Reviews by lukazimir_

3/5. I usually listen to my daily album in the morning as I go about my waking-up routine. And this album was honestly a very good morning album if that makes any sense, was very pleasant and easy on the ears. it asks the question “what if trip-hop had some sick accordion parts?” And it answers that question with a pretty solid album. I don’t think it lands among my favorite trip-hop/trip-hop adjacent albums but it’s a good time all around.

4/5. This album is all about the slow burn, the songs take their time slowly building up and up until they reach major instrumental/emotional climaxes. Which is best shown through album closer and my favorite song here “By the Time I get to Phoenix” which is nearly 19 minutes long, starting with just a droning organ and Issac Hayes sing-speaking, but then you start getting some drums and reeds, then horns, then he starts singing more intensely and it all leads to a great emotional finish. Something similar also happens on opener “walk on by.” At 46 minutes with only 4 songs this is far from your standard soul album, but it is great.

5/5. The early 70’s was a very mixed bag for Bob Dylan. “Self Portrait” was a critical disaster (though honestly not as bad as it’s often painted to be), “New Morning” was very safe and forgettable, “Dylan” straight up rivals some of his 80’s material in terms of being his worst, etc. . Which is to say Blood on The Tracks was a major “we are so back” moment in Bob Dylan’s catalogue, and all it took was the collapse of his marriage!

Opener “Tangled Up in Blue” is one of Dylan’s biggest songs, and that’s for good reason, the guitar playing is solid and it showcases Dylan at the top of his storytelling game, which continues on other highlights like “Idiot wind” or “Simple Twist of Fate” or “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts”. And the album closes out strong too with the 1-2 punch of “shelter from the storm” and “buckets of rain” which bring down the intensity a bit and puts a bow on what’s one of Dylan’s best albums (and it’s not even my personal favorite 70’s Dylan album, for me that honor would go to “Desire.”)

5/5. One of my personal favorite jazz/fusion albums. I remember the first time I listened to it a few years back, and the second that sticky bass-line hit on opener “Chameleon” I knew I was in good hands. And that opener is fantastic, you get a strong central groove which slowly evolves with the various solos before shifting into something else entirely in the back half with some great drum work. Then there’s “Watermelon Man” which begins with some very strange instrumentation and chanting before also breaking into a great groove.

Then we get to my favorite on the album “Sly” which operates in a few distinct phases, the first bringing in the main groove of the song, the second upping the tempo and providing an insane sax solo, and third, which is my favorite section of the whole album keeps that tempo but brings things down to just the drums, bass and a keyboard solo which slowly builds in intensity until the drums and keyboard are just going absolutely insane. Amazing song. The closer “Vein Melter” operates like a comedown from the rest of the album, moving much more slowly and being more loose in its structure. But it’s still a great psychedelic feeling soundscape, that based on the song title and feel of the track is probably about heroin. one of my favorites and I’m glad I got to revisit it here.

2/5. The guitar playing was good and I liked “Motherless Children” and “I shot the sheriff” well enough, but beyond that ehhhhhh. I’m sure it went hard for men going through their midlife crisis in the 1970’s.

3/5. With the two albums I’ve had of hers so far on this generator I’m realizing that I love a ton of Dolly Parton songs, but never really completely click with her full albums. Though Dolly is only 1/3 of the equation on this album which also features Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, both of whom I am admittedly not familiar with. And though as I mentioned I didn’t love the full album there’s still a good amount of highlights like “to know him is to love him” or “rosewood casket.”

3/5. The opener (and the bands biggest hit) Bittersweet Symphony is one of the best hits of the 90’s, absolutely love that string part, love the vocal melodies, really just love everything about it. It absolutely clears the Rolling Stones live song that The Verve would proceed to get sued over copying.
The rest of the album is nowhere near as good as Bittersweet Symphony, but it’s still some solid enough Brit-Pop, better than what a lot of other bands in the scene were offering at least. I enjoyed “This Time” and the closer “Come On” quite a bit.

3.5/5. Pretty good collection of funk/soul/pop music, which from what I understand was partially a soundtrack to a film of the same name. I haven’t seen the movie so I’m just judging the album as is, and it’s alright! I think Earth, Wind and Fire have a few much better ones, but there’s still a lot of good grooves on this thing. My favorite is probably the instrumental jam near the end of the record “Africano.”

1.5/5. You know that bullshit line people pull when trying to dismiss rap music as a medium where they say something along the lines of “I don’t like all the drugs and sex and violence.” Arrested Development who rose to fame through the conscious hip-hop scene spend several tracks on this album basically doing just that. It is some absolutely irritating holier-than-thou stuff. They paint themselves as an Afro-centric conscious hip hop group but then chastise other rappers for essentially “doing it the wrong way.” This attitude culminates in the truly insane line on the song Tennessee “I ask you lord why you enlightened me, without the enlightenment of all my folks.” Which just oh my god is so bad. And the beats are fine enough, but basically every other conscious hip-hop group from this era had better production, better lyrics and a better attitude around the genre of rap and its place in the musical/cultural landscape. There is a reason that this group basically immediately tanked after this album. The moral of the story here being, I want to go listen to Low End Theory or some other significantly better execution of this style now.

