Untraced by the world outside you

Continuing my trip up #album-of-the-day...

20.05.05 : Legends from Beyond the Galactic Terrovortex - Gloryhammer (2019)

Sigh, I've never heard of this album, but I'm not going to like it, am I?  

OK - maybe I should listen to it first?  And having actually done so, it's an "interesting" one and no mistake.  I didn't hate it, but I certainly don't feel the need to ever listen to it again.  I spent most of the album trying to a) decide what it reminded me of and b) decide if they were serious.  For the sound, I decided it's a cross between Europe's "Final Countdown", Les Miserables and Flight Of The Concords/Bill Bailey in metal mode - but as to their seriousness, I've still got absolutely no idea.  It's certainly been a musical education for me - possibly a little overblown for my tastes, but there are some serious skills on display.

The channel liked this one even when it wasn't expecting to - it was generally viewed as "acceptably cheesy" and I totally agree with the comment on the track titles having been created by a heavy metal track name generator (and the album cover was produced by a heavy metal album cover generator as well).  Wikipedia starts off with "After Earth was destroyed by the Hootsman in order to stop Zargothrax from summoning the Elder god Kor-Virliath, Zargothrax fled into the wormhole that was opened as a result" which leads me to believe it might not be 100% factually correct, but does seem to suggest they're serious about this stuff.  It also tells me the album made the top 10 in Germany and Switzerland - what strange countries they are!

"Customers also listened to" Turisas, Rumahoy, Powerwolf and Grail Knights - all of whom it will surprise you to hear do not have pictures of fluffy kittens on their album covers.  I didn't hate this and am perfectly for people to like it, as long as they don't expect me to do so.

20.05.06 : Lush - Snail Mail (2018)

This looks more up my street - but let's face it, pretty much anything is more up my street than Gloryhammer.  I think (but I'm not entirely sure) I listened to this when it came out and didn't mind it, but didn't hear enough to draw me back.  And yeah, that was pretty much the vibe I got off it - I like the general indie rock chick vibe (I was very much reminded of Juliana Hatfield or Liz Phair) but the songs, whilst being fine, don't quite have enough of something for me.  I did like "Full Control" though - she gets a bit more excited during the chorus which I liked.  If you like this, then check out the Soccer Mommy or Waxahatchee albums from last year - both in a similar vein (particularly the former).  One comment on the album cover - if Lush were to make an album called Snail Mail, it's not totally unbelievable they'd use the same design.

The channel liked this one as well, mostly from a position of unfamiliarity.  I didn't agree with the comment "This reminded me of Sonic Youth" because I liked this well enough and I very much don't like Sonic Youth.  Wikipedia has a surprising amount to say about the album, mostly about how much the critics loved it - it appeared on a lot of "best of 2018" end of year lists (and they REALLY wrote some nonsense about it).

"Customers also listened to" Soccer Mommy (go me!), Big Thief and Phoebe Bridger (and yeah, there's certainly a similarity there too).  I'm of the opinion that I should like this and I could get into it, but so far it feels it would take more effort than I'd be prepared to put it into it.

20.05.07 : Hot Dreams - Timber Timbre (2014)

Never heard of the album or the artist, so going in blind.  And well, it's an odd one and no mistake - it's like a sad cabaret singer backed by some vaguely uninterested (and often untuned) supporting players.  Some of the lyrics engaged me, but the overall effect was somewhat too detached for my liking.  It reminded me of Destroyer's album from last year (which I didn't like) and my thoughts on that were basically "he wants me to say he sounds like Bowie, but I'm only going to say he sounds like someone who wants to sound like Bowie" and that's also true here (with a sprinkling of Leonard Cohen as well).  Not for me, I'm afraid.  However, I very much like the album cover - that would definitely win the "best of the round" competition if there was one, which there isn't, so it doesn't.

The channel was generally positive about this and had an interesting selection of comments on it - "suitably weird" was my favourite!  Wikipedia has a few sentences about the album, but absolutely nothing of interest, unfortunately.  The groups Wikipedia entry tells me that their name (which I like) comes from the sound that they made whilst recording in a timber cabin (which is a surprisingly dull explanation - and I'm somewhat surprised every Canadian group doesn't use the same name).

"Customers also listened to" Nick Cave, Anna Calvi and Karen O - not sure I see the obvious links to the latter two.  Overall, it's just a bit too "huh?" for me, I think.

So this was a selection of relatively recent material - it's always good to listen to some of that modern music I don't know, but Snail Mail were the easy winner of this round for me.

20.04.30 - Three relatively laid back albums
20.05.11 - Three fine albums