Reviews by galway_rat

August 25, 2023

HL: "POWER", "Runaway", "Lost in the World", “All of the Lights”, “Monster”

Damn… the best album I’ve heard all week and it’s by self-proclaimed Nazi, Ye and company.
If there’s one thing that’s consistent among these very different Kanye albums, is that they bring out the best in his collaborators, whether it’s Nicki Minaj, Bon Iver or Raekwon. Wasn’t super impressed with “Runaway” the 1st time I heard it, but it works so well as a change of pace after the louder, more celebratory “POWER” & “Monster”

Here's a short list of all the artists who I had every album (on this website) before a single one by Radiohead:
Kanye West (3 albums), Leonard Cohen (5 albums), Queen (3), Sonic Youth (5), U2 (4), Wilco (3), Yes (3)

HL: title track, “Holding Back the Years”, “Heaven”, “Money’s Too Tight”

Kind of an amalgam of synthy sophistipop and more organic, R&B sounding tracks. Definitely wasn't expecting the Talking Heads cover.
You could say the duller patches made the standouts.... stand out more.

August 24, 2023

Hearing Grace by Jeff Buckley the day before this is pretty funny to me.
"Hallelujah" vs "chaos in hell"

Like some other metal albums I've listened to, becomes samey after a certain point but there's a level of camp and theatricality that I can enjoy. Other commenters are accurate, Tenacious D sounds like they owe a lot from records like this

HL: title track, "Raise the Dead", "Sacrifice", "Countess Bathory"
less enthusiastic about: "Teacher's Pet"

6.66/10 (well more like a 5.9 but I needed to make the joke)
August 23, 2023

HL: "So Real", title track, "Corpus Christi Carol", "Hallelujah"

Rode in on the hype train, left feeling a bit underwhelmed.
"David Bowie considered Grace to be the best album ever made"
"the best album ever made"
Probably like many first listeners, I have only heard the Cohen cover (and oh, how I've heard it). I'm glad it's much more than an hour of sad guitar ballads, but the grungy "Eternal Life" sounds like it's from a completely different artist than his version of "Lilac Wine". Hard not to dwell on the deep potential here, since it sounds like someone on their way to realizing a grander artistic vision
ALSO- never would have thought I'd hear a parallel to Soundgarden, but both Buckley and Cornell had a bit of a Zeppelin thing going in '94. Hear the Eastern percussion in both the last track of this and Superunknown's.

3.5
August 22, 2023

Hard to rate, blend of cool verses & eerie instrumentals mixed with gross & disturbing lyrics

probably won't keep it in my streaming library, but I respect it for its originality

HL: "Earth People", "Blue Flowers (Revisited)", "3000", "Dr. Octagon"

August 21, 2023

August 21st (later in the evening, gotta catch up)

Could be turned off by any number of LTiA’s quirks: the strange tunings, found percussion, unexpected heaviness. Yet combined they somehow make something pleasing to my ear.
More dynamic than most albums, goes from super quiet to super loud in a flash (so, like The Wall).
Only song I might mistake for Floyd is “Easy Money”

HLs: title track pt. 1, “Easy Money”, “The Talking Drum”

not actually Britpop- it's Texpop
Actually though, now that I've read about the many influences behind Lambchop's music, and can hear said influences (country, soul), it still somewhat sounds like a Blur album to me

Could it be that I'll love this more with time? It's really pretty in parts
3.5

HL: "Up With People", "What Else Could It Be?", "The Distance from Her to There", "The Book I Haven't Read"

August 20, 2023

HL: “Helicopter”, “Don’t Cry”, “He Would Have Laughed”, “Earthquake”

Not quite sure how this made it on the list, but I’m glad it’s here. I believe it’s still in the newest edition, whereas other 2000s indie records by Dirty Projectors, MGMT & Grizzly Bear were culled, so I’ll take it as a representation of that era.
“Helicopter” was the only song I knew before, crackin’ good tune, that

****
August 18, 2023

HL: “Zoo Station”, “One”, “Until the End of the World”, “So Cruel”, “Mysterious Ways”, “Love is Blindness”

the first U2 album I properly listened to, but the final one on this list
Every U2 I’ve had on this generator, I’m surprised how much it holds up for me. And I’m already a fan!
As their premier 90s album, it contains some clearly of-its-time elements like the dance rhythms in “The Fly” and “Mysterious Ways”, but there’s still echoes of their 80s sound, like in “Wild Horses” & “Acrobat”. I remember not being crazy about the odd industrial buzzes and loops like in “Zoo Station” and “Until…” when I first found this CD (and often they have no bearing on the actual song’s content), but call them byproducts of a band willing to push themselves & experiment (before settling right down with All You Can’t Leave Behind)

August 17, 2023

HL: “Clean”, “Your Wildest Dreams”, “Blank Space”

alright

August 15, 2023
500TH ALBUM 🎵

Honk if you love the Joshua Tree 📯
Honk if you love the Spore soundtrack 📯
and the Minecraft soundtrack 🎺
and the Hyrule Field theme in BOTW 🎺
And looking up liminal space pictures at 3am 🎺 🎺

By my logic, this is an album that should be boring (no sense of progression, no percussion, not one single trombone) and is instead a haunting & beguiling experience for me. Though this is the 1st time I’ve actually listened thru the whole thing, I already have some regret at not seeing a live performance in my hometown earlier this year.
It's a fitting album for #500, not only are its liminal qualities perfect for a pseudo-halfway checkpoint (I've heard about 40 more records that I haven't logged on this website, which is closer to the real halfway point), but I also feel like I'm dancing a liminal limbo in my actual life, while relationships, my job, and creative prospects all feel like they're on the precipice of change.

