Nightman Listens To – Punisher – Phoebe Bridges (2020 Series)

Greetings, Glancers! We’re back for another album I’ve never heard by an artist I’ve never heard of. At least that was the case when I first started this journey – but since then I have come to learn the name ‘Phoebe Bridgers’. I still don’t know who she is, what type of music she performs, and as far as I can tell I haven’t heard any of her songs. I do know that she provided dome vocals for the last Perfume Genius album I listened to – does that hint at her own sound?

Does this album artwork provide any additional foreknowledge? It seems to be someone in a skeleton outfit, standing in a stark, moon or desert like surrounding, looking up at the starry night. She looks very tiny. Nice colour contrasts. Does the red signify something is shining back at her? Like a UFO? If so, that’s like at least the third 2020 album artwork which has depicted such things. You know the drill – by the time I write the next paragraph, I’ll have heard the thing a few times.

Man, this is an album I so dearly wanted to love. There is so much to love for someone with my tastes and possibly with more time I would get to that point. However, it’s one of those albums where my feelings could go one of two ways; either I’ll completely fall for it, or the pieces which I don’t currently enjoy will swarm and force me backwards.

My first impression of the first few songs gave me some pause for concern; I was worried it was going to be too twee, too hipster. Like so many modern or recent artists of this introverted, lighter folk style, there is the risk that the entire lack of substance and focus on style (no different from the mainstream pop stars they enjoy mocking), and the pseudo-intellectual naval gazing would turn me off completely. You just know there’s going to be at least one person in the band with a beard and a ridiculous hairdo. These artists tend to follow a particular playing style, and the vocals are almost uniformly tepid. Thankfully, Punisher has a lot of lyrical depth and emotion to make Phoebe stand out from the crowd she may find herself associated with. Her vocals rarely show any dynamics or force or edge, but they are so earnestly fragile that they largely avoid falling into the twee category.

Speaking of the fragility of the vocals leads me to my prime impression of Phoebe, and the album as a whole. Whatever the aural equivalent of a double-take is, is how I reacted when I heard her voice for the first time. She sounds incredibly similar to Gemma Hayes. It’s not just the fragile softness, but it’s the tone, it’s the vocal intonations and inflections, the rasp and whisper. Like Gemma, Phoebe sounds like she’s right there in the room with you, singing directly into your ear and no-one else’s. I went as far as looking into Phoebe’s influences, because it seems impossible for someone to come along and sound this much like a doppelganger without having been influenced, but I couldn’t find anything to say she knows Gemma exists. So either this is all some ridiculous coincidence or there’s some knowing disguising of this emulation. Listen to something like Moon Song from this album, and then listen to something like This Is What You Do by Gemma Hayes. Two very different songs, but two very similar vocals. I’ll leave it to the reader to decide if such comparisons are warranted.

Even with the blatant comparison in how the two singers sound, Phoebe has a much more limited style at least on the evidence of this album. Admittedly I haven’t heard anything from her outside of this album and haven’t heard her perform live. Gemma has a much wider range with her vocals, even if she does remain in a similar style or genre for most of her output, and in the live setting Gemma has the ability to truly belt out some of the bigger choruses and giving them greater urgency over the studio recordings. Based again on this album alone, Phoebe has the edge when considering lyrics – these are more involved, more picturesque and cynical and poetic, and often darker than what Gemma does. Gemma is no slouch when it comes to lyrics, but these hit differently. I will add that I love Gemma’s lyrics – she’s one of my all time favourite artists – but Phoebe’s certainly stand out and have a more alluring quality.

Musically, the album did take a while to shine through for me. My initial listens were frustrated by the lack of variety. It’s an album which does take some effort and time for the musical depth and variance to bubble through, but even after many considered listens there remains a sameness to both the music and certainly the vocals. Phoebe has her style and her favoured inflections and melodies, and absolutely will not veer away from them. Breathy and letting notes fall off and drawl away for that lazy, almost incomplete resolution. Even in the more peppy, poppy songs like Kyoto which are one of the few occasions when her vocals are stretched, the same tricks are applied.

I mention this not because the sameness and lack of variety is an issue in itself, but because it results in a lack of melodic potency, which is one of the key characteristics of my enjoyment of any music. You can have as expressive and intelligent and interesting sounds as you want, but if the same melodies are repeated then my enjoyment will be limited. In isolation, many of these songs are strong and their emotion is potent – the title track, Halloween, Garden Song, I See You Chinese Satellite – but when taken on a listen through the entire album, that sameness does drain on me. Possibly it’s the placement of the songs, leaving the melodic highlights of Kyoto and Graceland Too too far apart, but the album feels like it needs another song of that ilk somewhere in the middle to scrape away some of that sameness.

If the melodies feel lacking in places, the lyrics remain a constant source of intrigue and interest. A wide array of topics and emotions are covered, and it’s never less than highly personal to the point of being invasive, and yet easily understood for anyone with a heart. It’s a stark and welcome departure from the majority of the albums I’ve listened to in my 2020 journey and is easily the best of those from a lyrical perspective. It’s often lyrics which have me invested in an artist and keep me coming back to them even if I’m not as enamoured by the music – get both right, even if only semi-consistently, and I’ll be a fan.

It’s an album then that did leave me somewhat frustrated, but that’s on me. I didn’t get what I wanted – sucks to be me. It’s a great album, but the lack of variety in the melodies and the lack of oomph in the vocals does keep me at a distance. As mentioned, I want to love it and I hope that further listens will pull me in further. It’s an album which has the potential to become a favourite, and Phoebe is an artist who could become a favourite. Even if it turns out that I don’t accept the whole album, I’ll certainly retain I Know The End, Graceland Too, and Kyoto in my playlist for their respective haunting, cathartic, beautiful, and joyous qualities.

SCORE

Sales: 3. As far as I can tell, it didn’t set the world on fire. I’m totally open to be corrected on this. It may more likely be a 4, but the lack of information online tells me that it wasn’t a smash.

Chart: 4. Top 10 in the UK, outisde the Billboard Top 40 in the US. Yet it was Top 10 in many of those ‘alternative’ charts and hovered around the Top 40 in other territories. Maybe this one should be 3 and Sales is a 4. Does it matter?

Critical: 4. Maybe gets to a 5, but we’ll let time decide. There’s always some newness bias with the latest critical darling.

Originality: 2. Possibly harsh, but beyond being of a younger generation and speaking about the world through those eyes, there isn’t anything revelatory in her lyrics and the music is similar to many many other artists.

Influence: 3. I think she has the voice and the intelligence to inspire others musically, perhaps more importantly even beyond music, but whether she has the reach to influence the next big thing, I don’t know.

Musical Ability: 3. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Lyrics: 5. Perhaps I’m being overly generous and this is a 4, but considering the complete embarrassment of most of what I read in lyrics these days, at least from the charts and from the 2020 albums I’ve heard, this is head and shoulders above anything else.

Melody: 3. Outside of 4-5 songs, the album recycles the same melodic styles.

Emotion: 4. It’s an open, honest, and dark album. There’s a focus on sadness, worry, anger and regret, but there is also love, joy, and tenderness.

Resilience/Lastibility: 3. It remains to be seen, but as mentioned above there’s always the risk that the latest critical darling can be ascribed an immense amount of hype, attention, and acclaim, only for that to be transferred over to the next new thing the moment critical darling A makes the slightest slip-up. Having said that, this does feel topical and seminal – a product of the Cov-Id times – and as such will be an important historical document in the future to show how people at large felt.

Vocals: 3. She adopts a style a like, and has an enjoyable voice, but doesn’t take it to any extremes or in any other direction.

Coherence: 4. Holds together well, and ties into the next category.

Mood: 4. It’s a mostly downbeat album, and that mood of sleepy darkness clicks in from the evocative instrumental opener, all the way through to the screaming closer. Phoebe manages to pull together darkness from her personal life and create a mood which is reminiscent of the chaos, closed in and closed off nature of the last few years.

Production: 4. Much of the album takes a close to minimalist approach, which suits the overall mood and fragility, but rather than being a quiet album, it instead accentuates the chaos of a mind trapped in a small room.

Effort: 3. A high 3, maybe on another day I’d go with 4 because of the lyrics, but on the musical front I’m not sure it gets a 4.

Relationship: 4. As I always preface this category with a direct comparison to myself – I’m not a white American twenty something woman, but I am a human in the 21st Century who lied through lockdown in a Developed nation. Even without Cov-Id, I can relate to isolation and pain.

Genre Relation: 4. Sounds like a lot of the other twee Indie folk stuff, but not as lily-livered or pretentious.

Authenticity: 4. I’ll allow a 4 here. I don’t doubt the feelings and experiences are authentic, but with this genre in this day and age, there’s so much which is false and so much which is reliant on the fact that the artist is a self-claimed quirk with no other talent beyond the ability to purchase cloths from the local Bohemian joint.

Personal: 4. Over time this could drop to a 3. I don’t think it will get to a 5 because so many of the songs follow the same pattern and tone – patterns and tones which don’t do a lot for me. But the lyrics and vocals and the handful of better songs are enough to warrant a 4, and if a couple of those others go up in my estimation, then a 5 may be within reach.

Miscellaneous: 3. The usual – let me know if there’s anything I should be aware of.

Total: 71/100

Let us know in the comments what you think of Punisher!

Nightman Listens To – Perfume Genius – Set My Heart On Fire Immediately (2020 Series)!

Greetings, Glancers, and welcome to my first newly written 2020 Series post of 2023. I know I’m dragging this shit out like a child being torn from its parents, but I hope to finish off the 2020 series in the next couple of months. This will be album 16 of 24 (it was 25 but I removed Harry Styles for some reason). So there’s not many to go, and I’ll prioritize getting this finished before starting something else. Stop starting and start stopping, as they say. I’ll likely do some sort of Round Up ranking post at the end too, ranking the 24 albums by score and maybe some general comments.

Perfume Genius then. Is this a band? A singer? Male, female, or miscellaneous? Was it in the Metal category? Generic Pop? I can’t be arsed pulling up my original post at this juncture, which would surely give me the answer I so dearly do not crave. The artwork points me in no particular direction – a topless gent who looks like he’s spent the time down a mineshaft. Is that the singer? An object of the singer’s affection? A rando? The album title suggests pain, heartache, emotion. Which is just what I need after two Hip Hop albums devoid of those. I’m going in to this completely cold – I don’t know a thing about it and I’ve never heard the name of the artist or the album at the time of writing. By the time I begin the next paragraph, I will have intimate knowledge of both having listened to the album a number of times. Lets do this.

Most of those above questions were answered in the album’s rather lovely opener. Not only is it smooth, melodic, atmospheric, and the sort of subtle opener I generally enjoy in an album, it has a potent lyric, vibe, and voice which had me hooked and hopeful. It’s a powerful opening song, but the album only matches or succeeds this potential two or three more times throughout the album’s run time. There’s a searing frustration permeating my overall thoughts, because so many songs just miss the mark. It’s like watching your favourite football team or played having a solid game, but consistently missing the final product – a misplaced pass, hitting the post, crossing the ball and sticking out your neck only for the ball to graze your scalp and go sailing out of play with no consequence. There are so many positives and potential, but whether it’s personal taste on my part or something unspoken lacking, none of the songs perfectly hit the mark for me.

It’s frustrating because it’s clear there’s talent here, and it’s clear this could have been more impactful for me. Not that my personal feelings matter to the artist, but they matter to me for the purpose of my review. Even with my frustrations, it has been a more positive than negative experience and a few songs have been added to my near-mythical car-driving playlist. The vocals are good throughout, even if they do touch on the nasal at various points, but it’s refreshing to hear something unfiltered these days and great to hear some heart, melody, and emotion in a pop album, especially after my adventures in Hip Hop recently.

In terms of highlights, outside of the opener, Jason, Borrowed Light, Your Body Changes Everything, and On The Floor are the ones to return to. Elsewhere, you can feel the Cocteau Twins influence in the messy Describe and the dull Just A Touch, and Moonbend is a clear riff on Sia’s In Between. I can’t stand Cocteau Twins and In Between is a much more interesting and powerful song, with Moonbend at best a whimpering copycat. Even with that song, and others, which didn’t grab me, there’s usually some minor point of interest – Moonbend going all Rosemary’s Baby in the middle for example. Like quite a few songs on the album, there are potent component parts, but the whole is often much duller than those fleeting moments.

