Reviews by ultraclear

My kingdom for one of these where the guy actually fucking enunciates. This has actually helped me figure out why I'll make time for Mountain Goats, but not most other N.A. Folk Music—for all that people rag on John Darnielle's singing, he's at least not just slack-jawed moaning and slurring his way through his lyrics like so many of these guys choose to do

Further demerits for slide guitar.

I like this submission as a really weird specific time capsule. Holy moly what a demonstration of how to lose a breakup.

At least with the Tom Tom Club album, the Story of it was an experimental side project of a band at their peak—it could get away with being kind of a mess, because it wasn't really out to prove anything like that. This one's both a really weird sour grapes case, and a failed grasp for relevance as the 90s marched on.

I'm rating it mid instead of low, because I think this is a very interesting train wreck

I'm picky about american folky genres, but The Mountain Goats have earned my trust a couple times over now

Dispatch from Glover's "I am unavoidable right now" era. Liked it a little bit more than Awaken.

Well, it’s no Black Parade, but still extremely solid. 2/2 from them on making emo albums that I actually like a lot, rather than merely tolerate

Ah, older project from Fever Ray! Weirdo electronica piece, occasionally annoying, but still compelling. Rounding up the 4.5, and I'll mark another notch under "demonstrations that the UK simply can't compete with continental europe when it comes to electronica"

Possibly the first hardcore/metalcore thing that I've heard on here that I felt like actually had the goods at all. Would have been dynamite if it were a little bit shorter, but I'm finally feeling my horizons expanding re: these genres. Hell of an album cover, too.

Maybe swap this one in for the one they put on the main list. I dunno, "My Hero" is a horrible dirge of a song, but I wasn't expecting to like the rest of this thing as much as I did

I mean sure, I'll listen to some more Depeche Mode, threaten me with a good time

Unwilling to rig up a 4-source setup, so I went with one of the youtube mixes.

I only really know Flaming Lips from the main list, and I didn't really care for what I heard, mostly on account of finding Wayne Coyne's singing really annoying. And that's a bit of an issue on this one as well, but there's also a bunch of times throughout where he shuts up and the composition gets *weird*. Big flashes of absolute transcendence peppered into an otherwise dull holding pattern. Big fan of bands doing unwieldy experimental stuff like this.

God, someone already beat me to "Arctic Monkeys at home." Anyway, I'm not super big on Arctic Monkeys in the first place

Oh yeah, Japanese Jazz is a whole scene, and I've always enjoyed what I've heard out of it. Little bit weather channel at times, but hardly a crime

Wasn't super into it, but there is something interesting going on in Australia that lets them get away with making their throwback acts actually sound decent.

Punches above its weight on the strength of foregrounding a singer with a really distinctive voice

30 minutes through, "jeez, is this still going?" so, y'know,

One for the history books, every song on here is fantastic

Ha, I made it to the second song before I realized that I recognized all this from that Pat Finnerty video that I watched a few years ago. It's a fun enough goof, but I don't have enough invested in loving or hating emo music to evaluate whether this, like, does a "good" job with the genre. Pretty listenable for a mockery, though.

Fond memories of spinning this one up because I knew the House MD theme came from here, and then getting mostly music that’s hitting a different vibe. This one’s an all-timer, probably could bump one of their other albums off the main list

Pretty decent stuff, little bit reminiscent of John Martyn at times?

Oozes nostalgia, even though I myself don’t actually have much history with this guy’s music