Reviews by galway_rat

User album #400!

Kind of reminds me of the heart-on-sleeve, bombastic indietronica of M83, though there are rock-y moments as well

Actually it keeps you guessing what kind of album it’s going to be. Melancholy chamber pop? Riotous electropop?
Though I wouldn’t call this album consistent, my enjoyment of this album was

HL: "Olas gigantes", "Lo que quieras", "Los adolescentes", “Feedback”

July 4, 2026

There's a group on YouTube that remade this whole album as if it belonged in the RuneScape soundtrack, which remains one of the only things I know about Brand New (besides... well).

If they're good enough for Unpragmatic Covers, they're good enough for me

It didn't help that this came up so soon after I listened to another emo album I have had much more time to appreciate (At the Drive In's Relationship of Command). That was yesterday.

Hm, it's not like another indie/emo/post-hardcore albums from here that I'm indifferent to; there's enough going on between the ambitious song structures, the vocal performance, the attention to mood and atmosphere, that I'd even say this belongs on the 1001.

Yet I feel there is something inaccessible to me, at least tonight, that keeps me from appreciating it more. It might be as simple as I just don't care for emo, which I'll admit is a weak excuse considering how different this is from At the Drive-In, from Jimmy Eat World, from Sunny Day Real Estate and from American Football.

It's probably a 7/10 rn

HL: "Millstone", "Limousine", "Not the Sun"

July 3, 2026

God, if I could see my most watched videos in high school,
"Lindsey Stirling - Lord of the Rings Medley (Official Music Video)" would have to be up there.

I don't think I ever compared the two, but being exposed to Stirling's music probably made Sudan Archives a no-brainer for artists I would like. Violinist makes electronic dance music? Sign me up!

That said, I kinda forgot about Lindsey Stirling since ca. 2014

I am shocked to see "Roundtable Rival" from this album as her most popular video on YouTube. I don't recall it ever popping up on my feed. For comparison, "Crystallize" seemed like it was everywhere!

As great as her performance is in every track, watching both of those music videos today confirmed that the visual element is half the fun. (For anyone confused by the EDM beats, she is a dancer after all. She's making songs to dance to)

The wub wubs of brostep do bring the listening experience down in my opinion, especially without the extra dopamine I get from watching the performer do her thing. They are a kind of watery distillation of one of the shittier music trends of the time

HL: title track, "Take Flight", "Master of Tides"

July 2, 2026

Not first listen

I only hopped on the Vampire Weekend bandwagon a couple years ago, so nice to get an excuse to listen to this one again.
I remember it was a really hot day in July when I heard this whole thing last; now it’s a very mid day in July

This isn’t as weird-sounding I remembered it, either; I guess the vocal effects/electronic elements work for the quirky sound they were going for. It also helps differentiate Contra from their self-titled

HL: “White Sky”, “Run”, “Giving Up the Gun”

Another 2 hour fuckin live album

You little shit, you're in it now, I hope they throw away the key!

Actually this is an opportunity. I've listened to Pink Floyd live recordings, I have seen Roger Waters 'in the flesh' sans Pink Floyd, now I can finally hear Pink Floyd live sans Rog.

I have a very Rog-esque urge to kill the audience in this recording. But enough about him

Just like I'll go for bat for the Final Cut, I will also say Gilmie's turn to run the show (1987-1994) is underrated. I'd have more of a chance to debate the merits of the Division Bell if that is what OP submitted. But I have to talk about Pulse, so I'll just say that "Coming Back to Life" and "A Great Day for Freedom", as well as AMLOR's "Learning to Fly" sound really great live. However, I never loved "What Do You Want From Me", so putting it right after the Piper cut "Astronomy Domine" killed some momentum early on. Wish they tried a little more of that spacey stuff

Overall, I don't see what this adds that you don't get from the studio versions. The finale was so good primarily because Gilmour and co. stretched the last couple songs a little.
I suppose the ever-intricate visual elements of a Pink Floyd concert would have kept the opportunities for improv at a minimum.

