#2116 Thor - Keep the Dogs Away

Have you seen the Thor doc that's on Netflix right now? Mildly recommended, a profile of obsession, a man with nowhere left to turn but back to his coulda-(maybe)-been band again and again and again.

And wouldn't you know it, their first big (kinda) album's actually kinda good. Dead dumb simple, KISS without the theatrics, with an understated glammy streak, like caveman Queen...but cool? The band sounds downright disconnected sometimes, borderline Lou Reed - maybe because they're really focusing on playing real good, but maybe they're just... that cool? It's actually not very metal at all, that album cover and being named fucking THOR notwithstanding. As the mostly unsurprising songs plod along there's an unselfconscious charisma that just kind of works.

I mean, take it all with a grain of salt, maybe I'm just charmed by the underdog story. They're not The Beatles, but hell, they might raise a smile 3.5/5

#2115 The Range - Potential

The Range's best tracks have always combined plaintive British muttering with big uncertain bass and twinkling frailty - a crossroads of nerves and hope. It's strange then how the most overtly vocal-laden tracks on his new one don't really land. Maybe they're too self-aware, come on too strong.

The mysterious, mumbled, fumbled, fractured middle passages are full of pulsing heart, worming around in all-black backdrop. It's a magical little something, not altogether different than his other stuff, lacking the shock of the new, but probably the right place for the newcomer to start 3.5/5

#2114 Paul and Linda McCartney - Ram

A wildly difficult album to remove from its context: nobody liked this when it came out, if you believe the stories. Beatles breaking up, everyone expecting a trajectory towards the important and serious, John doubling down on some unattainable, mostly unlistenable revolution, and taking all the piss on the way up.

And here comes this small, pleasant, strange thing.

It's rather beautiful. An olive branch back to Brian Wilson, burbling with lushness and harmonies and quirky asides, every song so modest, turning on itself, light changing on the same old scene, not one passes without some metamorphosis, some complication that elevates. The artfulness is understated, but there's richness to spare. It gets uneven in the second half, and it's a little bit oversweet in spots, sure, but it's too packed with interesting little angles to dare to ignore. It never succumbs to formula, never get predictable, lulling you to lean into each of its gentle curves.

That old test: if this had come from a non-ex-Beatle it would be at worst, a cult classic of massive proportions.

4.5/5

#2113 High on Fire - The Art of Self Defense

As GIGANTIC FUCKING RIFFS p l a y e d   s u p e r   f u c k i n g   s l o w   f o r   M A X I M U M   P O W E R go this is about as good as it gets. Those riffs roar like glaciers full of mammoth ghosts, like the mountain come for vengeance, like elemental grudge pulsing under the site of the slaughter. The fact it's melodic, super listenable, hooky as shit, seems like a countertragic accident.

Maybe these were the songs locked in Sleep's hourlong, belligerent Dopesmoker, thunderously cracking their necks and looking for food 4/5

#2112 Car Seat Headrest - Teens of Denial

I drive a lot these days, to and from work, and man it drains. I do hate driving. But today I had a feeling I haven't had in a long time - where I was so wrapped up in moving along at speed while the music blasted, where I just wanted to keep going, like I used to in California, where I would take the turn around Santa Vittoria an extra time or two or three just to let the sound keep pouring in.

You can't do that in Boston, you'll fall down a ratsnest of one-ways and end up in fucking Quincy, so I had to settle for a sit in a parking garage in Waltham while the track finished out its last couple minutes, reminding me for my walk to the office that friends are better with drugs are better with friends are better with drugs are better with friends are better with drugs are better with friends are better with drugs.

--

I said out loud, quietly but dramatically, a bit sincerely: "this album saved my life this morning", on that drive this morning. Also, "this album is fucking incredible". And that was before I was 4 tracks in! On the way home I picked up where I left off and, 36 years old, cried a little at 65 on 95.

It's been a weird month.

This is peak fucking emo. Toledo yelps and barks like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah // Bright Eyes, guitars chime along Built to Spill // Sonic Youth off-center, the whole thing poring out Modest Mouse // Pavement, soaring like Surfer Blood // Boston, and my namedrop well runs dry, and all those points of reference make for a constellation of striking elevation. Artsy crashes into ramshackle crashes into pop until you lose the thread, and your shields are down, chiming repetition hypnotizing, unexpected shifts destabilizing, wrong chords unbalancing, making sure you're good and defenseless for when the guitars swell enormous, for when the voices double and triple, or when the beat doubles up and yougetsweptupineuphoric pop. punk. ecstasy.

It's fucking staggering, even as the bass hints at Don't Stop Believing, even as the guitars chime Marquee Moon, it's such a spear of sincerity, through Wikipedia's page about depression, through the discomfort of being waytoohigh, through not knowing how to be a person and soaring on the wings of "it'll be alright" delivered with a touch of doubt but no single homeopathic trace of irony.

--

It's the rare beast rock opera. The epic sweep, the disregard for tightness or pacing, the unashamed stage-musical grasps at your heart. It's the kind of thing we need now and again, a Separation Sunday deep dive.

Teens in Denial probably doesn't have the cohesion, the eternal connection-making to have that kind of longevity, but its bold, staggering sweep, its complete fucking fearlessness to go on for X verses, Y repetitions, Z minutes, not giving one solitary shit, while still keeping your rapt attention, is a revelation. It switches up zigging when its supposed to zag, and ZAGGING when its supposed to zag, so even the obvious moments dodge cliche. That it casually drops a flailing 8 minutes in the 2 slot, goes on a 26 minute, 3-song jag near the end, closes out on a nearly-nothing final observation, all without seeming pretentious, all while just blasting you into - - - - -

Fucking brilliant. Rock lives for one day

5/5

#2111 Cave In - Until Your Heart Stops

Superfast metal packed with proggy start-stops and tempo swerves - Cave In's first album walks the tightrope: it switches it up too often to be boring, but locks into a groove just often enough to give you a foothold, teasing you with the possibility of headbodding until it twists your head off, suckerpunching from every angle, every riff a setup for its opposite, tight into slurred into fast into half-time into double-time into dropped-beat dancebreakers - - and then pretty little indie-adjacent interludes

then haunted empty halls

bonus: enough flayed screaming keeping it out of Dream Theater territory 3.5/5

#2110 Feed Me - Feed Me's Family Reunion

Has the world changed, or have I changed?

I went back to Feed Me's Big Adventure, and it's still incredible. Why can't he find it again?

Maybe there was just a punk rock first-swing energy. I think Jon Gooch's just got too much integrity.

He keeps trying something new. He won't just settle into that big 4/4, won't embrace those big dumb riffs, everything's got all these vocal samples and missing beats and subtle pulses and swirls and variants on dubstep builts and it's just - - - not as good.

I want to appreciate all this invention, but he's stuck in a valley: this isn't dumb enough to tap that raw animal nerve, not interesting enough to pass as inventive // chin scratchy // compositional electectonicia nonslelnse, and I can't find any reason to put it on.

For my tiny corner of the world, he's cursed by putting out the single best GET SHIT DONE record I've ever heard, and his way better stuff just doesn't move me and I can't listen to anything of his without comparing it. That probably makes me a bad writer and a bad person but I can't get past it 3/5