Slow and enchanting post-rock.
The 2002 third studio album from Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós comes off of the great success of their previous record ‘Ágætis byrjun’ in 1999, one which came with international acclaim and placed them alongside other boundary-pushing alternative rock bands of the time like Radiohead. The title of this follow-up record: the wholly unorthodox ‘( )’. Evocative, yes, but difficult to pitch to your friends. It would be ... read more
In honor of Artemis II capturing new photos of the dark side of the moon, let’s review ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’!
Get it twisted, this is more than boomer music. Any attempt to diminish one of the most timeless records of all time as something that your grandparents overhyped and have forced to remain in the cultural zeitgeist will be perceived as slanderous or spoken in bad faith, and you’re only cheating yourself. This album still SLAPS!
Musically, this album is a ... read more
‘good kid, m.A.A.d city’ may be the greatest coming of age story ever made, and certainly is in regard to music. The album that drove Kenrick Lamar into superstardom, or which has also recently surpassed 700 consecutive weeks on the Billboard 200 chart, sees a young Kendrick Lamar reliving one day and night in his hometown of Compton, surrounded by peer pressures, drugs, and gang violence.
Kendrick, at every stage and despite being constantly in the line of trouble, perfectly ... read more
There’s a fine line between self-awareness and live commentating on your own bad decisions, and ‘Distracted’ never really picks a side either direction.
From the great producer and bassist Thundercat, whose biggest accolades have seen him collaborating with the likes of Flying Lotus and Kendrick Lamar, comes his fifth studio album ‘Distracted’. Its title is indicative of the type of relationships he describes throughout the album – scattered and flawed, ... read more
You may hold the title for highest selling album of all time for now, Michael, but just wait until the next Magdalena Bay album, you’re going down π
This album is perhaps the centerpiece of modern music history – a touchstone that reflects back every single age and genre in some way. The exciting vibrance of disco, the muscle and swagger of funk, the gritty edge of rock, the synthetic gloss of 80’s pop… it’s the culmination of decades of music evolution ... read more
The irony of ‘Discovery’ is that it feels so alive.
You wouldn’t expect something so lively from an album comprised almost entirely of loops, samples, mechanical whirrs and bleeps, and heavily processed vocals. On paper, you’d think that all of that would make for something cold and distant, but yet, almost immediately, it’s the exact opposite. ‘Discovery’ feels like community and gathering and warmth. It’s like being pulled out onto the dance ... read more
MICROTONAL MARCH: 8/8
With this, Microtonal March comes to a close! Thank you again to @zzile for hosting this event – I’ve had a ton of fun engaging with all sorts of microtonal albums from different cultures, continents, and decades. This has definitely been an interesting opportunity to broaden my horizons outside of traditional Western music, and I’m down to do it again any time!
But first, I need to explain what’s going on with ‘Gamelan Semar ... read more
MICROTONAL MARCH: 7/8
“Microtonal salsa music from an imaginary 70’s Colombian group” is a wild tagline, but it exists, nonetheless.
If you were to tell me I’d be listening to an imaginary band, I would tell you to stop trying to push AI music onto me, but that’s not what this is at all. El Grupo Renacimiento is a made-up salsa band by the very-real Meridian Brothers, a Colombian group led by Eblis Álvarez. This 2022 release (the most recent of any for ... read more
This album wouldn't text me back and I'd still double text.
Could this album get any louder? Louder in any aspect – in ego, in emotion, and most certainly in sound. As I sit here on my couch clacking away on my keyboard for the tens of people who may read this, half and eye watching tonight’s March Madness games, it must be asked of an album this loud – “who the hell am I to be experiencing an album so unabashedly in-your-face and hedonistic alone on a Friday ... read more
QUICK THOUGHTS
Any EP Model/Actriz drops in 2026 was always going to be excellent, whether that be with the harshest and most abrasive of industrial sounds or the softer and sorrowful vocals that Cole Haden owned on 'Pirouette'. 'Swan Songs' gets a mix of both and feels like a bite-sized version of what makes this band so alluring: snarky dance-punk that can go from electrifying to vulnerable and bare.
MICROTONAL MARCH: 6/8
Back to back Microtonal March reviews since I was a bit delayed with the previous one. Again, shoutout to @zzile for hosting this and picking such a diverse swath of album – ‘Rag Madhuvanti & Rag Misra Tilang’ is something, again, totally new.
The cultural context and background is important here, so I’ll do my best to explain what both of these pieces represent. In Indian classical music like this, “raga” is a type of melodic ... read more
MICROTONAL MARCH: 5/8
This event has had brain-ticklers and oddballs, albums that like historical or cultural touchstones across a wide scope of international music I would have otherwise never heard – nothing sounds like ‘Da Budet’.