I'm currently comparing the setlist of the 2017 Waters concert I attended. He also did basically the entire Dark Side album, minus "On the Run" and "Any Colour"; he also saved "Comfortably Numb" for the finale. The 1995 audience got "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"; I got "Dogs" and "Pigs". Fair trade I guess

"takes you back, doesn't it"

HL: "Learning to Fly", "Coming Back to Life", "A Great Day For Freedom", "One of These Days", "Any Colour You Like"*, "Comfortably Numb"

*I picked this highlight because it seemed like the only Dark Side song that wasn't religiously adhering to the studio version

June 30, 2026

Not first listen. Heard it the day the Mars Volta showed up on the original list. I described it as "shouty, but also high energy without being completely exhausting", which, coming from someone who usually underrates post-hardcore, is high praise

"Extracurricular", with its dissonant guitar riff and melodic shout-singing, is a great example of how At the Drive-In balances two seemingly incompatible things

One thing I've been relatively consistent on during this album-a-day thing is paying my dues to albums I like from genres I don't (Ministry, Slayer, Dead Kennedys). Bixler-Zavala & Lopez must have been doing something right

HL: "Pattern Against User", "One Armed Scissor", "Mannequin Republic", "Enfilade"

Heard about Girl Talk but never listened to this. Let's roll!

The Cardiacs album half-broke my brain and this thing finished the job. Well done.

I think I was well and truly insane by the time "Whoomp There It Is" was paired with Big Country

M.I.A.'s Kala (2007) was so dense and chaotic in itself, yet it's just thrown in the blender like everything else here

Yeah, "Faithfully" is as good a song to finish with as any, I guess

Is this what they call "original pirate material"?
Like the Caretaker*, it appropriates so much from its many sources that it's hard to rate on the same merits as even other "plunderphonics" albums (Since I Left You, Replica, et al).

I just read an essay from Mark Fisher ("The Metaphysics of Crackle"), which pretty clearly divides the nostalgia of 21st century music into two camps:
the tendency to revive older musical trends and movements that he links with an inability to musically express the time we're in currently,
vs *Hauntology*, which plumbs older recordings with the attempt to bring the "ghost" of post-war optimism into the present.

The way he describes the former, "postmodernist" tendencies of modern music stings a bit, since my 'year in music' so far trends towards just about anything but the stuff released right now.
Although the fact his assessment of music & media from 12 years ago hasn't gotten better (welcome back French house! Welcome back indie sleaze!) worries me, it's not all existential dread.

The inane, ironic way genres and decades are combined in Feed the Animals ends up musically expressing 2008 pretty well, and not just because of samples from M.I.A., Soulja Boy and Kanye West. Increasingly-fast internet and file sharing had made finding new genres of music easier than it had ever been, and at least from my own experience, the barriers separating different scenes, genres and generations seemed to be quickly dissolving.

So yeah, while this album/DJ mix is deliriously fun, I also think Girl Talk captured that sense of big, dumb optimism of the time quite beautifully. YES WE CAN

June 30, 2026

4th double album this month. With love, get your heads out of your asses

First impression: whoever mixed the instrumentation is an alcoholic

Second impression: this is the Wario to XTC's Mario

Third impression: they're definitely getting a tan from standing in the English rain

Listened to the same day as Angine de Poitrine- Vol.II.
Should queue up the Heartbreakers, Heart and "Chest Fever" by the Band to really hammer home the theme

Manic. Dense. Complex. Chaotic. Uncommon time signatures. Quirky. Energetic. Playful. Epic. Surreal. Just a few of the descriptors I copied word-for-word from RateYourMusic

Do I know what's going on? Not exactly.

4/5

HL: "Dog Like Sparky", "Manhoo", "Dirty Boy", "No Gold"

June 28, 2026

I don't need much to be happy 🎸

4/5

HL: title track, "Plaza Alta"

June 29, 2026

Perfect winter music; it's uncanny on a humid summer's night, though

Had to listen to it twice for it to register, but the second time was a really nice experience.

