Five a Day; Week Three

Day One

DWNR - Dem Atlas - punchy cleanly produced hip hop with some great rhymes

Egobese - Political Animals - Lo fi funky old school hip hop. great use of sampling, mix of acoustic and live driving. Some glorious bars. Very unique packaging. (the physical release is a cassette housed with a Sega Genesis box).

Scum - Napalm Death - I like 50% of this album. The conventional metal sections are glorious riff driven metal. The 50% of the music I don’t like it the grind core bits; the bits that are seemingly just noise. however it’s the grind core bits that are the point of this band aren’t they.

Internal Wrangler - Clinic - Lo Fi experimental garage rock. there are bit that sound like The Fall, Bits that sound like Young Marble Giants but the main thread sounds like The Sonics.

I had a dream you were mine - Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam -  A modern oldies record. Everly Brothers Harmonies and Bob Dylan guitars combined with bright synths and spacious drum machines.

Day two

Rennen - SOHN - started as some off the wall electro and then seemingly slows down into more generic sounding downtempo electro pop; the thing I became allergic to last year. When it became the standard 'change of Direction' album sound. 

Bleed American - Jimmy Eat World. Starts like a good pop punk album and then falls apart by track four when a soppy acoustic number comes in to spoil it and after another pop punk track, another acoustic ditty. No what I was expecting in a bad way. The hit The Middle is great and some tracks have good hooks but it sounds like a pop rock album with some good ideas but mostly just bland. JAMC reference too haha 

 Encore un dernier baiser - Niagara - glorious female fronted French synth pop with bright horn sections and disco guitar Ala Nile Rodgers. Famously mentioned in Losing My Edge by LCD Soundsystem. I am dancing on the metro as I type this. 

The Scientists (The Pink album) - Scientists - Loud Garage punk rock ala Iggy Pop and the Stooges. It's enjoyable but it does sound like they heard Raw Power / nuggets comp and Copied it. Also mentioned in Losing My Edge. 

Ultimate care 2 - Matmos. An intense concept album based around recording internal and external noises a washing machine makes. Parts sound like waves and parts sound like African rhythms. Worth a listen for the concept alone.

Day Three

You will never be one of us - Nails - reached the top 50 albums of the year of one of my fave music reviewers so was worth a listen. Hardcore punk mixed with metal. For my liking it does too much of the loud nonsensical grindcore bits because outside of these sections the riff quality normally is great, I find myself headbanging to them, The double bass drum metal technique is sublime and noise elements of fret noise and wailing walls of guitar is a great couple the to grindcore. 

New Skin - CRX - Side project of Nick Valensi of the Strokes fame. The album is very much in the vain of powerpop with a few left field ideas from metal or new wave stuck in just to keep it interesting. It does sound primarily like The Strokes though. The front cover is cool. 

Bamboo Diner in the Rain - The Wave Pictures - the garage rock of The Sonics, the Soul organs of Booker T and the MG's and The Rolling Stones take on blues and country music all smashed into one makes this a really really great listen. The really dry and comic song writing is also really what makes this thing unique.

 Song Cycle - Van dyke parks. Folk baroque pop. Glorious orchestration with folk/Classical guitar. It sounds like if the songs of Pink Floyd ala Piper at the Gates of Dawn without the distorted guitars or rock drum kit. Odd comparison but when you hear at least some of it. His voice is treated in a similar way and the odd rhythms are there too. 

 TOTP2 - Keith Top of the pops and his minor UK indie celebrity all star backing band. Song writing is of the smart yet cynical variety. Sounds about Morrissey and being free to like what music you like. Musically indie, given the title of the band but it's very lo fi, a very dense sounding album.

Day Four 

Some marvels of modern science - Diagram Brothers. Okay I cheated, I was in a foul mood this morning so give myself an album I probably would like and I do. It's a less aggressive just as political Gang of Four. As good as XTC and the fire engines but more obscure. And a template for Franz Ferdinand and the post punk revival sound in Britain. 

Degenerates - The Passage. Wow, this is like early Soft Cell/Associates to my ears. Memorabilia type stuff. No songs stand out, it's just a synth album. XOYO is a good start and wackier than I remember but unfortunately most the rest is flat. 

Gentlewoman, Ruby Man - Matthew E White and Flo Morrissey. Covers album that breaks the mold. No straight covers. Using the lyrics and chords and creating new compositions from them. They have a funky soul rock flavour to them which is just delightful.

Yessir Whatever - Quasimoto. Love the work of Madlib so was excited for this. Love his production style and there are some great samples on this thing. Quasimoto is his higher pitched alter ego and on first hearing it it's great. So unique in the field of hip hop. 

Migration - Bonobo this is the type of music I had an allergic reaction to last year, slow meandering electronic music. No big dangerous drops or pounding beats. Not upbeat enough to be dance music and not chilled enough to be ambient. This is pleasant enough but I don't get the major appeal.

Day Five  
Yesterday’s Gone - Loyle Carner - Well produced thoughtful London Grime/hip hop ala Kate Tempest’s latest album. 

The Grateful Dead - Grateful Dead - probably because it’s the bands debut but it’s sounds like a standard blues rock LP (unfortunately) and in some places like The Doors.(fortunately) I expected more but it’s probably some of the later albums the band hits the experimental sound that is raved about so much.

Hang - Foxygen - Soulful, Rocky, jazzy pop music. Really great interesting compositions, Scott Walker/Bowie esque vocals and inflections of ABBA to some of the songs. It has the ‘sound’ of a vintage record and sounds much older than this year.

 

Modern Ruin - Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes - well produced Melodic Hardcore punk rock. More polished and less aggressive than the other material I’ve heard from him. I thought his voice sounded like early Muse, Matt Bellamy in places.  Colt 45 ish actually. 

Dissed and Dismissed Tony Molina - 11 minutes of Ash type punk rock style songs about heartbreak. Blink and you will miss it.