Reviews by galway_rat

I put this on the same day I got that Latin Mass album- I guess I didn't want to stop the 70s German experimental music train just yet.
And now here it is on the generator proper

I think I decided before that I prefer Hans-Joachim Roedelius's compositions to the Dieter Moebius ones (they each composed half the record)

That still holds up, but part of the reason I feel this album works is due to the whiplash. Chill sequencers of "Marzipan" and "Hollywood", meet the more hostile, avant-garde-isms of "Rote Riki" and "Caramba". Don't get too comfortable, in other words

Apparently followup Sowiesoso is a more collaborative process, so I'm interested to check out more of their stuff!

June 13, 2026

HL: "Manifold Curiosity", "Wayfarer", "The Antique"

Tonight we're going to the weird n' wacky world of EXPERIMENTAL METAL

For something that, on paper at least, seems like throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, this is a surprisingly cohesive listen

The sudden blasts of metal guitar after quieter, jazzy prog worried me, that the whole thing would just be the aural equivalent of jump scares, but much of the album is comfortable staying in those quiet, contemplative moments for an extended period of time

The crescendo into black metal in "THE MANIFOLD CURIOSITY" feels truly earned, even as the initial realization of the song length had me rolling my eyes

And the closer is a surprisingly beautiful, atmospheric ending, that basically kills the last vestiges of what a "metal" finale should sound like, or any metal band at all.

You're wild for submitting this one, whoever you are

When "Mother Nature" came out, I thought that it had to be one of the finest songs they had ever written. But then the album came out like 6 months later, & I don't remember much about that first listen. It didn't capture me the way Oracular and Congratulations had to my teenage self- or even Little Dark Age, for that matter.

Perhaps I just didn't give it the time and attention I needed to appreciate it. After all, they have so many attention-grabbing songs ("Time to Pretend", "Flash Delirium") that a quieter, more introspective affair may not have been what I was looking for at the time.
The Future Islands album from early 2024 whet my appetite for synthpop, anyway.

Since this album was released, I have been listening to more and more artists that could be broadly categorized as "progressive electronic", e.g. George Clanton, Oneohtrix Point Never. I don't remember that sound* being so prominent in "People in the Streets", nor the preceding song "Dancing in Babylon", but there are similarities. (O.P.N. actually shows up to co-produce this album, so I'm not grasping at straws here!)

Consider this 'review' an apology tour to those two songs, as well as the beautiful title track. This album is far more than "Mother Nature", and I regret not paying more heed to them.

Somewhere in "Nothing to Declare", I did realize something that may have hampered my initial enjoyment a bit- this sounds a lot like Congratulations at parts. "Nothing to Declare", "Bubblegum Dog", hell even "Mother Nature" has this retro-rock flair that they've clearly done before. So maybe part of me had the impression that they were treading water, since the other four studio albums are pretty distinct from one another in my opinion (pop, prog, experimental, & goth, to be reductive).

But if MGMT are going to rip off any band, it might as well be MGMT.
If fellow uppercase-letter lovers CCR & AC/DC can pump out multiple, very similar albums that are still awesome and enjoyable, then MGMT can fall back on their laurels once in a while.

HL: "Mother Nature", "Dancing in Babylon", "People in the Streets", "Nothing Changes", title track

*Having this be the daily album has sent me towards more MGMT; I realized they've done this kind of stuff before, in Little Dark Age ("Days That Got Away"). It's been too long since I've listened to that one

June 11, 2026

HL: "Death of Storytelling", "Thunderstorms and Data", "Black Moon"

neat

June 10, 2026

HL: "Supercrush!", "The Way Home!", "Numbered!"

It's CanCon, from VanCity this time!

Man after the first track ("Addicted!") I did not have high hopes, thinking it would be another miserable trudge through nu metal territory. But then with the super melodic "Bend It Like Bender!", I realized this isn't the album I thought it was.

