Reviews by nevele

The honest question Older kept raising for me was why this particular indie folk album was submitted.
Lizzy McAlpine has a good voice and is clearly talented. There are occasional chord changes and arrangements that briefly suggest something more interesting is coming. But this is serviceable indie folk that plays it too safe to justify the space it takes up. In an oversaturated field this isn't making a case for itself.

I really have nothing to say about this album. It left me completely cold.

I am embarrassed to admit I didn't know Gurrumul, and I live in Australia.

Apparently Dr. G Yunupiŋu was a blind Yolŋu man from Elcho Island in Arnhem Land, and his voice is unlike anything I have ever heard. A countertenor of extraordinary purity and emotional directness that crosses every language barrier without effort. The are songs in Yolŋu languages, drawing from a living ceremonial tradition tens of thousands of years old, and none of that distance matters for a single second.

Djarimirri is his final album, completed posthumously with orchestral arrangements by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. That combination could easily have gone wrong. A Western orchestral frame imposed on something sacred and ancient. It doesn't. The orchestra and the tradition speak to each other as equals, and the result is something genuinely unrepeatable.

I have heard a lot of music by First Nations Australians and much of it has moved me. But the combination here of voice, song, emotion, ritual, and orchestra is next level. This is complete art made at the intersection of two worlds, diminishing neither.

A full five stars, and a reminder to pay closer attention to what's happening in your own backyard.

You would almost think that Clark accidentally recorded this album in the wrong studio with the wrong equipment. It is incomprehensible that his studio album completely falls over due to production that is too polished.
Hopefully, this man will one day see the light and subsequently release an album full of dirty, grimy, sticky, and swampy delta blues. I feel it's in there somewhere.

What Daniel Kahn and The Painted Bird serve up here isn't entirely new. Their description of themselves as *"Verfremdungs-Klezmer: Yiddish Punk Cabaret"* might sound unique, but you'll hear echoes of Gogol Bordello, Kurt Weill, The Dresden Dolls, Tom Waits, The Pogues, Oi Va Voi, and even The Tiger Lillies scattered throughout the album.

Yet it never feels like a copy. Kahn and his multinational Berlin collective bring enough of their own personality to the mix, helped by the switching between languages every now and then, and the sense that this music grows naturally from the city's cosmopolitan cultural scene rather than being a theatrical exercise.

The cabaret and Weimar influences are impossible to miss, but unlike some artists working in that tradition, this feels more authentic than performative. The songs are funny, political, melancholic, and often surprisingly uplifting. Most importantly, they sound like they're being played by people who genuinely believe in them.

It's music that puts me in a good mood and make me want to join the revolution

Designer is an album that has stayed with me ever since I discovered it during the Covid years. Aldous Harding distinguishes herself from the average singer-songwriter by adding just enough stubbornness to otherwise conventional songs.

The title track is a good example. It constantly shifts between featherlight pop and melancholic folk, with subtle tempo changes that keep it slightly off balance. Elsewhere, the appeal comes from her melodic instincts and a delightfully dry, understated production that leaves plenty of room for the songs to breathe. "Weight of the Planets" remains the standout for me, a genuinely beautiful piece of music.

Yet I can't quite get to four stars. For every moment of invention, there's another where the songwriting feels surprisingly lazy. "Pilot," "Treasure," and "Damn" never quite develop beyond their initial ideas.

A good album, sometimes a very good one, but not quite consistent enough to reach the level its best moments promise.

Surprisingly personal with some great beats.

Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge is theatrical, and that's not something that normally appeals to me. Underneath the shiny veneer are some genuinely good songs, but the high drama and bombast often get in the way rather than serving them.
Helena and I'm Not Okay are the obvious singles and rightfully so. Reading the lyrics while listening, you can see exactly why I'm Not Okay struck a chord with teenagers when this came out. It's clever in places. But the songs that do best for me are The Ghost of You and I Never Told You What I Do For A Living, the two that close the album and feel genuinely emotional rather than performed.
This is closer to Hüsker Dü than anything gothic or electronic, melodic pop sensibility wrapped in hardcore aggression. Familiarity with the songs only made me want to hear them stripped of the costume. The theatre should serve the song, and here it too often does the opposite.

One thing that this User Submitted List has taught me is that I really adore the narrative-driven-social-commentary Beyoncé from Lemonade but am not such a fan from the pure-escapism-danceclub-culture Beyoncé from Renaissance.

A good album for festivals

Penguin Eggs is truly traditional folk music, violin and melodeon and all, built almost entirely from traditional songs with lyrics adapted by Jones. It does exactly what folk music at its best should do: tell real stories from real lives without sentiment or nostalgia. After listening to this record I know for certain I never want to become a whaler. What a miserable, shitty job that was.
Jones gives us a genuine glimpse into the past, and the intimacy of the arrangements keeps it grounded throughout.
After all the 1001 albums and many on this user submitted list, I know that folk really isn't my jam, so I'm genuinely uncertain how good this is by the standards of the genre, even after all those albums. What I can say is that it held my attention and did its job honestly.
Three stars, with that caveat attached.

