Rated 6/10
September 25, 2025
HL: "I Walked With a Zombie", "Night of the Vampire", "Stand For the Fire Demon"
Kinda like the 13th Floor Elevators album, I was intrigued by the premise but was left wanting.
The Cramps album on the O.G. list wasn't perfect but at least its delivery matched the ghoulish lyrical content.
Still, it's decent rock n' roll.
Rated 6/10
September 28, 2025
HL: "Bide Your Time", "What Took You So Long?", "No You Didn't"
likeable, occasionally jangly indie rock. Compared to the album as a whole, the quality of the singles stood out to me
Rated 10/10
September 20, 2025
HL: "Rapp Snitch Knishes" "One Beer", (heard those two before today) "Deep Fried Frenz", "Hoe Cakes", "Kon Queso"
3rd MF Doom I've heard this year, after Take Me To Your Leader and Madvillainy.
I might just finally be getting accustomed to his style, but tonight this is my favourite one of those three. Even though the songs on their own can be unsatisfyingly short and peppered with endless skits, taken as a whole it's more entertaining than I expected.
Maybe that's the unifying power of food: Gumbo. Guinness. Chocolate fudge butter crunch. Whatever a knish is
9/10 before I change my mind
Rated 8/10
not first listen!
Also it's Can Con, but the fact that I didn't hear "Run Away With Me" on the radio all the time like they push artists like Shawn Mendes- it's criminal, I tell ya.
s'good
HL: "Run Away With Me", "I Really Like You", "All That", "Let's Get Lost", "When I Needed You", "Favourite Colour" (bonus track)
Rated 8/10
September 23, 2025
HL: "I Love the World", "Green and Grey", "Vagabonds", "Archway Towers"
très goth, très cool
Something that kind of distracted me from the overall experience was the name recognition of Alleyne-Johnson, the violinist featured on this record. I found him in a random YouTube video years ago, where he was improvising over numerous FX pedals in the black-and-white town of Chester, UK.
I actually made a point of going to Chester while in the UK, mainly because of how it looked in the background of this random violin video.
I bought an Ed Alleyne-Johnson song on iTunes ("Orange") before I ever had a job. 99 cents well spent.
Anyway, do I think he positively contributed to the sound of Thunder and Consolation? Well, yes
Rated 8/10
not first listen,
actually I had both this and Harry's House on my own list until I put on Fine Line literally this summer. I couldn't believe the acclaim it received on critic's decade-end reviews, as based on radio hits like "Adore You" I just kinda dismissed it as fluff.
It's actually pretty enjoyable :0
Who would have thought
It's kind of like a modern day Wings- not life-changing or anything, but really consistent even among the lesser played(-to-death) tracks. I basically copied my highlights from my first listen below, but "Canyon Moon" and the title track are no slouches either.
HL: "Golden", "Watermelon Sugar", "Cherry", "Sunflower", "Treat People With Kindness"
September 15, 2025
Today I also put on that other album, Harry's House, and while it's pretty good it kinda veers into easy-listening territory in the 2nd half, so I still prefer Fine Line
Rated 4/10
September 14, 2025
I'll listen to another metalcore-labelled album when I have the strength to do so
September 20, 2025
HL: "Anything Can Happen", "Jonny Sniper", "Adieu"
switches between amiable electro rock and screamo. Especially that screamo
Rated 8/10
September 13, 2025
HL: "East Hastings"
im scard
Honestly, there aren't many bands that don't piss me off when their songs are upwards of 20 minutes long.
That IS part of the reason why I put off Lift Yr Skinny Fists for a good while, but between that one, this one & their most recent album ("No Title as of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead"), I'm starting to think I really like this band.
Rated 8/10
September 18, 2025
HL: "Soak it Up", "Conversation Legs", "Crooked", "Yellow Cotton Dress"
Skipped it to listen to some MF Doom, but now that today's album of the day is MF Doom, it feels only right to return.
FFS you would think I've had my fill of noise pop/indie rock. And you would be dead wrong.
Kinda reminds me of Copper Blue by Sugar, but for some unforeseen reason I find myself enjoying this one more.
Rated 6/10
Things I knew about David Allan Coe:
-He wrote "Take This Job and Shove It"
Things I know now:
-He has other good songs I guess
HL: "Would You Lay With Me", "Would You Be My Lady", "Wood and Steel", "You Never Even Called Me By My Name"
September 15, 2025
7 outta 10
Rated 8/10
September 10, 2025
HL: "I Think I'm Paranoid", "When I Grow Up", "Push It", “Special”, “You Look So Fine”
They’ve done it again
September 9, 2025
HL: "How to Draw/Petrichor", "Love It If We Made It", "Sincerity is Scary", "It's Not Living (If It's Not with You)"
"I Like America"- can't relate. "I'm afraid of dying/ It's fine"- can relate.
Despite the experimental tag on Wikipedia, "It's Not Living" and "Love It If We Made It" sound like what I expect the 1975 to sound like. (I've only heard Being Funny in a Foreign Language and the odd single from their first two albums)
"Eschewing the 1980s-influenced sound of its predecessor"- stop the cap. "I Couldn't Be More in Love" was ghostwritten by Mick Hucknall, I just know it
Well, I happen to really like how this record sounds, so I guess it's forgiven. Also props to the 1975 to making what sounds like a COVID record over a year in advance. Not that the Internet and social isolation weren't hot topics before 2020, but damn.
