#628 David Bowie - Station to Station

Call it vampire soul. Plastic soul makes this music sound too warm, sounding pliable and colorful. If start with the Plastic label, understand that this is hard plastic, this is harsh lines, this is solid shapes. It is a detached alien overlord exiled too long on earth, too tired of inhaling and fucking everything he can find. He limps with great grace through nightclubs connected endlessly by doors to one another, out the backdoor and into the next, constant movement past downheaded dukes, desperate youths and lie-low beerlight, flashes off of glasses. The doors connect again and again, and there are no streets in between and there is no slowing or stopping, there is no progress, and nothing is lost and nothing is resolved and the only thing that is gained is the incremental experience, the drip of another step through life familiar with barest hope-flecks in the details, the barest glimmers of the new.

Like Iggy Pop and Marc Bolan, Bowie comes out the other side of glam finding that the world hasn't changed, that it can't be changed, that only he can change, but he's nowhere left to change. So the beat plods on, he makes music full of life and soul, and drinks of it in the night, and staggers onward with grace undiminished, with the cool perspective of the undead, the charming grace of one who takes without seeing to need, who has much to tell but would rather wield the promise than the reveal.

And you yourself are charmed, by the promise and the grace and the vision and the intoxicating lack of need. Bowie plays it like the brooding boy, the black sheep you can save, the man your mother warned you about, the one who don't need nothing, who plays hard to get without seeming to play, and you're drawn in 4/5

#627 Sonic Youth - EVOL

You can't talk about Sonic Youth without talking about noise. Dissonance and racket are at the heart of their MO, though their exact relationship with the guitar and the noises it can make has changed over time. Here is their first attempt to make an actual rock album, as the band takes wet, leaden lumps of noise and shapes them into ten vaguely song-shaped objects. It is clumsy and primitive, less interesting than something noisier, less listenable than what Sonic Youth would do in the following years, compelling mostly as a history lesson in the band's progression 3/5

#626 The Unicorns - 2014 EP

Here's The Unicorns in microcosm: three tracks (plus a demo version of the title track) that outline their style, each a chorusless, manic little blast of pop. 2014 builds tension on the backs of noisy synths and future disco skitters before breaking out into joyous raveup desperation. Emasculate the Masculine marries funk guitar chug so post-punk guitar crunch, frosted with squonky square wave solos. Finally, Evacuate the Vacuous gives us a taste of the whisper quiet bomb shelter crooner Unicorns, breaking into sunlight only briefly before retreating into darkness, maybe forever.

The first two tracks would have been standouts on a second Unicorns album, the one that never came. 2014 itself, despite bearing some of the Unicorns hallmarks, served to take their sound in a strange, dancy new direction, one we'll tragically never see fleshed out. So we're left to pick over scraps and bones. Such pretty bones. Miss these guys 4/5

#625 The Breeders - Last Splash

A decidedly 90's album, but one that's a lot more solid, with much better flow, and a much deeper bag of tricks than you might expect. There's hard rockers, some stuttering meandering weirdnesses, some Sonic Youth guitar crush, and some straight up Pixies jams (most notably S.O.S.) (though less than you might expect). And then there's Divine Hammer, which is just a fucking great upbeat 90's pop rocker classic. Heck, even cliched Country-tinged closer Drivin' On 9 is way better than it should be.

For an album that was readily discarded as Cannonball + filler, this is actually a damn solid piece of twisty rock and roll that deserves better than its reputation 4/5

#624 Tame Impala - Lonerism

Everything runs together in a swirl, colors emerging, guitars and synths and voices and their reverberations and refractions interweaving. Its one part psychadelia, one part shoegaze, and extra dollops of Of Montreal, The Flaming Lips, and The Olivia Tremor Control's strangest melodic moments. It sounds like the 60's as filtered through most of the 00's favorite filters. Which is to say this has been done before, at least twice, and has all the trappings of a mushmouthed style I've railed against repeatedly.

And yet it works here, for two main reasons. First, it pulls out the most uncommon and essential trick in music: great songwriting. The particular structures and swirls and highs and lows and repetitions and deviations therefrom are expertly chosen to give a lilting, gorgeous experience that hypnotizes without lulling to sleep.

Second, the bass. It is the one thing that is pure, undoubled, undiluted, running Harrison-pure, giving backbone to the pulsing shapes that run rampant across the record. The bassline is what you follow, and everything else is the landscape you follow it through. That one trick lets this album rise above the swirly everynote muck that pollutes so much of modern indie rock. That and the crackerjack songwriting 4.5/5

#623 Metz - Metz

Rock and roll done up super raw, too rough, too fast, full of analog energy and realness and fear and rage, recent favorite Ty Segall's sound done even harder, but still done so enjoyably, melodically, tunefully, catchily that it barely even hurts to listen to. This is one of the most immediately catchy really heavy albums I've heard in a while - sounding not unlike Nirvana or The Pixies at their loudest, or maybe even Pavement at their Blacktick thrash pinnacles. There's something special and elemental here that I can't put my finger on, something swirling ever-closer to an oncoming, savage garage-rock revival, something that sparks hope for modern rock and roll 4.5/5

#622 Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind

Speedmetal thrash done up with razorwire punk production, with the occasional moments of beauty. Seen alongside the Car Bomb album this approach seems to be a burgeoning thing.

This is chopsville USA though, done up in the grand metal tradition of "how fast and precisely can you play". This is flower-in-the-wasteland rock done with deathmachine hyperspeed efficiency.

And yes, these dudes can play fast, and they can play with precision, and that does result in some moments of severe rock power. But its just too much noise to move me, too quickly desensitizing, the moments of beauty that give it context too far between. Good go to if you're into this kind of thing 3/5