Weekly Album: Week of 10/22 - 10/28 - One Week

I would like to apologize for putting out this review late. 

This week I listened to One Week by First of October. First of October is a collaboration between Musicians/YouTubers Andrew Huang and Rob Scallon in which on the first of October they give themselves one 12 hour recording session (10 hours for their first album) with no material prepared ahead of time to write and record a whole album, with this latest album marking the 7th time they've done so, hence the title. I've been following this project since the first album, as I was/am a fan of both participants' YouTube videos. Though I must say that for a few years now I've felt that albums have been declining in memorability, originality, and quality. Last year's album I found so forgettable that I forgot that it even existed when I was talking to a friend about how I felt about the latest album in comparison to their other work. This year's album, I feel, brings at least a touch of memorability that the last few albums have missed but, still misses the mark in comparison to their first three. As is to be expected of an album made in a way such as this one, there are a lot of songs that feel underdeveloped or have ideas that just don't work for me. Two perfect examples of ideas that don't work are, "Who Is It For?" and, "Liberation" where Andrew Huang, who was the main writer for these two songs, tries to combine contrasting sections without any real segue between them, causing an extreme disjoint in the song. In the former, it is a heavy metal/hard rock inspired verse with this acoustic, slow chorus and the two feel so unconnected that the contrast doesn't actually provide anything interesting to the music. The latter track does a similar thing, where the verses switch from a heavy keytar focused rap to the same lyrics rapped with less intensity on top of an 808 Drum Machine which creates a similar issue as the former song. The rest of the album mostly suffers from being underdeveloped. This is felt most on the songs that feature heavily improvised lyrics, being, "Michael Squiers," "Murder Geese," and, "Greg Is Coming To Town!". These songs feature Rob and Andrew improvising lyrics for a couple minutes at a time and show their improvisation skills at their worst, especially on the Greg song. The first two have the benefit of Rob having a few lines already written, so there is some kind of structure and overall idea being communicated. Greg just has Rob and Andrew talking about, "Gregging it up" and how he is coming to town for a minute and a half intercut with some crowd vocals clamoring over Greg (I forgot to mention this year they recorded the album in a Guitar Center that was open to the public), which just feels and sounds incredibly lazy. There is a bright spot on the album, and what I think is for sure the best song on the album what is probably the best song they've done in years, being "I Am Enough". While this song certainly does have the feeling that it isn't as fully developed as it could be as the lyrical content is pretty minimal, I think that it really fits the vibe that the song is going for. This fact is also aided in that the hooks of the songs are actually enjoyable, with some fun and catchy synth lines strung throughout the song and a memorable melody which Rob sings extremely well in comparison to some of his other singing efforts. This song is certainly a First of October song that I can see myself coming back to which is something that has not happened in a long time. As for the rest of the album, I cannot see myself coming back these tracks. They are undercooked and easily forgettable. 5/10 album

Weekly Album: Week of 10/15 - 10/21 - The Progressive Blues Experiment

This week I listened to The Progressive Blues Experiment by Johnny Winter. I first came about this album by watching a video Johnny Winter perform the song, "Mean Town Blues", which is on this album, at Woodstock due to his use of a Fender Electric XII guitar which he only strung with 6 strings (Normally there are 12 for those that don't know guitar stuff). I was quite enamored by the song as well as Johnny Winter's guitar playing, so I put it in the calendar for my Album Everyday project that I was doing at the time. I became quite burnt out of that project quite fast and didn't make it to the date I was supposed to listen to The Progressive Blues Experiment, and one day recently the memory of this album came back to me, and I realized then that I had to listen to it for the weekly album. This album is quite the departure for my genre wise, as I cannot say I listen to very much Blues. The Blues has certainly found its way into a lot of music I listen to, but I never really listen to the Blues itself. I came to a conclusion some years ago that most Blues music sounds the same, especially the more and more modern you get. I still agree with that sentiment for the most part, so I was in quite for the surprise when this album sounded quite fresh to me. Johnny Winter is a fantastic guitarist, and the album is somewhat of a vehicle for him to showcase that. His playing is what makes it feel so fresh; It is steeped in the tropes of Blues guitar but Winter puts his own twist on it that makes it not feel cliched like so many others. The aforementioned, "Mean Town Blues" has a killer riff and a fantastic solo that gives the song a bouncy energy. He plays a killer slide guitar on, "Rollin' And Tumblin'", "Bad Luck And Trouble", and, "Broke Down Engine" which is quite fun to listen to, especially in the first as he opens the album with his raucous slide playing. The album is at its best when it either has high energy or makes you sit and appreciate the guitar wizardry going on, which is to say the album is always at its best. 8/10

