Often when I’m trying to figure out what I want to listen to, I find myself trying to make the decision between heavy riffs or catchy melodies. Do I want to sing along with the choruses, or do I want to be crushed beneath the monstrous weight of the guitars?
Luckily, The Life and Times never makes me choose, hitting like a mix of HUM-y walls of noise with almost Beatles-y melodies.
And I am here for it.
I sometimes forget that my friend Grey is more than just a memelord. From his constant online irreverence and roasting of just about every band in existence (see: his podcast Demolisten), it sometimes feels like he doesn’t have a heart at all.
But within a few seconds of his solo full length Forget I Brought It Up, I realize oh yeah, this guy does have feelings—and an incredible talent for communicating them through poignant lyrics and a rich mixture of 90s alternative, pop punk, and emo.
Let’s get one thing straight right out of the gate: I love this album. Wholly, completely, and without irony.
It’s not just a nostalgia thing either: despite Jars of Clay’s mainstream success in the mid 90s, I didn’t get into them until a decade later (when I stole all of my mom’s JoC CDs after graduating high school). Even after getting into more respectable music, I’ve always loved Jars of Clay. They’re not just good for a CCM band—they’re good period.
And even in the midst of a long and consistent career and in the shadow of a widely celebrated debut, I think their sophomore release, Much Afraid, has always been my favorite.
To further showcase just how much I’ve been slacking on this blog, this record was sent to me at the same time as Jet Black’s wonderful L’Ere du Vide, which I got before Christmas.
Admittedly, it was a little hard for me to give this record the time it deserves, buried as it was under a deluge of Christmas records that I was spending more time with. But as I’ve listened to this bit of rambunctious alt-rock, I’ve fallen in love with it.
After five albums, Scottish dream pop darlings Cocteau Twins found something they never expected their blissful, ambiguous, ethereal pop songs to deliver…
Commercial success.
These days, I generally treat my record budget with a level of judiciousness. Every dollar is precious, so I typically don’t make any purchases without thoroughly vetting each album in my wantlist, listening and relistening until I feel confident enough to pull the trigger.
But every once in a great while, I’ll take a risk, such as the 5-for-$25 random bundle from Topshelf Records that landed me this record and Mock Orange (among others). But if this were the only worthwhile record in the bunch, it still might have been worth it.
While the last few years have seen many music fans struggling to reconcile that they people behind their favorite music were terrible people (see especially: Brand New), Morrissey fans have always been painfully aware that he’s a bastard. To most Smiths fans, he’s like our old, drunk uncle who we wish would just shut up.
For the most part, that hasn’t stopped the fandom’s appreciation of his work. There’s been a sort of, “well, you know, he’s just old” attitude toward most of his press antics.
But Years of Refusal, his 2009 tour-de-force, doesn’t sound like the work of an old idiot clinging to his glory days. It’s a fierce and muscular disc that’s just as vigorous as anything he released twenty years earlier.
HUM may have never gotten much mainstream recognition, but you’d never guess their cult status based on the pantheon of groups that list them as an influence. Their huge, earth-shattering brand of space rock influenced groups from Deftones to Hopesfall to Cloakroom to Smashing Pumpkins (who some accuse of getting famous off of HUM’s template).
Most people point to their seminal record You’d Prefer An Astronaut as their finest work. And while they pioneered their trademark sound on that record, their swansong Downward Is Heavenward is a much heavier and more cohesive record.
At some point in college, I decided that I was “over” all of my adolescent tastes. I ignored all of the emo, punk, metal, and whatever else in favor of folk, indie rock, post punk, and “weird” stuff like Krautrock and dub reggae.
I’ve since come back around, but I’m still trying to catch up on all of the stuff I’ve missed during that time (I still haven’t listened to a full album by The World Is A Beautiful Place). In trying to sort out what’s worth diving into and what isn’t worth my time, a friend recommended Basement. And from the first listen, I was absolutely enraptured by the jangling chords, soaring melodies, and dynamic shifts.
For the last few years, it’s been suggested by a number of music snobs (or at least by me) that we’re currently in a post-genre landscape.
While the dividing lines between, say, dream pop and post-hardcore have generally been laid out pretty clear, these days there’s so much cross-pollination between influences that music taxonomy is an almost fruitless undertaking.
Case in point: Death Lust, the debut record from Canadian solo project Chastity. When I went to add the files to my iTunes, the cursor sat in the “genre” tab for several minutes, blinking mockingly at me as I tried to put a name to this (I copped out and settled on “alternative”). Continue reading