Anneke van Giersbergen threw me off. I'm not familiar with this Dutch singer's other work, but her presence changes the album quite considerably. Even when Townsend is singing melodically like on "The Way Home!", she comes across so cleanly and earnestly I forget I'm listening to a metal album.

I now get that this is an extreme metal artist very self-consciously making a pop album-- in the vein of Dark Horse by Nickelback.

Dark Horse?? I had to listen to that interview because, for better or for worse, that damn album is important to me. "Burn It to the Ground", "Gotta Be Somebody", "This Afternoon" , "Never Gonna Be Alone", & "If Today Was Your Last Day" all played on the radio at a frankly disgusting frequency. I don't know how it was in the States. The reason for my soft spot for this one is a little more complicated than "waterboarded by the album singles"; for one, my mom was a big fan of this band (she passed in 2010), but also they were trying something different beyond trying to rewrite "How You Remind Me" yet again!
You could say the Mutt Lange-assisted pop production is just avoiding old mistakes by making all new ones, but idk. I think it's their least bad album :)

Anyway, back to Townsend. What inspiration could he gleam from Nickelback? Well, in his words: "This record sounds incredible". Agreed, man.

Then he goes on to undercut his initial praise: "My God, every song is about this guy's penis". Pretty much, yeah.

So basically, he was fascinated by the ultra-commercial sheen of that record, and sought to emulate it his way.
Honestly knowing more about his process makes me appreciate this one more.

Not listening too closely, one might think this veers pretty close to late 2000s cock rock, even if the parts with extra bombast reminds me of Muse, a favourite band of mine. But taken as a whole, Addicted! is a pretty fun tapdance between pop & heavy metal

3.5/5

After 3 or 4 albums that can be described as "funereal" from this generator, this will certainly be a change of pace

Rachel Stevens, formerly of the group S Club, whose biggest hit was 2004's "Some Girls"... yeah, none of these things ring any bells. My understanding of UK pop during this time period is very patchy.

In fact, listening to this, I think of Doctor Who's seasons from around this time: the apocalypse set to Rogue Trader's "Voodoo Child"; the alien death trap disguised as Big Brother. In fact, I learned a lot about 2000s British pop culture this way- as recently as PinkPantheress's usage of its aesthetic- always years after the fact, and through a veneer of cheeky satire or pastiche.

But no, pop music actually sounded like this irl! I guess not even Dimery & co. felt the need to share UK pop of the time, as by and large the big pop acts in the book come from the USA- Britney Spears, Destiny's Child, Madonna, Xtina.

Perhaps that's why I had a hard time engaging with this album, as by the time I separated it from the historical context the album was basically over.
Why was this so critically acclaimed? The songs are decent, but the BBC and the Guardian made some pretty big bets on it that didn't come to pass (the album underperformed; Rachel Stevens has yet to release a followup album).
Maybe the UK really wanted their Britney

The melody of "All About Me" evokes "All That You Are" by Econoline Crush, but I very much doubt Rachel Stevens was listening to Canadian post-grunge at the time.

HL: "I Said Never Again", "I Will Be There", "Some Girls", "Funny How", "Every Little Thing" (bonus track)

June 10, 2026

As part of my 1001 "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die" Lists I Must Hear Before I Die, there's the top albums on RateYourMusic to get through.
I'm almost done; as of today, June 7, 2026, I only have 男達の別れ by Fishmans (a two-hour live album, yay) and Symbolic by Death to listen to out of the top rated 100.
Now I understand it's not a curated list, but even taking into account the bias of the demographic that uses RYM (*cough* white millennials), it's still a wild assortment that I'll credit with introducing me to some cool artists, like Danny Brown and Black Country New Road.
King Crimson's 1969 debut still sits comfortably as the 5th highest rated album on the website, but this one, Red, is not far behind, at #24. I've known about In the Court of the Crimson King for a while now, and Larks' Tongues in Aspic from the OG list (underrated in this community btw), but I only knew Red because of how high it places on the RYM list.
If that wasn't enough of a reputation to uphold, they also rank "Starless" as the greatest song, full stop.
Finally hearing it for the first time, I wasn't really enchanted by its brooding, tempestuous tone. In my opinion, it didn't have the grandiose beauty of "The Court of the Crimson King", nor the jazzy eccentricities of "Lark's Tongues", pts. I & II.
And "Starless"? Greatest song? Pfft. Despite my appreciation of the earlier King Crimsons, I just accepted this is the point where the technical wank outweighed the actual songs, and moved on.