Weekly Album: Week of 04/16 - 04/22 - Unsafe At Any Speed

I was supposed to listen to this album the week of April 16th through April 22nd, but I didn't. So this week I listened to Unsafe At Any Speed by the Sky Corvair. The Sky Corvair are a very interesting band to me, being a collaboration between two 90s Midwest Emo titans: Tim Kinsella of Cap'n Jazz and Bob Nanna of Braid. The band was only around briefly, with their main formation taking place during a period of time when Cap'n Jazz was not active in 1994 to 1995 which is when most of the material on the album was recorded, breaking up once Cap'n Jazz became active again. They did reunite in 1997 and recorded the last 3 tracks, albeit without Kinsella. When compared to both Cap'n Jazz and Braid, the album sounds noticeably different from most things either of those bands did. It reminds me a lot more of the Emo/Post-Hardcore music coming around the turn of the 90s, stuff like Fugazi, Drive Like Jehu, or even Current at times than it does Cap'n Jazz or Braid. Don't get it twisted, I love how this album sounds, it just feels very different from a lot of Kinsella or Nanna's other work, Kinsella especially. The whole album feels decidedly un-Kinsella, who I feel is always trying to push forward with his music. His music always sounds very original, where this feels very similar to other artists. Once again, not to say this is a bad thing, just an interesting note from a big fan of Kinsella's work. On the actual quality of the album, I feel that it is very good. All the songs are enjoyable to listen to, and the production sits in that sweet spot of low and high fidelity that I love so much. The vocals are recorded quite clearly, leaving a perfect space for the instrumentals to sound a little bit unpolished production wise which fits very well for this style of music. I'm glad to have found another album to fit in that early 90s, more hardcore focused Emo sound that I enjoy, and I welcome it all the more since it is a Tim Kinsella project. 9/10 album

Weekly Album: Week of 10/08 - 10/14 - Tennis Girl

This week I listened to Tennis Girl by eureka! who I will call Eureka for the remainder of this review. Sometimes the internet just serves you something completely out of left field in relation to what you normally view, and that is how I stumbled upon this album. I can't say this kind of jazzy electro-pop is something I'm listening to very often, in fact I'd say that I have extremely little experience in listening to this music. But new experiences are the whole point of this project, so upon first hearing the song "Program" I decided to put the album in the weekly album schedule. I have to say this album surprised me quite a lot, in multiple ways. For starters, I enjoyed it quite a lot. I found myself grooving to it, and even counting out the time signatures which for me is a sign that I am listening to a song with intent and enjoyment. Secondly, this album surprised me in its sonic range. From the jazzy breakbeats of, "Missing Fundamental" to the folkier, jazz-rock adjacent tracks like, "Cry For The Moon" and the aforementioned "Program", the album covers a large range of sounds while still maintaining consistency across the tracks. One of my favorite aspects of the album are the vocals, sung by Miyuki Kido who makes up half of Eureka. Her voice is very pretty and she sings so effortlessly. She is a joy to listen to on the whole album, as all but 2 songs feature her vocals. The internet can often be very terrible when it comes to actually recommending you things as all the algorithms everywhere are so borked, so when it can actually find you something interesting and enjoyable, it is a real treat. 9/10 album

Weekly Album: Week of 10/01 - 10/07 - State Songs

Apologies for the late post without any notice.

This week I listened to State Songs by John Linnell. Linnell is most known for being a part of They Might Be Giants, and I am quite familiar with the band's work so the music on here sounded fairly familiar to me. This music being short and quirky rock songs with lyrics that are a bit nonsensical and arrangements that are little strange for rock, but for Linnell are fairly standard. There a lot of keyboards doing strange things, strangest of all when the keyboard is carousel/band organ, so technically not a keyboard since no human actually plays it but the basis for it is a keyboard instrument. There are 4 tracks that feature it very prominently, but the two that stand out to me the most are "Utah" and "New Hampshire" as I'd say they stray the most from typical rock arrangements, sounding almost like circus music which I suppose is fitting for a carousel organ. The songs themselves are quite good, which is to be expected as Linnell has proven time and time again to be a very competent songwriting, even if his lyrics are arbritrary. This brings me to an interesting point about the album, that being the fact that almost none of these songs have anything to do with the states they are named after. Sure, the states are mentioned in the lyrics of the songs, but really you could replace them with any noun with the same syllables and it wouldn't change the meaning of them much. An obvious example being in the song, "Montana" which is mostly about someone's hospital stay where he figures out that "Montana was a leg" which is utter nonsense. But this isn't really an issue, as this is expected of Linnell, rather it is part of the charm of his songs. It is interesting to me hearing this half of the songwriting duo that makes up They Might Be Giants, because you can hear the parts that the other member, John Flansburgh, contributes to the songs they write together. Overall, State Songs is good album that I can see myself revisiting for something vaugely Giants-y. 8/10 album