HL: “1/2, “2/2”

And now to celebrate this milestone, some albums that I feel I didn't appreciate enough the 1st time:

Nas- Illmatic (no. 17) : listened when my rap vocabulary was very limited. one of the best hip-hop albums I've heard
Lauryn Hill- The Miseducation of... (no. 18) : there's a few albums I didn't actually properly listen to- distractions, questionable speakers at times. Guess that's why I mostly ignored this triumph in gospel/soul/reggae/rap fusion
Magazine- Real Life (no. 58) : a crossroads of post-punk, prog & glam that sounds better every listen
Dinosaur Jr.- You're Living all Over Me (no. 93) : didn't really like this much on the first listen, but noise rock has grown on me and so has this
Prefab Sprout- Steve McQueen (no. 120) : still not crazy about 80s sophistipop, but this might be the best example I've heard of it, or 2nd to Songs From the Big Chair
Bowie- Blackstar (no. 127) : easy 5-star, felt wrong as soon as I gave it 4
The Pixies- Surfer Rosa (no. 130) : same reasons as Dino Jr.
Spiritualized- Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space (no. 143) : been on my mind too much this year to just be a 4-star
Thelonious Monk- Brilliant Corners (no. 200) : 2nd only to Head Hunters in jazz albums I've relistening to
Justice- Cross (no. 230) : recent listen-thru was still a bit exhausting, but some tracks ("Stress", "Phantom Pt II", "Let There Be Light") are excellent, and even "Tthhee Ppaarrttyy" sounded better on relisten

HL: "Know Your Product", "No, Your Product", "Run Down", "Private Affair"

Not complaining about finding a new Australian band! The lush production in certain songs clashes somewhat with the two-fisted punk songwriting, and other certain songs could be written by any number of British bands in the 70s. It's still an enjoyable time

3.5

August 14, 2023

HL: “A Different Point of View”, “The Theatre”, “To Speak is a Sin”, “Go West”

August 13, 2023

HL: "Can't Truss It", "By the Time I Get to Arizona", "Bring The Noise (feat. Anthrax)"

Public Enemy No. 1 (No. 2)

Some bands demand some historical context, and I feel that growing up in a Canadian suburb in the 2000s means that I still lack context listening to Public Enemy. What now happened in Arizona in 1991? Who are the S1Ws?
I’m learning, but ignoring all that, I didn’t enjoy this album like 'It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back'. I’m not sure why yet. One of my favourite songs here is the Anthrax version of "Bring the Noise" from that earlier album. And I'm not even sure I like Anthrax.
The beats in "Shut 'Em Down" and "Lost at Birth" are some of the heaviest I've heard in a hip-hop album. The skits were actually interesting, like the Harry Allen, media assassin stuff & the KKK advert that comes out of nowhere.
Overall, having 2 plus hours with this album (had to give some tracks an extra shot) was draining

August 12, 2023

HL: “Detroit Rock City”, “Great Expectations”, “Beth”, “Shout it Out Loud”, “Do You Love Me?”

Oh come now
Big dum 70’s cheese, what’s not to like

I had an epiphany a couple years ago listening to their compilation Greatest Kiss, it being that Kiss weren’t as good as I remember from youth.
But now, with a clearer head, I have let them back into my eardrums (5/10 of these songs were in that comp) and we’re cool now

August 11, 2023

HL: "Gin and Juice", "Lodi Dodi", "Murder Was the Case", "Who Am I"

I'm not what you'd call a fan of gangsta rap. But G-Funk... well, I like g-funk.

I will add though, despite the catchiness of the song itself, "Ain't No Fun" started to feel like misogyny for the sake of misogyny.
Why must lyrics get in the way of a good song

August 10, 2023

HL: "Sheela-na-Gig", "Water", "Hair", "O Stella"

Idk why I had such a hard time summarizing my experience here. Yesterday (the 9th) I listened to it with no distractions, yet I still had to listen to the whole thing again today (the 10th) to give a proper rating.
Apparently this is "real" PJ Harvey (I had Let England Shake as my introduction to her, which doesn't really evoke her sound on the early stuff).
I think the first listen, I just heard grunge. cowpunk. 90s angst. not really my thing.
And on the 2nd, I heard a lot more. funky time signatures. funky cello. unexpectedly heavy percussion on "O Stella". fury.

Either a 3 or a 5, so I'll compromise a bit here.
August 9, 2023

When listening to Sigur Rós, time moves a little differently

HL: “Starálfur”, "Ný batterí", “Olsen, Olsen”,
"Viðrar vel til loftárása"

August 8, 2023

HL: "Rain Song (Don't Let the Rain Bring You Down)", "Darkness, Darkness", "Sunlight", "Ride the Wind"

Pleasant album to listen to, lots of noodling/false starts that affected the flow. The bluesy coda on "On Sir Francis Drake" might be the low point, not because I didn't like it but because it sounds like a studio outtake that was included to make Elephant Mountain a respectable length.
Celtic-sounding "Darkness" is great, "Sunlight" is pretty (reminds me a bit of "These Eyes" by the Guess Who)

August 7, 2023

August 6, 2023

not 1st listen

maybe the most British-sounding album I've heard, and I've heard many British-sounding albums

But it's also an old favourite of mine, as far as non-Beatles 60s pop goes, and I relish an excuse to listen to it again. I actually had the opener as a morning alarm last month, and it's been stuck in my head continuously as a result.
"God save Donald Duck, vaudeville and variety!" <3

HL: title track, "Animal Farm", "Village Green", "Picture Book", "Big Sky", "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains", "Starstruck"