Reviews by ultraclear

“Singer-songwriter” entries on here haven’t had the best hit rate for me, but this was honestly pretty unobjectionable. Didn’t bore me or wear me down at any point, he’s got a good voice, and his arrangements are nicely-composed.

A trio of instruments that'd be at home playing live music for a fancy lounge somewhere. Fundamentally pleasant, cozy.

Cut my listen short at the end of the original track listing, because I am staunchly anti-deluxe-editions for the purposes of this project.

I went in skeptical, but this really won me over. Delivers on a kind of maximalism that I feel like only could have come out of the 90s

Man, 20 years in and Smith still had it. Always super impressive that The Fall both sounds as distinct as they do each time, while consistently being ahead of the curve on what music's about to sound like. I might gotta check out that 2017 album to see if the trend continued

A straight hour of slow rock. Every song a dirge. Instrumentation's at least got some complexity, but this one seems like one of those that people enjoy for mostly inside baseball reasons

As someone with no love, affection, or nostalgia for Fall Out Boy in their heyday, I don't have the sense of personal betrayal that others seem to be experiencing. Which isn't to say I liked it, though, because this really is just thirstily chasing all the pop rock trends of the era, and coming out super bland for it. Like clearly the stuff that bands like Fun. and Imagine Dragons were doing around this time got *deep* in these guy's heads.

I want to rate this low, but that means I'm grappling a bit with how I gave Lady Gaga's 'Artpop' a 5 on here. I think the difference is that she committed hard enough to the dubstep insanity that it felt like an actual artistic choice, while this feels like it's doing the opposite, if that makes sense

Takes some big swings & drifts to a lot of different places, but it still is soft pop in its bones. Bumping it up one for ambition, but I don't want to pretend like I wasn't checking my watch a lot during the back half

Not quite nu-metal, but like a soft rock/post-grunge situation? Glam Grunge, going off some of the other reviews? Anyway it's a bunch of flavors that I don't like

Another case of ramble rant man talking over decent rock music

Drunk jackass slurs at you with no indoor voice for 42 minutes (asmr)(?). All of his stories are boring.

Very straightforward rock. I feel nothing about these guys, but I also can't really fault them for anything either

Does a very 2010s indie thing where it opens super bombastic, and then the rest of the songs are completely different than that. It's pretty close to my taste, but not quite there. Couldn't really say why though.

It's some fairly standard dirty-talking pop music

This was a very neat surprise. Varied, sprawling, and it stays interesting the entire time. I'm not a huge fan of that vocal filter, but it doesn't ruin the experience. Rounding up the 4.5, I liked this a lot

Completely insufferable & one-note. The bit was unfunny to *start* with, and they definitely didn't have the goods to sustain a full album. Might have made sense as like a series of youtube videos, if youtube had been a thing back in 2001.

I do feel a little bad hating this as much as I do, because I am capable of understanding that this album showing up on here is a kind of containment breach. It's not music that evolved to withstand this amount of exposure & scrutiny.

Snoozefest of an R&B offering. Background music

The better of the Pixies spin-off projects, but still not as good as the Pixies in their heyday

I’ve had it “Up To Here” with people adding albums from this band to the list!!!

I do like this one better than the others, though.

Kind of making a lot of the expected moves from 2010s indie rock. At this point sounds like it's maybe a little on the overproduced side, but that's something that weaves in and out of fashion

I maybe liked the grooves more than the lyrics, but Zappa's always worth checking out. Not as good as Hot Rats, but I had fun with it