The Album Club

[Lisnaholic]

Catching up on previous albums, here are my thoughts on The Sophtware Slump:-

First track, first impression: here's a guy with a slightly Neil Young voice, but instead of a simple heart-wrenching confessional song like NY at his best, "He's simple" has an unsatisfying structure, jumping around between various musical ideas.

As the album advances, it didn't improve imo: I found the guy's voice kind of weak and strained, there were too many tricksy little add-ons (the recorded machine announcement in Dial-A-View, the distortion throughout Jed The Humanoid, the frankly embarrassing intro to Jed's Other Poem). To me, the cumulative effect was like listening to a band who were still undecided about their sound, offering up things that were sometimes melodic, even beautiful, but were just as often interspersed with dull, mildly irritating stuff, like the tinkly piano that spoils the otherwise decent Underneath The Weeping Willow.
Even the supposed stand out track, Crystal Lake,  was nothing special. "This is like the track I would always skip if it was on a Beach Boys' album" is what I thought while it was playing – then I read what Rubber Soul wrote about Sophtware Slump: "like the BBs but without the harmonies". So yeah, like a Beach Boys' song that falls flat.

The weird sounds of the Knievel Interlude instrumental summed up the album for me: as if no-one in the studio could decide, "Is this good, or just curious? Let's put it on the album and let other people decide." The result of this approach is a sub Neil Young, sub Beach Boys confection that even the band doesn't really sound committed to:  2/10

[DJChameleon]

My Head is an Animal - Of Monsters and Men

I'm only halfway through this album currently and it is definitely better than I was expecting.

Idk why I have such a bad attitude towards any band described as Indie. I always it's going to be slow boring hipster music. The weird part is that I actually like alot of indie bands. The last time I made that criticism. I googled indie bands and there were so many that I have willingly listened to and actually enjoy.

Indie and Avant Garde genre get the same reaction from me. I'm always apprehensive about them until I give them a shot.

Avant Garde is a tad bit different. I know I'm going to be in for some artsy fartsy crap and go in with that in mind. I always give music a chance and one time listen to see if they might change my mind but at times they live up to exactly what I think they will sound like.

I know some of the songs off of that Of Monsters and Men album. I've heard them in commercials or movies but I'm enjoying it so far.

[Lisnaholic]

DJChameleon has quite rightly opened a new Album Club thread. Well done!

So this is the new place to go: https://scd.community/index.php?topic=407.0#msg11754

In hopes of making a clear break and a fresh start, I'd like to clarify: the albums that got reviewed in this thread were just these three:-

The Sophtware Slump by Grandaddy (from Rubber Soul)
Zerospace by Kidneythieves (from DJChameleon)
My Head Is An Animal by Of Monsters And Men (from Mindy)

To me, the logical thing is to put any late-arriving reviews for those three albums here in this thread, but anything else should go to the new Album Club: Hard Reset thread.

EDIT: ...and following my own advice, here's a short, catching-up review of:

Zerospace by Kidneythieves (from DJChameleon)

Right from the start, I loved the fuzzy attacking guitar riff of Before I'm Dead and then comes the vocalist: for once not a disappointment, but an added bonus. She has that particular modern tone that conjures up the instant image: Hot Rebel Chick. So, not a particularly individualistic voice, but one that I'm happy to listen to throught this whole album. Her only mistake, imo, is to use the F-word in one or two songs. That's not a word I want to hear when I put on some music, but I'm sure it's not a prob for most listeners.
On the title track, Zerospace, we have a welcome respite from the musical intensity when the sound drops right off, just keeping the beat going before the sound comes powering back again to great effect.
That contrast of full-on loud bits and brief quieter passages works well on several tracks, of particular note on Serene Dream, which has a surprising moment of what sounds like cello. Nice. Also the track Crazy which is a slower-paced showcase for vocalist, Free Dominguez. (Yes, I liked this album enough to find out who Kidneythieves actually are.)
Another track that stood out to me was Black Bullet which starts with an unsettling stop-start kind of sound, but which, by the end of the track has resolved itself into a great closing riff.
So much to like about this album, especially if, like me, you enjoy the combination of heavy pulsing guitar+synth with soaring female vocals. Thanks for this rec, DJ; I will definitely be replaying this to get a clearer idea of my favourite tracks, etc.
9/10
 

[DJChameleon]

I forgot to review my own album.

I got into Kidneytheives because of that song, "Before I'm dead". It was on the soundtrack to Queen of the Damned which is a solid soundtrack overall.
It's definitely my favorite track from the entire album along with Crazy which is a cover from Patsy Cline but they put their own little spin on it because why not.

I'll be honest, it was a long time since I last heard this album and for some reason I wasn't feeling it overall. I was like damn I have to report back that I feel sorry for recommending this album to the club and torturing others to listen to it but I'm glad to see that Lisna enjoyed it. Around the time that this album came out I used to listen to industrial music heavily. Maybe I need to relisten to it and give it another chance but after Before I'm dead and a few tracks in, I just got bored of the sound overall. I don't know if I was maybe distracted while listening to it so I didn't get to catch all the nuisances but I walked away from the album thinking woof that was rough to get through. I did have great memories of hearing zerospace track and before I'm dead again. Especially the latter track with it's association to the movie. Free definitely helps the album though and this was probably the birth of me heading into symphonic metal which largely has female vocalists. I kept looking for more female vocalists with rock backing so this lead me to Evanescence which was the baby steps into Lacuna Coil and then I went down the rabbit hole. 2/5 from that first listen but I'd probably bump it up to a 3.5/5 after listening to it again.