There are some amazing songs on here and the songwriting is beautiful and tragic and among the best I've ever heard but wow this album feels really, really long. You really get the basic gist of the album by the time you get through Truck Driver, and then you get seven more songs that are all decently long for what they are. Songs like Carissa, Richard Ramirez Died Today of Natural Causes, and Ben's My Friend are among my favorite songs by Sun Kil Moon, but a few of the songs here are ... read more

I really didn't know what to expect from this album at all going in. I hadn't heard any black midi or any of the singles for this album before release, so I was going in with nothing except high expectations after the incredible amount of praise this was getting. I think it's safe to say that this deserves all the praise it's getting.

Geordie Greep's debut, released shortly after the disbanding of black midi is a benchmark in rock music going forward. I haven't ... read more

Godspeed come roaring back with their fifth post-hiatus album, and by god is it incredible. Some incredible guitar tones on this, and some of these songs are among the best songs Godspeed has ever created. BABYS IN A THUNDERCLOUD in particular is incredible. It features two (2!) crescendos, and some of the most rewarding, powerful, and cathartic moments of their entire catalogue.

This album operates differently from their most beloved works. This album feels more grounded and pressing, as ... read more

This has been on my radar for a little bit, but I just couldn't hold off on listening to this for any more. There's something about this record that's just so irresistible, whether that be the incredibly sick cover, the fact that this was released in 1971(!), or the epic The Herald, which was my introduction to this album a couple months ago.

I hear so often about incredibly influential albums released around this time, Velvet Underground this, Paranoid that, Dark Side of the ... read more

Most everything that I hear from Lupe I really enjoy, so I'm not surprised to see myself liking this album so much as well. This has some kinda weak moments during the first half of the record, but everything from MS. MURAL onwards is so good that it evens out.

The beats on this album are really next-level. I'm a sucker for those lush, chamber type beats that are all over this record, and Lupe's rapping compliments the music on the album very well. Very easy listening but ... read more

Moreso just wanted to listen to this for the sake of listening to this than to actually enjoy it, and it's about as bad as everyone says it is. This sucks. This is among the worst albums I've ever heard, and it's not even noise rock done right. There's no part of this that's almost OK, it's all shit. My Station Rock might be my new least favorite song of all time.

I've heard a tiny bit of Xiu Xiu before and I didn't really like it, so I wasn't expecting to like this very much. There are some really good tracks on this, like Common Loon and Sleep Blvd., and there are some songs that really left me scratching my head, and my final opinion kinda ended up in the middle. The instrumentals I really liked for the most part, aside from the kinda avant-garde leanings on the last two tracks. Sleep Blvd. has a brief yet awesome instrumental part. I ... read more

This is easily among the most beautiful albums I've ever heard, this genuinely some of the most ascendant music I could possibly grace my ears with. The rapping on this album is obviously great, but the instrumentals on some of these tracks are otherworldly. That looping piano beat on Luv(sic.) pt3???? The piano on the rest of the album is amazing but that track in particular is insanely good. Hard to imagine anything in this vein sounding any better.

LCD Soundsystem reconvene 5 years after they supposedly broke up, and decided to bless us with one more album, which is definitely among the weirder ones in their discography. american dream hardly resembles the great LCD Soundsystem records of years past, chock full of very unique and danceable moments, and instead channels more of a Talking Heads & synthpop-era Talk Talk feel. You could easily convince me that other voices is a Talking Heads song, he sounds exactly like David ... read more

Despite listening to a lot of LCD Soundsystem lately, I've yet to have listened to probably the most obvious starting album of theirs, their iconic debut. I guess the reason why I opted to listening to a few other LCD Soundsystem albums first is because of the insane length of this album compared to some of their others.

