The ground work for the Downward Spiral is evident here. Most of the tracks here have good ideas in them, but wether it’s due to a lack of experience in the band or Trent’s vocal delivery and lyricism still being experimented with, they end up falling short. Still a pretty good debut, but it doesn’t hold a candle to their following work.

Every moment is either disgusting or beautiful, and the beautiful moments get ripped away. It’s the perfect musical representation of its concept and stands as the pinnacle of industrial music. Happy 30th birthday.

It’s basically Utopia if it missed all the good parts.

The production is by far the best thing here, even though it can get extremely rough at times. Any and everyone that ye brings in gives unremarkable verses (the only one to really stand out was Gibbs, but that could just be because the chorus was repeated like eight times before he came in). And that’s not even addressing ye himself. You can say separate the artist from the art, but ye has and has always himself the art. Ty ... read more

Very dense and full of emotion. A little too chaotic for me though

Way too scattered of an album. It's evident that Yorke and crew came into this album with a lot ideas, but most of them just come off awkward to me in execution. Songs like Under Our Pillows and Bending Hectic will build and build and then throw it all away with no true crescendo. When the band isn't doing one of it's many iffy experiments, it just feels like they're retreading on old ground. Take the song Wall of Eyes for example, who's soundscape is nearly identical to that of House of Cards ... read more

Booooooorrrrrrrrriiiiiiiinnnnggggg

Doesn’t go as hard as it could, but it’s a lot better than the stuff that Justice has been putting out for the last decade.

Edit: (84-89) One Night/All Night is super catchy and the addition of Generator fills what I was missing from the single.

Deluxe track ratings:
2011 - 85
Perm - 76

Insano, more like 0 Insan

Kid Cudi comes back with an album that, to be Frank, I had very low expectations for. And lo and behold that the album was boring. There’s nothing inherently good or bad here, it’s the epitome of mid. And, at an hour in length, there’s no reason to be listening to it.

Having not heard the singles to this album, I lost my shit to Muñekita

Great cover but not even geese can save that chorus

This song is gonna live or die based on how it fits on the album. But as it stands, it’s fun and LNX is still good at making choruses pop.

I came into this project expecting a lot more because I really enjoyed Dope Boy when it dropped, but after going through this whole project, there isn’t much here to take away. Bruiser Wolf is at his most compelling when he is rapping about things important to himself, which makes those tracks the best. When he isn’t, however, he struggles to write tracks with compelling narrative, drive, or at times even wit. I think this is most evident in the second track, 2 Bad, in which Bruiser ... read more

Very solid. Geese fills a modern niché that shows how much older styles have to offer.

It grooves nicely, but it’s missing that extra umph it needs to fully come together.

You know it could have been a lot worse. At least this project does have some semblance of decent songwriting. But at the end of the day it’s still AJR so a handful of decent songs isn’t going to save them from the rest of the slop they make.

I hate how hard this album fumbled the last 3 tracks. The entire run up to that point is peak TOOL for me and only rivaled by Ænima, but the end just feels under prepared, especially Intention. I still enjoy this record a lot though and I’d even say it’s better than Lateralus.

At it's best, KNOWER FOREVER is a blisteringly fast, smooth and tightfunk-infused jazz record. At its worst, the songs drag on and repeat the same annoying chorus over and over. This album would benefit from being a little leaner with some more consistent writing.

Pretty solid pack of instrumentals. I just wish that the formatting of the album was better.

SAVED! is a very polarizing record for me. The unsettling and dismal feelings that the first half of the album brings had me hooked. It really hurt to say the second half got crushed by its ambition. Take the final track for example; I love the lyrics and Kristin's vocal delivery and I understand what she was going for with the song, but the constant sniffling across the entire 8 minute track kills it for me. I really do hope that she continues with this darker style because I think that given ... read more