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My 2020 Top Albums.

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Extra-late this year.

Frayle – 1692
If Mykur was doom metal instead of black metal. Doom-gaze.
[bandcamp width=100% height=42 album=2844130517 size=small bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 track=4088332119]

Painted Doll – How to Draw Fire
A comedian/musician and the drummer from Autopsy make great power-pop.
[bandcamp width=100% height=42 album=2876561271 size=small bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 track=811658820]

Hum – Inlet
Surprise release that was surprisingly good.
[bandcamp width=100% height=42 album=3100454109 size=small bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 track=248517784]

Fake Names – s/t
Not that this sounds like Dag Nasty but it’s what Dag Nasty should sound like in 2020. Best thing Brian Baker has been on since the first Junkyard album.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=videoseries%3Flist%3DPLcZMZxR9uxC_tqvIbhj0AtngMaVUnvFCb

Melkbelly – PITH
Sounds like the Breeders with a speedfreak drummer and a bit more noise.
[bandcamp width=100% height=42 album=3066901464 size=small bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 track=1493145712]

JG Thirlwell & Simon Steensland – Oscillospheria
Epic symphonic soundtrack like music.
[bandcamp width=100% height=42 album=903360454 size=small bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 track=4211531015]

Wytch Hazel – III Pentecost
Jesus jams with the NWOBHM and Wishbone Ash.
[bandcamp width=100% height=42 album=4061016096 size=small bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 track=1024024131]

Myrkur – Folkesange 
Euro folk. No black metal.
[bandcamp width=100% height=42 album=2926876501 size=small bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 track=2982835918]

Huntsmen – Mandala of Fear
Mastodon type metal with Wishbone Ash and Yes thrown in,
[bandcamp width=100% height=42 album=2223258098 size=small bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 track=1367674435]

Henrik Palm – Poverty Metal
Ex-Nameless ghoul makes a record that sounds like Ghost. Go figure. Great cover of Twisted Sister’s “Destroyer.”
[bandcamp width=100% height=42 album=2153634582 size=small bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 track=1503957102]

My 2020 Top Albums.

Hate Your Friends No.5

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Every week Apple Music makes a Friends Mix. Each week I will make off the cuff “reviews” of the songs in this list.

Many more things to hate this week.

Pavement “Zürich Is Stained” A band that always sound like they don’t care. The anti-Archers of Loaf. 10 seconds, maybe.

Dismemberment Plan “Follow through” This band has one good song and this isn’t it. 23 seconds then skipped.

Dinosaur Jr. “See You” Passible reunion era Dino Jr. This is where you should go listen to “Bug” instead. Listened to it all.

Cymbals Eat Guitars “And the Hazy Sea” Worst band name ever contender. Sounds like a manic depressive Built to Spill but without the songs. Listened to all of it.

Decibully “Uncle Sam’s Yard” Sorry friends but I don’t do Americana. :23 seconds as I was writing this.

Japandroids “Continuous Thunder” You say thunder, give me some. Lasted 1:09 .

Nada Surf “Do It Again” Nada rock. 10 seconds of tedium.

Maritime “It’s Casual” Decent dream pop. Make me a mixtape. Made to it 1:55.

Yuck “Sunday” More dull ass indie guitar rock but with more jangle. Pass. A sleepy 35 seconds.

Pinback “Fortress” Christ what with the bland indie guitar rock. People like this? Must have insomnia. 20 seconds.

Hefner “Grandmother Dies” Probably should change the name of these post to “My Friends Like Boring Music”. 1:18 waited for it to kick in.

The French “Wu-Tang Clan” Regardless if you are referring to the hip-hop group or the Shaw Brothers movies a song named “Wu-Tang Clan” shouldn’t be this banal. :35 seconds of annoyance.

The Flaming Lips “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate” From the pinnacle of the Lips catalog. It’s all shitting the bed after this. Listened to it all.

Mojave 3 “Return to Sender” Fuck off with the limp honkey tonk shit. 41 seconds of pain.

Ex-Hex “It’s Real” Indie rock trying to be Bad Company. Passed at 1:03.

