Most people are wary when people recommend their music to them. I totally understand this but over the past three or so years, the majority of what I have been listening to has been from recommendations. Whether I continued to enjoy them or not after the fact is another story. So here are some albums that I found in 2018, most of which I would not have found if not for other people recommending them to me. I listened to a lot of albums recommended to me and these are the ones that have stuck with me the most and left a lasting impression. So instead of telling you that you NEEEEEEED to listen to this thing I like, I will leave a bunch of albums hanging around here in hopes that they leave a lasting impression on you too. Thank you again, "other people".
I am going to make a playlist for this on Spotify. It will consist of one song from every album here. It might be my favorite song from the album or one that's high up there. It might just be the one that is one I find more accessible. It might be in-between or both. Either way, here it is:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5R8HbqoXXLK7zuIo0r6HpQ?si=pg_TxLBTQoKbbOREBfbNCw
Uroboros by Dir En Grey [2008]
Dir En Grey is a Japanese metal band with a fuckload of albums. Unfortunately, not all of those albums are on Spotify (for those of you who use Spotify). Uroboros and Withering to Death are on Spotify. Vulgar, Arche, and many others are not. Uroboros is my second-favorite album by the band (Arche probably being my favorite). Dir En Grey is ultimately a heavy metal band with visual kei roots for anyone who cares enough to understand what that means. Each album (from the 5 or 6 I have heard songs from) has its own unique sound from the others in terms of overall composition and mixing. Uroboros is the weird one. The other ones certainly aren't made for your grandma but Uroboros has a lot more strange instrumentation choices, compositional transitions, and weird mouth noises. The vocalist has a ridiculous range both tonally and pitch-wise. He shows off a lot on this one. Where most metal singers use this as an excuse to hit the highest notes possible, Kyo (the singer) flaunts his ability to sound like a Looney Tunes audio track being scraped across a railroad. But in a good way though. Uroboros is still a heavy metal album, even dipping into the death metal category, but there are many strange quirky parts and serene parts strung together by both pretty synths and guitar arrangements. There are 3 more albums by them on this list and I'm going to try to keep them brief. I also listened to Dum Spiro Spero, which is another album you can still listen to on Spotify along with their new album called The Insulated World. Dum Spiro Spero has a lot more death metal tropes and does not sound as original as their other work. I don't recommend that one nearly as much as these other 4 albums listed here but it certainly isn't bad.
I apologize in advance that half of this post is just talking about Dir En Grey. I swear it eventually ends.
https://open.spotify.com/album/1BdqcsPQ16Pt11iA3Md0X8?si=mEP2YjSGQ7ml-MnJb6VG6A
Withering To Death by Dir En Grey [2005]
Withering to Death is more contemporary than Uroboros, Arche, Vulgar, and Dum Spiro Spero but that by no means makes it bad. For the most part, it isn't even cheesy or contrived. It's everything I like about Uroboros except lacking the weirdness. Some of my favorite songs by the band are on this album. I think this is probably one of the best albums to start off with for anyone who has never heard of Dir En Grey before. It sounds enough like a lot of other metal bands to keep seasoned modern metalheads invested while not losing the original soul and sound of Dir En Grey.
https://open.spotify.com/album/7KOmySDb3gn3vRmhkmMMrH?si=IL0zthuPQj2tyckUpzuc8A
Vulgar by Dir En Grey [2003]
This album is a bit more "garagey" than the other albums I have mentioned here. What I mean is that Vulgar sounds a lot more raw and generally has less overdub. There is not much more I have to say about it. There are a lot of songs where the vocals carry the music. Take that as a good or bad thing upon listening to it. It doesn't encompass a lot of what I personally love about this band but it's still good shit.
As of writing this, Vulgar isn't on Spotify so have fun looking this one up (or just buying it).
So here is a song by them that mixes what I like the most about the album with its accessibility to those unfamiliar. It's called Marmalade Chainsaw:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXGrwcXo7-k
Arche by Dir En Grey [2014]
Arche is my favorite of Dir En Grey's albums and probably one of my new favorite metal albums. I, unfortunately, have no real idea on how to explain why. It has a lot more variety than a lot of the other albums do within themselves and that's something that usually suits my fancy with a custom tailor. If you prefer something more tonally consistent and genre variety in short spurts gives you emotional whiplash, you're better off with Withering to Death or Vulgar. If you want... heavy metal music but sometimes not??? then Arche will probably do something for you. It's definitely weird without going into psychedelic or mathcore territory. I respect the hell out of this album.
Arche isn't on Spotify right now either.
