The Microphones - Mount Eerie

Listening to the Microphones discog I noticed that most of his other works felt like an extension or beta version of the glow pt. 2, which in no way is a bad thing at all as I think that most of them were executed pretty well! But I was suprised when I listened to this album, where it had a completely different tone from everything that I've listened to from phil yet. Because despite being shorter than The glow, It felt like much more of a slow burner with a completely unconventional twist to the instrumentals where the album uses drone and weird tribal elements. Furthermore I reallyy loved the singing on this album. The way the instrumentals also supported the singing was incredible, while I know this is always something that phil is great at but even more on this album. And maybe I'm wrong in my assumption but he also seemed much more confident here compared to his previous stuff.

Rating: 9/10

Brian Eno - Ambient 4: On Land

Man I think purely instrumental records are really my enemy (from a review writing perspective). I really want to say more but besides praising the great atmosphere and pleasant sounds I can't say much more sorry!

Ok maybe a little fun fact on the line: I was walking in the park as usual where the birds were chirping and I thought for most of the album that it was part of it and was praising the authentic nature vibe! This also reminded me of when I started this account, I was listening to the beggar by swans and thought the dogs barking were part of the music... although cmon for swans It would be very fitting. Anyways listening to music outiside is really cool

Rating: 7/10

Car Seat Headrest - Making a Door Less Open

Honestly I was waiting for this album for a looong time, hearing how divisive it is among CSH fans. The reason for that being that this album heavily leans into a more indietronica/dance sound. Ok maybe I should've put quotation marks around "heavily". Because in my opinion CSH uses those elements in a very half assed way where it seems like they don't really want to fully commit to the genre which leaves most of the songs in the first half as a bit of a mess. And what further supports my assumption is that as the album proggresses they abandon those elements more and try to do their usual indie rock stuff. Sadly I can't say that those were particularly exciting either as it really wasn't anything new. So my final verdict is that I don't really get the discourse around this album because it was to boring

Rating: 4-5/10

Sick of It All - Just Look Around

wow! I honestly did not expect this to be such a decent upgrade over their debut album. What I really loved about this was that compared to their debut, the mix of different styles (punk and metal) went way smoother on this album. Additionally the production became better which, especially for punk albums isn't necessarily a good thing as the rawness often enhances the experience but in this case the production highlighted the aggression incredibly well. But the biggest reason why I prefer this one over the debut was the singing. The style completely changed, including way more growls and it overall felt like they found their musical direction

Rating: 8/10

Slowdive - Everything Is Alive

Ok ok we have two dream pop albums today of the total opposite time (talking about head over heels). And It's honestly very interesting to see the parallels, with this one being the much more polished record out of the two. And while Slowdive didn't do anything groundbreaking on this record I was still very suprised to hear that after nearly a decade of no music they held their own pretty well! The dreamy instrumentals and the typical nice singing where still on point

Rating: 7/10

Cocteau Twins - Head over Heel

First of all I thought this album felt more historic than I thought it would because I wasn't aware at first that this was like a building block for what would become dream pop. And I think for that the album deserves a lot of credit while, I gotta say being a bit of a mess (In a charming way maybe) with them not really commiting to one sound completely. Still the singing was really nice (we already didn't understand anything on this album) and the instrumentals had this weird post-punk trying to sound like dream pop vibe

Rating: 7/10

The Beach Boys - Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)

Compared to, say the beatles the beach boys have a very set sound which they are clearly the best at. But at the same time it makes all their albums incredibly competitive with each other where it feels like there is no true reason to listen to this because "pet sounds" or "the beach boys today!" exist. still they try to mix it up a bit most of the time. This time they tried some revolution 9-ish weird stuff on some parts of the album while keeping their usual sound. But compared to the albums before I was kinda missing the high energy!

Rating: 6-7/10

Sick of It All - Blood, Sweat, and No Tears

The funfact about this album (or rather band) is that my teacher recommended it to me in 10th grade (like 3-4 years ago lol) so finally I listened to it. And honestly seeing late 80s punk I expected regular hardcore punk, which I obviously like... but I did not expect this album to have such a unique sound. The first thing that immediatly came to my mind was that this album's instrumentals are shokingly similar or at least inspired by thrash metal which is not a style that I expected from a Punk album at all. And even more shoking, it worked out very well! The only negative thing maybe is that the sound became a bit more stale the more the album progressed which is not a good sign as It's a pretty short album. The singing is also very punk classic (but it still works better on their thrash inspired songs) and the production is incredibly raw

Rating: 7-8/10

Kate Bush - The Sensual World

I think of every Bush album I've listened to yet I would call this one the most mature one. What I mean by that is that Bush has significantly toned down on her iconic high pitched singing, keeping a rather consistent singing style throughout the album. Overall great album with great consistency which is typical for her!

Rating: 8/10

Charles Mingus - Changes One

I still have no idea how to review jazz but I liked the more chill nature of this album with some interesting spoken parts

Rating: 7/10

The Microphones - Little Bird Flies Into a Big Black Cloud

I think it's hard not to look at this album as a leftover of their undisputed masterpiece the glow pt 2. I am not necesseraly saying that it's unfinished but even tho phil does monotone music (one of the only ones where this isn't an insult) this album still lacks a bit sonically. Still a pleasant album overall!

Rating: 6/10

Hachi - 花束と水葬

I am no expert on vocaloid... but from everything I've listened to I gotta say that this is probably the first album I would recommend to people who want to get into vocaloid. The sounds are not as in your face as hachis later works with a focus on a more playful and cute sound. And even tho there aren't many songs that super blew me out of the park, the sheer talent and honestly groundbreaking production (this album is from early 2010!) is insane and It's fair to say that hachi was completely ahead of time.

Rating: 7/10

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Scared Famous

I think this kind of a hot take but bad production does in my opinion drag down the quality of the music, but with ariel pink It's honestly different. I think It's because his compressed singing style fits the low quality/rough production very well. The instrumental side of the album was also well done with more raw and hard hitting rock songs and more psychedelic/dreamy sounds. But as it will probably be the case for most ariel pink records this album also could've been cut down to a tighter record

Rating: 7/10

Brian Eno-David Byrne - My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

Ok I am a massive dumbass. I was listening to this album and halfway through I was like "damn this sounds a lot like talking heads, I wonder if this album is influenced by it before seeing that this album was also made by... the singer of talking heads. And honestly this album feels like eno and byrne just spitballing their usual stuff and hope it sticks. And firstly I was I thought the talking head sounding songs were really nice. But sadly the album while still keeping the weirdness got progressively more uninteresting. The Vocals were also pretty weird with opera singing and then the arabic ones. But overall I still enjoyed this album especially for the creativity

Rating: 6/10

Raekwon - The Lex Diamond Story

I am honestly not sure if I like this one or Immobilarity less... Like on one hand Lex Diamond is for sure the more consistent album with more traditional gangsta rap (although not usually Raekwons style) compared to the inconsistent mess of Immobilarity. But then again this album is way more boring and has close to nothing to offer so yeah

Rating: 5/10

Sigur Ros - Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do

You know.. In terms of their ambient centred works this might actually be their best. There isn't anything groundbreaking happening but this album atleast has solid structures and solid ideas. Although the first song was clearly the best and it got a bit more stale afterwards (with some moments)

Rating: 6/10

Aphex Twin - Blackbox Life Recorder 21f / in a room7 F760

I feel like I've already said everything I've wanted to say about Aphex Twin. And like with this ep he rarely fails to deliver when he is keeping his original style

Rating: 7/10