Definitely Dylan's worst up to this point, but I honestly don't even hate it. The unfortunate thing about this album are mainly two elements: 1. The lack of original material, most of this album is traditional folk tunes or covers, and 2. The length of the LP. Self-Portrait is very much in line with the aesthetics and stylistic approaches he featured on Nashville Skyline, that being a more poppy, country-influenced sound and a lack of lyrical prowess, but what he does here is essentially ... read more

It took me a while to warm up to this album, but after a little while, I just gave in and admitted to myself that this album kind of slaps. Sure, it's a complete departure that came after what already seemed like a departure from his style, after his masterpiece Blonde on Blonde he already sounded quite changed with the release of John Wesley Harding, but on Nashville Skyline, we get full-on country influenced, laid back Dylan, but I kind of think it's lovely.

There very much is a lack of ... read more

Far from one of Miles better releases, but still a really good one, especially for his early catalog. More than that is not to be said, a lot of 50s Miles sound much the same with very little variation when it comes to style and composition, so what more can I say than that it well performed and that 68/100 rating is a bit low in my opinion.

The Smile return after about 2 years with a new project under this moniker for the two Radiohead boys and Tom Skinner, and pleasantly surprise me with a batch of 8 tracks that surpass the debut album and improve on all fronts, as well as fix a lot of the issues that I had with A Light for Attracting Attention. My major criticism for that album, despite still loving it, were that it felt a little directionless and unexciting at points, sort of (as many people have pointed out) like a less ... read more

I don't get how many reviews on here say that this is sort of a continuation or a straight-up twin project to their debut, Absolutego, because to me, this is so different in every way; it's much more polished, structured, and full of direction, unlike their first project. I did enjoy my time with Absolutego, especially everything before the long and repetitive outro is really fantastic on that project, but Amplifier Worship offers its listener so much more to hold on to and a lot more to ... read more

Jesus Christ I never believed anything could get even close to 'Songs' but if the entire album is as good as the two singles have been so far, we have an early album of the year contender on our hands. The soundscape of this track is so beautifully colorful, the way it's recorded is pure bliss, it sounds so organic and rich in atmosphere, it's as though she took the expressive rawness of 'Songs' but added new layers to the instrumentation that make the experience of listening to it even more ... read more

I don't know, maybe this album will grow on me the more I get to know what makes Anna von Hausswolff's music good, but this album just didn't really do much for me. There are some good melodies and the tracks are well composed, but the actual end result is just sort of solid to me, not much more. The probably good songwriting is lost in a context that makes it sound unexciting; the instrumentals are just very boring and bland, in my opinion. This entire album has a somewhat flat sound despite ... read more

Their second self-titled album is probably my favorite Velvet Underground album, and maybe it has to do with the much cleaner sound, but this release of theirs is definitely their most well-rounded and expertly crafted project. It may lack many elements that made them stand out among many other bands of their time, there is much much less experimentation here, it is by no means an avant-garde album (as you could describe their first two), but at the same time, the album ends up easily being ... read more

Alicks returns with yet another long, varied and vastly eclectic project that follows up a lot of the ideas present on his last project, On My Own. Similarly to that album, Alex continues his career-trajectory of somewhat experimenting, switching lanes and alienating at least some part of his audience, though at this point, it's not really even that anymore, it's just what we're used to at this point. In 2022, he released 3 albums under the "Alicks"-moniker, all of which were vastly ... read more

This is Tim Buckley reaching the expected potential after his already very solid debut project, and the craziest thing is that he even surpassed the expectations later on, elevating his potential to something that is above almost any singer-songwriter of his time with all of his subsequent experimentation and tendency to reach for the stars.

On Goodbye and Hello, Buckley somewhat stays in the stylistic lane that his debut established, but it improves on pretty much all fronts, with him ... read more

Keemo returns two years after the release of his outstanding album "Mann Beißt Hund" with a mixtape that, for the most part, lacks a lot of what made that LP stand out so much; there was a vast conceptual idea and story behind the record, with many interlinked parts and very powerful lyricism that pretty much surpassed everything that German Hip Hop was capable of at the time (at least as far as I am aware from a mostly mainstream perspective). He says he doesn't like the ... read more

Beach Boys Galore

What CITTA' '93 delivers on is nothing new for these new releases of Les Rallizes Dénudés music, and it's especially nothing new for the band itself, but man is it a consistently stunning release; as always, they bring these tight rhythms and insanely catchy bass lines and combine them with these beautifully psychedelic layers of soaring guitar-noise. I'm just so happy we're getting high quality versions of these unbelievable songs, if we actually had some full length album ... read more

Liked this album probably even more than billy's effort with Kenny Segal, MAPS, because this is just a tad bit more experimental, eclectic and abstract. The way the tight and inventive instrumentals are combined with such cryptic lyricism and rather peculiar song-structures left me constantly surprised and baffled by what I was listening to. It took me many listens to get into this project, and even now I still feel as though I've barely scratched the surface.

Elucid and billy deliver some ... read more

This year was the first year that I actively got into billy woods as a rapper, and he’s one of the very best discoveries that i made. This dude’s level of lyricism is insane, the writing matches sone high level literature when it comes to his poetry, and on MAPS, woods uses that lyrical prowess in order to write a kind of rap-travelogue.

Of course, even some of the greatest lyrical travelogues such as Lord Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage suffers just a little bit from its ... read more

Literally just stop listening after about 45 minutes. I'm telling you, it literally just loops the same sound for 15 minutes at the end, I couldn't tell a single fucking difference during any moment of that drone. I know, being slow and repetitive is literally one of the major elements of Drone music, but that part is either just absolutely boring because it's literally the same sound over and over again, or it's so subtle that you can barely find anything to hold on to.

I LOVED the first ... read more

Lana Del Rey is an artist that I've never given an entire album's worth of listening to, and for good reason. I still to this day believe a lot of her earlier work is simply a bit cheap, too focused on aesthetics and a little devoid of substance, as well as lacking in any subtlety and bringing a little too much cringey material to the table, so I never felt like it was worth my time to listen to an entire project. Over the course of the years, her reputation has changed quite a bit, and ... read more

I'd say that I liked this at least a bit, but it's obviously far from great. Especially the second half is pretty weak, but there are a couple of nice Christmas tunes on here. It's certainly not the worst release by the Boys, and I'd say that it does capture the Christmas vibe quite nicely... though the sound of this LP is kind of weird.

Just pure vibes. I think the rating may be a little too overblown, considering that this is literally in the top 10 greatest jazz albums on this site's user ranking, but a great Christmas album nevertheless.

As much of an annoying jackass and pretentious prick as Wynton Marsalis may come off at times when he talks about Jazz, this is undeniably kind of charming. Can't say much more, I think the renditions are cute, not much more, not much less. Just wanted to listen to something Christmas-adjacent and this did the deed, I guess.