Production wise, it’s top notch, which has generally been the case all the way through the 2020 albums I’ve heard so far. There’s a bit of a seaside vibe throughout and there are many good choices promoting variance in instrumentation, whether it be the harpischord in Jason or the electric pianos and organs in Borrowed Light. It’s and approach which reminds me of The Beatles where they would write the structure of their song on piano or guitar, then head into the studio and say ‘what about if we replace this part with that instrument‘ or ‘what’s that thing over there, how can we stick it into this song to give it something different’?

A few of the slower, lower register songs and more mumbled and artistic efforts don’t do much for me, and bring the overall vibe and quality down for me, making the album plod in places. Leave is a prime example – as a piece of work it’s interesting and has a lot going on in its instrumentation and lyrics, but it’s a slog to listen to. Its pace and sloth is all the more striking given it comes just before the bouncing On The Floor, with its gorgeous melodies and fun synth guitars. Your Body Changes Everything is a dramatic highlight. I would have played the vocals plain, acting as a counterpoint to the synthetic potency of the instrumentation. I’d have tried to push a little more of the drama into the vocals, really bite into those lyrics and put some theatricality into it, accentuating the emotion.

After this mid-point, the album falls into a mire of stunted melancholy. Again, it’s interesting, but a drag to sit through so many songs which never get out of first gear or whose moments of brilliance are all too brief. These are not bad songs, but in the context of a full album play through they bleed into each other and the latter half feels like one mumbled, pained ballad after another. Which, by the end of the album, leaves me feeling somewhat worn out, frustrated, and bored. Going back to the opening paragraph, the overriding feeling I get from the album is frustration – the songs I enjoyed are significantly better than the ones I didn’t, and those songs I fully enjoyed didn’t have enough to get up to an A Grade score. As a whole, it’s a strong enough album that I won’t mind hearing again in its entirety, and those standout songs are solid enough that I’d be curious to see what else the dude has done.

SCORE

Sales: 3. Didn’t set the world on fire (immediately), but seems to have done okay.

Chart: 3. Very middling, potentially a 2 depending on how you gauge these things, but it still charted Top 30 in US and UK.

Critical: 4. I struggle to give a 5 for such recent albums as critical thought can change even after a few years, but go on and give this a 5 if you want to. That’s because the album was very highly acclaimed, making many end of year charts and generally in the 90s%s in those aggregator sites.

Originality: 3. Personally, a low 3 for me. I didn’t find anything startlingly new here – it’s very much ‘just a pop album’ – but it doesn’t do much of what other pop albums these days do. It’s rich, it’s not over-produced, and it’s pure. In the grand scheme of things, maybe it’s a 2, but based on what I’ve heard recently, it gets a 3.

Influence: 2. I don’t see it influencing many people or musicians.

Musical Ability: 3. Fine, does the job.

Lyrics: 3. There’s a certain poetry there, and there’s a function to the lyrics in serving the vibe of each song. Nothing particularly fresh, no startling one-liners of new perspectives.

Melody: 3. A highish 3, but the best songs aren’t memorable enough for me and the monotonous songs don’t have enough.

Emotion: 4. Inward looking and exposing the artists fears and hopes, the album’s focus on and expression of emotion, is one of its plus points.

Lastibility: 3. We’ll see. The dude seems to pump out a lot of albums in a short space of time, and I don’t know enough about how this compares to those to say that this one, or any of them, will still be played ten years from now. Low 3 for me at the moment.

Vocals: 4. Smooth, expressive, good.

Coherence: 4. The ideas and the music hold together well.

Mood: 3. Drags in places, particularly in the second half, and not in a good way.

Production: 4. Solid.

Effort: 3. Fine.

Relationship: 2. In younger days this may have spoken to me more, but where I am currently I don’t think it gets to a 3.

Genre Relation: 3. This is a strange category – a crap album can get a high score because it sounds like everything else, but a great album can get a lower score because it stands apart. This is a decent, average album which sounds like many other pop albums.

Authenticity: 4. Dude seems to feel the words and the music, and put his whole being into the songs.

Personal: 3. Starting out I felt like the album was going to be a 4, but that second half drags things down. Repeated listens show that there are only a few highlights, but no stinkers.

Miscellaneous: 3. I’m happy for there to be a heartfelt male pop guy who doesn’t seem to be following the crowd and is happy to do his own thing.

Total: 64/100

I would have guessed this would get closer to the 70 mark, but this seems fair enough. Let us know your thoughts and scores in the comments!

Nightman Listens To – Lil Uzi Vert – Eternal Atake (2020 Series)!

Mother-fuh… Just when we thought it was safe to return to the 2020 series after last time’s dismal effort by Lil Baby, we have Lil Uzi Vert. Without hearing a single second of this guy’s music or voice, I’m already thinking it’s going to be crap based on his name alone. But let’s give him the due time and attention we give to everyone in this series, and who knows, surely it can’t be as bad as My Turn was. Right?

Even if it is better, I still anticipate cheap beats, lyrics about money, counting money, spending money, misogyny, coming from the streets, and more autotune. Such is the way with modern Hip Hop. That’s fine, but at least make it good. Does the album art give any more hints about what the music will be like? It looks futuristic, three people (or two people, and one disco-ball headed entity) standing on what appears to be a moon or an asteroid, staring at what appears to be Earth while an old school Space Saucer hovers in the distance. So… a little bit weird? Something Sci Fi or futuristic sounding? Leaving? Distance? Or is it just cool artwork with no meaning? By the time you read the next paragraph, I will have listened to the album multiple times.

It’s a better album than My Turn, lets get that out of the way. It suffers from the same flaws as Lil Baby’s stain – auto-tuned vocals, repetitive lyrics and lyrical themes which barely go beyond sex and money, but it improves in both areas and is significantly stronger in other key aspects. It’s still not very good, and it’s not something I’ll ever listen to again, but at least it’s not as obnoxiously awful.

I’d like to continue with the positives but it seems easier to continue scooping the tripe first. The name – we know how I feel about having ‘Lil’ in your name. Why not just call yourself Uzi Vert? A perfectly good name. The album has 18 tracks – way too many, but as previously discussed that’s what people do these days. The more songs on an album, the more streams it gets. It stifles creativity and encourages repetition. It encourages putting crap on an album which otherwise would have been left aside. But that’s just another example of the album fading as an art form. Although, as a positive, this album does feel like a coherent whole thanks to the production allowing one song to flow into the next and the little skits throughout.

Still, even as none of the songs are over the four minute mark, 18 songs is a lot. There is variety in the music, but not enough to keep from it feeling like a slog in a single sitting. A 14 or 15 song album would have likely given me a more positive outlook – throw out a few of the lesser tracks and you’d have an album I could see myself popping on in the car. I begrudgingly accept that most listeners will not be listening to this in a single sitting though, so this may not be a criticism depending on how you consume music.

The autotune is front and centre and Uzi often sounds like he raps, straining from the back of his throat. Like he’s taking an unending series of Lil Dumps. The breathless delivery is impressive, but when he’s going on one of his faster runs the lyrics often descend into repetition – the same lyric repeated and zero variance in the delivery, no change in tone or emotion. Which suggests he likely said it once in the studio and it was then copied and pasted. It probably sounds better live, if he can even do it live.

It’s unfortunate, because the album is peppered with moments which reveal a stronger voice; the little skits, the moments when he does allow himself to scramble free from the overly produced, digitized vocals which seem to populate the charts these days. Those moments show someone which a flair for humour and performance, but for 90% of the delivery this is blocked. As much as the vocal delivery is held on a leash and any imagination and individuality is dragged down, the lyrics allow this to escape. The humour is mostly juvenile, but I’m a juvenile kind of guy who isn’t averse to the odd chuckle over sexual double or single entendres. I get the impression that the guy wants to make a full blown comedy album, but either lacks the talent and scope to do it, or that he’s too afraid/been advised not to do it. You can be funny without talking about sex and the dude needs to find a way to write about other shit. But maybe this is all his life is – being rich and having sex. Eventually that gets incredibly dull for the listener.

I may not be giving the album enough credit when it comes to musical variety. Every song does have a different hook, whether that be a variance in the beat or a nod to a particular instrumental style. The impression that the album lacks variance comes from a mixture of the repetitive nature of the vocals, the similar lengths of each track, and the similar pacing and structure of each song. This is where the improvements could be made and to truly push the album into B grade territory. There’s good stuff here, but it’s prevented from coming out or restrained by reliance on cliche and marketability. It’s two steps forwards/one and a half steps backwards music while Lil Baby’s was like walking backwards into a volcano. A volcano of shit.

While songs do vary, none of them stand out. I could just as easily pick any of them as a single, or none of them. Each song seems designed to groove to – there’s nothing to chill to, nothing to completely bust out to. The vibe is one note and overall there is no peak, no trough. It cruises along, never going about 20 mph, like one of those chavs who circle beachside towns in their mutant Toyotas, except it doesn’t even have the decency to obnoxiously rev or impatiently overtake an elderly driver. It just rolls slowly along, doing little to draw attention to itself.

With that said, I struggle to recommend any individual songs as highlights, or to even recall which one is which after several listens. There’s the one with the funny bit. There’s the one with the sci-fi stuff. There’s the ones with a choir style backing. There’s the Backstreet Boys one. There’s the one that goes BUHLISSYBUHLISSYBUHLISSYBUHLISSY. There’s positives in how coherent it is, how connected the album is, and how it could be argued as being in the style of a concept album, but there’s negatives in there not being a stand-out and in there simply being too much of it. The greatest positive I can give the album is that at no point did it piss me off, have me skipping songs, or have me punching the stop button due it being crap. Like a certain other recently reviewed album by one of the Lil clan.

SCORE

Sales: 4. We’ll keep it a 4 because it’s so difficult assessing what sales even are these days. It’s platinum in the US, but has done significantly less well everywhere else. Few people outside of the US gave a toss.

Chart: 4. It stayed at the top of the charts for a couple of weeks in the US. It also topped the charts in Australia and Canada.

Critical: 4. Mostly positive, made many end of year lists.

Originality: 3. Not my area of expertise – to me there seems to have been an endless series of rap albums mixing Trap and synth-wave and other shite. But other critics have commented on it breaking new ground, so who am I to argue.

Influence: 3. I guess. It sold lots. Plenty of kids will hear it and dream about being rich and ‘playing with kittens’.

Musical Ability: 3. Sure.

Lyrics: 3. Thematically, there’s a limited range. But stylistically, a fair amount of flair, personality, and humour.

Melody: 3. A solid set of semi-decent hooks and moments, frequently brought down by greater moments of repetition and monotony.

Emotion: 3. I’m being generous with the 3, it’s maybe a 2. But I rate humour highly, so any album which clearly is trying to be funny, and sometimes succeeding, gets an extra half-point from me.

Lastibility: 3. People who like this sort of thing will surely keep listening.

Vocals: 3. They’re fine. Nothing special, sounds like every other person who performs in this style.

Coherence: 3. Holds together nicely with some songs flowing neatly into the next, and the little skits suggesting a running story.

Mood: 3. Fun, stick it on with friends. Not much else.

Production: 4. Very solid, very sci-fi oriented with samples in the same vein. As always, the digital beats never pack enough punch.

Effort: 3. No comment. Except that one.

Relationship: 2. It’s the humour which connects me. Not much else in the lyrics or music I can relate to.

Genre Relation: 4. For better or worse, it sounds like everything else.

Authenticity: 3. Sure. Though at some point all this crap about shagging a thousand women a week and buying Lambos loses its credibility.

Personal: 3. Do I go 2 or 3? It seems odd to say I’ll never listen to an album that I’ve rated a 3 again, but I won’t. It’s a very low 3. I can appreciate it for what it is and understand that others will love it, but within a week of this being posted I doubt I’ll be able to recall a single melody. Still, I mostly enjoyed it while listening.

Miscellaneous: 2. Decent artwork. A double album version was released a week later. Not enough to get a 3.

Total: 63/100

A decent overall score considering what other albums have been getting. Let us know in the comments what you think of Eternal Atake!

Nightman Listens To – Lil Baby – My Turn (2020 Series)!

Greetings, Glancers! I now anticipate that my reviews of the best albums of 2020 will be complete around 2030, with me posting roughly two each year. I know I’m slow, it’s just that I like jumping from thing to thing. Which isn’t great for anyone who’s following or anticipating any particular series. Forgiveness, please.

But I have a new one for you today! Some chump who made the decision to call himself ‘Lil Baby’. I can’t fucking stand anyone who puts ‘Lil’ in their name. Who does that? And there’s so many of them. Don’t. Don’t do that. It’s not cute. It’s not clever. It’s not anything beyond a guarantee that I’ll never listen to anything you make and ridicule you without any evidence to support what I’m saying, and I won’t even care.

