This is a sound that I'm still not accustomed to, nor do I see myself gravitating towards something like this frequently. I turned this on a few days ago, heard the first 30 seconds, and went "nope this probably just isn't for me". Despite that, I tried it again tonight, and I'm glad I did.

I'll keep this short, as I don't feel I have enough background on this genre to give any substantial insight, but I actually enjoyed this for a good portion of the runtime. Ahab certainly does a ... read more

It's incredible how context can make this even more of a powerful record.

Ryuichi Sakamoto was originally diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014. While that is in remission, he has since shared in 2021 that he is now battling rectal cancer, and his health has and energy has significantly deteriorated since.

'12' is Sakamoto's first non-soundtrack album since 2017's 'async', and it is a beutiful work that goes beyond a standard ambient album. Through the majority of the track list, we can hear ... read more

Coldplay comes at us with a hard-hitting debut with Parachutes.

Classic nostalgic band Coldplay debuted in 2000 with the release of Parachutes to immediate success and critical acclaim. The britpop group draws large influence from the sound of fellow UK band Radiohead and comes in with a refined and polished sound from the jump.

Hold on a minute... what's this? Uh oh, BANGER ALERT! Oh yeah, that's right, it's Yellow. This track has been inescapable my whole life. It's just a beautiful song ... read more

My introduction to Animal Collective, and I'm not at all disappointed.

Merriweather Post Pavilion has some of the most unanimous praise from any albums I've seen on this website; from critics to users alike, this album appears to be regarded as a classic.

This album is one of the pioneers of synth-based psych pop of the 21st century, and hold great influence over electronic music in the years to follow. The bubbly synths and guitars make for an almost trance-inducing experience.

In the ... read more

To what end should we put up with abuse, emotional or physical, from someone we love? When is it time to walk away? It's a difficult question, one that too many people have to ask themselves every day, and it's a shame that there's no easy answer.

Sharon Van Etten tackles this heavy question on her fourth studio album 'Are We There' with, what I presume to be, her own accounts of abuse.

The song Your Love is Killing Me is a brutally close view of the damage being done to Van Etten. This ... read more

There's little music in the world that gives me more of a sense of nostalgia than Coldplay.

I would say there's close to a dozen songs from those 2000's Colplay records that I think are simply perfect and remind me so much of my childhood. When I was very young, the music I heard was almost entirely limited to whatever I heard on the radio on car rides with my mom. Coldplay was one of the few groups I could actually recognize and grew to have a great fondness for, as many have.

I've never ... read more

Thank you to @UltimateLifeFrm for the recommendation (11)! If you have any album/song you'd like to recommend, feel free to drop it in my shoutbox.

I'm not quite sure why this album was harder for me to grasp than some other things I've heard over the past few weeks. Hearing this a few nights ago for the first time, my brain was having a hard time deciding what to make of any of this. I've listened a lot more now, and I feel much more confident now saying it's just sorta... fine?

Is it fair ... read more

Thank you to @AutExtrovert for the recommendation (2)! If you have any album/song you'd like to recommend, feel free to drop it in my shoutbox.

Car Seat Headrest is a group (though, I don't think it was a group at the time of this album) that I've seen so much praise for on this site, specificaly Twin Fantasy, yet is something I've never gotten to check out yet, nor do I know anything about their sound. Hopefully this album is a great introduction!

Nervous Young Man is certainly a daunting ... read more

Undun is the 10th studio album by legendary hip hop group The Roots, led by rapper Black Thought and producer/drummer extraordinaire Questlove (or ?uestlove). The Roots have been a staple in east coast hip hop since the mid-90's with their 1995 debut Do You Want More?!!!??! Since then, they've received wide spread critical acclaim and produced multiple classic hip hop records. In 2009, The Roots also became the official house band for Jimmy Fallon on his show Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, and ... read more

I was having a hard time getting into Flying Lotus' second album Los Angeles, so I've decided to take a detour and revisit my introduction to them (by them, I mean producer Steven Ellison), Cosmogramma.

