Let's Make Them Viral - Week 28

This was my suggestion! One of my favourite albums of all time. It's high energy, it's well made, it's got good variety, and it's just so damn fun. It's probably the album I listen to the most frequently. Perfect for singing along to in the car or while I'm doing chores. Never fails to put me in a good mood.

Standout Tracks: any of the first eight, but the very top is held by Rift, Ms. Dramatic, and Too Many Thoughts
Least ... read more

Let's Make Them Viral - Week 32

Mechanically interesting and definitely artistic, but it's a difficult listen and there's really no reason I'd ever listen to it again. It's just grating and annoying.

Favourite Track: Pt. 3
Least Favourite: Pt 1

Side note, I'm gonna start getting caught up on LMTV reviews but don't expect them to come out in order. They likely won't be long either.

I'd say this is more than okay ngl

Let's Make Them Viral - Week 23

Holy interludes, Batman.

When these guys decide to play its pretty consistently good, but I kid you not 50% of this album is a skit. If they used a handful of the spoken word samples and cut this down into an EP they'd probably create a genuine masterpiece. As it is right now, the constant interludes only serve to interrupt the aggression and energy.

It's just really disappointing because there are some genuinely amazing musical ideas. The ... read more

I'm not gonna yammer on about how emotional this made me cause I live in constant fear of seeming pretentious. That said, I do think the 24 hour runtime is artistically justifiable in this case. Have I listened to it all in one sitting? No, I have a life. I have probably listened to it in full cumulatively though.

A fittingly epic and absurd soundtrack for that mindfuck of a layer. Event Horizon is my favourite, but shoutout to Spiral Out and NDLO. I love The Shattered Circle so much too but I've heard it a bit too much at the moment thanks to that part of 8-3

Genuinely perfect noise. It's melodic and weird and painful and soul-crushing all at once. Moments of calm are balanced with explosive, edgy guitars and phenomenal production. The vocals go from crooning to screaming on a whim, and sound amazing either way. It's like if Isaac Wood was American and didn't quit music to maintain his mental health. I don't even usually care about lyrics but here they're just so poetic.

Guess I need to relisten to that Shearling ... read more

Just wanna rant about this real quick

So first off, I'm not a fan of gatekeeping. I get they want this to be an epilogue that's kinda separate from Breach, which is fine, but making the original on sale for only a week is too far in my opinion. It would be fine if they kept it behind a paywall, as long as it's available.

This version of "Drag Path" is just worse. The missing intro makes it feel abrupt and unsatisfying, and cutting the bridge is just egregious. That ... read more

Let's Make Them Viral - Week 18

Second time's the charm I guess.

Gave this a listen a few days ago for the first time and wasn't impressed. I generally dislike emo as a genre and that coloured my listening experience. I didn't give it a fair shot. Going back to it today for my review, I've had a much better time. Still not something I would go out of my way to listen to, but it's far from bad.

The instrumentals are across the board very strong. Great guitar work ... read more

Let's Make Them Viral - Week 16

I really really tried to enjoy this one, but man this "album" is not conducive to enjoyment.

I'll start with what I liked. The cover is great, and I can always respect a band that puts out a single monster of a song and calls it an album. I always get a certain feeling of awe when I open an album and there's just one track.

The music itself though is... not great. These are clearly talented musicians; they either actually played this ... read more

Let's Make Them Viral - Week 14

What a nothing album. It sounds simultaneously like any other 2000s garage rock album but without the energy that tmakes them fun. I don't feel a thing when I listen to it aside from annoyance at the bad mic quality. Sometimes that kind of lo-fi style works but there's not enough going on here to make it anything other than grating.

Standout Tracks: None
Least Favourites: None

It's an album.

Let's Make Them Viral Week 13: Muffin Fox - Yes, Maybe, IDK

So you know how Twin Fantasy (Mirror to Mirror) is kinda just the worse version of (Face to Face)? Well this is a worse version of (Mirror to Mirror). I enjoy Indie Rock but wow the combo with Midwest Emo really doesn't work here. It makes it into a very solidly composed record that's weighed down significantly by the bad singing.

The opening interlude is way too long and comes across as more cringe than emotional ... read more

I never expect EPs to be all that innovative, but wow this does nothing unique at all. The instrumentation is perfectly generic. The guitar sounds like every other deathcore guitar ever in both tone and riffs (although this tone is noticeably worse), the drums are fine but uninteresting, and the bass is there I guess. Song structure is basic and the breakdowns are just kind of fine. "Instrument of War" is easily the best song on the EP, and I can only assume that's thanks to the ... read more

Awesome little shoegaze/indie rock EP. I'd never heard of Shea or any of the other collaborators on here, but I'll be keeping an eye out for future works. Eskipade isn't doing anything crazy unique, but it's a damn good representation of the genre (and honestly from an EP I'm not expecting some crazy genre-defining innovation). Vocals are great, especially on "Eskipade," and the instrumentation is consistently good. Also "City North" ends with a ... read more

Generic uninteresting pop. There's so much variety between singers that it comes across as incohesive, and most of the vocals aren't good. "It's Going Down Now" is 50% a bad remix of the Persona song and 50% a bad song period, and it's one of the best on the album. "Melting" is actually a pretty good song, and by far the best here. Good vocals make all the difference. Nothing else is really notable.

Standout Tracks: Melting
Least Favourites: oh my ... read more

A very solid drone album. It's the kind of thing you want to listen to while laying outside and staring up at the stars, but a dark room will suffice if you live in a frigid wasteland like me. Instrumentation is very good, especially whenever the strings come in. Those moments on the first track especially are a highlight. I found the drums on "Entropy" to be a bit out of place as the sole driving force of the song, which made them sound out of time at parts. I didn't have a ... read more

Let's Make Them Viral Week 12: ano - BONE BORN BOMB

A pretty middle of the road J-rock album with some fun moments. The instrumentation and sound design is consistently great, but I dislike her vocals. Those are clearly meant to be the focus because the guitars are mixed pretty quietly, which is unfortunate in my opinion. It wasn't a bad listen, but I don't see myself ever listening to this album again.

2025 Advent Calendar Day 8! Huremic - Seeking Darkness

Seeking Darkness is huge and complicated and super in depth. Every track has layers and layers of intricate sound design and fantastic instrumentation. It feels simultaneously wild and industrial with animal sounds that mix instruments that lean more towards machinery in sound. The drums especially stand out gloriously. This might be the best snare I've ever heard, and the rest of the kit holds up great too. The shoegazey vocals fit ... read more

2025 Advent Calendar Day 7! Geese - Getting Killed

This is actually my second time trying to get into this album and fortunately this go-around went much better. Don't let "Trinidad" fool you, despite that opener's best attempts at proving otherwise this is in fact a great album. Once you get through three minutes and fourty-four seconds of the worst mixed drums in the history of music. The hard panned percussion makes it a completely miserable listen for anybody with the ... read more

2025 Advent Calendar Day 6! Dream Theater - Octavarium
Sorry I'm a day late with this it's exam season :(

This was quite the throwback to my power metal phase, and it's pretty good! I've heard a couple of Dream Theater's albums before but this is definitely my faovurite of theirs so far. It's technical and dynamic, but my biggest gripe is the length. It is not nearly interesting enough to warrant an hour and fifteen minutes. And I like long songs and long albums! ... read more