stream diving woman by japanese breakfast

i have GOT to stop making sideblogs

[sonarryx]

why do i keep doing this

hey y'all i have decided to make yet another sideblog for music. specifically for reviewing albums, because i have been doing it inside my head for a while and now i am doing it on tumblr dot com.

these will probably all be albums i buy on CD and listen to in my car while i'm driving, since that's the best time for me to be giving my fullest attention to music without getting bored. i'm gonna prioritize albums that are new to me (though on most albums, there will be some songs that aren't new to me).

please do not consider this to be legitimate music criticism. i have no dignity and a whole lot of personal bias. i am doing this for fun and for myself. will i maintain a regular posting schedule? absolutely not, die. will i inevitably neglect this blog and forget it exists? almost certainly. in the meantime, enjoy. or don't. you can do whatever you want forever

my sorting tags under the cut

ranking tags:

all-time faves top tier albums good tunes decent tunes mixed feelings not my thing

other tags:

no bad songs driving hazards

[sonarryx]

so this blog is dead (who's surprised?) but i've just made a rate your music account. so if i ever get into writing reviews again i'll put them on there instead. if anyone wants to be friends please add me! here's my page.

i'm still working on cataloguing everything so it will probably be a bit before i get the hang of the website.

[sonarryx]

billie eilish – hit me hard and soft (review)

as i mentioned in my chappell roan review, i'm a pop music bitch now. here's the proof.

i bought this album on a whim because my best friend was also buying it. i'd been meaning to give billie eilish a fair shot since i unfairly rejected her in high school for the crime of being really popular, and yeah, it took me until she made a song about having sex with girls to get into her. i won't deny that that's a big part of my motivation. but i'm here now and i gotta say, i picked a fantastic album to start with. this shit rules. i'm giving it the full detailed treatment it deserves.

"skinny" is a perfect opener, effortlessly dissecting several heavy topics at once. the lyric "people say i look happy, just because i got skinny" is a one-hit kill.

"lunch" was the only song i knew from the album going in. it's got a great beat, a seamless journey through a very simple premise, i love it. but it was quickly overshadowed by what's become one of my favorite songs of all time, a perfect storm of the right time and the right listening environment. i have no idea if anyone out there has the level of affection for "chihiro" as i do, but dear god i love this fucking song.

i didn't really crack the code on why it clicked so well with me until the third or fourth listen, which took place in the middle of the day. until that point, i'd been playing the album exclusively after dark, while working closing shifts at my pizza delivery job. those two high points in the song (calling them choruses feels inadequate, the structure of this song doesn't fit into traditional verse-chorus structure at all) hit me like a truck every time, but suddenly in the daylight, it wasn't quite so monumental. coasting through dark streets with little to no traffic to disrupt the flow of the song is an essential element to my enjoyment of the song. darkness helps, driving helps, but both at once add up to an experience you just can't get otherwise.

the way "chihiro" starts out soft and builds up to those high points, the way it transitions between at least five distinct parts, in an unexpected, unconventional but clearly deliberate order—it's all set up so perfectly it makes me want to scream. the section of the song that genius lyrics calls "verse 3" right after the line it calls an interlude, where these fuzzy, airy hi-hats come in, it's like this moment of realization, aligning perfectly with the lyrics "there's a part of me that recognizes you, do you feel it too?" it's like the whole song snaps into focus. then, everything else fades away for the return of that instrumental again (to call it a drop feels like an insult, though it's the closest comparison), this time with the vocals far in the background, nothing else to focus on but this swell of perfect intensity.

listen ok. i love this song. i put it on every night i'm working after dusk. i never want it to end. but there's 9 other songs on this album too, and a lot of them are really good too. all of them, actually. i love every single track on this entire album.

"birds of a feather" is an artfully constructed little tune, clearly intended for the radio play it's rightfully getting. "wildflower" is somber and ominous, with an echoey, lingering ending. "the greatest" is an even more dramatic increase from soft to hard (the title of this album is very literal) than chihiro, more extreme in both directions. the end of this song is the peak in energy of the entire album, and it spends the entire song getting there, stringing you along for over three minutes before the incredible, blissful payoff. it never fails to give me chills.