I remember this was a difficult one to understand and appreciate at first for me too, though my music spectrum has grown so significantly since that time that I can't imagine not loving this record anymore.

Cosmogramma is a thrilling experience. It's heavy, it's exciting, it's totally out ... read more

Thank you to @AutExtrovert for the recommendation! If you have any album/song you'd like to recommend, feel free to drop it in my shoutbox.

Well, I've now gone from never hearing plunderphonics, to now listening to back-to-back albums from that genre, purely by chance. Unfortunate for People Like Us and Wide Open Spaces that they have to follow up SILY by The Avalanches, as I would take a guess in saying that album is one of the GOAT's in this genre.

Imagine the sound of Wide Open Spaces as ... read more

Thank you to @UltimateLifeFrm for the recommendation (10)! If you have any album/song you'd like to recommend, feel free to drop it in my shoutbox.

theneedledrop posted a classic review of this album 4 days ago now, but I've had this album in my recommendations now for a few weeks. Seeing that review pop up in my subscriptions was a pleasant surprise and got me even more excited to check this out. I watched just the very beginning of the video, but had to pause it after Fantano said that this ... read more

Never Going Under is packed with catchy melodies and strong performances. Most every song feels well made for the radio, or I could say any blowing up on the internet. There's a lot of punchy and infectious lyrics on this that will have me coming back again and again.

I certainly wasn't expecting another amazing album this early in the year, but I'm really blown away with Gaz Coombes here on Turn The Car Around.

This seems like it may be another guilty pleasure album for me. The chorus' are catchy and the vocals are great. There's just something so endearing about this album. I'm a pretty huge Arctic Monkeys fan, and this is the closest thing I've heard to them recently.

I've ordered my vinyl already. Please check this record out, I hope this doesn't go ... read more

A great album for high school boys around the world.

Margo Price gives a strong and thoughtful performance on her new album Strays.

While country music is not something I gravitate to, I can really appreaciate Margo's focus on the songwriting and atmosphere of this album. So often where country music goes wrong for me is in the commercial, cookie cutter, radio friendly hits. Margo is making music on Strays that feels much more rooted in the foundation of what country music is, rather than attempting to appeal to the largest and/or youngest ... read more

EDIT: 87 -> 63 (1/30/23)

Ahhhh yeah... this has actually fallen off me quite a bit. The music from 'A Man And His Nature' really didn't stick with me like I think I had expected it to. I think there are still quite a few things from my original review that still ring true, but I'm far more skeptical of the repetitiveness and overall lack of strength. I'm not quite sure why I thought this was more powerful than it was... maybe I was just excited for the new year and hoping for something to ... read more

Woahhh this seriously rocks

We Like It Here is a live recorded album from Snarky Puppy that innovates and excites in the jazz fusion genre. There are incredible performaces everywhere you look, solos and magic everywhere you turn. There's a killer keyboard solo on the final track Lingus that I couldn't have been prepared for. Everything and everyone falls nicely into place on this, a bit of controlled chaos that's pretty mind bending.

2020 and 2021 were pretty difficult years for me, as I'm sure they were for just about anyone you'd talk to. For me, the pandemic was really just the start of things, or maybe the stress and isolation of that only amplified things. The death of my grandmother, failing in college and the subsequent depression, working a dead-end job with people that only made me want to rip my hair out. Loneliness.

It was during that time, right around March of 2021, that I started to explore more forms of ... read more

There are not many albums that feel transcendent. Like they go beyond the scale. Break the barriers of what you thought what music, and what feelings you thought music could convey. This is one of those albums.

This album leaves so much to be said, and yet I can't find any words at all. I'm grasping for something to fill in this space, and while there is so much, I'm having a hard time gathering it into any coherent thoughts. But I can recognize that this album is transcendent.

This album ... read more