But that was then. Listening to this with fresh ears, I'm starting to appreciate the darkness. After all, that nasty guitar tone sounds prescient to latter-day heavy subgenres, in a way that a lot of those 'new wave of British heavy metal' acts don't.

The mournful “Fallen Angel” is a great denouement to the explosive intro, only to rise back up in intensity with “Red Nightmare”

And alright, fine, if 'grandiose beauty' doesn't describe that final saxophone wail in "Starless", then nothing does.

HL: "Red", "Fallen Angel", "Starless"

Oh wow, here's something totally new for the generator. *Steven Wilson opens his mouth*
Never mind. Welcome back Orcupeth Tree!

Seriously though, as far as death metal is outside my comfort range, the crossing over into prog and folk definitely helped soften the blow of the more brutal sections of the album.

It's an interesting balance- Åkerfeldt's demonic vocals get a bit much at times, coming from someone who doesn't normally enjoy harsh vocals, but when Wilson takes over for a while, the switch BACK into harsh vocals is kinda thrilling.

Despite the dour, "funereal"* atmosphere, I wouldn't say listening to Blackwater Park was much of a drag. Hovering between a 3 or a 4, but I'll round up just because it's a surprising highlight from a genre I tend to hate.

HL: "The Leper Affinity", "Harvest", "Dirge for November", title track

June 7, 2026

My 1st impression of The Fragile was "Bloat, bloat, BLOAT", and that also maybe I'm not the Nine Inch Nails fan I thought I was, considering how much I enjoyed Downward Spiral and Pretty Hate Machine.

But maybe I wasn't in the right headspace that time, so I'd be willing to give this another shot

Disc 1 is so close to a four-star album in my eyes, starting and ending strong with "Something Damaged" and "The Great Below", respectively. "We're In This Together" has to be in my top 5 songs I've heard from this band.
Disc 2 is not a bad listen, but drags down the average with so many slow, repetitive retreads of sounds I've already heard from NiN. Also Reznor tries some big beat/breakbeat, because it was 1999 after all.

Unfortunately, my 2nd full listen still leaves me frustrated and tired, even though (see below) one can still find some quality industrial rock here. I think making it 2 hours had the unfortunate side effect of emphasizing Reznor's limitations as a singer and songwriter, even as he flirts with new metal and electronic subgenres. At least I can tell, through things like the film soundtracks, Ghosts I-IV, and the recent collab with Boys Noize, that he continues to push himself as an artist, which I always respect.

HL: "Somewhat Damaged", "We're In This Together", "La Mer", "Into the Void", "Starfuckers, Inc."

June 8, 2026

HL: "Overture", "Think of Me", "The Phantom of the Opera", "Masquerade", "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again"

Only knew the title track beforehand

I have a certain avoidance towards McTheatre, coming from a city where the only theatre that seemingly isn't on life support these days does Andrew Lloyd Webber and Disney musicals.

Coincidentally, I listened to the original recording of Jesus Christ Superstar earlier this year to audition for said musical for shits and giggles. It didn't pan out but I did end up getting a better appreciation for his music. And, though I don't tend to pick show tunes when I have the AUX, it was a surprisingly non-tedious affair.

Phantom, despite the stylistic change (it's not rock music anymore, it's classical crossover), similarly was better than I expected. Could I follow the story without visuals, or the plot summary opened on Wikipedia in front of me? Unfortunately not, but with the latter, I was able to get a general picture of this gothic horror romance opera thing.

