Reviews by kuvien

This band was my introduction to dark jazz back in 2018, a genre clearly inspired by film noir soundtracks. This is all atmosphere, smooth night music good for listening to or just having on in the background.

This album is a masterpiece, that goes without saying, but after the forlorn Coney Island monologue, the whole work turns into pure magic, beaming you up while gravity yanks you down in an agonizing, ecstatic tug-of-war. It’s like everything before that was a prologue, a warm-up. The guitars playing whack-a-mole with the trumpets, the cloudbursts of music followed by periods of calm, the glimmering guitars creating heat mirages on the horizon, the orchestral tempest, melancholy piano meeting megaphone ranting... and you realize in that moment just how right they are for each other. A palimpsest of messages ease you deeper (higher?) into the world of GY!BE's journey. Listen to the music of men who are themselves master listeners of the world around them. Let them sing you a lullaby as they put to sleep the past and all the things you cannot reclaim.

mercifully short

irrelevant

fuck you

This is the album that got me into outlaw country. The first time I heard it, I sat up in surprise when it started, and then quickly I sat back in satisfaction. Thirty-six minutes of bliss. Barrel ridin' & back slidin' is such a perfect snapshot of the middle American, working class, Protestant experience. This whole album feels like a great big hug of every pleasure a big city can afford and then a warm embrace of every regret you feel by the cold light of day, your face turned toward home. This masterpiece has even got a couple songs about trains. Case closed.

I fucking hate filk

overrated

This isn't five stars, but I'm giving it five stars because so much of this user-submitted list of albums is fucking trash. Miserable trash. This is trash, too, but at least it's fun.

Tell everyone in the 1001+ community you're a virgin without telling everyone in the 1001+ community that you are a virgin. Not that there's anything wrong with being a virgin! Except.. when you listen to a band who has singles like "Beaver Patrol", you obviously and desperately don't want to be a virgin.

useless

fake-ass cliched paint-by-numbers pastiche country... fuck outta here!

irrelevant

Fuck it. What you do doesn't matter. Besides, ain't nobody gonna give you no prize. So why get out of bed? Why shave for people who don't care if you live or die? Oh, and dying young ain't going to change anything, especially when you're boldly inviting Hell. This is a very young, very American album, with all its brash defiance and infectious beauty. It's also a somewhat Jewish meditation on the role of religion, even touching most famously on the name God gives Himself when speaking to Moses at the burning bush. Couple that with a further meditation on the pain of unrequited love, and you have a perfect art pop song with all its silly faerie voices.

fairly dire

To get to this point, you've listened to 1089 albums in this challenge. You presumably joined this challenge because you have more than a passing interest in music appreciation. You are not the average bear. And yet, you bring the most bland, average music ever. You had the entire catalog of amazing music at your fingertips, which you presumably know something about, but... you bring this? This? This utter shite. This insult to the entire community. This unforgivable pile of garbage.

A beautiful collaborative project that will help you simultaneously relax and transcend (in my experience, it's hard to do both at the same time). The entire album is an exploration of the possible permutations of a simple yet sustainable and repeating arpeggio. Sanders' tenor sax brings sandpaper, sex, and voice to the compositions; the symphony's strings bring uncontainable joy in the much-talked-about sixth movement. The music goes total outer-space in the seventh movement, which is such a nice and unlooked-for touch, and though there is some breakdown, the music doesn't lose itself to chaos.

The space ambient opening of the score is a lure darkly shining amidst the drizzle-shrouded cityscape. Beautiful retro-future moments featuring a lonely pianos and classy harps evoke memories of a future that never was. This is always a powerful listen, arresting my attention in a way few albums in my collection can, weaving a nameless yet welcome sadness in my breast. How can an album both soothe me and make me feel anxious at the same time? I guess I just feel sorry for pretty much everyone in the film. It’s such a bleak world, and can there actually be any escape?

A sharper edge on the guitar playing than The Weed Tree, and thus losing some of that summer-day pastoral feeling, but still a great album.

at least this trash is mercifully short