In spite of the above biased nonsense, I am here today to listen to Lil Baby’s My Turn. As he so shrewdly predicted back when he wrote this album, it is now his turn to be heard and reviewed by me. It goes without any glimmer of hyperbole to say that me posting about him is the single most significant moment of his life thus far, and that everything will be downhill. In many ways he is fortunate to have the opportunity of gaining my attention for the briefest of moments, to have his turn. After all, my time is limited and there’s only so much music I can listen to. He may even gain a new fan.

At the time of writing, I know nothing about him. He may not even be a ‘he’. But I’m assuming he is. And I’m assuming this will be some sort of hip hop album, not a genre I pretend to be educated in. Outside of Public Enemy and Eminem and a bunch of random singles from the last 40 years, I know next to nothing. Maybe he’ll convert me. Maybe I’ll end up making a Youtube React channel – Metal Fan Reacts To Hip Hop – the opposite of all of that junk that’s already out there. Or maybe it’ll be crap and I’ll hate it, which seems more likely. By the time we jump to the next paragraph, I’ll have listened to the album several times.

Before we get into the meat of the album, such as it is, let’s talk about that album artwork. To its credit, it doesn’t exactly scream Hip Hop. It looks like a classic piece of art, a pastoral piece depicting goats (lambs?) frolicking on rocks beside the sea. Except some modern dude has been pasted into the middle of it. Something to do with the old clashing with the new? The streets meeting the country? Escapism? Peace? It’s eye-catching. Good cover. None of what it conveys comes across in the album.

Lyrically, it could be cynically argued that it’s a checklist of Rap cliches, with opener Get Ugly covering all the bases; coming from the hood, being poor, hustling, getting rich, material goods, gold diggers, haters, name-dropping, mocking others for having less, etc. It’s embarrassing when someone who knows as little about the genre as I do could have guessed that each and every one of these would come up – and little else. It’s hard to latch on to or appreciate any themes when it’s all the same shtick we’ve heard a billion times. It’s difficult to care about any of it when every other rapper has been telling the same stories since day 1. There’s nothing new and nothing unique about how it’s written or delivered.

As limited as the range of subject matter is, the delivery is done with pace and skill. The guy seems talented to someone like me with little experience of the genre. It’s unfortunate that the voice, when not buried under auto-tune, is either whining or mumbling. It’s a far cry from the clarity and depth of Chuck D, the satirical vitriol of Eminem, or even the crisp, unavoidable delivery of Ice T, Tupac, or Dre. But those guys are from another era. Maybe this just how we do now.

On the less cynical side, I’m at least aware that Rap lyrics have plenty of poetic techniques which don’t really appear in other genres. I couldn’t tell you what they’re called or how to differentiate from them because when someone tries to explain them to me I usually fade to grey and start thinking about boobs instead. But I know they exist. Trying to read the lyrics off the screen doesn’t work like it does in a rock or pop song. The syntax is all ‘wrong’. Lines rhyme unconventionally, there’s heavy use of slang, possibly personal usage of, abbreviations of, and changes to existing slang, and plenty of what (in my slang) we would call Shleggin. Bitch, I ain’t ’bout to ‘splain that. If that’s what you’re in to, if you enjoy staying in your lane and not being challenged, then this is a perfectly apt and uninspiring effort.

We’re just going to have to live with Auto Tune at this point. I don’t instantly hate it. It’s another way to express yourself. But how is it being used here? Why make the decision to use it? It doesn’t seem like a creative decision. It seems more like following a crowd. It seems like you’re afraid of your own voice, like you don’t believe in your own talent or that you’re admitting your voice is crap, so you need to wrap it in digitized shrouds. How would it sound without Autotune? Prove me wrong. Have the balls to show yourself. I guarantee peope will respect you more for it. Rapping, singing, performing is a talent. Not everyone can do it. It’s exposing. If you’re going to be a performer, then be honest, be real, don’t hide.

Beyond the autotune, the vocals are monotone. Regular glancers will know I thrive on emotion and melody in music. I can tolerate a monotone, emotionless approach to vocals if the surrounding music is powerful, or if the lyrics have something vital to say. The lyrics are the same old shite, so we can check that off the list. The music on the other hand, is good. There are a lot of positives in the musical approach and the production. On a personal level the beats are too prominent. I get that most hip-hop fans will be looking for that beat and rank it higher than I would. As prominent as the beats are, they’re repetitive, feel cheap, and are the weakest part of the overall production.

The underlying music deserves better. It creates a sense of threat and paranoia. That darker vibe created by the faux orchestra does set the album aside from most hip-hop efforts I have heard. The best moments of the album are when the music is allowed to breathe, free of cheap beats, free of mumbling vocals. The vocals and autotune brings things down – autotune has a childish tag attached to it like stink. You can’t maintain threat or quality when you’re being childish. Your attempts at being serious are dismissed.

The whole album is very consistent, in tone, in quality. This has a downside – it’s an hour long. 20 tracks. There’s no need for the album to be this long. There’s a much stronger 12 track album in year. What would you cut? The songs are so interchangeable that it really wouldn’t matter – you wouldn’t lose anything by cutting any songs, and you’d be left with a more manageable, restrained whole. It just keeps going, song by song with little variance outside of a couple of more chilled songs or those with an interesting intro, such as Emotionally Scarred or the backing piano in Sum 2 Prove.

A fairly sorry effort then. We’ve heard it all before, from more talented people, from one hit wonder chart hacks, from the early 80s all the way through to today. It’s a poor reflection of today’s music and audiences if this is ranked as one of the best albums of the year. It’s an album with no surprises, nothing to say, nothing to hear, and little to recommend it. There’s an interesting approach to the music, but it’s clawed back by a litany of cliches and crowd-following platitudes that anything positive is picked clean off the bones.

SCORE

Sales: 4. There’s no escaping the success of the album, going 4 times platinum in the US. It was apparently ‘the most consumed album of 2020’ in the US too, whatever that means. Whether those sales last over time, we’ll see.

Chart: 4. It made to the top of the charts, twice, and stayed in the Top Ten for months. Around the world – less successful.

Critical: 4. Mostly positive, made many end of year lists, but plenty of vocal detractors too.

Originality: 2. I don’t think you can go higher than 3 here. Admittedly, I’m not an expert on the genre and maybe this did change the game. But rating it against other albums I have heard in the genre, it’s noticeably weaker on all accounts. I would give it a 1, but the music kicks it to a 2.

Influence: 2. No idea. I can’t imagine something so bland and unoriginal and similar to everything else would be very influential.

Musical Ability: 3. Sure.

Lyrics: 2. It’s the same crap we’ve heard in any chart friendly Hip Hop album ever.

Melody: 2. Vocally, it’s a 1. Musically, there are a few interesting moments and rhythms, but nothing you’re going to remember.

Emotion: 1. Any emotion is drowned out by the monotone and autotune approach.

Lastibility: 3. People who like this sort of thing will surely keep listening.

Vocals: 2. Not great. Objectively bad. Flow, is that what we call it? That’s fine, but outside of the rhythm of delivery, by any of the vocalists, it’s poor stuff.

Coherence: 3. The album holds together well. I could go 4 here, except there’s a minimum of five songs too many.

Mood: 2. A shorter album and a less monotone approach would have pushed this up. There’s the makings of a solid, ominous mood.

Production: 3. I would have gone 4 if not for the focus on and cheapness of the beats, and the repeated sticky keys noises.

Effort: 3. I’m sure everyone involved tried their lil hearts out.

Relationship: 1. How do I, as a white, 30 something male from Northern Ireland who grew up in a relatively affluent area of a literal warzone and ignored it all by listening to pop, rock, and metal music relate to this? Not at all.

Genre Relation: 4. For better or worse, it sounds like everything else.

Authenticity: 3. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. It all sounds wanky to me, but I’m sure he means it.

Personal: 1. One of the worst albums I’ve heard in my 2020 journey so far. Nothing here I’d choose to listen to again.

Miscellaneous: 2. It’s a nice piece of cover artwork.

Total: 51/100

Let us know in the comments what you think of My Turn!

Nightman Listens To – Lady Gaga – Chromatica (2020 Series)!

Greetings, Glancers! This could be a biggie Out of all of the pop acts on the 2020 Series list, Gaga is probably the biggest. It’s her or Taylor Swift, right? They’ve both been around for ages and both have a bunch of hits. I can’t actually name a single Taylor Swift song, but I can tell you a few by Gaga. I can’t say I’ve ever enjoyed any of those songs – Poker Face…. the one from The Oscar…. the one about glory… but they’re fine. She seems like a good vocalist, she has her own visual style, plus she claims to enjoy a bit of Metal. If she had come up when I was a teenager, I probably would have had much stronger words for her one way or the other. But I’m old and I don’t care. Now, it’s all about the music. Does it move me? Does it challenge me? Does it beckon me to stretch these gnarled joints and shuffle them about in a pseudo-rhythmic mockery of dance? I wouldn’t say I have high hopes for this one, but there’s a bit of anticipation around it. I’ve never listened to a Gaga album before, and most of the pop albums from 2020 I’ve listened to have been okay. Pleasant. The odd bop. Nothing on the levels of what I personally love in pop, but not bad. Lets see what Gaga has to say for herself.

I can’t say I’ve paid attention to any of Gaga’s previous album covers, but I do know she’s into fashion and image, and has a defined style. This all seems a little raunchy, a little BDSM, a little cyber-witchy. Lots of spikes and sparkles. Does this imagery bleed into the music, the lyrics, themes, tone, and atmosphere?

Looking down the track-list I don’t recognise a single song, but I’m immediately curious to find out if this is an attempt at a pop concept album. A few of the song names hint at this, but plenty of pop acts over the years have attempted similar things to little or no real effect. Gaga sure has the clout, and hopefully the creativity to give it a shot – to make something more than just another pop album. By the time you read the next paragraph, I will know for sure.

Chromatica is just another pop album, but it’s a very good pop album. It’s brazen in its confidence and displays songwriters at the peak of their craft, and while its aspirations at being a full blown traditional Concept album fall short, it has enough thematic through-lines that we know it’s an album with something to say, an album which is as much a journey of catharsis as it is a batch of dancefloor favourites. I knew nothing about Gaga’s life before this album, beyond that time she wore a meat suit and that time she sang at The Oscars, but having lived in this album’s orbit for some time I feel closer to her know as a human and artist.

Chromatica follows the similar signature moves as many of the other pop albums from 2020 I’ve listened to so far, particularly how it wears its influences on its sleeves. There’s no escaping the comparisons to Madonna, something I understand has plagued Gaga her whole career. There are worse artists to be compared to, but every artist wants to stand on the quality of their own input instead of being labelled a knock-off. There are obvious call backs to Vogue era Madonna, but they are respectful, knowing, and are merely used as a jumping off point to make something new. This is where Chromatica succeeds over those other 2020 throwbacks; this is not a throwback, it’s a forward thinking dance pop album with one stiletto firmly planted in the 90s.

What I was most interested in when I wrote the intro to this post was whether or not this was a Concept album. The answer likely depends on what you think a Concept album should be – is it a series of songs loosely based around the same idea or topic, is it a full narrative with characters, a beginning, and ending? Chromatica is closer to the first definition – there isn’t a set narrative with the lyrics telling a clear story, but the songs and lyrics do still tell the story of Gaga’s journey through pain and out the other side. The musical threads weave a chronology from Disco through synth-pop to the House inspired underground movement of the 90s and the expansion of EDM, but it never loses its focus on melody and fun, even as each of the genres it cribs from often looked towards more experimental ends. It’s not enough to say that musical connective tissue makes a Concept album – after all, all albums without exception have the same connective tissue. A Concept album tends to have recurring motifs – snippets of the same musical notes repeating at different points throughout the album, the tone of the instruments unwavering in their commitment to the album’s atmosphere, and songs often running into one another making it difficult to determine when one ends and the next begins. Chromatica touches on these points in a cursory way – there’s a bit of sound bleeding from track to track but in terms of tone and motif there is little to suggest a wider Concept.

Yet, the album does hold together, conceptually. The three title-track instrumental interludes seemingly break the album into three acts. Musically, they’re not obviously distinct and thematically they chart an uneven, non-linear journey. That journey starts in a place of reflection, uncertainty, and even hope, proceeds to a darker, more angry middle, and concludes in a finale which attempts to reconcile with the past and to heal. Throughout each act there’s a inward search for answers, a self-loathing kink, and some accusations pointed squarely at others, an in each act there’s a clawing defiance that we can all be better, we can overcome and move on.