3/5. Some solid country music which keeps its arrangements and production nice and tight, there aren’t a ton of extra flourishes but there also doesn’t need to be on an album like this. Nelson’s vocals are solid throughout, I especially love when he brings in some harmonies on “Blue eyes crying in the rain.” Though I’ll admit I don’t see myself coming back for a full album listen of this one anytime soon, but there are a number of great individual tracks.

5/5. Though I’m more of an “Animals” and “Wish You Were Here” kinda guy when it comes to Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon is still pretty much a perfect album. If you don’t actively ascend when “The Great Gig in the Sky” fully kicks in then we probably won’t see eye to eye.
My favorite on the album is probably “money” though, that bass groove in 7/4 is just undeniable and I love the jam that the song breaks out into about halfway in.

3.5/5. A question I had while listening to this collaboration between legendary producer Brian Eno and Talking Heads frontman David Byrne was “was this the first plunderphonics record?” as this album sees the two digging through a ton of samples from a ton of different sources and forging them into strange, atmospheric soundscapes.

The album is essentially the two musicians experimenting with sounds, and like all experiments not all of them necessarily fully work. But it’s still a fascinating listen and there are some great cuts on here like “Mea Culpa.”

2.5/5. Some very standard Honkey Tonk ballads of heartbreak. There is nothing offensively bad about it, but also there’s so many artists and albums that do this sound way better that you could be listening to instead. I left this one not really feeling much of anything, it’s the album equivalent to unseasoned chicken and rice.

3/5. The 2010’s was the decade where I really began to pay attention to new music releases, but at the time the War on Drugs completely passed me by so this is my first time listening to a record of theirs, and it’s alright. Decent blend of Springsteen-esque Americana and psychedelic indie rock. The vocals are solid and glide over this style of instrumental smoothly. My favorites were probably “under the pressure” and “disappearing.” Dunno that I’ll come back to this one as a full listen but there were at least a good handful of solid tracks.

2.5/5. You can definitely tell the influence Ramblin’ Jack Elliott had on future folk music while listing to this album. When I hear the sing-speak on songs such as the intro track “San Fransisco Bay” I can hear Freewheelin’ era Dylan. However, influence does not equal enjoyment, and though I can appreciate this album in a historical, analytical sense, I didn’t fully enjoy the act of actually listening to it. Part of it is the old production which makes some of the higher notes and yodeling sound a bit grating, but it’s also that this is a case where the things he influenced would go on to just be way better. And even among his contemporaries from this same era, I personally prefer Woody Guthrie, who does kinda make a cameo here on the song “New York Town.”

4.5/5. In 2024 I took a trip to Chicago with two close friends of mine. We did a ton of the typical touristy stuff like the Bean, getting deep dish, going to the top of a skyscraper, etc.. but when we were on an architecture boat tour along the Chicago River I saw the Marina City towers and thought to myself “woah, the Wilco Towers!” I immediately snapped a photo and edited it to look as close to the cover of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot as I could. Due to that moment I ended up listening to the album for the first time in forever on my flight back home and fell in love with the album again.

The opener “I am trying to break your heart” has this great sense of unease to it with these random drum hits going off along with a strange groove forming from the bass and piano parts. Then you get “Kamera” next which is a much more structurally normal song, but it’s also a banger. I also love “Radio Cure” which feels very loose in its verses but suddenly gains structure in its chorus, leading to a really nice back and forth. And the strong track list goes on and on with great songs like “Jesus etc” “heavy metal drummer” or “war on war.” If you’re looking for some good 2000’s indie, you really can’t go wrong with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

3.5/5. As someone who grew up in a family that listened to a lot of rock radio, I was familiar with far more of this album than I was expecting to be. it’s honestly a fun time all around and at a tight 35 minutes it doesn’t overstay its welcome. It also obviously goes without saying that Eddie Van Halen is an insane guitarist and his flashy solos on here are good stuff, especially on Eruption. Sure it’s not a deep or life-changing album, but not everything needs to be. And Van Halen’s debut serves well as just a fun rock record.

5/5. Master of Puppets is pretty much the perfect thrash metal record and the best album in Metallicas catalogue. One of those albums where not a second of its runtime feels wasted. The intro track “Battery” is basically a perfect tone setter as it starts with only a guitar before the instrumentation fully kicks in, and damn even hearing this song as many times as I have it still hits just as hard. Another favorite of mine on here is “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” which is one of the slower songs on the album, but the build it goes through is incredible. and the closer “Damage Incorporated” is probably my favorite Metallica song. it really is one of those albums like Abbey Road or Dark Side of the Moon that’s just an undeniable classic.

And though Metallica has spent the past 30ish years at this point being a hollow shell of its former self, those first four albums are still all essential listens.

3/5. The Cardigans biggest hit, Lovefool is straight up one of the best pop songs of the 90’s. Insanely catchy and lyrically an interesting look into being just way too down bad for someone to the extent that she’s begging them to pretend to love her. The rest of the album unfortunately never hits that same high but it’s still some solid enough 90’s pop-rock. Though shoutouts to the weird ass cover of Black Sabbath’s Iron Man near the album, was kinda funny and surprising.

4/5. I will openly admit that electronic music is my largest musical blind-spot. It’s the broad umbrella genre that I’ve heard the least albums in and know the history of the least. what I do know though is that Cross by Justice absolutely slaps. That opening punch of Genesis+Let there be light+D.A.N.C.E. Is some great stuff. The magic to this album is the sheer amount of distortion, which gives it such an interesting sounding texture relative to other electronic/dance albums from its time.