The Neighbourhood are a band that just missed the final embers of the rock era, So unlike their UK Counterparts The Arctic Monkeys, The Neighbourhood are testing the waters of what it means to be a rock band in the 21st Century when the majority of its fans, listen to Justin Bieber and The 1975.
Their middle ground, is an album that arguably far surpasses their competition BUT delves into the realm of pop-rock making it a very cringy listen lyrically.
No matter how artistic and deeply the ... read more
A truly magnificent debut, as lyrics and instrumentation conjoined until they are some entangled mess,
a labyrinth within each track and that is all that is needed in a genre as chaotic and haphazard as psychedelic pop.
Special shoutout to OF MOONS; BIRDS & MONSTERS
Nothing new here, a new chapter on the same sound, its everything expected and nothing more.
A bold statement, and the first piece of viewing of the new musical landscape that will be Compassion.
This is definitely a departure from his old sound, less experimental more melodic. Which indicates a much more fluid album as seen before from his rough around the edges prior releases.
Supremely average. The highlights outweigh the lowlights, just.
Which is such a shame, considering there are some really great tracks here, and the ultimate message of the album is an important one.
What seemed to be a new chapter for Arca turns out to only be half-true in execution.
With the gauntlet of singles released before the album was released, what remains unheard, leaves a lot to be desired.
It is clear Arca's music benefits greatly from having his vocals within the track. What holds this album back is perhaps the past, the second half of the album remains instrumental, this clear division between vocal tracks and instrumentals leads to a real disconnect in the ... read more
TLDR: Giving this album a perfect score would be wrong, as this album lacks most things associated with a perfect album, but to give it anything less than a perfect score feels to be a spit in the face of someone who has quite literally gone through the most painful thing a human being can experience without dying, and released said experience to the masses.
it feels wrong to review this album, if it can be called that:
There is something inherently wrong here, while the singer-songwriter ... read more
This album is the template for every great experimental album of the 21st Century.
So the A stands for Amnesiac, you know what keeps me up at night? the fact that the album which stands atop its snow peak with very little company (that company being albums that have reached the same heights as this record) isn't even the best version of itself.
Take a second to realize, that "Pyramid Song" could have been on Kid Amnesiac. Now the tone of tracks such as "Knives Out" and ... read more
While these songs do not flow together as well as we know Nicolas Jaar albums to flow, it is completely forgiven understanding that this is a compilation of his Nmyphs releases and a little extra.
To think that Why Didn't You Save me, The Three Sides of and Mistress have found their way into the same collection of work makes this an essential NJ album, no matter how poor the placement of the songs are here.
The one thing that has to be said though, what a great finisher to this compilation in ... read more
This album could only be seen as amazing, for newcomers of the Jamiroquai sound. At this point in time for long time listeners, what can be taken away is that it is a new batch of songs to obsess over but do not expect something great here, only more of the same.
It is still a Jamiroquai album, but without clear meteoric songs, the musical landscape of this album feels flat. Where usually the deep cuts would feed off of the instantly catchy songs, and later grow through numerous listens, that ... read more
For an album, dealing with political and philosophical roots this album does not take enough time to make sure that the delivery is honest and contemplative.
Still leaps and bounds ahead of the average famous rapper right now, but the level of prov-ado feels completely ill-placed when talking about introspective topics, in moments where he should be most fragile in his lyrics, there is a sort of disconnect for the listeners.
Finally, there is a huge change in soundscape in the first and ... read more
Much like most of the Gorillaz discography, there are songs on here that will stay with you forever, while the rest is too haphazard to even remember the name of.
Favourites: The Selfish Giant, Lonely Press Play & Seven High
The first coherent Gorillaz album is a masterpiece, who would have guessed?
With the album being constructed around the plot of the scraped Gorillaz movie, it's fair to say that Demon Days is the most fleshed out a record could be conceptually. Coupled with production from Danger Mouse who was fresh off of "The Grey Album" and teeming with creative energy, Albarn had the perfect platform to start weaving his writings into a complete world of sound.
What a world that is.
Unsurprisingly, Gorillaz achilles heel would be exposed on their debut album, with songs so perfectly experimental, but just on the edge of disaster. However it should always be remembered just how unique the experimentation was for its time, and thus culturally this is a 90+
To be a gorillaz song you either have to be brilliantly experimental or just experimental. Its a price to be paid and fairly so.
As such we are greeted by a mess of an album, where its best songs such as Starshine and ... read more
I always viewed The National as being too steeped in Melancholy to ever achieve mainstream success
Hence why they were loved critically but never made a dent on charts or end of year lists.