That ended up being my main gripe with the album; it's good, but it's just so so so so soooooo long that some of the album just drags on a bunch. I feel like ... read more

My LCD Soundsystem pilgrimage that I just decided to do for no reason continues with one of the weirder conceptual albums that I've ever had the pleasure of listening to. To my knowledge, this was released in partnership with Nike as a really long piece that would essentially just serve as the soundtrack to a run. I would be hyped as hell if was working out and I got to listen to a LCD Soundsystem record specifically designed to be listening to while working out.

The song/album itself is ... read more

Here I go giving out yet another 10 but I don't care because this so deserves it. One of the best album experiences I've ever heard.

My main gripe when I listened to This Is Happening is that it felt super long, and even though this worked in favor of most of the songs, it was very noticeable and there were a couple tracks that were definitely weaker. This, however, has exposed me to the potential that LCD Soundsystem has, because this just flew by, despite the two albums being ... read more

I've been wanting to delve into LCD Soundsystem for a long time, and recently All I Want has been in semi-rotation, so I decided to bite the bullet and finally listen to this highly anticipated album. Dance music in general is a genre that I'm very unfamiliar with, with the extent of my knowledge being very recent synthpop by Charli xcx and Chappell Roan, so I figured this would be a great place to start.

My biggest takeaway is that this album is long, and you'll definitely ... read more

Like clockwork, I listen to another Steely Dan 70s record, and like clockwork, it's fantastic. Countdown to Ecstasy features the band venturing into a more jazzy and experimental record, with some longer compositions featured here, leaving the tracklist with just eight songs. While the longer-song-leanings mean there's no Reelin' in the Years, Do It Again, Dirty Work, or even Only a Fool Would Say That in terms of popularity, and makes some songs feel slightly drawn-out at times ... read more

I think this cements Maruja as my favorite up-and-coming band right now, I have not heard them release anything bad for as long as I've been listening to them, and this feels like the ultimate test. This is six jams split up into two 40 minute records, which lean into a more more post-rock and experimental sound, and my god is it glorious.

The first track, Breaking Inertia, is a 25 minutes long sprawling epic that really sets the tone for the rest of the compilation. If you were expecting ... read more

Heard a couple of the singles over the course of the year so was inclined to check this out in it's entirety. Overall, no clear direction here, but there are a lot of really nice indie gems buried about here. Obviously the singles are great, but I also really liked Desire and Sundowner, among others. Favourite is definitely among my favorite (!) songs of this year, just an awesome sound that sticks with you and is hard to shake.

One of the more beautiful post-rock albums I've hade the pleasure of listening to, this one coming from similar faces, as A Silver Mt. Zion are an offshoot of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and you can definitely tell from listening to it. The opening piano chords on Broken Chords Can Sing a Little are basically exactly the chords from the end of Storm, just minus the resolving note.

There are a lot of moments on this album where the music feels unresolved, which I think was purposeful and ... read more

I don't even know where to begin describing this record. This is a 2.5 hour journey through so many different feelings and sounds. You will not feel the same after listening to this, and no amount of descriptors I can use can describe what it feels like to listen to this.

The first half of the record delves into some very overtly political themes describing wartime and government overreach, which can be very clearly seen in titles like "I Don't Know What Psywar Is," ... read more

Not only is this album one of the most important rock albums of all time, it's also one that has not lost one bit of steam since the day of it's release in 1969. This album is pure unfiltered magic, with a cast of musicians each blessed with unbelievable skill on every instrument. It's not a far reach to claim that Led Zeppelin was the most technically proficient four-piece of any band, ever.

You know what you're getting into when you listen to this, but it doesn't ... read more

I know I've been giving out incredibly high scores all willy-nilly recently, but this one may deserve it the most.

Sun Kil Moon has been on my radar for a while now. Carry Me Ohio is among my most streamed songs of the year, and I've recently become acquainted with some more of Mark Kozelek's stuff, both with Red House Painters and some of his other Sun Kil Moon material.

This album has the unbelievable job of including both Carry Me Ohio and the epic Duk Koo Kim, and ... read more