"l'amour de ma vie" has an elegant melody, and the switch to the second part of the song is unexpected and wonderful. "the diner" is probably my second favorite track on the album. every element is creepy as hell, which is exactly the point. the beat has the slick self-assured obsession of the stalker perspective that billie sings from, and the return of the bass at the end of both choruses is just perfect. "bittersuite" is another song that plays fast and loose with song structure to great effect. it's the perfect penultimate track with a seamless transition between it and the final track, "blue," yet another song that is actually multiple songs in a trenchcoat. there's these pitched-down vocals in the second part that i can't get out of my head.

final thoughts: hit me hard and soft is a fucking masterpiece. nothing feels out of place. the sound is very mature (especially in comparison to her breakout album—holy shit this is such a step up), and many of the tracks feature some impressive experimentation with song structure. it's all so subtle and effortless, and fits together perfectly. there's a clear love for and dedication to the craft exhibited in every element of the production. i love this album more every time i listen to it.

[sonarryx]

chappell roan – the rise and fall of a midwest princess (review)

it took me forever to get a copy of this on cd. the record store had it on backorder for months. i assume this is because chappell roan blew up so quickly and unexpectedly that they weren't ready for the sudden increase in demand.

i'm trying something new this time around by listening to the album in full as i write the review, so it's all fresh in my mind. already i'm three songs in (i'm switching between like three different tabs, the adhd is chronic) so i'm just gonna get going.

going into this album, i was already very familiar with quite a few of these tracks. of the tracks i hadn't heard enough times to remember, my favorite by far is "after midnight." the bass is excellent, and it's just a very well-put together song. the momentum doesn't stop for a second.

overall, my favorite song has to be "super graphic ultra modern girl." it's got the highest highs of the whole album, and it's got the same message as "femininomenon" but with a much better beat and fewer bad lyrics.

speaking of which—i think this is something people are afraid to say about chappell roan (unless they don't like her, which i do)—her lyrics are wildly inconsistent. she has some great lyrical hooks, but her verses range from pretty good to clearly just there to fill space, to being difficult to listen to without wincing. femininomenon is a prime example of this, in my opinion. i love the concept, but that bridge...

i think "good luck, babe!" is a step in the right direction for her in terms of lyrics, and hopefully a sign of better things to come. it's pretty airtight. the verses elaborate on the premise and aren't bad, even if they're not all that interesting. the chorus has that undeniable lyric, "you'd have to stop the world just to stop the feeling," which single-handedly got me into the artist back when she was starting to climb the charts.

for me, though, outside of a few notable exceptions, the appeal of chappell roan is not particularly tied to her lyrics, outside of the general subject matter. it's the music, the spectacle, the drag element, the cultural context. it's a big fucking deal to me and to a lot of people that she's as popular as she is. i know the whole "queer as in fuck you" thing has been done to death, but she's the perfect embodiment of that ideal. it's just really great to see all the fanart of her in amazing ridiculous outfits, to hear her on the radio constantly like any other pop star, and to witness the really interesting conversations she's been starting just by existing and defying people's expectations of a pop star.

most of the deep cuts on this album are pretty good songs, but i don't have a lot to say about them. they did successfully win me over from my initial reaction of disinterest, but i'm probably not going to spend much time with any of them outside of the context of the album.

final thoughts: something really important that chappell roan did for me this year was to finally get me to enjoy pop music like i would any other genre. ever since high school, i've made a point of avoiding the kind of resentment i held for pop music in my teenage years, but until this year i never actually found myself enjoying it without some sort of caveat. i might hear a song i liked on the radio, but i wouldn't stream it on my own time, and i definitely wouldn't buy the cd. but this year, pop music is a huge part of my life. i'm having a great time with it, and it's all thanks to her.

[sonarryx]

deftones - koi no yokan (review)

the main reason i chose koi no yokan for my profile picture is because it matches my soft sounds from another planet background really well—i tried setting my pfp as the white pony album cover and it just didn't look as good. i'm just lucky that this album also happens to fuck like hell.

so i started listening to deftones back in 2020 and probably reached my peak back in 2021. i frequently played all their albums back to back on spotify for background noise. i looped the absolute shit out of the song knife party off white pony, which will probably remain my most-played song on lastfm for a long, long time (unless diving woman overtakes it, which it's still got a ways to go).

i have this tendency to avoid the newer albums of bands that started in the 90s or 00s. that was definitely the case for deftones. the most recent album of theirs i owned was diamond eyes. i listened to the more recent ones, but i never got into them as much, and i didn't bother to get them on cd back in 2021-2022 when i was buying up all my favorites.

