The 10 Best Albums of Quarter 1, 2018

Quarter one is done!  Here are two handfuls of albums that have our full attention.

Jericho Sirens by Hot Snakes

Like dropping in on a Tsunami, Hot Snakes return like they never left! These guys pummel with such groove it could never be duplicated though many have tried. People always ask me, if you were in a band what would it sound like? It would sound like this shit below, Ride the Snakes! – Apache Slomo

 

 

Drift by The Men

The Men keep churning them out and they’re all slightly different, this one possibly being the biggest departure from the sound that they’re most known for, which is perhaps why I’m so enthralled by it.

 – MCG.

 

All at Once by Screaming Females  

I don’t know about you but just having an absolute fucking shred head dressed in a beautiful little package like Marissa Paternoster helps me sleep at night. I can start this album at any point, Agnes Martin or my favorite Soft Domination and end up in the same place which is in awe of this band.  – Apache Slomo

 

 

Virtue by The Voidz

Read our short review on this gem!

 – MCG.

 

Dave’s Dungeon by Avon 

This one fell in my lap like a gift from above and also because I do my homework. I knew the drum work sounded familiar and when I looked into it wasn’t surprised to hear Alfredo Hernandez ( Kyuss, QOTSA) is providing the sticksmanship. This is the desert boogie by way of London psych rock that I dream of.  – Apache Slomo

 

All This Will Be by Closer

Such an easy listen considering how in your face it is.  Beautiful chaos.

 – MCG.

 

Freedom’s Goblin by Ty Segall

My wife didn’t quite grasp the sheer raw talent of the all mighty Ty until I queued up Alta and You Say All the Nice Things, then she melted understanding that Ty takes the Beatles to a garage punk wonderland. I could spend all day with his catalogue and today I just might cause it makes me feel good and is now on Spotty! – Apache Slomo 

 

Room Inside the World by Ought

I love post-punk and I’m not afraid to obsessively listen to it, talk about it, and write about it.  Ought rides a slinky through the darkness on this one, twisting reality into dreams.

 – MCG.

 

Mindfucker by Monster Magnet

This one is for me, probably not your cup of tea and I’m not sure why! But as a kid who once walked into a Peaches (old record store chain, they were nice) in Fort Lauderdale, I took a chance of Dopes To Infinity and never looked back in anger. An absolute cosmic power house Dave Wyndorf opened my third eye and for that respects get paid and I devour new Magnet! – Apache Slomo

 

 

Basic Behaviour by FRIGS

More darkness, more angst, more brooding aggression; just the way it should be!

 – MCG.

 

The honorablest of mentions:

Cocoa Sugar by Young Fathers, August Greene by August Greene, Stone Woman by Charlotte Day Wilson

 

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Virtue by The Voidz: Nostalgia From the Future

As a brief preface, I’d just like to say that I’m just about as big of a fan of The Strokes as can be, and I am of the opinion that Julian Casablancas is one of the best songwriters since the millennium turned.  Is This It was one of the first non-rap albums I bought as a kid and now he can basically do no wrong in my book.  That said, my over exuberance for his latest creative effort could possibly be taken with a grain of salt.

Now that that is out of the way, I was a fan of The Voidz’ first album, 2014’s Tyranny, but still acknowledge the fact that it might not be the easiest listen for anyone other than someone who shares my opinion of him.  It’s a little messy (on purpose, of course), certainly rough around the edges, experimental, and a bit of a challenge to listen to.  The Voidz’ new album Virtue, which was released this past Friday (03.30.18) is more of a middle ground between his work with The Strokes and that first Voidz album.  In fact, I think it is a perfect medium between the two, taking the unforgettable hooks that made the former a worldwide sensation and the abrasive experimentation that made the latter such a challenge.  The same nostalgic feeling is still there, but this time it’s from the future.  I’m not ready to say this is better than the first two Strokes albums, that’d be crazy at this point and it is hard to imagine anything having the same enormous ripple effect on music as a whole that those two albums did, but I really fucking like how Casablancas and his friends are pushing themselves to create new things instead of recycling the formula he already knows will work.  Great artists evolve and try new things, and I’m glad one of my favorites keeps pushing himself in new directions.  I think this is one of the most interesting and fun albums of 2018 thus far.

 

 

– MCG

 

Relatives in Descent by Protomartyr

I’ve been listening to this album nonstop since it came out yesterday.  I’m a big fan of their previous two efforts but I think they really got everything to click with this one.  It’s perfectly controlled chaos.  It builds and crashes out of nowhere.  It’s the feeling of rolling down a mountain with no brakes while laughing uncontrollably.  It’s thrashable and it’s danceable at the same time.  This is a master class in post-punk.

Album Review: The War on Drugs – A Deeper Understanding

The War On Drugs’ music sets a certain mood very well.  I liken it to the feeling I got when I first heard Radiohead; it’s a calming, peaceful feeling that induces bouts of melancholy.  I’m not comparing The War On Drugs to Radiohead in any way, all that I’m saying is that I feel the same sort of self-reflecting existential dread when either band is playing.  It’s a strange feeling, very unique to certain experiences.  It’s heavy, it’s sad, it’s happy, and most of all it’s beautiful.

The War On Drugs’ previous two releases, Slave Ambient and Lost In The Dream are  great, and I have spent a fair amount of time with both of them.  It seems as though Adam Granduciel is a very meticulous person, at least with his art, and with this latest release he has compounded, concentrated, and improved upon everything he’s previously done, amounting to something truly epic.  If he was an artificial intelligence program, before now he was an extremely efficient one that got the job done just about perfectly, as he was programmed to do.  On A Deeper Understanding, he became self-aware, which allowed him to make the necessary adjustments to not only produce something as great as he is capable of once more, but to improve upon it in a way that was previously thought to be unattainable.  It’s a culmination of his lifetime experience as a musician that has been arranged and sequenced into a sprawling and absolutely gorgeous journey.

Take, for example, the slightly off-center highlight of the album, “Thinking of a Place”.  It was the first single released back in April of this year, and has been an unavoidable entity in my life since.  It’s eleven minutes long, and so in the traditional sense of a “single” it makes the least sense out of any song on the album, but it exists as a microcosm of the calculated wandering and transcendent perfection achieved on the album as a whole.

By stepping outside of his own box he was able to view everything from a new vantage point, shore up the weaknesses, and improve on the already unique and enthralling strengths.  It’s a great leap forward, which makes me wonder about where he can go from here.  I’m looking forward to bearing witness.

  A Deeper Understanding is out everywhere 08.25.17.

 – MCG.