Dilemma"

October 4, 2025

October 1, 2025

HL: “Web”, “Withered Hand”, “Contraption”

Garage rock

September 21, 2025

HL: "Blind", "Faget", "Shoots and Ladders", "Helmet in the Bush"

Well that was an especially long 10 minutes (looking at you, "Daddy")

Follow the Leader was #402 /1089 on the generator- I rated it 2 stars, didn't honour it with a review. This debut, while not much easier on the ears, IS remarkable for being ahead of the nu-metal curve, predating Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock's breakthroughs by several years.
I will admit that, despite not having any song as replayable as "Freak on a Leash", I found Korn's self-titled more consistent and immersive; a thick, misanthropic cloud of detuned riffs and growls.
Producer Ross Robinson helmed some of my only 1-star albums from the O.G. list, like Slipknot (1999) and Roots (1996). Perhaps I treated you too harshly...