Trouble Will Find Me, is that album that forced a band into the spotlight, the melodies flame high over its vocals, allowing for a new sound for The National, that is the only noticeable difference here from other The National albums
Vocals are as they have always been, hushed by quiet words and humanely ... read more
This album will always hold a special place in the hearts of IDM listeners, which luckily Thom Yorke is.
This was, and in most respects still is a collection of the biggest up and coming artists in the IDM world.
As such this is a monumental album in the world of IDM and only IDM.
Create an account to rate and review albums.
Recent Review Comments
On Mac Miller - Swimming
"Yeah getting rid of that, of course that was said before he moved on. It was a huge departure from his sound and definitely not hip-hop but his next release would show it was so much more."
On Julianna Barwick - Nepenthe
"@cjstuart <3"
On Eminem - Encore
"I didn’t realise “skipping to” would be such a hard read. 🫣"
On billy woods & Kenny Segal - Hiding Places
"Exactly, exactly teehee. It was Big Fish Theory by Vince Staples!"
On Vince Staples - FM!
"@Audiohype 6 years late on this response but I believe it was Trent Reznor who talking about it, and it did affect the exposure! At the time he (Trent) was a part of the Apple Music team so he would know, it did play a part then, probably not anymore!"
On Jay-Z & Linkin Park - Collision Course
"Hey hey, not quite, I don't think. Though Turnstile & BADBADNOTGOOD's EP "New Heart Designs" definitely had something there but less hip-hop and more Jazz fusion or HEALTH's "DISCO4 :: PART II" which definitely got there on certain tracks."
On Clairo - Pretty Girl
"in 2017 it wasn't, or at least it wasn't to me."
On Jooyoung - Sphere
"<4"
On BiggieBJones's review of The Smile - Wall of Eyes
"Albums been out for less than a day and you're doing HTTT and The Bends like that?"
On Slauson Malone 1 - EXCELSIOR
"Maybe in production but vocally I think Slauson sounding like Dominic is as good as its going to get"
On Jooyoung - Be
"Agree 100% I think it has to do with their vocal performances both artists do the sing-talking thing in their verses, punctuate their songs with falsetto’s and love to stack manipulated vocals a top one another!"
On The Killers - Hot Fuss
"Yeah that’s the point, let me be less succinct, there was a very real push for indie rock to be the next great effector of sound, best seen/known with the Pitchfork-core tag. The reverse of this is that bands with more a traditional rock sound ended up being lampooned despite releasing their most noteworthy records in this time while let’s say in 2005 (when this DEBUT album came out) Franz Ferdinand, Animal Collective, modest mouse, Iron and wine, THE VERVE, feist all got glowing reviews in jarring contrast to this record. There was a deliberate and unnatural critic bombing for albums like this. Not to say that like The Funeral isn’t a wonderful record just that for this debut record to get spitroasted by critics was alarmingly disproportionate to other indie rock record receptions."
On NTTR's review of Moby - Resound NYC
"I’m about to listen to Moby again because of you, better not be lying about that 84!"
On starlessmoons's review of Coldplay - Ghost Stories
"That’s so cool orange and I don’t mean it in a sarcastic way! I never would have thought this album could mean so much to someone and I think it’s amazing that it does. Outside of “Magic” I reallly disliked this record but your review made me listen to the album alot more 👍🏽."
On Doofy's review of Jungstötter - One Star
"Had to double check multiple tracks to make sure Hayden Thorpe wasn’t featuring ^^"
On Jay-Z & Linkin Park - Collision Course
""In Search Of" by NERD? if yes then of course! And "The Grey Album" is the reason this record was made so definitely aware and consider those better records that preceded this album. My sentiment is towards the critical reception of this album despite how brilliant and influential it was: It's a record that was a HUGE gateway for hip-hop kids to listen to rock and for rock kids to listen to hip-hop far bigger than the records you mentioned but it isn't acknowledged as such. You really have to look no further than Numb/Encore to understand that."
On Chorde's review of Metro Boomin - HEROES & VILLAINS
"@Hydon "youu are nottt aloone, I am heere witt u""
On Chorde's review of Metro Boomin - HEROES & VILLAINS
"Ayy thanks for doing this again, think its such a cool idea.
Just some thoughts on the options: Vale-Smith dropped Re-Kindle it should definitely be a option for best AOTY community member album
and the Asian AOTY picks are really poor </3"
Advertisement