Paladinwatch

First MJ album ive listened to, and while the singles carry this pretty hard its absolutely an amazing experience. Some flawlessly produced disco/pop tracks intertwined with pure masterpieces in Thriller/Beat It/Billie Jean. Yes, pretty much the most famous songs and album ever, but it is absolutely worth the hype. Its not all perfect, and some songs definitely drag the experience down, not to mention the structure is jarring as hell, reads more like a compilation rather than a coherent ... read more

Hooooly shit did I get this wrong. After a relisten this whole thing just clicked instantly. Booming, loud distorted guitars blended with instances of city pop and some of their prettiest ballads in a long time. One song is straight up shoegaze and that should tell you how good this thing is. Severely underrated, only a song or two that I felt wasnt fully up to par with the rest. Listen to this now for some peak J-Rock

Another long project from RADWIMPS, the first one post-Your Name success as well. You can definitely hear some film score influences here like in tazuna but they still maintain that classic rock sound in songs like Ikijibiki, Brain Washing, HocusPocus. This is a good, fun listen though it falls off in the back half for me and starts to get kinda bloated and repetitive. Seikai is a pretty interesting closer with those booming choir vocals and there is alot of charm in the ballads, Sokkenai and ... read more

Actually pretty good. A bit long-winded and some tracks have potential that isnt quite realized, (see Listen to it when its raining, I Novel) Interesting finding out the starting two tracks are essentially Your Name rejects, but still hold up pretty well on their own, especially the opener which might be my favorite RADWIMPS opener so far. Zenzenzense and Sparkle are obviously incredible songs, but feel a bit out of place here since theyre clearly meant for a whole other project. (see Your ... read more