If i had to rate all the times I'd imagined dragons this'd go right in the middle. It's mid. These dragons are MID.

I have an infernal hatred for this band burning within me, but unfortunately I can't release it just yet because this album is like, not awful. It has their vibe written on it pretty clearly between Radioactive and On Top of the World, but the likes of Tiptoe, It's Time, Demons and Amsterdam complete a surprisingly strong first half. The remaining half is ... read more

Eventually we're gonna have to start mentioning Daveed Diggs in all time discussions. This man is in his damn forties now and hitting mental ass flows on songs like Dominator, Change the Channel and Dodger, and that's just the highlight reel.

I am a goon for certain kinds of music. Fast rap that doesn't sound choppy, abstract and narrative-based lyricism, trippy rhyme schemes, beats that embody words like industrial, experimental and digital, and generally stuff that's ... read more

Wanted to come back to this now that I've finished the Taylor Swift album and can confirm there's worse. This album has NOKIA, BRIAN STEEL, GIMME A HUG and PIMMIE's DILEMMA. Plenty of nice tracks I'd bump on the aux. Even though the rest is boring dogshit, there's still something here to be had. It dips lower, but I'd rather get four good songs out of an otherwise bad album than NOTHING out of a NOTHING album every single day.

doom metal mommy you can spin me around as much as you want... I mean uh lets see what this album is about

Messa is a band I've been pretty familiar with since their last album because a dude I know in a death metal band put me onto them after hearing I was into Candlemass (he claimed "God there are so many better doom metal bands than that..." (FAKE)). I'd say he absolutely put me onto something I'd like. This is a real step up though! It's insanely consistent ... read more

This was a formative album that turned me into the creature I am today. My penchant for wearing all dark/black colors, my love for alt rock, and my dramatic and verbose internal monologue from when I was a melodramatic 10 year old who the world “didn’t get”.

Being exposed to the emo movement kinda changed the path of my life massively to the point that I don’t think I’d be who I am without it. It got me into my entire current aesthetic and was the push that got me ... read more

It’s just so mind numbingly boring.

I am not a Taylor swift fan. I will never be a Taylor swift fan, though she has good music sometimes. This isn’t one of those times. I don’t wanna think anymore about this.

Very, very beautiful, but I feel like I can’t properly appreciate it.

I don’t have the most words to say about this album, other than that it won a losing battle with me. I am not the biggest fan of singer-songwriter or folk music, having grown up on hardcore edm, heavy metal, high velocity rap and angsty emo rock. I’m a fan of activity, heaviness and energy, and this album is an antithesis to that. Light, clean and wistful. I can respect the quality, the vibe, the beauty of ... read more

Only vaguely familiar with Thrice but this seems pretty cool. They’re really versatile with their energy and when they earn a big moment they REALLY do it well, but sometimes it feels like things don’t necessarily happen for any reason other than to happen. Still, I really like the sound at pretty much all moments, it’s just a matter of progression.

As someone who did not hear the rollout to this album, it is far from what I expected from the band that did Miss Murder and Carcinogen Crush, but I honestly love it?

AFI is a band I know for being very energetic alt rock/punk with some gothy vibes, so when I opened this to something I’d sooner describe as a lighter end of alt rock with the combined glam vibes of a David Bowie and goth vibes of The Cure I had to process for a moment. Then the next song came, and the next, and though they ... read more

"CZARFACE is a hero, everyone loves him!"
"Well, every hero needs... a villain"
HOLY FUCKING BARS

CZARFACE is one of my favorite rap groups of all time. A Wu-Tang legend, a hardcore white boy, and an insanely underrated producer, all basically never missing. If I had to pick an album to define their career though? Every Hero Needs A Villain is the one. It sees their best features in Method Man, GZA and DOOM, their best solo songs in Lumberjack Match and Escape from ... read more

I'm listening to this at 1pm in a library.