I would have preferred more variance in the album – most of the songs are upbeat, up-tempo floor fillers and as such early listens feel repetitive with only a handful of songs standing apart. With additional listens and examinations of the lyrics those subtle variances begin to drip out, never becoming a downpour. My early standouts remain my favourites – Fun Tonight and Sine From Above are the GOATs, with a few struggling to get that bronze position. Stupid Love is ridiculously catchy and even with its annoying quirks it nuzzles its way into your brain-meat. Alice is a fun, brief Conceptual opener with well-worn lyrical metaphors worn proudly while Rain On Me brings the always youthful spirit and vocals of Ariana Grande to an already energetic tragic tale.  There isn’t a weak link – from the instrumental linking tracks to the less eventful non-singles, there is always something to enjoy; a thumping beat, a neat vocal, a jarring lyric which opposes the care-free action of the music.

While the lyrics never scratch my personal itch of being raw, personal, and unique, as a whole they present a not-quite defeated heroine punching her way through the soil and back to life. There are recurring references to identity and uncertainty, escape and rescue, freedom and feeling trapped, frustration and death, addiction and honesty. Having not paid any real attention to Gaga’s music or lyrics previously, I can’t say if this is a step up, down, or sideways for her as an artist. Thematically she has a range to write about here, but the next level in her evolution could be to nail the lyrics in a more overt poetic fashion. That’s not necessary by any means, but from my personal standpoint, that’s what increases my connection to an artist.

You’re going to question the necessity of each song in any album that is sixteen tracks long – the three instrumental pieces are brief and bridge the gaps between each section of the album, and justify their position. Neither is the most breath-taking or interesting piece of music, but they’re short and inoffensive. 911 is about as average as the album gets and is skippable outside of the Concept, Plastic Doll is better but forgettable amidst everything else, and Sour Candy is the best of a dull mid album sequence due to it’s interesting structure. Enigma isn’t quite the anthem it wants to be – it’s close, but the chorus doesn’t live up to the hype of the verse and lead in, while Replay fuses any number of genres and hits together to make a solid dance mashup. The final three songs are a stellar conclusion, led by the album’s high mark Sine From Above. I’m not Elton John fan, and I didn’t recognise him until I read that it was him. It’s a furious, euphoric club classic the likes of which you’d expect from Sweden’s hit-makers, hitting the sweet spot of melody and emotion which makes music special. 1000 Doves is sweet and hopeful and feels more like an album closer than the Vogue sequel Babylon. Babylon isn’t exactly a dud closer because of the fun lyrics and antics going on in the production, but it isn’t a floor filling or emotive climax.

As far as my first Gaga experience goes, this was mostly positive. I can see why she’s adored, I can see myself listening to roughly half of the songs regularly in the future, and there’s enough good stuff here to make me curious about the rest of her discography. I’m also curious to see how I score the album in relation to Jessie Ware’s album – both ostensibly pop albums with similar tones.

ALBUM SCORE

Sales: 4. This will likely increase to a 5 over time, but at the moment it’s difficult to determine sales. It seems to be around 1 million worldwide, low when comparing it to A Star Is Born’s 6 million sales.

Chart: 5. As easy a five as you’ll ever get. Number 1 in Australia, Canada, France, Italy, UK, US, and others. Top 5 in most Countries which buy music.

Critical: 4. I feel like I need to be harsh here otherwise most albums in this series will get a 5 by nature of being included in the series. The album didn’t get many Number 1 Best Of The Year picks, but plenty of top 10s. While praise was positive, it wasn’t super gushing.

Originality: 3. You could go 2 here, I don’t think you can go higher than 3. It’s another album taking its cues heavily from previous artists and periods of time. That’s fine, but it doesn’t do anything particularly innovative to bring that time period up to date.

Influence: 3. I imagine anything Gaga does will be influential in the pop landscape – along with some of the other retro-type pop albums of 2020, there seems to be a backwards looking movement. I can’t say whether this individual album will do anything to influence other artists more than any of Gaga’s previous work already has.

Musical Ability: 3. It follows a tried and true approach with little musical variation. Everyone knows what they’re doing.

Lyrics: 3. The album has lyrics. They’re fine. Other may enjoy them more and take the score to a four. It’s certainly not a two, but not personal enough for me to get higher.

Melody: 3. Possibly harsh, but most of the solid melodies miss out on being quite as anthemic or ear-bait as I’d like. I can see plenty going for a 5 here, for me it’s close to a 4.

Emotion: 4. I’m happy to go 4 here. There’s a range of emotion which is often hidden by the music rather than accentuated by it, but those emotions bubble up with further examination.

Lastibility: 4. It’s a solid collection of floor-fillers, good for summer driving and winter clubbing. The singles will likely live on and be recalled in years to come.

Vocals: 3. I’m a little disappointed here, hence the 3. I know Gaga can wail, but there’s not much of that in this album. There are a few nasal moments too, and quite a few instances of one of my biggest pet hates; putting an ‘o’ sound in front of an ‘I’ sound, to make a weird Irish/Cockney ‘oi’ disaster. It’s one of the reasons I could never get invested in certain sections of Punk, with their obnoxious ‘oi oi oi’ chants. Even the otherwise excellent Sine From Above suffers from it.

Coherence: 4. Ignoring the assumption that it’s a Concept album, it holds together well in terms of genre, atmosphere, and tone. Taking the Concept into consideration, its coherence runs deeper, even if there isn’t a pure narrative thread from start to finish.

Mood: 3. Go 4 here if you must, but for me to give a higher score in this category – I need to feel it. Even with the Concept and the emotion involved, this is primarily a dance record and there’s only so much mileage in in Mood I can get out of it.

Production: 5. There modern day pop albums know how to sound good. I don’t know shit about Production, but I couldn’t find any significant faults here.

Effort: 4. Gaga seems to pump out albums very quickly, so she’s driven and still at a personal peak. This takes inherent effort. Add in the push to make this a personal Concept album and you can imagine this took more effort than just another Pop album.

Relationship: 3. The universal personal stuff I can relate to, but more so I can relate to the artist wearing her heart on her sleeve and exposing herself, regardless of the specific details. I don’t think she went personal enough for me to give this a higher score.

Genre Relation: 4. It sounds like a lot of the other pop albums I’ve heard this year, and aside from the obvious improvements in tech, it sounds like the early 90s albums it draws inspiration from.

Authenticity: 4. I see no evidence to doubt its sincerity, either when acknowledging its influences or being open about its emotions.

Personal: 4. It’s a lowish 4. I don’t think I can go three because I enjoyed it more, as a whole, than some of the other albums I’ve given a 3. But because it lacks 1 or 2 more big chorus bangers, it’s a low 4. Still, it’s an enjoyable modern pop album which I can see myself listening to again – that’s something.

Miscellaneous: 4. A rare 4 in this category, because a big all guns blazing tour followed, along with one of those re-release remix albums too.

Total: 74/100

Is this our highest scoring album so far? If so, I wasn’t expecting it to be, but I guess it’s justified. I think it’s maybe a match with Future Nostalgia, which is fairly apt.  Will anything else top this score? There are plenty more albums remaining on my 2020 list, so stick around to be find out! Let us know your thoughts on Chromatica below!

Nightman Listens To Ghostmane – Anti-Icon (2020 Series)!

Greetings, Glancers! I truly have not the slightest idea what this is. I checked my 2020 albums list to see what I had to listen to next, I saw the name, I clicked ‘Create post’, and I started typing this sentence. Based on the name, I’m guessing either Metal or Rap. As part of my intro, I typically Google the album name to pull up the artwork, and sometimes that tells me something about the artist, such as the genre, where they’re from, some snippet of information which sheds some light on a previously unheard of band or person. Lets see what we find with this one….Googles…sees American singer… paint and piercings… so… Metal?

Bloody arms grabbing one of those old styley torture masks. Self-flagellation? Ripping the head off some Slipknot dude? Random violent image for shock purposes. Is the helmet a symbol of the icon we are meant to be anti about? Lets just get into it, and lets hope it’s good. Oh look, the songs are very short. Yes, the songs are short. In many ways it’s an unusual album, the brevity of each each track being part of that strangeness. There’s a fair amount of diversity, yet it all feels very samey; there are the Nu Metal inspired songs, the Industrial ones, the Rap oriented ones. Some songs have clean vocals, some have growls, and some have that irritating yapping which made Nu-Metal so detestable. The variety feels shoehorned in rather than substantial, and yet it’s not a yawnsome experience. The sub three minute nature of the majority of the songs means no particular annoying factor gains too much focus, yet they feel so rushed together and free from real creativity or emotion lead to a giant shrug of the shoulders for most of the run time. It’s like hearing some local rock band being hyped up as the saviour or your Country’s next big thing, but when you watch them live you spend most of the time thinking you’ve seen it all before and ignoring what talent they may genuinely have.

Showmanship and Production are two of the major positives – the dude wants to be the next Manson or Ghost or whatever, and seems to have the charisma and social media know how to entrap a new breed of listener, and the Production is top rate, mixing a lot of the digital cut up quirks we’ve already seen many Metal artists showcase in this 2020 series so far, with guitars crunching and stuttering into a distant chaotic fog, and vocals buffering in and out of sequence with a viral intensity. Plenty of songs achieve an atmospheric atmosphere – the opener being a booming, suitably ominous intro like a descent into some cavernous industrial underworld. Still, I can’t help but shake the feeling that there is absolutely nothing new here. From the Fred Durst whining raps which sound like the poor man is curling out a particularly raw turd to the blatant Disturbed and NIN rip-offs, to the nods to such weak adolescent bedroom door slam anthems of Linkin Park, there isn’t a trace of feeling; the whole album feels like a publicity stunt. The only glimmer of honesty comes with album closer Falling Down, a Something In The Way – esque conclusion and the album’s only real moment of calm, which neatly ties in with the throbbing beats of the opening track. Elsewhere, Vagabond is a great highlight reel for the album, packing in everything you need to hear in under two minutes.

Ghostmane is a talented enough performer, assuming he’s the sole vocalist and plays some guitar, and isn’t afraid to mix up the pacing with an instrumental track or introducing some mumblecore elements to his raps. The raps, the vocals are decent enough when we’re not resorting to the aforementioned Durst mewling. The lyrics are fine for this type of thing, but if you want to get the point across that you’re suffering, you’re in pain, that life is shit, there are more poetic ways to do it than screaming ‘I don’t love you anymore’. In fairness, the topics here run the usual gauntlet from suicide to being angry about the state of society and fame, to drugs, and back to suicide – all the sorts of things an edgy young audience will be enticed by, and maybe he doesn’t need to be particularly incisive with his pen – just enough of a rebellious slogan that someone pissed off at the world can be sucked in by. Of course I don’t know anything about the dude or his band, and I’m sure the stuff he’s talking about is coming from the heart. As a Metal fan, that’s something I can appreciate, but the message is more powerful when it’s delivered in a more personal way. I’m still waiting for that killer 2020 Metal album. Outside of a couple of interesting moments and meshing of styles, this album did nothing for me. It’s loud, the guy has good presence, and the Production is excellent – I’m sure it’s the sort of thing which will inspire angry young things to get into Metal, though it may be too abrasive for the masses.

Album Score

Sales: 1. There’s no offiicial Wiki entry for the album, and that’s usuallymy go to for a lot of this sort of information. Best I can tell is that the album sold in very low numbers – less than 5-10 thousand copies. It’s an Indie release, which you could take into account, but I struggle to justify giving even a 2 here. 

Chart: 2. This is barely any better. But it did seem to momentarily hit Top 40. For a Metal album, that’s not too bad, and for an independent artist that’s the exposure you need. Still, it hardly set the charts alight Worldwide or anywhere in particular. 

Critical: 4. Generally well received by the Metal and Rock reviewers, and mainly positive from everyone else. A solid 4. 

Originality: 3. 2-4 is the range here, depending on your own bias and knowledge of music. I’d say this is closer to a 2 than a 4, but while most of what is on display has been done both better and a lot worse before, I suppose it’s a modern spin on those. 

Influence: 2. I fail to see how much impact this particular album will have given it’s limited ales and accessibility. Someone will hear it and maybe be influenced, but will that lead to anything worthwhile. I think the influence will come from the artist’s body of work rather than this single product. 

Musical Ability: 3. Nothing amazing, nothing exciting, but nothing it’s easy to point to as poor. 

Lyrics: 3. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say it’s all personal to him, but for the most part the lyrics didn’t connect with me or were hitting the nose too readily. 

Melody: 2. Little to latch on to, but some chanty shouty moments the kids will enjoy. 

Emotion: 3. I didn’t feel much but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt once more. This is a low 3.

Lastibility: 2: I can’t see me ever listening to this again, and with the rate the guy seems to be pumping out material, whatever fans he picks up will likely focus on the new thing more than the old. I could be wrong, but I don’t see this still being talked about in a few years. 