You'd think this is a film soundtrack, but it was composed for a stage play, which fascinates me as a theatreman. The Pitchfork of this review mentions the play was "brutally violent"; I don't know how knowing that could help me appreciate this music any better.

The short length of the songs make this feel like a soundtrack or a compilation, but the somber mood is anything but disjointed

HL: "Odi et amo", "Joi & Karen", "Sálfrædingur", "Karen Býr Til Engil"

June 29, 2026

* free-form jazz *

Neat that the guy ripping on the cornet on this album had kids that would go on to perform "Buffalo Stance" and "Save Tonight"

Listened to side A on mono and side B on stereo, just to really hammer in the idea of Coleman ushering in a new musical era

I think the album peaks with its opener, "Lonely Woman", which sounds like Middle Eastern folk or something. Still, the rest of the album shreds.

I first listened to this not long before I first heard A Love Supreme, and in the review of that album I can tell that I preferred the Coltrane one to this. However, consider this album grown on me

HL: "Lonely Woman", "Peace", "Congeniality"

what a voice

HL: title track, "Zoo Eyes", "Damn", "Weight of the Planets"

June 25, 2026

June 22, 2026

HL: "Rosen auf den Weg gestreut / Embrace the Fascists", "Six Million Germans / Nakam", "Dumai / Think", "Mayn Rue-Plats/Where I Rest"

Enjoyed! A dark cabaret & political folk borscht that would make Tom Waits proud

Bonus points for submitting an album (partly) in a language I don't hear all that often (Yiddish)

Musical Theatre? ❌
Theatrical music? ✅

I'm fascinated at how I never heard of this. Phil Lynott? Justin Hayward?? Almost makes me forgive the fact this is the 3rd album y'all have given me in the month of June that's over 90 minutes long

Richard Burton is here too! Richard Burton is everywhere on this thing, in fact. I mainly know him from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)- together with Liz Taylor, I'd count their scenes as some of the better film acting I've seen.
Unfortunately, I thought his spoken word narration was too prominent in this. I realized early on, when the Journalist's lines were split between Burton and the Moody Blues' own Hayward, that I'd rather listen to the singers do their thing. His delivery reminds me of an old timey radio play (a la the 1939 War of the Worlds broadcast).

The friction between classic sci fi/horror vibes with symphonic disco/AOR/prog that could have only been produced in the late 70's was always present, but I will say that adds to its charm

I've listened to too much Bon Jovi to take the talkbox-as-Martian seriously, but the Phil Lynott/Julie Covington parts provided some surprising pathos in this silly, extravagant rock opera.

3.5/5

HL: "Forever Autumn", "The Red Weed, Pt. 2", "Brave New World"

June 23, 2026

All I know about Yello is that video Todd in the Shadows made about their biggest hit, "Oh Yeah!"

So aside from perhaps the most annoying song of the '80's, what else ya got for me, Yella?

Atmospheric, cinematic synthpop, it seems like. I also remember from that TITS video that Yello were never interested in convention or commerical success, which makes this album's existence all the more of an anomaly.

Stella never stops being interesting, but its sound effect-laden production makes it pretty inconsistent. The sudden gothic horror of "Stalakdrama" is neat but the looped screaming did kinda piss me off.

HL: "Desire", "Desert Inn", "Sometimes", "Ciel Ouvert"

June 19, 2026

Neil Cicierega— I’m pretty fond of his mashup albums but haven’t heard much of Lemon Demon. I had a friend in university who swore by him though, so this one’s for you m8

Hm I apparently already saved "Spiral of Ants" to my 'Favourite' Apple Music playlist like a year ago, but it was like listening to it for the first time >_<

Phew that was a lot, but I can finally 100% confirm he can make good songs beyond sampledelic shitposts.

If it wasn't clear with the Mouth series, Neil is haunted by the 1980's. I'm glad it comes across in this project as well.