Like the whole thing of the singer's voice getting bewitched would have been super annoying if I just had this on in the background

But holy smokes, the orchestration and big, emotional songs are so nice that the 100 minute runtime was a minor annoyance, not a major one

26th album by them!

I have listened to Starfish before, but I don't remember much about it. However, the Church is a band I've been meaning to check out more.

Kind of feels like a love letter to late 60s early 70s folky prog (Spirit, the Moody Blues), with some Floydian space rock thrown in there from time to time.

A hazy, amorphous listen, which is more than appropriate for a warm afternoon in June, but I also don't have any strong opinions about it, either.
It's a concept album? The only lyrics I can recall from the past hour is "music to fall asleep to", and when he says "Hypnogogue". Great word, "hypnogogue".

Still, a not half-bad listen from a veteran band who has nothing to prove

June 8, 2026

June 1, 2026

HL: "Brokeup", "Meditation"

I just watched the new Avalanches music video, which strangely has similar visual elements to this E.P. cover

Arca's actually already in the original 1001, but as a producer on such albums as Yeezus, Vulnicura, and FKA Twigs's LP1

Feels like a tech demo or something, but coalesces into a more stable listening experience by the last few songs. Still, it has piqued my interest in more solo Arca music, even if I don't adore this project.

Album #112 of the user list was also Marillion; this is #366, props to RNG for spacing them out I guess.

This is in the "Fish" era, unlike Afraid of Sunlight which had a different lead singer, Steve Hogarth. I guess that's why it sounds different to me, even though the descriptors I applied to that album - soft rock, prog, new age- still count here.

I played this right after Invisible Touch by Genesis; they sound really good together. Yes, the critical consensus is that Invisible Touch abandoned their prog roots entirely for cheesy pop, while Marillion kept the movement alive in the 1980's, but the similar time frame in which they came out, the similarities between Fish and Collins (also Gabriel), those pure, clean synth pads, all contribute to their "chemistry".

I don't know I would count either of the Marillions I have heard thus far as an essential listen. But I also enjoyed each album a lot more than I expected to, considering I don't follow much prog past the 70s (barring Muse). I'm not particularly fond of "Kayleigh", apparently one of their biggest hits, as it struck me as just one of many AOR love songs I have heard from this decade. But the rest of this sincerely silly album is pretty musically interesting to me, so I will give credit where it's due.

~ w i d e b o y s ! ~

HL: "Lavender", "Bitter Suite", "Heart of Lothian", "Childhood's End/White Feather"

June 6, 2026

June 5, 2026

HL: "Public Service Announcer", "Instead", "Barcode Bypass", "Animal Cannabus"

We are the Village Mull Historical Society,
God save Donald Duck, vaudeville and variety

This is some good stuff, Colin MacIntyre.
I thought I had my fill of Scottish indie, but I guess not

oh interesting. I love an album title that hints what time of day it should be listened to.

What the heck is dark jazz?

edit: I have looked up the definition of dark jazz. And of course it's something I've already listened to. The Twin Peaks soundtrack. Also Barry Adamson's TWO albums on the original 1001, maybe the detail about the book that continues to confuse me the most.

Update: yeah na, this is a lot like Twin Peaks.

What's fascinating about this group in particular is that the members came from an extreme metal background, which helps my appreciation of what they were trying to make here. The deep, foreboding ambience evokes drone/doom metal more than any jazz subgenre.

While I commend the user who added this unique fusion, I have a feeling a future listen will be more rewarding than the one tonight, now that I know what Sunset Mission is. This time, I felt the tension between the part of my brain that likes ambient and the part that likes jazz. With ambient, I can sit in a mood or 'colour' a lot longer than I would other genres (see: Texan-based musicians Stars of the Lid. What a way to make two hours fly by). With jazz, especially something as sparse as this band is, I'm looking for different 'colours', especially if its going to be an almost 80-minute ride.
Throw in, I don't know, circular breathing, or some other weird shit. Jingle those keys, get back my attention!

