aforest

The first high-quality album by Radiohead, "The Bends" was an effort to match the ambition of Oasis while being entirely opposite in tone. The result is a reverby, post-britpot thing that's well in line with the work of head producer John Leckie, who most notably produced the Stone Roses' debut album. On the production team was Nigel Godrich, whom the band would collaborate with as a lead producer on every forthcoming release of theirs.

It's not nearly as heady as Radiohead's future ... read more

This happened to my buddy Eric

On paper, "Ziggy" isn't too far flung from other records around the same time that were most going for the same thing. And to put your finger on what exactly makes this album so different from anything else like it is taxing, especially as a self-proclaimed amateur critic who's supposed to be good at this sort of thing. However, listening to this album today is probably how it felt to hear the first wave of Beatles singles in 1963; that you might have heard something like this, but ... read more

Like with jazz, I've held a tenuous relationship with heavy metal over the years. I admire the diversity and complexity within the genre, but often metal records just fall on deaf ears when it comes to me and my listening experience. The difference largely being that where jazz often feels stuffy and overly academic, metal often feels raw in a disingenuous sort of way. That is to say, the "rawness" of the genre is so much a design philosophy that it often feels clinical and divorced ... read more