in retrospect, that was a massive oversight on my part. koi no yokan is an amazing album, and if it had only had a different year on it, i'm sure i would have loved it just as much as diamond eyes or around the fur, and certainly more than saturday night wrist. better late than never, i guess.

the opening track, "swerve city," is just perfect. it kicks off the album with an immediate full-throttle intensity. this album is another honorary driving hazard because of how easily it puts me in the mood to drive around like a maniac.

my favorite song on this album is probably "tempest". it feels like a self-contained journey in an album that is itself a much longer journey. the lyrics and instrumental of the chorus combine to form this sort of all-consuming turmoil that you can't help but get caught up in. i'm obsessed with both instances of the line "i know you can't be tired," which serve as the beginning of the heavy part of the song and the last defiant scream before the end.

one thing i've noticed about a lot of the tracks on this album is that they have quite a few outros that change the tempo or the feel of the song altogether. this is probably most obvious on "rosemary," which has not one but two instrumental sections at the end that are completely distinct from the rest of the song and from each other.

another thing that sets this album apart is the complete lack of downtime from song to song. some tracks have transitions that carry over from the end of one track to the beginning of the next, but even the ones that don't have virtually no silence in between. it's all very well-done and doesn't feel overly jarring. you can tell that they put a lot of thought into the overall flow of the album in every step of the production.

i love albums where you can tell the artists came in with a clear vision for what they wanted and executed it flawlessly. that's exactly what koi no yokan is—deftones at their very best. i'm so glad to have it in my life.

[sonarryx]

k.d. lang – shadowland (review)

god, that album cover. i want her.

ummm anyway! this might be the first actual, honest-to-god country album i've sat down and really listened to. i'm just not a country boy, i'm afraid. but i'm always trying to step out of my comfort zone when it comes to music, and kd lang is an extremely talented musician no matter what she's doing. she started out as a country artist, and any of the folk and contemporary music that i've heard from her provides a fundamentally incomplete picture of her as an artist, so i'm glad i got ahold of this album.

first and foremost: there's a LOT of slide guitar on this record. it took a couple listens to get over my knee-jerk reaction that this is Beach Music. music for the beach. like, palm trees and sunsets and hawaiian shirts, the most generic imagery of a beach you can imagine. thankfully, i did get used to it, enough to give it a critical listen.

what remains consistent with what i've already heard from lang is the fullness of the music and the production quality. there's nothing that feels forced, everything flows very naturally, and the whole thing makes sense. just a very well-made album by musicians and producers who know exactly what they're doing.

one point on this album that throws me for a loop is "(waltz me) once again around the dance floor." this is almost certainly due to my own lack of exposure to country music, but the music of the track seemed mismatched to the vocal performance she was giving. the final chorus especially is a stunning display of vocal ability, and the music feels a little silly and trivial in comparison.

speaking of vocal ability, the following track, "black coffee," features one of my favorite things about lang's vocals: the way that many of her long notes only get better as she holds them out. my favorite example of this is from the song "season of hollow soul" off ingénue, but "black coffee" also has a similar crescendo into a new section of the song. the effect is incredible, and i'll never get sick of hearing it.

the final song on this album has an unreasonably long title, so i'll stick with calling it "honky tonk angels medley." it features three other female country artists, brenda lee, loretta lynn, and kitty wells (who from what i understand are all a pretty big deal), and it's a wonderful little peek into a world i know very little about. it's also very amusing to me the way lang very deliberately uses the pronoun "they" in place of "he" in a particular line. i could listen to this one over and over. it's just so nice to hear a group of vocalists showing off their talent and celebrating their favorite music together.

final thoughts: i'm very glad to have this album in my library. i don't see myself becoming an avid country music fan anytime soon, but i can easily appreciate shadowland for the work of art that it is.

[sonarryx]

elliott smith – XO (review)

i purchased my copy of XO in pretty rough shape, with a few visible scratches on the disc and plenty of wear and tear on the case. it was definitely a risk, but i wanted to listen to this album and this was the only copy i could find (i tend to get all my CDs from local in-person sources, very rarely ordering them online). i'm lucky that the CD played with no issues, because i fell in love with this album right away and only loved it more with each listen.

there's a clear level of care and intention that went into the recording of this album. i can't help but step back and admire when everything about a record goes right. it's just incredible. i could gush about XO all day. elliott smith deserves all the hype he gets and more.

track one, "sweet adeline," is a perfect setup for everything that follows. i love a good slow burn opener that reaches its peak in the back half of the song. the one song i knew from this album, the titular waltz #2, is still a great song, but not a lot has changed on repeated listens—i like it about as much as i did before.