Vocals: 3. The Durst stuff is bad enough to warrant a 2, but on the whole I think a 3 is deserved. 

Coherence: 3. I could be tempted to go 4, because even with the jumping between genres, there’s still a sense of anger and of grim industrial sounds. But I don’t think it flows particularly well and the jumping from genre to genre feels sporadic.

Mood: 4. I’ll give a 4 to mood as the atmospheric aspects are notable. Metal relies on mood and atmosphere heavily, more than many other genres. 

Production: 4. All good, especially for an Indie release.

Effort: 3. Shorter songs – doesn’t always mean less effort – but many of these songs are under three minutes and aren’t too dissimilar.

Relationship: 2. As much as a Metal fan as I am, this felt like a step away from my preferences. I’m not a Nu Metal fan, Industrial doesn’t do much for me, and people trying to look all spooky with tattoos and piercings and white eyes just makes me giggle at the childishness of it all. If there’s no substance beyond the shock value, then it feels more like a fashion statement or like an admission that you don’t really have anything valuable to say. Not to judge an artist on their looks or anything. The music didn’t speak to me on any personal level, beyond a few atmospheric moments. 

Genre Relation: 3. As someone who doesn’t have his finger on the pulse of this brand of Social Media Metal, I don’t have much to compare this with. Lets go with the average 3.

Authenticity: 2. I freely admit to being wrong here, but I just didn’t feel it. Whatever genuine authenticity there may be, I lacked the ability to pick up on it. Therefore, I blame the album. 

Personal: 2. Unsurprisingly, not a high score from me. While it was critically reviewed well, for me it missed out on the emotion, melody, and smarts to keep my interest, while also neither charting nor selling well. 

Miscellaneous: 3. There are some creepy creepy music videos set in spooky spooky tunnels. That’s enough to warrant a 3. 

Total: 54/100 Possibly the lowest scoring album so far, but there are a few with similar scores in the 2020 series. But what do I know? Let us know your thoughts in Anti-Icon in the comments!

Nightman Listens To – Fiona Apple – Fetch The Bolt Cutters (2020 Series)!

Greetings, Glancers! Memories. Misty, water-coloured, shitballs! Yes, when I hear the name Fiona Apple I can’t help but be transported back to the 90s when one of my mates kept trying to force me to listen to her, but I refused because no-one worth listening too could possibly have ‘apple’ in their name. But listen I did, and forgotten I have, beyond a few floaty snippets. Full transparency, the only time I really remembering to Fiona Apple in earnest was when I had gobbled some illicit shrubs and… well that story goes off into untellable and unintelligible tangents so we’ll just leave it like that. Is it cool she’s still topping critical lists now, more than twenty years later? Sure. Lets hope the reasons for such acclaim are genuine and not just the equivalent of legacy Oscar nominations. I know nothing about this album, I don’t know the names of any of the songs, so lets check out the artwork.

It’s part of a selfie, presumably designed to make her look a little manic and wide-eyed. I seem to remember her previous albums focusing on her face too. At least I assume it was her on the cover. Are those ribbons on the side? Is the font suggestive of the thematic content and the album title – cut up, self-made, imperfect? Why is there half a dog where her scalp should be? I’m curious to see if her sound has changed from the little I remember. I know she was always a little too slow and jazzy and free-form for my tastes back then – too many ballads and not enough of a musical or vocal edge than the other 90s Indie types I was more invested in – Tori and Alanis for example. Lets get into it and find out.

Musically and vocally, I don’t think Apple has changed much since the 90s. I’m not the right person to give such unsubstantiated opinions of course, but having now listened to Fetch The Bolt Cutters several times and comparing it with my memories of her from decades ago, she’s still doing now what she did then – personal piano led ballads and diatribes with vocals shifting between smoother jazz influenced moments and more offbeat yelps and blasts. I never thought she had the most distinct sound – musically or vocally – but it’s cool that her voice sounds as authentic and youthful as it did then. There’s no trace of weariness, but some of the more talky and overly accented pop styles of recent years has seeped in to her delivery. I spent most of my first listen struggling to decide if I liked the delivery or not. I’m still not sold, but on the whole I enjoyed her vocals. Her quirky ticks are back again – those I have no issue with – and she can blast with power and control when she wants to, but there are a few talky moments and stylistic choices which are not to my tastes.

The album feels very independent and self-made. The production feels homely – not cheap – but feels like it was made with minimalism in mind either to give the appearance that it was recorded in isolation, or because it genuinely was – Lockdown and all that. Beyond the vocals and the pianos, the most noticeable elements of the production are the clanging percussion and sound effects – we have cats, dogs, and what sounds like doors slamming and sticks hitting tables on top of traditional drums. Every song has something to spice up the sound and goes a long way in preventing the whole from sounding bland. Certain songs tend towards the more experimental in terms of percussive techniques – and these songs are often the most structurally interesting, perhaps suggesting there is a strong connection between the two where songwriting is concerned. Heavy Balloon perhaps is the most adventurous in both respects, while the most melodic and commercial songs on the album tend towards the more traditional approach – Shameika a prime examples, though hardly a prime example of what you would would call a normal Top 40 hit. These simple twists on what we expect – 808 Hi-hats, repetitive beats, glossy production, all serve to give the album an unearthly earthy atmosphere – the sounds and thoughts collected and thumped out on dustbins and a barely functioning piano which was old when QEII was young, thumped out in a cabin set deep in the oldest woods by that strange woman who walks into town once a week to pack her groceries in a thatch woven satchel, that woman you warn your kids to not talk to because she lives alone and probably has a cat and a broomstick.

Rambling asides aside, the atmosphere is one of several highpoints of the album. The experimentation is part of this, but also its own thing. For Her is a triumph of fierce independence and righteous anger, unleashing more musical creativity and poetic smarts in under three minutes than some artists dream of their entire careers. It would be easy to place the lyrics and Apple on a pedestal as an example of modern Feminism, the elder Riot Grrrl still rioting in the face of patriarchal corruption and their allies both silent and vocal, the woman aligning with fighters against the myriad injustices of society which we feel powerless against. But for me, the album more appropriately comes across as one woman’s feelings separated from wider movements or moments, the primal justified scream which has been bubbling for years, aimed at multiple targets, hitting them all, leaving those who hear it to either cover their ears or scream in support.

Melodically, there is something bewitching about certain songs. Ladies, Shameika, Relay, and the title track all have moments which are primitive in their infection rate – you hear them and can’t help but want to repeat and move to their strange beats. Elsewhere, the connection between rhythms and melodies does threaten to become too repetitive, words racing chaotically in predictable patterns almost like a central unique idea was latched on to and rather than rinsing that idea over the duration of a few songs, it is instead repeated until what was unique becomes the norm. There are other patterns to be found – the piano is front and centre in the album’s introduction, but by the album’s conclusion dissonant percussive elements have taken over. I Want You To Love Me’s breathless, lung-collapsing opener feels brazen and anthemic – the chest beating haka before a marathon, while closer On I Go feels like the exhausted rushed finale of a sprint. I prefer the more forceful vocal moments than the speeding listing of lyrics, but throughout the lyrics are interesting, engaging, amusing, begging for a physical copy to pore over.

I know nothing of Apple’s life to appreciate any personal anecdotes, but it’s easy to select the defiant moments and apply those to your own circumstances, the title track and Under The Table filled with one-liners. I imagine a greater knowledge of the subjects of her ire, the context behind the words would improve already impressive lyrics, but the purpose of these first time reaction posts is simply to expose myself to the music using what I already know. There’s nothing stopping me using the experience as a jumping off point to learn more, but that would be outside of any post I make. Is there enough on Fetch The Bolt Cutters to make me want to learn more? Sure, Apple is a more interesting performer than most but there’s still the niggling thought that my enjoyment levels of her music are only going to go so far. I don’t find her music to grab me immediately, like a Tori, and I don’t anticipate her music to sustain me and keep me wanting more, like an Alanis. I can appreciate it for a piece of art, a statement, an example of a woman wanting to do whatever the hell she wants, but as an artist and entertainer I’d be drawn to and anticipative of, I don’t see much future. I’m a simple man.

Album Score

Sales: 2. I hate mentioning this category now. In the old days we could have had a streamlined breakdown equating Sales to a score here, with a 1 being something like less than 15 thousand copies, and a 5 being over 1 million. For example. We could still do that now, but we’d have to factor in equivalent album sales, streams etc. Add to the fact that albums in general sell less these days, certainly physically. In any case, the number I see thrown around for this album is 44k. The album will have sold more since that number was released, but I imagine it has sold less than 44k since then on top of the original 44k. So, we’re probably talking a total of less than 80K sold. That’s not a 1 by any stretch, so we’re stuck between a 2 and 3. It doesn’t feel like a huge number to me – I could be wrong, but I’m going 2.

Chart: 2. It was Top 10 in US, Canada, and Denmark, but only reached 33 in UK, 13 in Australia, and 38 in Spain. It’s debateable if it was Top 40 in the US end of year charts. I think to get a 3 here you need to hit a wider spread of Top 10s and/or reach that end of year Top 40. Again, 2 feels both harsh, but right – I’m good if you push to a 3. 

Critical: 5. This was one of the easier answers – it’s, at this point, one of the most critically acclaimed albums of all time. Whether or not people – fans, critics, list makers, will have the same view in 10 years time remains to be seen, but in the short years since release it’s the 2nd highest rated album ever on a number of Review Aggregate sites. Beyond that, it topped various respected critics and publications’ lists of the year – Forbes, Consequence Of Sound, Metacritic, The Guardian, NYT, Pitchfork, Slant to name a few. 

Originality: 3. It’s not a 5 and it’s not a 1. That leaves a 2-4 range for you, likely dependent on how much of an existing fan you are and how much music you listen to. I’ll go down the middle with a 3 – it’s original in terms of what’s out there at the moment, less so in terms of what has been done in the past, and less so in terms of what Apple herself has done.

Influence: 3. I’m always hopeful that an artist as interesting as Apple is will have an influence on new artists. If the critical acclaim had translated to sales I’d have more hope, but this feels like it will be a critical darling missed by the masses and maybe not handed down to subsequent generations. People will find it, but I’m not sure if it will directly influence those people rather than other artists.

Musical Ability: 3. It’s a strange album in that it’s almost anti-musical. I struggle to recall truly musical moments in the album from a traditional standpoint – a person playing their instrument with a clear technical expertise. But sometimes it takes a skilful musician to present an album in that way.

Lyrics: 4. I can’t quite reach a 5 here – while the lyrics on the whole are admirable and creative and funny and insightful, they do also slip into a scattershot conversational approach which don’t read as well on the page as they sound when performed. 

Melody: 3. Fleeting moments amidst the overall chaos and atmosphere, off kilter snippets which cut through what is seemingly designed to challenge and oppose traditional approaches. 

Emotion: 3. I’d love to go 4 here, but in many cases I think I was trying to make myself feel instead of actually feeling it. I feel the the performers felt a lot during the creation and recording of the thing, but those feelings didn’t consistently translate for me, beyond the obvious anger and frustration.

Lastibility: 3. Again, I’m happy for you to go with a 4 here, but I have a feeling it will mainly be existing Apple fans who will keep playing this rather than being picked up by the masses and it being perpetually rediscovered through time. 

Vocals: 4. I’ll be more positive here – I could have given a 3, but the talky moments don’t irritate me as much as they could and they are countered by some exquisite husky tones and forcefully charged highs. 

Coherence: 4. There’s a flow, a chain to the album, descending from a musical and melodic place to a more bitter, chaotic, and tired finish. But the production, the voice, the themes tie the whole together.

Mood: 4. The coherence serves the mood and vice versa, the mood ranging from something akin to Folk Horror, to peak 90s Indie femme rants. 

Production: 3. While I praise the production, I couldn’t confirm or deny whether the lockdown, necessity mother of invention approach was authentic or a stylistic choice. Not that it matters much as the mood is evoked regardless. A little more gloss wouldn’t hurt.

Effort: 4. It seems like this was the first album in many years by Fiona Apple – why that is I don’t know, but the effort in getting these words and feelings onto a page and into our ears feelings more weighty and even as slight as the Production feels, the album has heft. It feels like the result of many years, and many albums of struggles, to produce something which many clearly feel is the peak of her art. 

Relationship: 3. My enjoyment only goes so far is what I was getting at earlier, at that’s partly to do with this category. I feel at a distance from the artist, rather than being welcomed into their home. That may or may not have been the artist’s intention, but if that was the intention it’s certainly something I can understand – I wouldn’t invite any of you into my home. 