Being technically gifted on an instrument doesn't make you a great songwriter, and John Dawson Winter III makes that point clearly. Winter is a genuinely exceptional guitarist, his blues-rock playing throughout is impressive, and the album is diverse enough to hold your attention for its full length.
But that's about it. Good rocking blues that never does anything new or surprising.

Complete ADHD idiots or unparalleled enthusiasts of the craft. Possibly both. That's Nonagon Infinity in a nutshell, and it's exactly what makes this so memorable.
The loop gimmick has been done before, but what sets this apart is the relentlessness. Forty-one minutes and the foot never comes off the gas, even in the quieter moments. Like I'm In Your Mind Fuzz, the tracks flow into each other or share the same bone structure, recurring tempos and motifs that make the whole thing feel like one continuous idea rather than a collection of songs. There's a shuffle myth that's grown up around this album, that the track order doesn't matter, and while that might be more lore than fact, it fits the album's whole ethos perfectly.

You have to be in the mood for it though. I was in the mood for something rocky and pulsating with energy, and right album, right time, this hit exactly where I needed it to.

If I'd come to this in a different mood, it might have landed at three and a half or four. As it stands, this is a five star album, mood and all.

White Horses sets the tone immediately, and from there the album does something I didn't expect: it's genuinely uncomfortable at times, distorted and harsh, while Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk's harmonies remain absolutely beautiful underneath. Harmony and noise simultaneously rather than in opposition.
Days Like These is a great example. It opens sweet and poppy before taking a turn into something heavier, and that contrast is the whole album in miniature. Don't Walk Away is beautiful too.
There's a metaphor in here for the times we're living through: struggling through the difficult and uncomfortable moments so the beautiful ones land even harder. The album wasn't made with foresight of what came after for the band, but knowing it now adds a weight that's hard to set aside.
An album I'll be returning to.

Talented sisters with luckily two very differing voices which helps the songs immensely. This is a good album but in a style that just isn't mine.

Cracker Island opens well. The title track is hypnotic and sets up a promising listen, but then it starts meandering.
What follows is a remarkably balanced, very listenable album that never quite gets exciting or exuberant. The collaborators pass through without leaving much of a mark and the whole thing sits in a polished alternative pop register that feels very comfortable, where ironically, the usual criticism of Gorillaz albums is unevenness.

Not really an addition to their discography in my opinion.

The Unutterable has an explosive production by Fall standards, layered and textured in ways that keep revealing themselves on repeat listens.
Two Librans and Dr. Buck's Letter are the standouts, but Sons of Temperance, Octo Realm/Ketamine Sun, and Serum are not far behind. The first two thirds of this album are genuinely impressive, but then the last four tracks arrive and the energy drains away. Not bad exactly, just considerably less interesting than what preceded them. A shame, because a consistent album would have pushed this higher.

Barenaked Ladies meets Weird Al Yankovic, except without the funny lyrics or the musical variety that makes either of those acts worth returning to. A rock opera about a space monkey that runs for 27 tracks and overstays its welcome somewhere around track three. Upbeat nerd rock played with conviction, which only makes the relentlessness worse. Update: it didn't get better.

I can still remember someone telling me in 2002 this was the best debut album of the last five years. I looked at him stunned then, and I still do now.
That's not to say Turn On The Bright Lights isn't good. It is, genuinely. But this good? I've never quite understood the enormous reputation, and having recently spent time with Script For A Bridge by The Chameleons, I understand even less. You can hear clearly where Interpol took their inspiration, and they never quite matched it.
What they do well, they do very well. Untitled is a superb opener, Say Hello To The Angels is hard to sit still to, and the bass work throughout, particularly on PDA, is exceptional. The album also has more range than its reputation suggests. NYC is the track that interests me most, its Mogwai-adjacent guitars pushing beyond the obvious Joy Division template into something more genuinely their own. And the final stretch of Roland, The New, and especially Leif Erikson is where the album fully earns its ambitions.
What struck me most on this revisit is the difference between liking an album and being absorbed by one. Script For A Bridge pulled me in and kept me there. Turn On The Bright Lights gives me a collection of very good songs instead. I admire it, enjoy it, and understand why it was important to the post-punk revival of the early 2000s. I just don't hear the masterpiece that some others do.

Age of Consent is one of the great album openers of its era. An absolutely brilliant song that I would put on any playlist without hesitation. If the rest of Power, Corruption & Lies kept that up, this would be a five star album.
It doesn't, at least not for me.
I know New Order. I like their singles. I understand intellectually why this album matters: the pivot from post-punk to synthesizers, the tension between two worlds that makes the whole thing crackle. 5-8-6 is clearly doing something Kraftwerk-influenced and doing it well. Peter Hook's melodic high bass is distinctive and unusual. Bernard Sumner's voice is an acquired taste but I've loved albums with far more limited vocalists, so that's not the issue.
The issue is that something just doesn't connect. The album promises transcendence and delivers something that stays just out of reach. What everyone says is a record that keeps the standard of Age of Consent throughout? I just don't hear it. It stays at arm's length and I can't put my finger on exactly why.
I will not reach for this album again. I will reach for Age of Consent continuously.
Three stars. I can hear half my friendsgroup yelling at me already.