my one and only gripe with XO is what i can only compare to the sound of a recorder in "baby britain," an otherwise good song that was disrupted by the high-pitched, out-of-tune monotone sound in the second half of the second verse. (you can also hear the same instrument in brief isolation at the very end of the song.) the liner notes provided no hints as to what it was (unless it was a particularly unfortunate-sounding flute), and a little poking around on google didn't immediately get me any answers. it seems to sit more toward the front of the mix on the CD from my car speakers than it does on spotify/through my headphones and laptop speakers, so you won't hear it as quite so disruptive if you go test it out for yourself.

a rundown of my favorite songs on this album:

"bled white" is an upbeat little tune with a lyrical structure i just adore. 10/10 driving song. this one could very easily become a comfort song for me, and it's definitely going on my driving playlist!

i am a sucker for a good chord progression, and "amity" is where it's at! it's a short one, and it's probably the heaviest on the album, musically speaking. i just love each and every piece of this song, but especially the swell at 0:53. it's perfect.

"bottle up and explode!" wins affection on the title alone, and the song itself does not disappoint. i'm extremely pleased to have this song in my life. the bridge at 1:50 is a very smooth way of kicking the song up a notch, though it does fall short of actually exploding.

there's a fantastic horn-line groove in "a question mark" that we're prepped for at the end of "bottle up and explode!" with a silly little sax riff. i have to admit, i interpreted the opening lyric as "i've got a question, mark" about some guy named mark, not the actual punctuation, and i think i like hearing it that way better. dunno who mark is but he sounds like a dick to me.

final thoughts: most of what i've heard about elliott smith is all about how miserable his music is, and while i completely understand why that's the narrative, the music is just so well-done that it's hard for me to genuinely wallow in the misery of the lyrics. towards the end of the album it gets a little more dismal, but the main emotion i come away with is satisfaction. it's just a fantastically well-done album, start to finish.

[sonarryx]

pj harvey - dry (review)

first i just wanna say: WOW this album cycle was amazing. i kept these 6 cds in for longer than usual just because i wanted to keep hearing them! usually i end up getting sick of a couple of the albums by the end, but that didn't happen at all. i'll have either five or six reviews from each of these albums, because all were new to me and i have things to say about all of them (i still have to make a decision about the last one, based on some information i found out about the artist).

dry is pj harvey's first release, from back when she was the lead singer of a band rather than a solo artist. interestingly enough, this is one of the quietest CDs i've ever owned. a comfortable volume for most of my CDs is around 11-14, but for this one i kept it at 19 to start with and occasionally cranked it up to 21, which might be the loudest i've ever set my car speaker volume before.

if that wasn't enough, this album likes to play tricks on you. it'll start off a song with a verse so quiet you have to strain to hear it, and then hit you with an earth-shattering chorus when you're least expecting it. this is an intentional effect on behalf of the band, and it's definitely a technique i admire.

my favorites off this album are "dress," which has a fantastic grungy sound, "sheela-na-gig," one of the aforementioned quiet-loud songs with not one but TWO fantastic hooks, and "joe," an absolute frenzy of a song. there weren't any songs i consider skippable, honestly. it's a great listening experience, and it's sonically connected across the whole album without feeling repetitive.

final thoughts: for whatever reason, i kept forgetting that "fountain" wasn't the closing track. i'd get to the end of that song and go "ah yes, this is the end," only for the real final track, "water," to come on afterwards. i'm glad the album ends on "water," though, because it finishes on one of those highly unorthodox vocal techniques pj harvey likes to use. it's one of the main things i admire about her. i'll never get sick of her doing weird shit on the mic.

[sonarryx]

celeste - not your muse (review)

i have SUCH mixed feelings on this album. it's kind of baffling to me. i went in completely blind, with no idea what to expect, and my first listen was a rollercoaster of "god this sucks—wait this is great—what is happening???" i still can't tell if the album actually warranted this overreaction, but i was having a weird ass day. and i gotta admit, that initial impression stuck with me through every successive listen.

i've been picking up random albums from clearance bins for a while, because prior to this album, i was on a lucky streak of albums that ranged from great to decent. i'd been getting the feeling that my luck was soon to run out, and i was right—but not with this album! it was with a different one that i actually took out of the rotation altogether and replaced with kd lang's ingénue for the second time in two months (because god i love that album). still, when i heard not your muse for the first time, the opening two tracks immediately gave me a bad impression.