Psykovsky is a fairly prolific Russian electronic producer whose music is mostly described as “dark psytrance”, a subgenre of psytrance and trance music which emphasizes intense, nocturnal, and psychedelic atmospheres. This dark ... read more
QUICK THOUGHTS
From the visionary that brought you the KFC Jack Harlow Meal, who knew that he was entirely sauceless? Purely passive music.
![ι«ζ¨ζ£ε [Masakatsu Takagi] - γγγγ² [Omusuhi]](https://cdn2.albumoftheyear.org/100x0/album/358948-omusuhi.jpg)
MICROTONAL MARCH: 4/8
If you’re just dying to kill 2+ hours, ‘Omusuhi’ is not a bad way to do it. Welcome back to Microtonal March!
This massive 43-track, 2h 14min classical and folk record ‘Omusuhi’ is the product of Japanese musician Masakatsu Takagi. Takagi has worked on numerous film soundtracks in the 2010’s and released 30 studio albums to date. While best known for his 2014 album ‘Kagayaki’ (number 1 on the charts for Neoclassical New Age ... read more
![ε€ͺη° ι δΉ [Jun'ya Εta] - θ¬θ±δΊΊε½’ ~ Dolls in Pseudo Paradise](https://cdn2.albumoftheyear.org/100x0/album/161383--dolls-in-pseudo-paradise.jpg)
MICROTONAL MARCH: 3/8
A total shift away from the African and Middle Eastern microtonal music of the last two album – ‘Dolls in Pseudo Paradise’ is a Japanese sequencer and tracker album that has boundless energy and pace.
‘Dolls in Pseudo Paradise’ is the first album released as part of “ZUN’s Music Collection”. ZUN is a Japanese video game developer and composer most known under his one-man doujin group Team Shanghai Alice and the popular ... read more
Death Grips is one of the most enigmatic and boundary pushing music groups of the 2010’s decade, and it all begins with their legendary debut mixtape ‘Exmilitary’.
This is a fairly inaccessible record in more ways than one, firstly being that it’s not on DSP’s due to all the uncleared samples. The entire mixtape uses a plethora of uncleared samples that would be near impossible to work around, but second and more blatant is the raw, unfiltered, and aggressive ... read more
MICROTONAL MARCH: 2/8
Only 2 albums in, and I’m absolutely loving the discovery of these microtonal string instruments – last weeks review featured the kora, and ‘Eclipse’ today features the oud, a short-necked 11-string instrument similar to the lute. The oud is a coursed instrument, meaning that one string or two or more adjacent strings are grouped closely together and typically played as a single string. This means that with some careful and specific tuning, you can ... read more
I’m not exactly gobsmacked. Harry Styles gets a bit more funky, but feels more derivative in the process.
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Recent Review Comments
On Maruja - Knocknarea
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On Thundercat - Distracted
"@DonVersatility @Jp27 Thank you very much! π
@sport It struck me too - not necessarily negative but very self deprecating. Maybe I just read into the whole thing the wrong way, but I felt weird with how one dimensional the emotions are"
On Thundercat - Distracted
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On πππππ's review of Xiu Xiu - A Promise
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On Bruno Mars - The Romantic
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On MattsReviews's review of Baby Keem - Ca$ino
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On Don Toliver - OCTANE
"@Juggernaut1914 I actually thought Yeat had a solid feature on Rendezvous, same with Travis on Rosary. Teezo was interesting just because it was different, but just felt out of place to me. That being said, the rest of the album feels so toneless and samey, just nothing all that compelling"
On painecuceapa's review of By Storm - My Ghosts Go Ghost
"Those 4 singles had me thinking this would be an album of the decade contender, but the rest of the tracklist doesn't exactly reach the same peak for me. Still very good, just not earth shattering"
On yonn's review of By Storm - My Ghosts Go Ghost
"I've not heard the Injury Reserve self-titled, but at least in comparison to Phoenix this is another leap in experimentation and abstractness. Such a hollow sound imo, but in the best, most bone-rattling way. Very interesting"
On TheOnlyOpinion's review of By Storm - My Ghosts Go Ghost
"Nice review, "leaving the storm" is great. I almost feel like the ending in "GGG" is saying that the storm isn't something you can leave though, and more like a new relationship dynamic that needs to be tended to. The group is going to have to manage the storm rather than step out of it"
On cooperr's review of By Storm - My Ghosts Go Ghost
"Glad you loved this, but In My Town being the lowest is a CHOICE"
On Chorde's review of By Storm - My Ghosts Go Ghost
"Love the opening line, that feels like such a perfect way of encapsulating the record. Your comparisons between BTTIGTP and this are perfect too. As much as this album feels like a scar, it's a scar that RiTchie feels like he's trying to move on from to continue working, but his hand keeps brushing up against it. Its a constant reminder that grief isnt something that will just go away"
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