Reviews by jlazerus

Brilliant. Take rockabilly and punk rock, add like this B-Movie twist, but the woman in charge, camp it up... it's a blast. Loved every second of it and am now in the cult. Thank you very much.

Pretty sad. Neil Young just laid bare emotionally. His mixed feelings about getting "wasted" are interesting. Songworthy though? I don't know. Neil remains very unconventional among the 70s' singer-songwriters. Intense.

If you like your thrash a little more heavy, little more sinister and less introverted, look no further. Feels influential for a lot awesome newer bands like Trivium. Good to see some of the heavier stuff on this list.

Pure genius.

I've listened to this twice now and it's kind of a blur, still. It moves from one tune to the next without much fuss, picking you up at the beginning then putting you back down at the end. Not for LISTENING listening, if you know what I mean.

The heaviness of the riffs are appealing, and they don't make you think too hard about anything. Which is a nice change from a lot of the albums on this list. Thumping EDM that satisfies your need for (mostly) uptempo, repetitive headbangers.

I believe the word I'm looking for is "frisson." Those harmonies, man. Holy Jesus.

I love this non-conformist oddity. Like a DIY Zappa without the disdain for his own audience. Or the pretension. Or pretending to be a jazzbo. Just way more listenable. Nevermind. This is nothing like Zappa. They did not take my advice about the brown acid from last time though.

Lovely and sort of genre bending. A tiny bit forced. Which is not what you want from your Brazilian music. Poppy in places and very much of its time. Makes me wish for more Latin music on he list.

Never heard the whole album before. Probably had some aversion because "Clint Eastwood" was so overplayed. I was wrong. This is one of the most entertaining things I've heard in a long time. This has a ton of stylistic variety, it's mostly uptempo with that low-key British hip hop vibe, a bit weird but still accessible. Well deserved place on this list.

Peter Tosh has one of the best voices in Reggae. Nothing really clever or amazing or bizarre... just solid rhythms, some Jah, some ganja, some ketchy shuby. And anything with Robbie Shakespeare is going to be world class.

Some music is a matter of taste and Tortoise is definitely that. But I love everything about it. Two basses, xylophones, meandering compositions, the drumming, it's all great. It's just art, don't overthink it.

Who was this for? I can’t imagine some sad lonely dude throwing this on the turntable in 1956, sitting down with his cheap scotch and remembering when he was beloved for fighting in WWII, only to spend the next ten years spiraling downward and taking it out on his kids…

I’m not sure what to say about this. I want to listen to more… experimental and fun, would love a bit more edginess. Has a Beach Boys feel in the vocals, and I once again crave more bass. Inventive, but leaves me wanting more. I’m missing something so I really need another listen. Cool though.

I have a list of complaints that I'm sure a lot of professional critics and others have shared:
- A lot of effort goes into making this sound like there's no effort put into it.
- More bass, please
- Mom: We have The White Stripes at home!
- I love guitar effects, but COME ON
- Why wouldn't I just listen to the source material? (i.e., Howlin Wolf, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, etc.)

It's an okay album to throw on for a long road trip, when you're tired of all your other favorites. The music just has an insincerity to it. They do a bang-up job of copying Soul and R & B as a style, but it's all academic. You have to actually HAVE soul, you have to actually feel the music.

Who even knows what the goal is here?

Throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks I suppose. Is it "Pub Rock?" Is it The Fall? Is it Prog? Dudes aligned themselves with "Punk," but really it has little to do with punk. Maybe that's why The Stranglers piss me off, they're poseurs.

Everything is marketing, though. The music isn't that great on this record, some incredibly fun riffs ("Peaches," "Get a Grip.."), and the organ/keyboard being the MAIN VOICE on this album is oh so great. Extra point for being unique. Minus a point for the shoddy fecking vocals.

"The Stranglers are an English rock band formed in 1974. Scoring 23 UK top 40 singles and 20 UK top 40 albums to date in a career spanning five decades, the Stranglers are one of the longest-surviving bands to have originated in the UK punk scene." oof

Screaming Trees - one of, if not THE best band name ever - take their place in the Pantheon of Grunge. Soundgarden inhabit a place of dark mysticism. Nirvana rain down a generational nihilistic celebration of fin de siecle self-loathing. Pearl Jam, cloaked in drama, seek what is True and Right in Rock and Roll as their ancient ancestors (Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Cream) had decreed. And Alice in Chains, ripping the mask off of our self-righteous indignity and feeding it back to us, burdensome, heavy, and bewildering.

Screaming Trees appear to have little use for these aspirations. What is important is the sound. We build structures from the bottom up, literally, layering melodies over washes of simple chord structures that are comforting, furtive, ebullient. Groove above all else.

Mark Lanegan is considered a god among rock singers, and rightly so. Barret Martin is he best drummer you've never heard of, who went on to become an academic ethnomusicoligist and played with Peter Buck in Tuatara. Van and Gary Lee Conner live on in this music and their own solo stuff, all brilliant. Unique. Tasteful.

However, this is not the band's best work. But anything by The Screaming Trees is important, and necessary in this list or the rock music generally. They fill a hole with beauty and musical expression, where so much else can be so depressing, so serious, so ugly.

Apple Music didn't have this, but I found it on Bandcamp.

The thing that stands out to me here are the melodies. They are novel yet familiar and unpretentious.

Jazz can be DIFFICULT, and can become really academic. Ibrahim counters this with solid compositions and tight orchestration that don't rely too heavily on improvisation to make their point. Even the 11 minute title track doesn't go off the rails, but stays within its own melodic framework while trading eights (or sixteens? I don't know) among all the horn players. There's no showboating. Everyone is playing to the tune. A really pleasant listen.

Chilling. Really unique and visceral. Complex layers of guitars weave perfectly with the rhythm section, the music effortlessly scaffolding the vocals - odd, intriguing, dramatic- to build a world that is familiar and mysterious at the same time. A genre defying masterpiece. Evokes Sabbath at their most serious, but also Pixies, Pink Floyd, Keith Levine era Public Image, Fugazi …

“I miss you” is just chilling. No spoiler, it’s an experience. Listen through the album to “My Captain” then shut it down for the day.

Same shit as all the other Nick Cave stuff.

Not my jam, as they say. But it was interesting as I've never listened to Taylor Swift before. Songs of heartbreak, nostalgia, homecoming, breakups, murder, longing... quite dark in places. A bit haunting. She has a pleasant voice and I'd much rather hear this than 90% of the dance pop that is currently trendy. At least here we have actual songwriting. Better than expected.