Reviews by galway_rat

Of the 5 Lou Reeds on the original list, my average rating is 3.2 out of 5.
The global average is…
3.36. Okay that’s not as different as I thought. I was trying to prove that I’m a hater :(

This better be frikin good

First off, I accidentally went against Reed's wishes when I listened to it a couple songs at a time (he asks that one listen to it in one sitting, apparently)

Second, this is a pretty decent listen, and not really comparable to his other solo releases Berlin and Transformer, heard on the original 1001.

"Busload of Faith" sounds like a Tragically Hip song to me. It's a compliment!

I really thought that was John Cale chugging away on the cello/bass on "Dime Store Mystery", but I was wrong

The lyrics that tackle some pretty heavy issues- many of which haven't stopped being relevant- are creative and empathetic.
About his earlier album- I wasn't sure that the lurid subject matter in Berlin was empathetic or not, or it just wanted to shock with tales of addiction and murder/suicides.

Maybe that's just the Lou Reed effect- even when he does deeply care about his city* and community, his boring voice makes it sound like he doesn't.
The stripped-down, basic songs, which at times call back to his proto-punk with the Velvet Underground as well as roots rock and country, by and large didn't grip me on first listen, though they already sound somewhat better relistening a few hours later.

Idk, I defend a bunch of the other acclaimed singer-songwriters with marmite voices (Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan), so maybe there will be a time that I really want to listen to more of his solo stuff. It ain't going to be tonight unfortunately.

HL: "Dirty Blvd", "Strawman"

May 26, 2026

*Also maybe I'm just tired of hearing about New York right now. NYC, Los Angeles, and London: the only three cities in existence.

Fascinating, an 18 minute-long punk song.
(Eat shit, "Jesus of Suburbia"!)

It's still longer than the Circle Jerks album, Group Sex

Is that... hope? In my political protest music? ("AMMUNITION IN THE CLASS WAR") What the hell, is that even allowed

Maybe its scattered approach detracts from the power of its message, with evangelicals, escapism into pills and television, those second amendment goons all given some airtime, but musically it all blends very well, and leads to a beautiful finale. We're talking about skate punk, here!

May 21, 2026

A few years ago, I went on a long road trip between Manitoba and Ontario, and had a few albums downloaded for the gaps in cell service. I had just resumed the 1001 around that time after a year's absence, so most of them were "overdue" albums from this website: Kraftwerk's Die Mensch-Machine, Crowded House's Woodface. Inexplicably, this was one of the ones I downloaded.
How did I know about it? Don't remember- It's not like it was in music news or anything (this came out in 2021; the car trip was in 2022).
I also didn't know much about it except that I was sure it wouldn't be like anything else I had heard before.
That much was correct.

The mistake I made was putting it on in the morning as we set out. This is terrible music if you're driving in the middle of nowhere while still fully waking up. I'm not sure there are many ambient albums that would be ideal for a car ride. 'Specially if you gotta be alert & keep an eye out for those moose

But holay- every listen since has been nothing short of transporting. Once I figured you need a quiet place and, ideally, no daylight, this extraordinary clash of genres / Pharoah Sanders's swan song has become an essential listen to me.

If you liked this beguiling, ambiguous piece, then check out Sanders's Karma (1969) and Floating Point's Eleania (2015), two albums that Promises pushed me to seek out.

HL: "Movement 6", the other movements

This would be my fourth foray into the world of James Mercer, after Oh Inverted World, Chutes too Narrow and the spinoff, Broken Bells. Yet despite that, I haven't been a huge fan of him or the Shins, even though they tick all the boxes of what I like about 2000s indie- the melodies and harmonies, the 60s psychedelia worship.
I had to listen to Inverted World multiple times before I could recall what any of the songs sounded like. I had a friend who really liked the album, so I put the extra effort and unsurprisingly it's grown on me since then.

This is some of my favourite stuff from them so far, I'm not gonna lie. It's got that breezy, sunshiney feeling from Chutes too Narrow, mixed with some outside influences from country ("A Comet Appears") and indietronica ("Sea Legs")

If this was in the original 1001, next to those albums by the Bees, Django Django and Fleet Foxes, it might seem redundant. Yet the mix of uplifting and melancholic moods this album curates is something that I would rarely turn down, personally, so I thank whoever suggested this.