i've since changed my mind on "ideal woman," the opening track. i think, as an opening track, it does exactly what it needs to do. i think it sounds good, the lyrics are solid enough, the melody is nice. especially for an album called "not your muse," it functions as a clear thematic statement. the real problem lies with track two, "strange," which according to celeste's spotify, is her most streamed song by a landslide. this has baffled me since i first looked it up. "strange" is easily the worst track on the album (though "a little love" is also a contender) and is worse than most if not all of the bonus tracks as well. (speaking of which, i got the deluxe version of this album and there are a LOT of bonus tracks. 21 songs in total. it's insane.)

"strange" has an extremely stripped-back arrangement. it's soft piano chords and vocals, that's it. this is a problem because celeste's vocals just...aren't very good when isolated? i hate to say it, because she sounds great on plenty of the other tracks, but her breathiness crosses the line from being an aesthetic choice into sounding like she spent an hour screaming at the top of her lungs as a vocal warmup before coming to the studio. it's not flattering at all. it's downright grating on the ears, and it's really frustrating to listen to because i can hear hints of what sounds like a pleasant voice, but it's buried underneath this rasping noise.

so, two songs in and i'm worried that this cd is going to be nothing but a bunch of amateur songs hastily thrown together into an album...and then "tonight tonight" starts playing.

after a short intro, the beat drops and the song starts. actual production, a variety of instruments, a cohesive, pleasant ambience. sure, the verse seems to take significant inspiration from "i will survive" with a side of "tom's diner," but who cares? it's a good song. i'm already feeling better, but she immediately follows it up with "stop this flame" which is just. wow.

seriously, this song has so much life and energy. the instrumental is meticulously crafted to build up to the very rewarding chorus. it's got a nonstop rhythm to it, the melody is delicious, everything. i LOVE this song. sure, you can hear some of that breathiness in her voice in the bridge, but it's much more tolerable, and most of the song has fantastic vocal delivery. it just makes you want to stop what you're doing and start dancing!

"stop this flame" is definitely the high point in this album, but there's not another real low point until the second-to-last track (excluding bonus tracks), "a little love." this has basically the same issue as "strange," and it's also got this vocal scoop in the chorus that i don't care for, but its position at the end of the album makes me forgive it a little more. it's not meant to be the star of the show, and it's also got a lovely message, so i feel bad about trashing it.

from the bonus tracks, there are a few different collaborations in here, and my favorite is probably "unseen" with lauren auder. just a really lovely, floaty track. there were a couple songs i didn't care for, but most were pleasant.

overall, i'd say that if you took "strange" out of this album completely, it would be a very good album. i don't understand why it's the most popular, and i probably never will. i feel bad about how negative this review comes off when the album was quite good, but i'm not going to sit here and lie about how much i disliked that song.

final thoughts: i paid $2 for this album because it was on clearance, so it was well worth it. stream "stop this flame" because it rules. thank you and goodnight.

[sonarryx]

pj harvey - stories from the city, stories from the sea (review)

i think if i had listened to this album before to bring you my love, i would have had a completely different experience and may have even enjoyed it more. but i can't really be sure! all i can say is that while each track on this album feels like a cohesive song in and of itself, the album as a whole feels like a series of good songs that really don't have much to do with one another. which is hardly an uncommon thing for an album to be, it's just that to bring you my love felt like the exact opposite, so this album inevitably feels like a bit of a downgrade in that respect.

overall, stories is a lot less bass-heavy than to bring you my love as well. it's not lacking bass, it's just that her previous release was so dependent on that grungy low-end sound that its reduced prominence here feels less like a creative decision and more like an effort to conform to standard ideas of typical instrumental arrangements. i liked that to bring you my love was creepy and ugly and different, though i do understand that doing the same thing over and over again is gonna get old eventually.

i wanna clarify before i continue: i enjoyed listening to this album. i didn't dislike a single song on it. my favorites are "the whores hustle and the hustlers whore" and "kamikaze." yes, my two favorites happen to be the hardest-rocking songs on the album. yes, that's the same as last time. i know what i like!

that being said, stories didn't leave much of an impression on me when i wasn't listening to it. whenever i cycled back around to it in the rotation, i was subconsciously expecting to be bored. and i never was—i liked every song, like i said—but i think there's something to be said about that expectation, too. this album failed to compel me to look up the lyrics and try to analyze what kind of story she was telling. even the collaboration with radiohead guy in "this mess we're in" was just a shrug for me. the song sounded good and that was the beginning and end of how i felt about it.

