I'm gradually relistening to the 2020 albums that really caught my attention and I can't be enthusiastic enough about this death metal/sludge metal cover album by Inter Arma, a band that I don't really know otherwise:
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Garbers Days Revisited by Inter Arma
Normally I try to avoid to put cover albums in my year chart but I gladly make an exception for this one. The way how they adapt the original songs and make them their own completely in an absolutely devastating way (this is after all a death metal band) is incredible and is taking these already fantastic songs not to another level but to another planet. The best attempts are their take on Ministry's Scarecrow, Neil Young's Southern Man (btw you can listen to some awesome guitar solos here), Hüsker Dü's The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill and Tom Petty's Runnin' Down The Dream. But also the rest is Ab Fab. The only exception is their terrible cover of Purple Rain. Highly recommended to anybody who is a fan of the originals and people into metal.
I wasn't too fond of it. The production was subpar and there were only a few clever moments.
I totally agree for the production on Purple Rain but not for the rest of the tracks.
Not an album, but Drakeo the Ruler - whose Cold Devil might be my favourite rap album of the past three or four years, even if I recall it performing particularly poorly in a previous tournament here - is finally out of jail, and his first song since (not including loosies or stuff he recorded through a phone) has arrived. The beat is a bit brighter and fuller than I expected, but everything else - the lack of intro; dismissive insults; hyper-specific gun threats; oddly endearing pop culture references; a whole lot of barely comprehensible yet inherently sinister mumbling - is straight out of the classic Drakeo playbook. His ability to ignore normal meter and lazily rap past the logical point of a beat whilst somehow remaining in the pocket recalls E-40 or Curren$y at times, but he's got a flow that's otherwise completely unique, even if you can hear traces of it in the work of young L.A. upstarts like Shoreline Mafia, Blueface, or the incredible BlueBucksClan. His is a fiercely regional style, immediately recognisable as Californian, but determinedly unreliant on well-worn West Coast tropes. He's also capable of putting together lines like this one: "This was back in my Gucci days, I turned to Jet Li and got blood on my Boosie fade", which is just a brilliantly evocative piece of writing. I'm kinda hoping that when BEA users dismissed him last time, it was because some of the nuances and intricacies of his performances just take some adjusting to, and that people will eventually take to him, because he's one of the best rappers alive and I can't wait to hear what he's got lined up next.
There are many valid reasons to completely ignore the existence of Kodak Black, but I do truly believe that's he's responsible for some of the best hip-hip of the past five or six years, and his new album Bill Israel is very much a return to form following a couple of largely disappointing efforts. He has one of the most distinctive voices in rap, he might be the best rapper working when it comes to finding wisdom in the most mundane of places (there's a reason known admirer Drake once described him as having a "birdseye view of life"), his flows are nimble and extremely catchy, and he absolutely floats over hazy, minimalist trap beats. He's a horrible human being, but as a songwriter he's a hopeless romantic and a wild boaster whose inspirations are equal parts Boosie and nursery rhymes. There are many valid reasons to ignore him, but Bill Israel is not one of them.
(This might be my morning motivation tune for the next couple weeks.) _________________ 2021 in full effect. Come drop me some recs. Y'all know what I like.
SpyglassResident MetalheadProfile The red dot on the map
I don't know when I'll get around to it but Steve Roach has a new album out: Tomorrow. It's 80 minutes, but it's progressive electronic so that's no surprise. _________________ Do it yourself and let me play my music: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=61802
New Angel Bat Dawid live album? That's certainly worth a spin. I hope you're wrong about the quality of it Hayden 😜 _________________ Overall chart Fake overall chart
New Angel Bat Dawid live album? That's certainly worth a spin. I hope you're wrong about the quality of it Hayden :P
I'm mixed on it. I dove into it right away once I found out about it, I was fond of Angel Bat Dawid's release last year, but this one didn't strike the chord I figured it would. It gets kinda messy, the vocals are a smidge caterwaul, and the actual mix is poor (the band is shoved way too far in the background... it's not that it's raw, it just feels very unprofessionally recorded). Played it all the way through, but it felt like I was chained to a chair in a concert hall. It has its moments, but I couldn't help but feel it sounded like someone making fun of Nina Simone.
It's different, ish, but even for a live album it's quite messy, and borders annoying from time-to-time.
Once again, I have a free jazz chart, none of my comments are about the genre itself. Just wasn't feeling this one.
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