HL: "Sleeping Lessons", "Phantom Limb", "Turn on Me", "Girl Sailor"

May 18, 2026

the feature list is insane

I gave Vivid, Living Colour's debut 4 stars. I wrote "The 1988ish production maybe robs their debut of a little bite, but I still had a lot of fun with this."

Let's see L.C.'s 1990 production

Oh yes this is good

After developing their funk metal sound on Vivid, Time's Up dances around the constraints of the genre and often leaves the genre entirely ("Solace of You")

HL: "Pride", "New Jack Theme", "Elvis Is Dead" (feat. Little Richard), "Information Overload", "Solace of You"

May 16, 2026

May 15, 2026

HL: title track, "Trouble", "Gentle", "Jellyfish", "Howdy Howdy Howdy Do"

Maybe the most obscure album on here yet. What has she done after 2003? How did you find this? Are not you she?

It's nothing if not a unique entry in alt-country/Americana. I found her whispery delivery drew me in to songs like the title track even if it didn't suit every song, and the instrumentation in "Gentle" and "Happiness and Misery" can be disarmingly pretty. That's the word- this album disarmed me.

As it stands, it's a 3 to 3.5, but it could be even higher with time. More freaky folk, please

I just realized "Fear of a Blank Planet" and "The Decline" by NOFX cover a lot of the same lyrical ground.
Prescription medication as a panacea, reliance on technology, that kind of thing.

The guitar in "My Ashes" are very "No Quarter" by Led Zeppelin

I got Rush vibes from the title track- but they literally have Lifeson on track 3, "Anesthetize"! What a strong start that ends up spending way too long in the outro, like a less interesting "Comfortably Numb"

The irony of me giving up on this album about attention spans early into "Anesthetize" because I couldn't concentrate on it. Restarted a week later when my brain worky again

Holy, even Robert Fripp is here. Porcupine Tree picking up prog legends like Pokémon 🅿️

"Way Out of Here" feels like nu-metal a la Linkin Park to me. Ballad "Sentimental" feels like a U2 song.

The violins in "Sleep Together" are very "Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin

Idk, I guess I liked it more than Hand Cannot Erase, the solo album by Steven Wilson I got on here a while back. There's still something keeping me from LOVING it, though, as good as it is. The forays into prog metal work really well with the dark, anxious subject matter.

HL: title track, "Sleep Together"

May 21, 2026

I feel like the minority in online discourse when I say Blond(e) was a letdown compared to Channel Orange (I gave that 5/5. I stand by that opinion).
But this has "Pink + White" and "Nights", so yes, I will put this on again for your benefit

Edit: Oh my God- I still don't have a clear opinion of this album. Here are some fragmented opinions though
- Accepting this might be the final album of his makes it more disappointing, not less
- Blonde isn't pop like Channel Orange- maybe part of me wished that it was the first time I heard it (2023), which isn't exactly me engaging with the actual material
-Apple Music, Paste and Rolling Stone all rank this super highly on their respective Greatest lists, which feels like recency bias if not for the fact this came out TEN YEARS AGO. Paste writes:
"Fellow generational greats like Kendrick Lamar, Solange and Radiohead also took artistic leaps on their sublime albums in 2016, but none jumped as high as the elusive Frank Ocean."

-all this to say not fully "getting" Blonde frustrates me more than it should

-I'm putting on Endless, the visual album whose release coincided with Blonde, for the first time to better understand this whole era
-the visual component is watching paint dry (literally.), but I'm liking this extension of his ambient/R&B. Especially since I didn't know this existed until relatively recently

- okay, if I had to boil this album down in as few words as possible it'd be "stellar production + voice memos". Or "better than nostalgia,ULTRA."