final thoughts: THIS ALBUM WAS NOT BAD! i liked it. i wanna make that clear. it's just that the only thoughts i have about it were about how i didn't really have any thoughts about it, so this review comes off as overly negative when i actually would categorize the album as pretty good. if it weren't for all my speculation about why i didn't get really into it, it would probably be a largely positive, short two-paragraph review. i'm glad i bought the album and i look forward to listening to more pj harvey albums. i've bought two more of her albums that i have yet to listen to, so those reviews will probably come eventually as well.

[sonarryx]

st. vincent - masseduction (review)

my last st. vincent review was less than favorable, but this one completely turned around my opinion of her music. it's a world of difference, and i'm really glad i have this album!

when it came down to it, i think my main issue with strange mercy was its lack of compelling musical hooks, with the secondary failure being its equally uncompelling lyricism that failed to make up for it. masseduction succeeds where strange mercy failed on both counts. there are times when the lyrics fall flat, such as for most of "fear the future," but that song has excellent production and the musical elements work seamlessly together, so i still enjoyed it. on the other hand, there's times where the production is stripped back and bland, but the lyrics make it worthwhile, like in "happy birthday, johnny," which admittedly took me a few listens to warm up to as i realized the context, but now that i get it, i get it.

luckily, for the most part, this album consists of tracks that manage to do both at once. i'd already had three tracks from this album in my spotify rotation, "pills," "masseduction," and "los ageless," the last of which is still my favorite on the album. they remain fantastic tracks, but for this review i'd rather focus on the tracks that were new to me.

"savior" is probably my favorite of the songs i hadn't heard before—it's overtly sexual, silly, and agonizing all at once. it paints a compelling picture of an unhealthy relationship through the lens of all the ridiculous kinky sex they're having. another favorite of mine was "young lover," an absolutely brutal song that blows my mind every time. i'm not sure if i've ever come across a song before where the vocalist hits a note i can't reach, but the highest point in this song was a note i physically could not hit, though not for lack of trying (obviously there's plenty of classical/opera music that this applies to, but i'm talking about contemporary artists here).

the closing track, "smoking section," cultivates this maddening sense of dread. it's really the perfect conclusion. it feels obvious to point it out, but i do love how the final lyric of the whole album is "it's not the end." a simple, blatant contradiction, but a beautiful one.

final thoughts: this album makes me want to try and get st. vincent's recent two releases on cd as well, because if they're anything like masseduction, i've got to hear them. i probably won't splurge for anything that predates this album though.

[sonarryx]

la roux - self-titled (review)

i knew exactly one song off here when i started, and i think that song is probably still my favorite. but it was pretty solid! nothing earth-shattering, but the tunes were there.

my initial favorite (besides bulletproof) was "tigerlily", which uses a chord progression that i can't explain because i can't be bothered to sit down and figure out the music theory behind it. i just think it's neat!

the most tragic part of this album is "growing pains," the final track (labelled as a bonus track on the tracklist). it's actually one of my favorite songs on the album, but there's some kind of high-pitched audio loop error that happens in the chorus that's really disruptive. i assume this error is why it's relegated to bonus track status, but i'm not sure why the producer(s?) wouldn't fix it if they knew about it, so maybe they didn't. if it weren't for this, i might rank it as my favorite, because it's honestly a banger.

final thoughts: i'm glad i gave it a shot. only paid $5 for it, so it was a good deal. this type of music definitely belongs in a nightclub, so listening to it alone in my car while delivering pizzas probably didn't do it any favors.

[sonarryx]

japanese breakfast - soft sounds from another planet (review)

this album isn't even slightly new to me, as you may have guessed by my blog title. but the cd copy is, and i had to make a review about it because it's genuinely an incredible experience.

i've had jubilee on cd for a while now, and while i do like that album, i'm personally of the opinion that the production isn't the best thing ever. so i was blown away by how great soft sounds from another planet sounds in my car. it makes my shitty speakers feel luxurious. i can feel the bass so well. seriously, i'm over the moon about it.

i can't emphasize enough how good this shit sounds. literally the only other thing to get this kind of reaction out of me was glass animals' how to be a human being, and that was while i was borrowing my brother's car. my brother has really nice car speakers, so i'll have to pop this album into his car sometime if i get the chance.