7/10

HL: "On Demon Wings", "Black City Skyline"

June 4, 2026

Oh, just in time for the HEAT WAVE

not first listen. Instead of being faithful to one version of Funky Kingston, I blended them both together like I did for Are You Experienced? by Jimi Hendrix- some of the only times I digressed from the "original" tracklist or whatever the first time I listened to something.

Two of my favourite songs from that listen- "In the Dark" and "Take Me Home Country Roads"- are in the 1975 compilation but not in the 1973 Jamaican version. Also "Pressure Drop", a single from '69 that's famously in The Harder They Come soundtrack (a movie I watched last year. Pretty good), is included there, which is such a cheat code of a move.
It's a greatest hits comp, let's be real

It says 1973 on the tin tho, so I'll focus on the original 8-track.

What initially pushed me towards this album(s) was the Burning Spear album from the original 1001. My initial impression was that Funky Kingston conveyed a much more optimistic outlook.
"It’s interesting how it & Marcus Garvey show very different sides of the genre; celebration & positivity in the face of current issues with the former, and indignation and fury at said issues with the latter." - Me, like 18 months ago

That holds up, and I've returned to the Maytals a lot more than Burning Spear in that time, even though both are pretty excellent examples of reggae music. I gotta be in a specific mood for Marcus Garvey. I could listen to this just about anywhere.

HL: "Pomps and Pride", "Louie Louie", "Daddy's Home", "It Was Written Down"

Holy, I didn’t know I knew a second BV3000 besides “Drinking in LA”, but “Astounded” is incredibly nostalgic
2001 pop radio royalty, there. Also, I’m reckoning with the fact that “Astounded” is the first song feat. Curtis Mayfield that I ever knew, well before “People Get Ready” or “Pusherman”

Everything since was followed by a constant refrain of “huh, I didn’t expect that”, from me

Did I enjoy every song on here? Well the answer is closer to “yes”, though there are a couple stinkers in “The Answer”, plus the remix at the end that technically counts as the original album release.
But the Youssou N’Dour features? The warm guitar in “Speed”? The Pakistani rocker “Stepchild”? In my opinion, Discosis’s restlessness leads to far more highlights than duds.

And they’re from Canada 🍁🍁🍁 Not that it matters. But it matters 🍁🍁🍁

June 5, 2026

HL: "Golden Arrow", "The Only Shrine I've Seen"

First time listening to Jaar. First time listening to Harrington.

A mix of ambient electronica and psych-rock that sometimes hits the spot.

In my opinion it peaks with "Golden Arrow", its mammoth opening track, but the rest of the album is decent enough

Not familiar with Carla Bley at all. Though I realize that Carla's ex-husband, Paul's music is on my to-do list as I trudge through the Globe and Mail's list of 101 great Canadian albums. (Open to Love is also a jazz piano album)

(on track 1) Swallow's bass playing is rocking my computer's subwoofer.

I'm really liking this "Life Goes On", aka the first four tracks. It's quiet and intimate, but there's enough motion to keep it from being too abstract and ambient.

"Beautiful Telephones" is up next; wow, with that name I expected something a little jauntier and more humorous, but this three-parter is tonally much darker than the title track(s).

"Copycat" finishes the album with a Latin/bossa nova rhythm, whose pleasantries are offset by occasional dissonance that recalls the previous part. I think I preferred "Telephones" and the title track, but it's a nice, gentle ending.

Overall, enjoyed it more than expected. I don't know how it fares as a swan song to her career (she passed away in 2023), considering I don't know her other stuff, but I'd say it worked well enough as an introduction!

May 31, 2026

May 29, 2026

HL: "Rabies", "Blood Sandwich", "Water Tower"

I don't know what's going in in the most wonderful way. At least I'm not the only one: the top descriptor of this album on RateYourMusic is "cryptic"

Neat, Halloween-y / retro video game-y beats

This album and artist made me feel dumb so 3/5 it is