I will save the bonus tracks for another day, as two hours of Lemon Demon at once may be too much

HL: "Touch-Tone Telephone", "When He Died", "Eighth Wonder", "Reaganomics", "Spiral of Ants"

June 18, 2026

Anotha one I've listened to before!
That's 5 of the last 7 albums, mind you!
As nice as it is to have an excuse to revisit certain albums, I need to break the habit of waiting for albums that really interest me, in the hope that they'll eventually come up on the user list.
(I've read it- there are a lot of intriguing albums that are hiding behind the mountain of Steven Wilson and Tool releases I receive instead).

I described the Fever Ray album from the old list as "Odd and spooky"... before giving it 4/5, so it isn't a surprise I like this as well. It's strange, the metallic, mechanical beats of something like "Like a Pen" aren't really something I look for in music- for context, my ongoing challenge is to try to appreciate Autechre's music- but hey I'm enjoying this so I shouldn't ask too many questions!

"From Off to On" sounds more like Fever Ray. I guess the clubby, techno percussion is mainly what separates Silent Shout from that other album.

The pitched-down "ho ho ho ho" in "One Hit" almost sounds like a joke to me, like a remix that Neil Cicierega would make or something. It still got my head and upper body moving though

HL: title track, "Neverland", "Marble House", "Forest Families", "Still Light"

We're not making it out of the comfort zone with this one

When Tron Legacy appeared on this generator, I wrote
"3rd Daft Punk on this user list and still no R.A.M.? Is it not cool to like that album anymore, or...
...cuz I still like it..."

well. Here's to 4th Daft Punk on the user list, and 5th overall

When "Get Lucky" came out, I only knew one other song by Daft Punk by name, "Harder Better Faster Stronger".

As sleek and commercial and ubiquitous as "Get Lucky" was, it got me paying attention to this duo. It wasn't until university a couple years later that I became aware of "Instant Crush", and I learned "Touch" from their little video announcing their breakup :(

That fucking ragtime piano/brass combo in "Touch" is a shot of dopamine only rivalled by the choir at the end of "Touch"

Anyway by the time I actually listened to RAM it was like 2022, but it was already so familiar-sounding, and not just because of its love for 70's dance music

Perhaps that's why it's my favourite of theirs- at least tonight- even if the sounds of Homework and Discovery sound much more like *them*. I failed to appreciate how adventurous switching to analog and live instrumentation was at the time (think of all the dance-pop that was popular in 2013), but it really pays off here.

HL: "Giorgio by Moroder", "Instant Crush", "Touch", "Get Lucky", "Doin' It Right", "Contact"

We making it out of the comfort zone with this one!

I think this should be on the 1001 for the same reasons I don't love this. It's a burst of noise and fury that stands out next to contemporaries Hole and Sleater-Kinney for its even more abrasive tone.
But Dig Me Out and Live Through This had more discernable song structures and don't sound like shit.
For the record, punk is one of the few genres that gets away with sounding like shit, so I can't fault Pussy Whipped for that.

Followed this up with The Singles (1998), which is an interesting midway point between the scuzzy sound of this album and the polish of Le Tigre's self-titled.

HL: "Blood One", "Sugar", "Rebel Girl", "For Tammy Rae"

June 15, 2026

Not 1st listen but it's been a while

For context, I started my journey with this genre-allergic group at The Mollusk, an album I didn't like as much as I initially thought I would, but started to really enjoy after repeated listens.
Quebec is an album I enjoyed right away. Ironically I have not listened to as much as The Mollusk. I guess it pays to be a grower sometimes

Some legendary pop-rock songwriting, mixed with melancholy and two scoops of grating bullshit (e.g. "The Fucked Jam"). I guess that's been every Ween album for me, where at least one song just doesn't do it

But Ween should have been on the original list

HL: "Transdermal Celebration", "Tried and True", "I Don't Want It", "Alcan Road", "If You Could Save Yourself (You'd Save Us All)"