obviously my favorite is still "diving woman," a song that has eclipsed the event horizon of songhood for me and ascended to legendary status. i was so overjoyed to hear it in high quality that i was NOT focusing on the road properly at all, technically making this album a driving hazard (though not for the usual reasons, so i won't tag it). but i really connected with "machinist" this time around, especially on the first listen. and of course, "the body is a blade" is one of the first songs i heard by ms. breakfast, and one of her best. it's such a good song. "diving woman" is something i can loop over and over and be happy forever, but "the body is a blade" is a song i think would appeal the most to people who are not me. it's shorter, the lyrics drive me up a wall, and it's got some of those ascending-melodic runs that feel like pure bliss.

seriously, if you've never heard michelle zauner's voice before, you've GOT to experience the bliss of her high range. "road head" is another great example of this—there's really nothing quite like it. she's got such a beautifully distinct timbre, i just can't recommend her enough!

final thoughts: god i love this album. so much. forever and ever. it's exactly as advertised: soft sounds from another planet!

[sonarryx]

k.d. lang - ingénue (review)

i accidentally bought two copies of this album, which is an easy mistake to make. you can probably find at least one of these cds in every goodwill ever. i'm happy to report that the masses got it absolutely right with this one.

it's just a really nice listening experience. all the instrumentals fit together smoothly. the vision for this album really comes together, you can tell they worked really hard to make everything happen. and it works so well! there's not much i can say, it's really just so perfect and solid all the way through.

i'm fascinated by the way she chooses to phrase things sometimes. for example, in my favorite song on the album, "season of hollow soul," the words of the chorus are just a little bit...strange. idk how to explain it. i'm the overanalyzing lyrics guy, so probably nobody else cares. and for the record, i also don't care, because the song is great.

i was also a big fan of "outside myself," which hit me hard on colder days. the closing track, "constant craving," is apparently the most popular (at least on spotify), which makes sense. the harmonies in the chorus are just perfect. it's a good send-off track.

final thoughts: this album feels kind of untouchable, so it was hard to write an engaging review for it. but seriously, trust me. it's just really good music! i'll be sure to pick up any kd lang cds i find, because even though the songs are still good on spotify, they just hit so much harder while driving around in my car. i'm definitely adding a few of these tracks to my driving playlist.

[sonarryx]

st. vincent - strange mercy (review)

i got really into a few songs from st. vincent's masseduction a couple years ago, plus i paid full price for this album, so i kinda had high hopes. by listen three i fully disliked this album, but the music did earn back some goodwill for me after listen four.

i bought strange mercy after looking up a few different random internet blogs' opinions on which st. vincent album was the best, and this one seemed to be the favorite (the real favorite wasn't available, but this one was second place). i kind of get why—the lyrics frequently veer into political/social commentary, but they're rarely specific enough to be truly offensive to anyone. i think this flimsiness is actually a big part of the reason i disliked the album. st. vincent name-drops america several times throughout the album, but it's never quite clear what she's trying to accomplish. it's not provocative enough to be compelling.

here's one of the lyrics that i think is perfectly emblematic of why i feel this way: "if i ever meet the dirty policeman who roughed you up, no i don't know what..." there's this way she has of talking around the problem she's addressing, of implying things rather than saying them, that's extremely frustrating. there's lots of lyrics that feel like they've been specifically designed to be quoted on some aesthetic instagram page. and this lyric says it all. when presented with a fictional scenario of revenge, she can't even describe what she'd do, because she doesn't actually want to get her hands dirty. that's the main problem with strange mercy as a whole: it seems to want you to do the work on its behalf.

the overall feeling i got while listening to this album was similar to how i feel looking at abstract art in a museum. it's clear that a lot of thought and intention was put into the artistic choices here, and there may be some aspects that are going right over my head, but the finished product just doesn't come together into something i can properly appreciate. at times the production feels awkward and disjointed. i usually enjoy when a song temporarily discards the tempo for emphasis, but i didn't feel like many of these various moments throughout the album warranted this kind of ametric insistence.

as for the vocals, i'm kind of at a loss. a lot of the album has this dispassionate tone to it, and i don't think it works for how often it's used. even worse, the vocal mix throughout the album ranges from passable to unflattering. i'm really not sure what the producer was thinking; it would have been a fairly simple EQ fix.