Genre Relation: 3. A strange one to score – to we say this transcends the relative genre and therefore should be scored high, or because it doesn’t easily relate to the genre it’s part of then we should score it low? Lets go with an average 3. 

Authenticity: 5. I’m guessing she crafted most of this herself – while I’m sure she had bandmates and producers helping and influencing her, this comes across as the pure outcome of one person’s singular vision.

Personal: 3. I’d like to go higher here, but as mentioned in my conclusion, given the choice between art and entertainment, I’ll go for entertainment each time. A successful blending of the two will inevitably be a personal favourite. For me, this goes too far towards art than entertainment – not so far that it becomes clinical, but far enough that I view it as a specimen for study more than a collection of songs to stick on. Some people prefer the artistic approach. I prefer the opposite, or a cleaner blend.

Miscellaneous: 3. Three seems to be the standard for this category.

Total: 67/100

Let us know in the comments what you think of Fetch The Bolt Cutters – is this Fiona Apple’s best album?

Nightman Listens To – Enter Shikari – Nothing Is True And Everything Is Possible (2020 Series)!

Greetings, Glancers! We plough onwards with the 2020 series as I listen to another artist I’m unfamiliar with. For a long time I’ve been aware of the name Enter Shikari, but even with being a lifelong Metal fan I don’t believe I’ve heard a single song from the band. I don’t know how long they’ve been around, but I remember hearing the name shortly after leaving University – so mid 2000s? From memory, I think they’re quite Screamy, but that’s based on foggy recollections of half-read reviews. The picture I always had in my mind of them was of a more emo, fashionable, At The Drive In. As always with this series, I’m 100% prepared to be proven wrong on any and all misconceptions – as we should be with all things in life.

Being a Liverpool fan, the last few seasons have seen a bit of an in joke among fans thanks to our (former) player Xherdan Shaqiri and anytime he came on as a substitute – Enter Shaqiri. Great player. What of the title and the artwork? I think I would disagree with both of the statements made in the album title; some things are ‘true’, objectively and subjectively, though you can debate till the cows fuck off about your definition of ‘truth’. Some things are not possible – me swallowing an entire Country in the next 8 seconds, this blog hitting 1 million subscribers, an afterlife – but on the other hand if we agree that we exist in an infinite universe or universes, then all events and actions are possible, however unlikely. What does this title mean? It seems very much like a ‘come on boys, we can do this’ statement. Apparently it’s also the name of a book about 21st Century Russian history. Is there a link?

Looks like a statue of a Greek or Roman dude. Seems like he’s really enjoying sucking a 3 for 1 pound pack of lighters. The border is like some old wallpaper I used to have in the 80s, and there’s a big sticker, or faux sticker slapped on the front. Is this the back cover? Most albums will have the tracklist on the back, but whatever. There’s 15 songs, I’m not sure if the colouring on the numbers means anything, but the song names seem appropriately quirky, from the font to the words, to the brackets. Is is a concept album? Those names, and songs in different parts suggest Prog. Or a bunch of musicians who might like to suck themselves off. I think that covers everything – once you read the next sentence, I will have listened to the album several times.

The album starts with promise; The Great Unknown is a thumping opener and one which I hoped set the scene. If I skip forwards a little… the closing track is decent too. You see where I’m going with this. This has been a recurring theme in my 2020 posts – I tend to enjoy the opening track, but then the vocal quirks or sameness kick in and my enjoyment rapidly declines. Such is the case with Nothing Is True. Whatever I was expecting, the screaming, frenetic band of my imagination, that’s not what I got. I can’t blame the artist for my own invalid expectations – maybe earlier albums have more of an edge or are closer to Metal, but make no mistake this feels like a pop rock album. Again, nothing wrong with that at all. It’s that the songs were never interesting to me, didn’t connect on any emotional level, and were overall very tame. Throughout the album, the drums are incredibly weak and ineffectual, the guitars are tame, and the electro beats don’t have enough venom to get me up and out of my seat. That’s before we get to the accents.

Jesus, the accents. I know it’s just me and others probably love the vocals and accents they are sung in, but from the opening track almost every line, every lyric, every word felt like a haggard crone slipping into my lung, reaching up and tickling my throat with her wart worn claws. It gets so much worse when the vocals move away from traditional singing and towards a more talkative, not quite rap approach. I have no problem with rap – love it. But that halfway house between talking and singing is a massive nope for me, fully exposing the horrors of accents. Here, it’s not quite Cockney guvna shite, but it’s damn close. The Dreamer’s Hotel, which does have a faintly tasty chorus melody and a great, thick, fuzz backing, is utterly ruined by the vocals – especially in the verses. ‘PRONOUNCE YOUR FUCKING ‘T’ SOUNDS’ I shouted, to choke the witch. This vocal approach always strikes me as faux bravado – the big fucking lad strutting about town, 12 pints, a curry, throw a couple of traffic cones at the police on the walk home while singing Chumbawamba. It continues into Modern Living which, again has promise thanks to its chanty schoolboy nature and some interesting robotic antics, but the living it laaaage sense I get from the vocals utterly turns me off. I’ve no idea if this was intentional or ironic – the fact that it happens again and again throughout the album suggests that this is simply the way the band is rather than any sense of irony or even self awareness. Having said it’s not for me, there must be plenty of people out there who don’t have the same issues I do – I can see this chorus, and many others being sung loudly from the terraces and from the pit.

I don’t think I’d go so far as saying it’s a shame that the vocals pissed me off – they certainly detract from the music for me, but the music wasn’t too appealing either. The most interesting moments were the blending of techno and Metal, the orchestral outbursts, the robotic splurges, and the rhythm shifts within and between songs. But the songs are each very short and don’t use their time well – the longest song is under four minutes and most of that time is a rather lovely instrumental which feels like the cinematic new dawn after some epic battle scene where the good guys overcome impossible odds. It does take balls for a rock band to do this sort of thing – again I’ve no idea if this was a first for the band or if they’ve also experimented in such ways, but credit where credit is due… assuming of course they were the ones to compose Elegy For Extinction. Other tracks – the Marionettes and Waltzing songs do a better job of melding the various musical parts and ideas which are spread elsewhere, and the vocals are noticeably less intrusive. Still, whether it’s alienation or anger or political angst which the band are moaning about, no single song is potent enough musically to make me care about the message. The Ascent has atmospheric moments, has nice falsetto moments, but also has the talky crap. Each song conveys this battle between the annoying crap and the moments which suggest the band might be moderately decent. Satellites gets closer than most at creating a good, jumparoundtheroom pop rock song, but opens with the cringe-inducing ‘Oi wish I was a com-meh, runnin up into the noigh’ (pronounce your fucking ‘T’ sounds) and the rest of the run time is spent trying to recover.

I’ve grumbled long enough about the vocals, but is anything the band is saying worth hearing? On my first listen I was already dismissive of the lyrics by the time they utter the unforgiveable ‘is this a wind up’. No, seriously. And they say it twice. They should really be asking if the album is just a cutting floor lost episode of Eastenders. Thematically, we can obviously point to current fuck-ups from Brexit to Climate Change deniers to the handling of Cov-ID 19, to the Tory scum in general, with the opening line setting the tone – ‘is this a new beginning/or are we close to the end’. There’s a sense of desperation and powerlessness – the hope of a younger generation being lost due to being unable to actually make a worthwhile change. Artists and poets are referenced, modern tech speak and communication failures are documented, and by and large each song points to the same overall big themes. That means there is thematic coherence and the album feels like a whole piece of art rather than a bunch of random songs, but it means a lack of variety. While there are decent one-liners delivered in quotable chunks – ‘nuance ain’t nothing but a nuisance’ for example, they’re usually left dangling or followed up by another weaker line basically reiterating the same point. Drop your bomb and leave, don’t qualify it.

There are good ideas – the idea of a ‘dreamer’s hotel’, this imaginary place we can all go to ponder on better days and ways to get there, yet all the rooms are empty – that’s a nice metaphor for several tiers of civilization today, while the imagery of Waltzing Off The Face Of The Earth gives a clear picture of a world in careless decay, of common sense being replaced by the bizarro world of anti-science and anti-facts we find ourselves in today, with those purveyors of misinformation and their followers typically the ones shouting loudest about Truth. If the album is a big enough success, and the listeners understand what is being said, I can only hope it’s a catalyst for some to change if they have been swayed by bullshit. Then again, I imagine the majority of people listening to the band are already on the liberal side of sense. While certain phrases did annoy me – rhyming ‘apocaholics’ with ‘gin and tonics’, others will likely appreciate such antics. The lyrics, in the main, stand in stark contrast to the bravado I spoke of earlier… maybe I would have enjoyed this more with a different vocal approach, not significantly, but it would have taken things from ‘this pissed me off’ to ‘it’s fine’.

Nothing Is True is not for me. Knowing nothing else the band has done, I don’t know how similar it is or isn’t to their previous work. Hopefully the fans got more out of it than I did, and hopefully the band roped in some new listeners. There’s nothing here to encourage me to hunt back through their back catalogue or look forward to any new material. That being said, if they have songs which are less on the distinctive accent side, then I’d give them a blast.

Album Score

Sales: 3. From what information I have, it looks like this sold fairly well in the UK upon release, then dropped off. 

Chart: 2. Hit the number 1 spot in the UK Metal charts, and number 2 overall. Outside of the UK it barely registered.

Critical: 4. It might be stingy of me to give a 3 here just because a few critics gave low or average scores – those were in the vast minority. I’d say it’s a low 4 as even the best reviews weren’t gushing. 

Originality: 3. Lets go with the average 3. There’s a blend of techno and trad rock and orchestral stuff – not that these things are unique, but they’re certainly not the norm.

Influence: 2. I don’t see this having enough widespread appeal to be influential.

Musical Ability: 3. Risks and bravery in some of the choices, but if I’m taking a traditional rock band view the instrumentation on display is very basic.

Lyrics: 3. They’re fine. Good moments. Very dubious moments.

Melody: 3. A few good moments, good choruses, but most of the melodies were either too frivolous to leave any effect, or too shrouded by the awful vocal delivery.

Emotion: 2. I didn’t feel much emotion from the band, I didn’t feel any emotion from the music. It happens.

Lastibility: 3. An average 3. The band has enough fans that this will likely be in rotation for a while to come. In the wider zeitgeist where everything is replaceable, who knows? It doesn’t

Vocals: 2. The guy can sing, and I imagine I’d like his voice if it was less talky, done with a less distinct accent. A few moments when there is traditional singing, whatever that means, the vocals are perfectly good but for the majority of the

Coherence: 4. Musically, everything flows together nicely – good job of blending different styles to make a coherent whole.

Mood: 2. I felt disparity between the lyrics, the music, the vocals which meant no clear mood was apparent. Flickers of each come through, but nothing is clear. Unless of course that was the intent, and confusion is the desired effect.

Production: 4. All sounds crisp, the blending of the orchestral with the traditional rock band side to the more techno stuff works well. The drums are pretty bad though, and almost singlehandedly knock this down to a 3.

Effort: 3. It comes across as just messy enough to not be total chaos, but having no grounding in what else the band has done, I can’t say how this compares to their other work. An average three.

Relationship: 2. I can relate to the confusion and anger of the lyrics, but their delivery severely dilutes the message. The combination of music and vocal and lyric don’t do enough for me to relate at anything more than a base level.

Genre Relation: 3. It seems quite experimental and certainly takes directions that most modern pop or rock I’ve heard do not. Therefore, I’m not sure what genre this is supposed to be, if the band cares, or if it even matters.

Authenticity: 4. The band seem committed to their message and I have no reason do doubt their authenticity.

Personal: 2. On another day maybe this reaches a three, but it would be a low three. The lack of emotion, of drive, of melody, combined with the already mentioned quirks inside me which prevented me from getting along with the vocals mean that this was not an enjoyable experience.

Miscellaneous: 3. Three seems to be the standard for this category.

Total: 57/100

Nightman Listens To Dua Lipa – Future Nostalgia (2020 Series)!

Greetings, Glancers! Ok, I know I didn’t get through many of the 2020 albums in 2021. You didn’t think I really would though, did you? In an ideal world I’d like to do this sort of series every year, to give me a flavour of what’s popular these days. Actually, in an ideal world I’d like to have the time and money to do nothing but listen to music and watch movies and post shite about them. In any case, if the 25 albums (or was it 30) I picked from 2020 are as good as they’re supposed to be, then they should be considered timeless classics and it shouldn’t matter to me when I listen to them or to you when I talk about them.

