Reviews by ultraclear

Drifted as it went from lounge-style filler music to something more electric

Some of the other reviews had me expecting something along the lines of Muse-style grandiose arena rock, but it's really just a guy shouting over some sparkly synth arpeggios and straightforward guitar chugs. I've got no nostalgia for this kind of thing, and I'm not a fan now.

This surprised me. With a name like that, I was bracing for some kind of abrasive punk, and instead it was a really cool art rock kind of sound. Making some really cool moves in the production, definitely going to be spinning this one up again.

Teen movie montage music. Some seriously prime-cut 80s cheese pop. Indefensible, but fuck it, I AM in the mood for this kind of thing today

Hadn't thought about this group in a minute, I'd fully forgotten that they were the ones behind the Disco Elysium soundtrack. One of the better versions of the indie rock of the era. I like how fuzzy the first couple tracks come across; I'm less interested in the mellower songs closing the thing.

Post-80s punk/hardcore/whatever always kind of blends together for me, and there's a lot of it on the users list. This is probably one of the better ones on here, but it suffers for me experiencing some some genre fatigue.

People are wrong to dock this for being an 18-minute EP, though, and in fact I'm bumping it an extra rank for the exact same reason. I like my Big Ideas and Politics Opinions music to be either super long epics that I can get lost in & spend the whole day on them... or short, clear, concise, wasting no time. This would have been bloated and terrible at the 50-90 minutes a 1999 album release would have demanded.

Straightforward britpop, meaning it runs a little bit tepid for my taste

Had promise, but wore out its welcome. Long and boring even without getting into the extended/deluxe edition nonsense.

Big surprise for this one, I thought for sure as it opened that I'd be *very* quickly getting annoyed with his voice, but it really works for him & the mood he's cultivating on this. Super unhinged, giving it a 5

Like a less polished RHCP

Always makes me a little sad when the top reviews are a parade of 1 & 2-stars, especially when it's jam music, which a lot of people really love to hate & impress their friends with how much they hate it.

I do agree with most of the people here that this one's pretty mediocre, though. Way too beholden to Phish, but also has a much shallower bag of tricks. Very little variation in instruments, dynamics, rhythm, tempo, etc, and they never manage to pull off krautrock-style hypnotism. Felt like any time I really started to settle into a groove, they'd start doing shit like playing the Pink Panther theme and I'd get yanked back out of it.

I was prepared to be very annoyed that a "-punk" act is clocking in at 54 minutes, but seems like this is a compilation album from a band that had a lot of trouble with managing their physical media releases back when they were active. That at least seems like an interesting story, if nothing else.

Anyway, I really fucking hate this kind of hairball vocals

Opened pretty strong, but then kind of settled into regular post-rock

God, I love spanish guitar. This gave me a lot of that, without any distracting nonsense, A+

Honestly the bit took way longer to wear down on me than I expected. I still kind of think of them as a novelty act, though.

Tony Hawk Pro Skater Soundtrack ass. A fun thing about this kind of project is that you get enough exposure to genres you don't normally listen to, that you start getting the ability to form preferences within them. This one's clocking in late to the party on ska, but right in the middle of pop punk's reign. It's worse than other ska that's come up on here, and middle of the pack among the pop punk.

Despite basically inventing the indulgent concept album as we understand it, I’ve always liked The Who’s overwrought output less than the overwrought output of Pink Floyd, Genesis, King Crimson, etc. Even Jethro Tull making fun of this kind of thing with “Thick As A Brick” is more engaging to me.

It’s still alright, just lower-tier in my rankings

I enjoy a good "up its own ass" album every now and then, but this one's not my preferred flavor

Better than the one on the main list, but it's still pretty much just oldies radio to me

Rounding up the 4.5, I'm in a good mood & this one put me in a good mood. I'm buried under two feet of snow as I write this, it fits the morning. Most of it's pretty straightforward folk rock, though the opening couple tracks had a lot of electric stink on them that I was hoping would continue for more of the thing. Very cool submission.