it took me a long time to warm up to any of the songs besides "cruel," which at least had a good hook to it. like i said earlier, i don't think the constant tempo fluctuations worked smoothly. i felt like i was wasting my time by the third listen. however, i did enjoy the 4th listen all the way through, which occurred after i wrote most of the above criticism. it's an interesting pattern that seems to happen when i decide i don't like something—i return to it again and discover elements that appeal to me.

final thoughts: i doubt i'll revisit strange mercy anytime soon, but i've just put masseduction in my car for the next round, and i'm confident i'll have a much more favorable review. i know it sounds like it, but i don't hate st. vincent! i read her (very long) wikipedia page before writing this review, which was actually to check if she was a nepo baby, because this album gave major nepo baby vibes to me. i don't think the term applies to her based on what i read. but she actually seems pretty cool, and i'm not going to write her off just because i didn't care for this album.

[sonarryx]

pj harvey - to bring you my love (review)

this was a great album. all the songs were new to me, so i had no idea what to expect, but i'm very glad i went for it. i'm pretty sure i grabbed a second album of hers as well, so that one's definitely going in the next rotation.

i've had lots of problems in the past with artists from this time period and style where i come away thinking, "this would be so good if it was good." the artist has good tracks and clearly wants to make rock music, but it just doesn't rock very hard, and the finished product ends up being a disappointment.

this did NOT happen with pj harvey. i won't deny that a couple of the tracks on here don't have a whole lot going on, but i never found myself disliking what i was listening to, or getting bored. the vocals are excellent, she's not afraid to be a little weird (the whispering on "down by the water" is an unexpected delight) or sing rough and ugly. i'm a simple guy, i like when women growl and scream.

as for the music, there's a LOT of bass going on. the keys didn't always sound the best whenever they ended up at the front of the mix, but it wasn't a glaring issue. the standout for me was "long snake moan," easily the hardest-rocking song on the album, and probably the one i'm going to listen to a lot after this.

the album opens with the titular track "to bring you my love," and this is where i prove that i don't mind shitty recording quality, because i ate this up. i have to assume it was an intentional creative choice, because the rest of the album doesn't have the same issue. it's a long slow build—in fact, this whole album is pretty slow, like she's dragging herself through all these songs. it's agonizing, but in a really good way. i like that this album takes its time.

"the dancer" is the final track on this album, and it's probably my favorite vocal performance overall. i just love that cry she does in the first chorus. a really good note to go out on!

final thoughts: i think i'm officially a pj harvey fan. i really wish i'd grown up with more music like this, clearly i was missing out! she joins amy winehouse on the list of heterosexuals i respect.

[sonarryx]

the kills - no wow (review)

i'm always trying to branch out, so i picked this one up despite only knowing one song from this band, which wasn't on this album.

i did enjoy listening to it, but it wasn't anything earth-shattering. they have a similar sound to the raveonettes (a band i'm more familiar with from the same era), especially on tracks where the vocals are doubled with both the male and female singer, like on "love is a deserter" or "the good ones" for instance. this album is from 2005, and it sounds pretty damn similar to how the raveonettes sounded in 2005. i have nothing against artists sounding similar, all i care about is if the music sounds good. while i still think i prefer the raveonettes over these guys, i do like them both.

the lyricism on this album is very interesting to me, though not necessarily off-putting. "dead road 7" is a cool little track about basically nothing, which i support whole-heartedly, and i appreciate the touch of repeating the number six three times. i just think it's neat!

the way that the songs bleed into each other is pretty cool, too. "i hate the way you love" and its part 2 is the more obvious example of this, but the two following tracks, "at the back of the shell" and "sweet cloud" do a similar thing. if i had to pick a favorite off this album, it would probably be "sweet cloud," because i have no idea what's happening in this song and it fascinates me. there's a bit at the very end where she backs away from the mic to really sing out that i'm a little obsessed with as an artistic choice.

the whole album is full of some pretty solid noise. the titular track, "no wow," opens the album with a skittering bass line—the only way i can think to describe it is when you yank the cord on a lawn mower to start the engine? but not quite so aggressive.

that might be what the album is missing, ironically enough—some aggression. it's got plenty of hard-rocking moments, but there aren't any big surprises. the songs aren't bad, but they don't ever reach that fever pitch. i guess what i'm trying to say is, there's no wow. (yes i know, i'm hilarious.)

final thoughts: if i had paid full price for this at the record store i wouldn't be too happy, but i think i got what i paid for with this, so it's all good. not something i'm eager to listen to again, but it's certainly not unlistenable, either.