Dua Lipa then. I don’t know anything about her, I don’t know any of her songs, but I think I read somewhere that she’s a Liverpool fan. I don’t know if that means she’s from Liverpool, if she’s English, or if she’s from outside of the UK but has heard of Mo Salah and is therefore a Liverpool fan by proxy. I know she’s popular though – I recently started properly using Reddit after years of occasionally looking at it – and joined the /music and /popheads subs. She’s mentioned quite frequently in the Popheads one, though the Music one is mostly filled with Boomers and Ween fans and would likely dismiss her. I’m willing to give everyone a shot, so by the end of this post she may have a new Gen X/Gen Y/Millennial/WhateverthehellIam fan. As always, I take a gander at the album cover to get some almost certainly inaccurate feelings about the artist and her art.

I’ll assume that’s her, because most popstars will feature themselves on their album artwork, at least until the point they become famous enough that they can sell based on their name alone rather than their appearance. It’s a striking enough image, suitable and colourful enough to appear as a small jpeg on your phone and lacking any fine detail. But I like it, particularly the huge blue moon in the background. I’m not convinced that those gloves are a good match for that steering wheel – the gloves seem lacking in the grip department, while the steering wheel a highly glossed wood – lets hope she isn’t doing 42mph in a School Zone. Does any of this tell me anything about what the music will be like? Of course not. Lets find out, shall we?

Without giving away too much about what I think of the album, I’m going to jump in now and say that so far the most overt, traditional Pop albums I’ve listened to as part of the 2020 series have been the ones I’ve enjoyed most. Fine, the Bad Bunny album was crap, but the Bob Dylan, Deftones, Biffy Clyro, and Code Orange albums didn’t have much impact on me. I still crank out a handful of the Chloe X Halle tunes. Am I losing my Metal cred? I don’t hold much stock in such matters and have always been up front in my love for good Pop music – good music, regardless of genre. Future Nostalgia? Good. Pop. Music. Future Nostalgia is an apt title – you can hear the 80s and 90s Pop influences in certain tracks, and Dua Lipa’s music seems like the logical continuation of, say, Madonna. I can’t say that I’ve listened to much Top 40 music in the last 15 years so I’m sure there are many artists filling in the gaps between Madonna and Dua Lipa, but you can see the pattern of influence.

There are any number of floor-filling bangers here, great for blasting in the club, on the radio, or in the house. Crucially though, there is also humour and intelligence, both in lyric and composition. That’s where Pop becomes something elevated, something more interesting to me; I can enjoy a catchy jingle as much as anyone, but if there’s a bland message and a lack of emotional connection, no matter how you dress up the song with Production and Performance, I’m not going to care about it beyond a cursory acknowledgement of its existence. I do have issues with the album – issues others won’t give two shits about – but which affected my enjoyment; Most of the songs revolve about love and relationships. Madonna, to continue with that example, could sing about shagging till the cows came home, but she would throw in a few songs each album which overtly were not about romance. If we look at my favourite modern Pop artist – Sia – which Dua Lipa’s vocals have more than a passing resemblance to on Future Nostalgia – Sia will cover any number of topics unrelated to love even in her most successful works. Future Nostalgia doesn’t have many non-love related songs – it is bookended by two future Feminist anthems in the title track and closer Boys Will Be Boys, but even those are done through the lens of a woman’s relationship to men. Boys Will Be Boys is the closest to being its own thing as it sings of empowerment and fear, taking that hateful phrase which politicians and sexual predators use to dismiss criminal and violent behaviour against women, and twisting it around to rip that defence apart. I’m not sure how much of this song was written by Lipa versus Justin Tranter – a lyricist known for his advocacy in this respect – but it’s entirely possible that Lipa pulled Tranter in for this album because of his past work. In any case – powerful message, great song.

While there may not be many overt non-romance based songs, several songs are at least presented in a more refreshing way, usually with a more empowering female perspective – Dua Lipa calls herself a female alpha in the opener, Cool and Physical are pure exaltations of feeling and confidence, coming across as sincere versus more generic fare, while Break My Heart takes a more pensive, apprehensive approach due to past hurt. Even when the lyrics are generic in structure and theme and content, there are at least jokes or nods to past works from Olivia Newtown John, Bing Crosby, White Town, or INXS. I could be picky and state that the songs aren’t the most structurally interesting, but that would be a valid criticism for the vast majority of music released each year so I don’t believe it would be fair here – it’s a pop album, so you want the familiarity of verse, bridge, and chorus loops.

My second more genuine criticism – still a personal thing – is with some of the vocals. Lipa can sing, alternating styles and strength between and often within songs, but she isn’t immune to some of the quirks which piss me off about most modern singers. The way ‘body’ is sung with a hard, almost double or triple D sound in Pretty Please (one of the weaker songs) reminds me of that fucking awful Royal Navy advert song with the ‘awrite guvna, reDDee, steDDee yip yip aye’ lyrics. Christ that thing is on every 15 minutes and gets muted every time. She overdoes the screechy Sia thing in Hallucinate and repeats probably the one trait which annoys me most in vocalists over the last fifteen years or so – adding these unnecessary Y-type vowel sounds to words which don’t need them, while simultaneously doing a little vibrato. Why is this a thing, and why do so many singers do this? Why does it annoy me? All unanswerable, but listen to the middle of Hallucinate and how ‘dark’ and ‘start’ are pronounced as ‘doweek’ and ‘stoueet’ respectively.  You should know by now that certain accents or pronunciations in songs are enough to make me never listen to the song again, and I admit that when Lipa begins her Cockney shtick in the album’s opening verses I was already moving the cursor towards the top right corner of the window. Thankfully, these moments are few and far between, and elsewhere the vocals are excellent.

Aside from the performance and personality of Dua Lipa, and aside from the infectious melodies which should be the principle hallmark of any pop song, the album’s production is one of the keys to its success. The warm production firmly places many of the songs into the power-pop region, adding force to its synth and drums, and turning songs which I may not normally have much affinity for into something I can enjoy, sing, and leap about to. Hallucinate is a good example of a song and genre I typically would not give a second glance, but the production allows it to level up while Level Again would be typical repetitive pop junk if not for the use of strings and samples. Cool, probably the best song on the album, would still be a good pop song but is again taken up several notches by the, well the modern synth based off an 80s formula. Cool is a banger for the ages, striking that fine balance I look for in any song – emotion, melody, and an artist giving a peak performance.

The album stumbles in the middle, perhaps due to the fact that each of the opening four songs are so strong. It picks up again with Break My Heart and those closing three songs are each high points in different respects while not hitting the heights of any of the the first four. Comparing it to a similar nostalgic pop oriented album which I’m familiar with, Sia’s We Are Born was nowhere near as successful as Future Nostalgia, but edges this out in terms of quality. Future Nostalgia isn’t far off, but is lacking some of the additional emotive force and variance of genre to Sia’s early classic. In any event, fans of Future Nostalgia who may be reading this, should check out We Are Born and will likely enjoy it too. I was surprised I liked this as much as I did – again, most of the modern chart pop songs I’ve heard in recent years have been, for lack of a better term, apocalyptically shite and creatively barren, but this is brimming with spirit, wit, and love. I had not heard any of the songs till I put on the album for the first time, and at least six of the songs here will be added to my pop playlist.

ALBUM SCORE

Sales: 4. You should know by now that attempting to judge album sales now is a complete shit show, but the best estimates show that via a combination of physical sales and streams it was one of the top ten selling albums of the year. Depending on whether you compare this against albums of the past in pre-streaming days, I could see people giving this a 5 or a harsh 3.

Chart: 4. Hit the number 1 spot in the UK and Australia, along with various other territories, made the top ten in the US. I think to get a 5 here, you really need the Number 1 spot in US and UK, or if not both some other exceptional metric.

Critical: 5. Almost all overwhelmingly positive across the board, never less than a 4 out of 5 equivalent rating and the album and many of its songs feature on year end Top Ten lists.

Originality: 3. Maybe I’m a little harsh here, but it’s not the first album ever, or in this generation, to give a modern twist on a particular sound, vibe, or genre. It does it well, but it never reaches the point of being revolutionary.

Influence: 3. I say this every time, but this is incredibly hard to judge without time having past. Based on its sales and success I can see it being influential on other artists, but given the lack of revolutionary traits and the fact that it is a retro influenced album, I don’t know how influential it can be.

Musical Ability: 3. Another tough one to judge because the focus is on Dua Lipa as a musician and primarily a vocalist – I don’t know how much influence she had on the actual music beyond composition, and the vocal have their own category. The contributing musicians do their part, but nothing exceptional.

Lyrics: 3. Do I go 4 here? It’s tricky because I’m very picky with lyrics. Old tropes are both avoided and embraced, and the fact that most of the songs are still under the overall umbrella of ‘Love’ means I can’t honestly give a 4 – if there were revolutionary statements about romance or some beautifully shattering, unique, and incitement lines on the subject I would push to a 4. They are stronger than your average pop, but that’s an incredibly low bar to step over.

Melody: 4. A very solid, high 4. Some of the songs in the middle of the album prevent this from possibly reaching a 5, but as a whole most songs have potent melodies, and a few of those melodies are striking and effortlessly infectious.

Emotion: 3. I did have a 4 for this originally, but downgraded to a 3 because most of the emotion which came across to me is really down to the sincerity I felt – that can go to the authenticity score. There’s emotion, but not peaks, not a lot of variance of emotion.

Lastibility: 4. It already feels a little timeless. That could be due to how recent it is and the blend of modern and the nostalgia. Looking again at Sales and success, and how much I enjoyed it, I can see me and others continuing to listen for many years hence. 

Vocals: 4. Not quite a 5 due to some of the quirks I mentioned, but a very solid 4. Good performance, a lot of charm, and plenty of different vocal styles.

Coherence: 4. It’s very coherent. You can argue that it lacks say, a slow ballad, or something to break up the endless loop of up-tempo pop/dance tracks, but I don’t think that would impact the coherence. While there are different styles, it’s still a nostalgic synth based pop/dance album, primarily concerned with feelings of love and empowerment. 

Mood: 4. It creates a mood. A dance mood, a fun mood. Not exactly the sort of mood I go for, but it’s there. I could equally go 3 here.

Production: 4. Great work. Not revolutionary, but it nails the desired style and fits the theme of looking forwards and backwards.

Effort: 4. I’ve no idea how much effort went into this, but it was a step up in success from her previous album, the number of singles, the quality of the output. Go 3 here if you want.

Relationship: 3. As mentioned on the Chloe x Halle post, there’s only so much I can relate to here, being a 30 something white bloke from Northern Ireland – who has never been into dance music, clubbing, or much of what is talked about in pop music. I am however a music fan, I think I understand emotions, so that is what I relate to here. 

Genre Relation: 4. It relates to other modern and older pop music but, for me at least, excels over much of what is new and some of what is old. 

Authenticity: 4. Everything comes across as authentic and sincere – any pop album is designed to sell, to make as much money as possible for all involved while heightening the status of the performer. That’s the business. But Dua Lipa uses the album as a platform for good, for progress, and it doesn’t feel like a cash-in using the buzzwords of culture today. Lyrically, musically, and based on her performance, this all feels authentic. 

Personal: 4. I can argue that I both over and underscore pop albums. I can underscore based on the overwhelming response by actual critics, but I can over score purely because it’s a modern pop album which managed to speak to me and given me some enjoyment – it’s an anomaly when a modern pop album does this, and so I maybe bump up my score a little. But it’s a good album, no doubt. 

Miscellaneous: 3. I saw some of the music videos. Lots of fashion. Lots of dancing. Nothing to interest me. Standard 3 score.

Total: 74/100  

Easily the highest score I’ve given to a 2020 album in this series so far, and easily my favourite listen in the series.  In starting this series I wanted one album which I could enjoy from start to finish – this kind of gets there in that even the weaker tracks don’t piss me off – and it’s an album I’ll definitely return to.

Let us know in the comments what you think of Future Nostalgia!

Nightman Listens To – Deftones – Ohms (2020 Series)!

Greetings, Glancers! It’s another Metal album for us today, so hopefully that means a Yay from me given that I’m a filthy, unwashed Long Hair. I was never a Deftones fan. Accurately or not, I lumped them in with all of the Nu-Metal crap which appeared in the late 90s, even if they did seem less Emo and more Industrial, more Alt. Like a lot of the Nu Metal bands, Deftones had considerable screen time on the Kerrang, Scuzz, and MTV2s of the world, and they were an immediate ‘change the channel’ once that annoying song of theirs came on – you know the one – the one where the guy in the oversized cargo trousers is being all inconsiderate by walking on school desks. Does he even know how many germs are on the soles of his shoes? He could have stepped in doggie whoopsies! So there’s that song. I’m sure there were others, but I’ve forgotten them now. I don’t recall many requests for them back when I was DJing in Belfast’s Metal Clubs. That’s probably for the best as no doubt a bunch of sullen fans would have come stomping on to the dancefloor with their poo-smeared boots and proceeded to march all over the bar, the stools, the tables, and even the precious DJ area, saying ‘pootones, pootones, we are the pootone brigade’, or whatever that song went like.