The Dream Syndicate “Put Some Miles on It” Motorik dream pop that I don’t like. Made it to 1:12.

Astride Sonne “Strong, Calm, Slow” Pointless, bland, dull. woke up at 1:26 in a daze.

Jay Som “Superbike” Wow this week is the soundtrack to the cure for insomnia. 32 seconds, reaching for some caffeine.

Pingrove “Hairpin” More americana torture. 23 seconds of looking for some Mountain Dew.

Andy Shauf “Try Again” Limp twee bullshit that appears to worship Paul Simon. 23 seconds of wondering what the hell is going on.

Brainiac “Hot 53At Can’t 51T Down” YES! This one saves the day. Go watch the Brainiac documentary. Turn it way the fuck up and listen to it all.

Les Savy Fav “The Orchard” Listened all the way through because I want to like them but I don’t.

Hoover “Distant” Competent 3rd tier Discord. Listened to all of it.

Zomes “Beckoning Breeze” An organ, a bland beat and some breathy wailing. 1:37 to see if it got any better, it didn’t.

Bass Drum of Death “Fine Lies” Another shit name, also false advertising the bass drum is rather normal. Listened to all of it but the “fake” over distorted recording really turns me off.

Hate Your Friends No.5

Hate Your Friends no.3

fistfulofdaveLeave a comment

Image

Every week Apple Music makes a Friends Mix. Each week I will make off the cuff “reviews” of the songs in this list.

Way too much stuff I liked this week.

Replacements “Take Me Down to the Hospital” 3 weeks starting with the Replacements kicking it off. It’s Not Funny Anymore… Listened to it all.

Hüsker Dü “It’s Not Funny Anymore”  Best song in the 3 weeks of doing this. Listened to it all.

Fugazi “Great Cop” Their first EP is their best. Listened to all of it.

Jawbox “Cooling Card” Better than Fugazi. Listened to all of it.

Seaweed “Card Tricks” “Spanaway” rules, yes I know this is off of “Four”. Ever been to Spanaway? Listen to the album instead, Listened to all of it.

Bob Mould “Black Confetti” Pastiche of himself painting by numbers. Skipped at :45 seconds.

Hard-Ons “Don’t Wanna See You Cry” When the Hard-Ons are on they are the best Pop-Punk band, they are on here. Listened to all of it then listened to the rest of “Love is a Battlefield of Broken Hearts”.

Wire “Mannequin” This surprised me at how normal of a pop/rock song this is, never noticed before. Listened to all of it.

Superchunk “ Black Thread” I haven’t paid attention to Superchunk since “Come Pick Me Up”. Wait they did a cover of “Mad World” by COC, I listened to all of that and skipped this at :35.

Man or Astroman “Destination Venus” If you can’t improve a song or put your own stamp on it don’t cover it. Made it to :45.

Lungfish “Invert the State” You’re testing my patience with 3 weeks of this band, maybe :22 seconds.

Cocteau Twins “Feet-like Fins” I just listened to this album, then “blam” here it is again. That’s Apple Music for you. Listened to all of it.

Smoking Popes “I Know You Love Me” This song is about Jesus, or a girl. No it’s about Jesus. Listened to all of it regardless.

Maritime “Don’t You Say No” I listen to my own bands too. Listened to it all as next thing I knew Bob Welch is bleating at me.

Bob Welch “Sentimental Lady” If this was “Ebony Eyes” I would have listened to it. Skipped once I realized it started.

David Bowie “Changes” I don’t know what to do with this except listen to it all.

Todd Rundgren “Hello It’s Me” Sometime in the ‘70s in the backseat of my moms car heading to Target. I probably bought a Black Sabbath tape. :41 then skip, what’s with the yacht rock this week?

The Pretty Things “She Says Good Morning” You’ve worn out your Beatles, Stones, and Kinks albums do yourself a favor and check this out. Listened to all of it. 

The Third Bardo “I’m Five Years Ahead of My Time” When you’ve worn out the Pretty Things albums. Listened to all of it.