-and maybe it's only disappointing as a followup to Orange, since when I comb through this album track by track, I have like seven big highlights: "Pink + White", "Self Control", "Nights", the Andre 3k solo, "Close to You", "White Ferrari" and "Godspeed"
-& the more I think about it, "Ivy" might be his best, emotional vocal performance in the album, and the album is just getting going at that point. Make it eight.
-That's a lot of highlights for an album that supposedly disappoints me!
-Yet the disjointed interludes with spoken word/mumbling kneecap the flow of an already slow, contemplative album
-then there are the bursts of noise in "Pretty Sweet" and "Futura Free" that kinda just piss me off when they come up in the tracklist.
-"Dreaming a thought that could dream about a thought that could think of the dreamer that thought that could think of dreaming". Perhaps the most "stellar production + voice memos" moment in the album.

-If it's a crime that half-baked songs have to be saved by expertly weaving them together in production, completing them with orchestral overdubs, I guess Abbey Road's B-side would also be guilty

-a 2026 update: I work in schools now. One school had multiple artistic representations of Frank Ocean in what I guess was an installation representing the students' musical tastes. I never considered his enduring impact, at least in one part of one city, on the youth until that moment

-so what star rating to give this? None, star ratings are dumb >:o
-Now that I've thought about it, it's closer to a 4 star than a 3 star, Because despite my own annoyance with some of the creative choices made, there's a lot sonically to consider here.
I'm not even getting into the themes of modern relationships, the Internet, queerness & masculinity in the lyrics. This album resonates with a lot of people for a reason

"Archangel" is the feel-bad song of the summer, every summer (since I started listening to Burial in 2024)

My first Burial was his E.P. Antidawn, after some online mag (Pitchfork, maybe) raved about it. Imagine the broken vinyl effects and ghostly vocals without any hook or danceable beat. I really liked it, so it was only a matter of time before I checked out some of his other stuff.

It's a good thing I have heard Untrue several times before, since my mood wasn't particularly great this morning. Grey windy weather, a long commute, an over-tired brain who just wouldn't shut off the night before,
yadda yadda yadda.

Untrue, as miserable and dark it can sound in places, alternately balances it out with catchy rhythms and warm swathes of ambient. Also those 'musique concrete', random clips of people talking is weirdly comforting and adds to its atmosphere.

Cons: that tinkly sample of a bullet casing hitting the floor, as heard in several tracks
Pros: everything else

HL: "Archangel", "Endorphin", "Etched Headplate", "Shell of Light", "Raver"

May 21, 2026

HL: "Save Your Generation", "Sluttering", “Basilica"

I believed that there was already too much beige 90s rock in the original list

but alas.

the melodies are nice. I was going to criticize the guy's voice more but apparently he was recovering from throat surgery leading up to the album.

Still, like, hire another singer or something, my guy

Not fair! This album is ∞ minutes long. I don't have an eternity to listen to J Dilla

not first listen! but it's been a while, so I appreciate being reminded of this

I will say my prior impression of a summery instrumental hip-hop album is complicated by all this oddball noises I don't remember from last listen.

An album I literally heard hours before putting this on is Starsailor by Tim Buckley. One would think the weirdness of that one would make this seem normal by comparison, but no

I never realized that Ghostface Killah's Fishscale (also from 2006) samples this, I will have to check that out again.

It really helps to go around the donut at least a second time, the seeming lack of a coherent structure feels better when you remember it's just looping around to the intro track

Decided to get off this ride at track 19, "Anti-American Graffiti", perhaps next time I play this album, I'll start there

HL: "Workingonit", "Stop", "Time: the Donut of the Heart", "Lightworks", "One Eleven", "Two Can Win", "Last Donut of the Night"

May 13, 2026

HL: “Bagagedrager”, “Voor Ik Vergeet”, “Astronaut”, “Leo’s Definitieve Aquarium”, “Regen En Patchoulli”

Sometimes an album comes at the right time and this Spinvis album (one-man show from the Netherlands) was perfect for a sunny, warm day after a long stretch of cold winds. (Crummy Canadian spring >:0)

It wasn’t really registering for me at first, as is the case for several of these “downtempo” records, but I ran it back and I found I appreciated it a lot more the second time.

There’s a Dutch version of the 1001 Albums book that includes this, apparently. Neat!

not first listen; all I wrote down when I listened to this was "production makes it a difficult, but rewarding listen"

I don't think I realized that it's the same guy who did 22, A Million by Bon Iver (BJ Burton), but there are a lot of similarities in the unorthodox sounds and vocal treatments.