This is an album where I cannot help but dread it a little. To hear Mac talking about how he's dead, a man dying on a Friday, doing drugs, knowing how he died, it's almost haunting. Excluding Transformations, this is an incredibly powerful track list from start to end, especially with how DJ's Chord Organ, Funny Papers and Tomorrow Will Never Know are placed as intro, midpoint and outro. The pacing is immaculate, the messaging is ... read more

I’m listening to this at 4 am outside. It’s cold as shit but I like the vibe and it helps me attach to albums better, so we ball regardless.

This was the first album I heard from this year, but after wiping my account twice it got lost in the shuffle of my listen-to-list until now. So how do I feel about it now? The exact same honestly. I loved this the first listen, and about 15 later it is still a wonderful concept album about how bugs perceive the apocalypse. A cockroach running ... read more

I’m listening to this at 3 am while observing a possum outside on my college campus. It seems happy but I don’t know if that’s good or not, hopefully no scratching me.

I’ve heard of Dean Blunt before and he seems cool, so I had good expectations that were essentially matched hearing this. It fits my taste fairly well, pretty refreshing to hear good grounded acoustic stuff in this electric era, but it isn’t insane. The project is short enough that I wish I had ... read more

I am listening to this at 11pm at the beginning of a new night. Much music is to be listened to, though I’m easily the most excited for this. I don’t know shit about Utsu-P, but unhappy refrain has shown me that rock music with vocaloid goes hard, and now I get metal with it? Holy shit.

I expected a lot of things here, but what I didn’t expect was vocaloid death screams which ALSO go hard. The biggest trap for an album like this would usually be falling into the gimmick, but ... read more

I listened to this at 7 am, I am STILL outside this stank ass music building. I need to practice broski, come on. Does let me do this though..

There are only five albums this year that I thought, based on rollout and artist, could genuinely be the album of the year, so far all of them have held the spot for some period of time, but will that change? Those 5 were Magic Alive! by McKinley Dixon, Vanisher Horizon Scraper by Quadeca, Pain to Power by Maruja, Lonely People with Power by Deafheaven, ... read more

I listened to this at 6 30 am. Still waiting for this bitchass building to open. Part of the reason these are getting out so fast is that I’ve heard all these albums before, just hadn’t reviewed them specifically.

I’d awaited 3 digicore albums this year, Revengeseekerz by Jane Remover and k1 by kmoe both having released and been rated by me at this point. Glaive is special to me though, or rather, special to my little brother. He’s fifteen, and big into these dudes he ... read more

I listened to this at 6 am waiting for my college’s music building to open so I could practice jazz. I haven’t slept. Doesn’t matter. I’m a machine bb.

This is easily the most pleasant album of all time, maybe to its own detriment at times. Constant serenity in two languages, aided by guitar, violin, light percussion and a seeming bass. This album has no dynamic deficiency either, managing to fill your ears without a bit of edge grazing them and then cut to emptiness ... read more

I listened to this at 5 30 am in a residence hall lobby. The caffeine, sleep deprivation and adderall (it’s my prescription don’t worry AOTY <3) in my body are all fighting to kill me, so I decided to introduce a stronger force to predate on them all.

I am someone with a history of loving experimental and artsy rock with saxophones and chaos at their forefront. This album has more saxophone and chaos at its forefront than pretty much any other album I’ve ever heard ... read more

listened to this at 4 am, the vibe may be slightly wrong because this is just after writing about the Djrum album for 2 hours and how it reinforces my deepest dreams while being the greatest IDM album and meshing of electronic and actual instrumentals I’ve ever heard.

Let me just say I am a huge fan of punk music. From when I was into Green Day as a middle schooler, learning all the lyrics to Holiday and Basket Case, to when I got into …For the Whole World to See and Dead ... read more

I listened to this at 2am while staring at a dark and starry sky. It felt right. I’m going to write a lot, because this album made me think a lot.

I’m no stranger to IDM even though electronic stuff has never been as big to me as my favorite genres. Rock was how I got into music, through a dad who was deeply into it putting me on to Guitar Hero 3 when I was 9. Metal was my first real choice as I got into System of a Down and Three Days Grace, finding comfort in SOADs layered and ... read more