I feel like I appreciate 22, A Million more now for keeping and staying off the rails
Rated 8/10
Ou, not first listen.
Fun fact, if the combined edition list on RateYourMusic is accurate, this made the Finnish edition of 1001 Albums.
"Planet Hell" makes me want to throw a house party and commit atrocities in Falador, the City of the White Knights.
"Creek Mary's Blood" has the hey-ya chants and references to the Trail of Tears; I'm sure they mean well but it's tacky in retrospect. At least Bruce Dickinson didn't start chanting in "Run to the Hills".
That aside, I enjoyed this more the second time. Though the orchestra frequently threatens to overwhelm the songs, it's good fun, and something I'd like to hear live one day along with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
HL: "If I Had an Angel", "Nemo", "Planet Hell", "Ghost Love Score", "Higher Than Hope"
Rated 6/10
"A perfect album to trip too [sic]"- some person on the YouTube comments, where I went to get the second half of this album
No offence, but hypothetically, if I were tripping and someone put this on, I probably would stop talking to them. This is a nightmare. "Eye Shaking King" with that ring modulator is terrifying.
Good jams tho!
September 6, 2025
Rated 8/10
September 5, 2025
HL: "Crazy Train", "MR. CROWLEY", "Revelations", “Goodbye to Romance”
Has one of my favourite songs on it, and then some respectable hard rock. 🤘
Not that I have anything against the song “I Don’t Know”, but the album really should have started with “ALL ABOARD!” from “Crazy Train”.
I didn’t think much of “Goodbye to Romance” the first listen, but liked it much more the second time. Ozzy had a surprising knack for ballads, between this, “Changes” and “Mama I’m Coming Home”.
Rated 6/10
September 11, 2025
HL: “Breathing”, “One Year, Six Months”, title track.
My sieve of a brain didn’t really take much from this album, though it was good! More punk bands should have a fiddle
Rated 8/10
September 5, 2025
Half the songs are over 8 minutes, and the thing is still less than an hour. For a metal/prog band, that's efficiency!
My only real exposure to Dream Theater has been "Pull Me Under", from Guitar Hero IV, but I'm looking forward to hearing more!
Whoa the lead singer is a Canuck, instant 5 stars
"Surrounded" is exactly the kind of maximalist madness I want from these kinds of bands. AOR power ballad + Dreamy synth + over-the-top guitar shenanigans. More Whitesnake than Metallica, but still
Rated 6/10
September 6, 2025
HL: "Typical Me", "Nite Nite", "How We Livin'", "Signs In Life"
unexpected Black Sabbath- on that note, the rap rock elements really evoke Rick Rubin's work with Beastie Boys and Eminem.
Bonus track "Boys Love Girls" is probably my least favourite. The technical last song, "Signs" is among my favourites though.
In the absence of hip-hop albums on this user list- well, until now- I've been making my own way through the genre, with mostly positive results. Just in the last month, there has been Kanye, Outkast, Denzel Curry, Black Thought, the new Chance the Rapper and Little Simz, Drake, Future, Skepta, Clipse and K'Naan (yes, the "Wavin Flag" guy. He has other songs, trust me).
AND YET- I still find I have to put in a bit of additional work to appreciate hip-hop compared to other genres. Perhaps that will always be true of lyric-first genres for me.
So where does Kano/Kane Robinson fit in, this Londoner I didn't really know about before today? Probably in the top 50%; the beats are colourful enough to maintain my interest and Kano's delivery is... pretty good, worthy of a debut album. I think his tracks with Ghetto/Ghetts are the best flow-wise.
I would rank most of those other recent rap cuts between 3 and 4 stars (Lotus and Cheat Codes being the closest to a 5 and Troubadour and Dirty Sprite 2 the furthest away), so let's say Home Sweet Home is a 3.75. With room for growth :)
Also on the subject of grime/British hip-hop, Skepta and Fred Again dropped some really good tunes recently, if you've heard this and are hungry for more.
Rated 8/10
September 4, 2025
HL: "A Ordem Natural das Coisas", "Prinicipia", title track, "Ismália", "Libre"
Not as crazy about: "Eminência Parda". (Makes me wonder whether trap is boring in every language)
Hard to rate at first, as even with the "prerequisite" Brazilian records like Caetano and Clube da Esquina, I felt pretty out of my element. After I skimmed over other people's reviews, I had a eureka moment, and that was when someone brought up contemporary rappers Drake and Bad Bunny. I have put on a couple of both their records this year, and while decent my opinion consistently landed around a 3 to 3.5/5. Hence, my realization that I would rather listen to this thing by Emicida rounds it up to a four.
Well, that and the use of classic sounds of 'música popular brasileira'. Never hurts an album from my experience.
September 2, 2025
If I listened to this when it was actually generated, it’d be perfect for that day’s hot weather.
Now it’s overcast and like 15°C, but honestly- I think I need this record more today.
A bit like that Fishbone record, in that it’s very much late-stage 80s production, before grunge did a lil reset, but also like it in that it has basically no drag whatsoever. 4/5