I would like to contrast this with Sleep Token, who I listened to for the first time last night and agree with the sentiment that it sounds like secular CCM (not a good thing). Meanwhile here is music quite influenced by Christianity, that is combined with a bizarre, metallic, cavernous soundscape one wouldn't normally associate with so called religious music.
On second thought, if one scrapes away the industrial noise from "Hey" there might as well be a church organ echoing through an empty cathedral

It's not necessary to know going into this album that it's haunted by the Emperor of all maladies, Cancer, but it perhaps helps to understand those menacing undertones behind the sweet harmonies

HL: "Hey", "Days Like These", "Don't Walk Away"

May 17, 2026

HL: "Modern Leper", "Head Rolls Off", "Keep Yourself Warm", "Floating in the Forth"

did not enjoy as much as I do a lot of indie folk, mainly for the depressive-suicidal lyrical content

All I know about this album is I really like “Waiting For Love”

Edit: I feel like we have as a society forgotten the reign of EDM in the 2010s, so thanks for reminding us.

Stories has its greatest tracks near the beginning, and then “City Lights”, which won me over even though it has that annoying “woaw” effect.

I think “Broken Arrows” is where I stopped loving the album, as that kind of country/electronic mashup worked in “Wake Me Up” and even “Hey Brother” (in my opinion), but feels like diminishing returns here.

Also what’s the guy from Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes doing on “For a Better Day”?

Not that I disliked any particular track, just that the energy levels (get it? “Levels”?) dip somewhat in the midsection and don’t really recover or gain a new element that makes up for that lost energy.
Actually I lied, I didn’t care for the one with Chris Martin, speaking as a Coldplay fan. He sounds like he’s sowing the seeds for that piece of shit Chainsmokers collab “Something Just Like This”.

The positive vibes of the music, as well as lines like “I may not be perfect but I’m loving this life” are rendered somewhat sadder by the circumstances around Avicii’s short life

HL: “Waiting For Love”, “Touch Me”, “Ten More Days”, “City Lights”

May 6, 2026

I love how this is the second album featuring Brad from the Crash Test Dummies (“National Movie Review”)

It also has John Lennon’s idiot son, but his contribution is brief and pretty decent

This is not first listen; actually I waited to hear this come up on the generator but, let’s be honest. When I started the user list they numbered 200. Now I’m over 300 and I’m still 200 away from “completion”, so there are going to be albums I’m too curious about to wait for.

Deltron, revisited, is still a fun album, the 7-minute opener is still my favourite song, and the skits are amusing without overstaying their welcome.

The retro-futuristic concept wears a little thin by the end, but there’s so many good moments throughout the album, I can’t fault Deltron 3030 for being too long when everyone and their mother were trying to max out their CD lengths.

HL: “3030”, “Virus”, “Mastermind”, “Madness”, “Time Keeps on Slipping”, “Memory Loss”

May 5, 2026

HL: "Just Be Simple", "Almost Was Good Enough", "The Old Black Hen", "Hold On Magnolia"

The way people talk about this album I expected it to change my whole life

It is pretty good country rock tho

May 11, 2026

HL: title track, “Fluffy”, “Sand Storm”

I’m not always keen on an upcoming album being labelled “jazz fusion”, but it’s not like there are many entries on here, user list or otherwise.
Japanese pianist Himiko Kikuchi shreds, but the compositions are also catchy, diverse and don’t overstay their welcome. My favourite tracks were the ones that had an MPB/samba flair to them.
“Second Summer” was probably the least interesting track to me, but then the album finishes nicely on the surprisingly rock/R&B-inspired “Ducky Ducky”

Plus it has a DOG on the cover

Remember John Frusciante from the Chilis? He's back, in prog form!

Could be that I'll love this more with time, it gets quite pretty at parts. What I did learn today is how much Frusciante's soft-rock, melodic stylings informed my favourite songs from Stadium Arcadium, aka an album I will definitely probably listen to its full two hours at some point.

3.5

HL: "Song to the Siren", "Dark/Light", "Central"

May 12, 2026

Some albums just make me want to go "hell yeah"

May 3, 2026