If I’m honest, I assumed the band had split up or stopped putting stuff out, but that’s partly due to me not caring enough about them, and partly due to me being away from the Metal scene in recent years. It turns out they never went away and have been solidly pumping out albums since the mid-90s. Ohms is their 9th studio album, but I know nothing of it. Lets have a look at the artwork.

Well that’s a very sad face. It reminds me off The Gnome King from Return To Oz, except instead of being made of rocks his face is eternally attached to tartan; you would be sad too if you had to spend your days looking up a Scotsman’s kilt all day in the hope (despair) of catching a dribble of haggis juice seeping out. It also looks a bit like that guy from Alien Sex Fiend’s Now I’m Feeling Zombified video. This guy:

Lets hope it doesn’t sound like it looks – at least from the Sex Fiend perspective. I don’t have any other comments on the artwork, and I don’t know how it compares with previous album covers. It’s a ten track, 46 minute album, which is generally the sweet spot for album length. By the time you begin to read the next paragraph I will have listened to the thing multiple times. Lets do this.

Ohms doesn’t live up to its opening 50 seconds or so. Listening to the album reminded me of several reasons for my initial dismissal of Deftones, reasons I’d forgotten over time. But I’m trying to balance objectivity against my personal feelings with these posts, so I don’t think I need to spend much time dredging up my dislike for a genre or style or approach, though admittedly I will need to resort to such comments to explaining my position at certain points. I can begin with the central positives I recognise in Ohms. Firstly, it’s clear that Deftones fans love this album and consider it, maybe with surprise, to be one of their best. I could dismiss a percentage of this praise as being part and parcel of the bias all music fans feel towards whatever garbage their favourite band pumps out, but the majority of this praise seems to be genuine and coming from a place of objective understanding. The band has been around for ages, has been through hardships, but has come out with a fan-pleasing album deep into their career. I won’t argue against that – I can say it’s not really an album for me, but I can recognise it as something which the fans it was made for will love.

On a technical level, it’s as good an album as I’ve heard so far in this 2020 journey. Admittedly I don’t know an ounce about music Production, but it’s a great sounding album. Clear mix, especially with headphones, and the blend of distortion on everything from the vocals to the guitars is neatly balanced alongside the cleaner moments. Metal does have a habit, almost by its nature, of sounding abrasive, harsh, and not all that pleasant on the ears. But that should be part of the style, not of the production. We’ve come leaps and bounds since the early underground days of Metal where recordings were done on the cheap, producers didn’t know what they were doing or bands couldn’t afford someone who did. The tech has improved, the people behind the wheel have perhaps grown up as fans of this type of music or a greater awareness of how to record it and capture the aggression and abrasion without compromising on sonic quality.

Deftones don’t seem to be, in my limited experience, the most technically gifted writers or performers. They do what they need to to get their point and music across, and within this sub-genre there isn’t much scope for outlandish time signatures, pioneering riffs, or elaborate instrumentation. They crunch out powerful beats and chords to serve their short and angry mantras. I don’t always need a band to go over and above this level for them to appeal to me – it helps especially in this genre – but I do need to feel a deeper connection to the music on an emotional, melodic, or intellectual level. This is where Deftones, and this album lose me.

I found this a fairly weak, uneventful album in melodic terms. It’s an album of moments with most songs having one melodic moment I could hold on to. Of those few moments, lets say 80% of them stuck with me so that I remembered them on the next listen, and of those 80% maybe 50% stuck with me after I’d stopped listening. If I find myself recalling or humming a melody at some random point during the day, I’ll want to return to it and to listen to the song again. That tugging almost always leads me to a deeper relationship with other songs. With Ohms that relationship never transpired. It’s a shame, because the throbbing, shadow-laden promise of the Twin Peaks inspired intro synth of Genesis made me hopeful that I’d been unfair to Deftones all this time. That synth returns at various inspired points through the album, namely in the outro to Pompeji and into This Link Is Dead. But for every good moment I enjoy, there’s the rest of the song swallowing up that positivity in a choking swirl of tuneless angst.

I say tuneless because it’s sadly true. It didn’t take long – the second song on my first listen in fact – before I remembered that I always felt the vocalist was weak. I still do; Chino isn’t a great singer by any definition, falling on the same flattened ends to words, frequently drifting out of tune whether by design or by mistake. His wafting softer moments are the slurred whispers of a sullen stoner, his screaming moments static and vaporous, and the whole thing is so heavily filtered as to wrench most of the humanity from every utterance. Vocals which sound like they are being squawked through a megaphone sound like the desperate laughable mewlings of an embittered Presbyterian protesting abortion outside a Primary School.

The whiny nature of the vocals drips over to the lyrics, much of what is said already covered by every weeping goth over the past forty years, every teenager threatened with curfew over the last hundred years. I’m being a little harsh because I think there are fine ideas behind some of the songs, but little clarity or insight or poetry or personality, Genesis seemingly concerned with a middle ground awakening and the awareness that ‘both sides’, whether turd or douche, can be blindly followed. Every lyric seems to go out of its way to say nothing about something, and as such I lost any real emotional or intellectual connection.

Returning to what I mentioned about moments – the album opening is cool. I would have loved that to have remained an instrumental. Keep that ominous waspish hum and build upon it as its own thing, then have the rest of Genesis as your second track, because as it stands the song falls apart as soon as the down-tuned guitars and vocals start. I’m a Metal fan and I like my Metal to be punishing – hard, fast, distorted, liable to upset the normies, so that makes what I’m about to say a little contrary; One of the things I don’t like about Metal is the expectation that must always be hard, fast, punishing. That’s a hallmark of the genre, but it’s not the genre. Have the balls to write a soft, slow, gentle song. Have the balls to be sweet instead of angry. Don’t feel like you have to drop some crushing riff in an otherwise soothing or melodic song because the genre calls for it. The song should call for whatever the song requires. By all means you can merge light and dark, soft and heavy – look at Metallica’s Battery or One as popular successful examples. This may say more about me as just one guy and there will be millions of fans who want it rough and loud all day every day. At the end of the day, as a Metal fan I don’t necessarily care about genre. I just want good music – emotional, creative, played with feeling and desire, which speaks to the artist and by proxy speaks to me – the genre the song is delivered in is of secondary importance.

Still, I admit most of the songs have a groove, have plenty for existing fans to get behind. While rarely adventurous, the songs are rarely static. There is a coherence to the album which mostly avoids feeling samey and I was able to distinguish between the songs more easily than other albums, Metal or otherwise. Error has an almost cool chorus, let down by fairly awful vocals, Ceremony has some catchy ooh-ooh moments, and Urantia is another example of a perfectly good intro turning into something less good. By the time The Spell Of Mathematics rolls around the album is beginning to wear a little thin, but then it closes with one of the most interesting sections of the album, the finger-clicking faded out countdown to something unspeakable.

One feeling I couldn’t shake as I listened to the album was the band’s similarity to one of my favourite bands. My Vitriol were (are?) a British band who had a brief moment of success around the turn of the century and one of their trademarks was filtered spacey vocals with occasional shrieking outbursts, but the chorus-drenched Line 6 guitar tone they employed is front and present in Ohms. My Vitriol was not a Metal band, but their punches were more effective to me than anything here, their emotion more potent, their chorus bigger and more interesting. My Vitriol used a lot of distortion in an ambient and impactful way, while hear it feels like a barrage of fuzz without distinction. Is Deftones a less interesting, more abrasive My Vitriol?

It’s not an album for me and Deftones likely isn’t a band for me. As mentioned earlier, that’s fine. The people predisposed to enjoy this will enjoy this and it’s a solid enough album for people curious about the band to be drawn in. There will always be new comers who will discover this thanks to the band’s prior success, and I have no doubt that most will think this is a great album. I’m in the minority as a dissenting voice but that doesn’t concern me. In this journey I wanted to listen to a variety of the most highly rated albums of 2020 and hopefully find something new to love. This isn’t it, but it may be for someone else.

ALBUM SCORE

Sales: 3. Based on what I can tell, the album seems to have sold fairly well for this band at this moment in time. Doesn’t compare to their peak, but what does these days?

Chart: 3. It topped the US Hard Rock chart and the UK equivalent, it topped the charts in Croatia… top 5 in Australia, UK and US regular charts. Reasonable enough, but as we know it doesn’t take much to reach the top of the charts nowadays.

Critical: 4. Almost, but not quite a 5 score for me. Mostly acclaim with the album topping several Metal oriented publications best of lists for the year and with very positive reviews across the board. Some reviews were less forthcoming with the praise, noting the band is simply providing more of the same – lets see how it stands the test of time.

Originality: 3. A 3 is the absolute peak here. I’m tempted by a 2 because I didn’t feel there was anything new here, but lets give them the benefit of my doubt.

Influence: 2. I’m happy to go 2 here. Due to the lack of originality or need for it, I can’t see this album going on to influence other acts, certainly not over and above anything else Deftones has done. It’s always hard to say with a new album unless it’s immediately revolutionary, though the album’s acclaim and popularity could well draw new fans and influence new kids to pick up a guitar. 

Musical Ability: 3. As mentioned in the review, they guys don’t show off much in the way of technical chops, but this doesn’t seem to get in the way of crafting enjoyable songs for fans. The vocals almost have me pulling this down to a 2. 

Lyrics: 3. I could go with a 2 here, but I’m going to assume the lyrics will mean more to others than they do to me, and I fully admit to being a bit of a lyrics snob. It’s the sort of angry angsty fluff I might have enjoyed when I was a child, but even as a child I had a more discerning eye for a unique turn of phrase.

Melody: 2: I can’t keep handing out threes, so I find I’m switching between 2s and 3s. I could go 3 for melody but lets go with 2. Again, melody is subjective in terms of your enjoyment. I didn’t get much enjoyment from this, from the melodies. There are some catchy moments, nothing in the way of interest or innovation, and the vocals mean that even the best hooks wavered out of tune.

Emotion: 3. There’s a lot of shouting. I’ve read enough about the band now to know a little of their history and their tragedies. I’m happy to give a 3 here as I may not feel the emotions which the long term fan would. 

Lastibility: 3. I’m not going to listen to it today – the title track is probably the best song and dispenses with a lot of the crap I don’t enjoy within the band, so I could see myself listening to that again. I wouldn’t walk out of the room if any song from the album came on. So it has to be a positive score. Again, the Deftones fans will surely listen to this for years and ages to come, but I’m not sure it has any relevance beyond that. 

Vocals: 2. Yeah… not great. Regardless of whether the vocals deliberately drop out of tune for effect or because the band are deaf, it doesn’t make for a pleasant listen. I’m sure people will argue, people always do, but from clean to harsh I’ve heard a thousand better. 

Coherence: 3. Sure, it sticks together. The synth moments repeat every so often. The emotional and musical aspects don’t differ wildly. It all makes sense. 

Mood: 3. Nothing exciting here. It evoked nothing in me, I don’t think I would hit the pit if I heard this in a club, even after a few pints. But it didn’t have me skipping tracks or piss me off.

Production: 4. One of the better aspects of the album.

Effort: 3. I’m sure it took as much effort as any other album does these days, but an extra point for being to create a fan favourite release this deep into their career. 

Relationship: 2. It doesn’t mean much to me and didn’t do much to convert me from my previous state of apathy. I can listen if it’s on, but I wont seek it out or anything else by the band.

Genre Relation: 3. It sounds like other Deftones music. It sounds like other Deftones-esque music.

Authenticity: 4. I’d tend to go 3 with this, but based on how much love the long-time fans have for the album it looks like it’s exactly what the fans hoped for in their wildest dreams.

Personal: 3. If this were a 10 point scale, I’d go with a 5 out of 10. But lets stick with a 3. I have no great feelings either way towards it, but at least I’m a little more educated about the band if they come up in conversation.

Miscellaneous: 3. Interesting enough artwork, interesting story in how the band have come back from tragedy.

Total: 60/100

One of our lowest scores so far, but still solidly in the above average section. Again, I’m content being in the minority with this one. Deftones don’t do it for me, but they’ve given what appears to be one of their best albums to the fans who have followed them since the 90s, so ignore me and go listen to it if it’s your jam. Let us know your thoughts on Ohms in the comments!