Pink Floyd “Lucifer Sam” If you played this for the vast percentage of Pink Floyd fans they’d have no idea who this is. Listened to all of it.

Painted Faces “Anxious Color” No wonder I’ve never heard of this. Skipped at 1:06.

The Litter “Sombody Help Me” Somebody went too far down the late 60’s psych hole. Skipped at :15.

Built to Spill “Wouldn’t Hurt a Fly” Off their best album, all downhill after this. All 6:15 of it.

The Decemberists “California One/Youth and Beauty Bridge” Apparently none of my Apple Music friends like Metal. This is bullshit. :03 of torture.

Red House Painters “Byrd Joel” Sour bastard bellowing about something. Fuck this guy. :20 to see if I could stand it.

Hate Your Friends no.3

Day Late and a Dollar Short, My Favorite Music of 2018

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Once again I am months late in posting this. A concerted effort to post to this blog gives you my list from last year. Not in any order just 10 things I liked. Alphabetical order.

Kurt Baker Combo Lets Go Wild
Power-pop appears to be being put out at an equal deluge as it had been in the late 70s early 80s. Most is competent yet disposable. This one had a little something extra for me.
[bandcamp width=100% height=42 album=3589643133 size=small bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5]
Bat Fangs s/t
A love letter to 1970s and 1980s. Glam, power pop and hard rock wrapped together in a 2018 shell. Catchy and fun. The production choices bug me a bit but don’t put me off.
[bandcamp width=100% height=42 album=1246827356 size=small bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5]
Beak >>>
Beak is a dude from Portishead this is their third album. More planned out song structures this time around. Again grabbing influences from the 70s through the present but from different sources; Krautrock, Spacerock, post-punk, electronic, trip-hop, etc.
[bandcamp width=100% height=42 album=581054831 size=small bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 license_id=118]
Ghost Prequelle
I’m on the “love them” side. A little softer but the song writing is so good I didn’t notice.

The Joy Formidable AARTH
I always assume this band is huge. They have a modern rock sound at least production wise. Songs are catchy, epic, progressive, heavy, gentle and subtle, much more dimension than 99% of modern rock. Probably why they aren’t as huge as I assume they are. A great recovery from the underwhelming Hitch.
[bandcamp width=100% height=42 album=1912537451 size=small bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5]
Kronos Quartet Clouded Yellow
Kronos Quartet is modern classical string quartet that has a lot of albums. This one really struck me, modern, a bit weird, creepy and unnerving. All songs composed by Michael Gordon, I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on him…
[bandcamp width=100% height=42 album=75703261 size=small bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5]
Nothing Dance on the Blacktop
The resurgence of shoegaze is a bit weird to me. Especially with so many metal and black metal bands jumping on. Nothing finally made an album who’s songs grabbed me. Lots of people saying it sound like Hums I don’t hear that, I hear a metal band playing shoegaze.
[bandcamp width=100% height=42 album=2547506892 size=small bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5]
Uncle Acid and The Dead Beat Wasteland
The 70s stoner/acid rock trend ran out of steam at least a decade ago. Every once in a while a band will catch my ear. Uncle Acid’s first album was fun and then they went into the morass of stoner/doom coming out the other end with Wasteland. Still many of the tropes that you’d expect but as usual the songwriting is the difference.

Wand Perfume
One of the billion newer psych bands. Their album Golum is easily one of my favorites of the 2000s, but they don’t seem to want to repeat themselves. This is much more indie psych than the heavy psych of Golum. Still intreating and the emphasis is more on the songs than atmosphere that so many “psych” band tend to fall into.
[bandcamp width=100% height=42 album=312456484 size=small bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5]
Voivod The Wake
The second post Piggy album. Voivod’s heyday (War and Pain through The Outer Limits) is some of my favorite music ever. They’ve gone through a lot but have never hit the heights of their early work. This is the closest they have come. While still sounding like a amalgam of their entire career The Wake brings a few new ideas to the table. Still a unique band but a bit of a pastiche of themselves.

Day Late and a Dollar Short, My Favorite Music of 2018