Albums for Eternity with Bottle, the Curmudgeon

Target splurged on some anniversary editions, huh? Ok, eventually I'll get real pretentious and a/b the 55th anniversary remix of the posthumous Beatles album Abbey Road with my original, but tonight I just want to enjoy the debut album Hot Fuss by The Killers. The Killers of course have the distinction of hands down lifetime winner of best Christmas album, building a complete concept album about Santa trying to kill Brandon one holiday single/video per year, but who doesn't like Mr. Brightside? No lyric sheet, but you can easily understand all the words, so that doesn't really matter. What does matter are those quacking bass lines and synth leads. Fabulous. Fun fact, the album actually contains multiple demo recordings because they literally scrapped every song they were working on except Mr. Brightside after hearing Is This It by The Strokes. I already told you how that album completely changed the world of Alternative Rock, and this album is literal proof. I'd actual

Tonight's album is a special request from my friend Shauna Conway, and wow is it gorgeous. Mon Rovîa (more specifically "monroviaboy") is the artist, and his new EP Act 3: The Dying of Self is the album. Obviously we're also going to listen to Acts 1 and 2 as well, but longtime readers will know how much I adore listening to things out of order. I'm also a big fan of explaining the artistic context up front so that we never have to play the pseudo-musicological guessing game of Artistic Intent.  Janjay Lowe was adopted by Christian missionaries during the Liberian Civil War (technically 2 by proxy civil wars stretching from 1989 to 2003), now lives in Tennessee, says his primary musical influences are Bon Iver and Vampire Weekend, and plays Ukulele. I'm already hooked. You know Araminta Ross as Harriet Tubman, adopting her mother's name when she married John Tubman. That's the concept we're delving into with Act 3: The Dying of Self, a complex, mul

Do you like crusty, gargly, deathcore with random acoustic interludes that sounds like it was recorded by meth addicts in the room next door at a terrifying downtown extended stay motel? I know I do, and that's why I'm sharing Red Horse by Early Graves with you today. They are sadly no longer a band, calling it quits back in 2021, but that in no way means you can't listen to them or buy my copy for the unreasonably reasonable price of 15. Buy a couple more to save on shipping while you're at it.  Call me an elitist snob, but I don't think extreme metal should sound good or well produced. Played really well, sure, but shimmeringly open and polished to a chrome shine? He'll no, real metal should sound like you recorded it with an actual boom box tape recorder and a non-musical friend to cup the mic to prevent clipping. Bonus points for making me feel like i need a tetanus shot and strong antibiotics after listening to it. As for the concept of Red Horse, I'm g

Today we're checking out what we can of the new Linkin Park album From Zero. The scuttlebut is that they have a new lead singer who pisses on the grave of Chester Bennington. I doubt it, I listen to my ears not the internet. Now, The Emptiness Machine is definitely a confrontational lead off single. Mike Shinoda is the rapper, so we're already off to a rocky start from the functional perspective. It's also clearly the melody from The Final Masquerade, so that's real abrasive on first listen. Chester was the clean singer/screamer, and idunnohername has the impossible task of filling his shoes while not sounding too much like him. Thanks, Mike, her name is Emily Armstrong. The question is, can she be herself while filling Chester's role in the band? Um, yeah, she can. Review over, Emily is a totally acceptable replacement from a purely musical perspective. I can't help you if you wanted the Linkin Park brand to be buried in the Nu-Metal graveyard, and i really can

Even though a brand is little more than a prison cell, I'm a business, i need inventory, so yeah I wait for labels to put a bunch of stuff on clearance and grab them up. Half my No Sleep order has already hopped a brown truck all over the country. I'm not here for quick turn around, I'm here to own all the records in my inventory and sell them for a reasonable profit, however long that takes. So, in uploading the recent new batch of underground Hip Hop from Rhymesayers, I had to pull one out. Whenever they do their Mystery Box sale I buy all of them. But I made a promise to myself that if they send me Sa-Roc's The Sharecroppet's Daughter, I'm keeping it for myself. Yoink! Here it is, let's enjoy. So good. At its heart, The Sharecropper's Daughter is a self-empowerment album. Acknowledge what makes you you, help yourself move forward without compromising your goals, and be honest with yourself. There are guest rappers a plenty, but what makes Sa-Roc uniqu

I don't want to be morbid here, but we're at a point where Rock is dying. We're all only ordinary mortal men, yes even the women and the men who are women are men, so we can't help but say maybe Luck and Strange is the last David Gilmour album. What do we hope we're going to get? Do you want The Division Bell Part II? Part of me does, but that seems unfair. David Gilmour isn't beholden to me, he can make whatever kind of music he wants. Solo David Gilmour tends to be a lot like solo John Frusciante, if you're expecting that band they were in, then you might be highly disappointed. Then again, he is also David Gilmour, he's going to sing some dreamily philosophical wistfullness and punctuate it with several guitar solos so poignant they make you literally cry into your rum & coke and play the whole album again 3 or 17 times. Clapton can be God, as long as we all acknowledge Gilmour is 3 or 4 levels beyond the mundanity of such a paltry narcissistic de