So here is just my favorite song on this album. It probably isn't the best or most accessible. But fuck it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5aQVRWuWlE
Pacific Myth by Protest the Hero [2015]
Protest the Hero is one of my favorite bands of all time. It's not for everyone but what fucking is. Protest the Hero, I know, from first glance, sounds like another "Verb the Noun" hardcore band. Surely, they take some inspiration from such music, as is evident from their first EP. Their first LP, however, blew that shit completely out of the water (and for the record most of their influences for the band's music are more jazzy dudes and score composers and shit, but I guess that's neither here nor there, just me being a fanboy). It went from some overly political, nasally, AFI shit with breakdowns by a bunch of literal teenagers to this progressive metal opera vision realized. Their second album, Fortress, was the one that got me into them. To this day, there is not a song on that album I don't like. That album was supposedly mostly improvised and then they just went back to glue the pieces together later. That shit rarely stays in the same time signature and tempo for more than a minute, and their first album, Kezia, is even more spastic. Then you have Scurillous, which is much less conceptual and the vocals are a bit off in relativity, but the album is still good. Volition is this crowd-funded masterpiece. Nothing about Volition on the surface is particularly thought-provoking or groundbreaking but the more you get into it, the more it gives. Even then, it's pretty great the first time. I have witnessed several people who aren't into this kind of shit have firsthand impulsive, positive reactions to songs from Volition. See, I don't like it when bands get super political in their songs because they tend to focus on getting out a message or pushing some agenda rather than focus on making good music; rather than focus on making entertainment. To each their own but if I wanted the same shit repeated and punched into my brain a billion times over with no payoff or minimal thought involved, I would just go back to listening to hymns and Christian rock. I agree with a lot of Protest the Hero's messages but the point is, I had to look up a lot of it or listen to the songs multiple times to fully get what they were saying because the music comes first here. Protest the Hero are very politically charged with a lot of their music but they still understand that. Volition also touches topics like origins of fiction, heartwarming stories from their lives, and the music industry. The composition and attitude of each song are where this shit really shines though. The songs are not as sporadic and ridiculous as their previous work but the entirety of Volition can just be described as being the album with the biggest balls and the most intimate touch of those balls on their fans. Anyway. Where does that put Pacific Myth?
Pacific Myth is not their best album. It has a lot of shit that fans like about their older stuff. They take things we have all heard before and make a unique experience with this checklist on every album they make. There are high, powerful-sounding (probably not healthy) vocals. There are intricate drum fills and segways. The guitars are show-offy but never so much so that it ever becomes pure shred-metal. Sometimes you can actually hear the bass parts too (an issue I have with their other albums). On top of that, Pacific Myth is one of their concept albums. It tells a story about the world's creation and destruction in relation to the ocean or something. I don't understand it but in music, that doesn't fully matter. If it sounds like it is telling a cohesive tale and it all functions as one entity from beginning to end better than it does on shuffle, then I consider it a success. Pacific Myth does that. The only thing that keeps this from being a clone of the formula that has made PTH so beloved is the vocal effects. Maybe some other parts of the mix and some interesting parts here and there too. Two of their longest songs ever are on this album and this mostly works out better than I expected for the band. There are a few parts that definitely just sound like the vocalist karaoke-ing over something that was not originally intended for vocals though. I don't mind this usually but it shows on this one.
So I recommend their other stuff more but this is a great album too. They really don't have a bad LP, though. I guess I mostly just used Pacific Myth as an excuse to gush about Protest the Hero for a little bit. Sorry.
https://open.spotify.com/album/5EN5DdJO9aVuNxRptUeNTD?si=lBfGr4qQQv62QFhj_gj3sQ
Field Songs by Mark Lanegan [2001]
Mark Lanegan is that guy who does all the low, gravelly vocals on Queens of the Stone Age's songs. Or if you are one of the 2,000 people on planet Earth who still know what Screaming Trees is enough to hum a melody, he was the lead singer in that band. His voice is really unique. His range is not particularly crazy but he is much better at conveying emotions with what he has. That in itself makes him a great singer and pretty much a good songwriter by default. Which brings us to Field Songs. Don't go into Field Songs expecting heavy metal or anything. It's folk with elements of rock in it. Almost folk-rock even. There is a lot of stuff on here that would be boring as fuck in someone else's hands but Mark Lanegan makes it work. A lot of simple progressions and predictable transitions. That doesn't make it bad though. Songs for the Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age came out the same year and does the same shit. That one's considered one of the greatest albums of all time, at least in the rock realm. This one got swept under the rug somehow. I guess if you have a unique voice and a penis, it doesn't matter unless you're a natural tenor or the "Chocolate Rain" dude. Field Songs is twangy. It sounds like what really good bourbon tastes like. It's worth a listen. I don't get addicted to it or want to listen to it every day, it's just worth a listen. From there, you might want to listen again. I did.
https://open.spotify.com/album/04ASPfRh4CrzJXln0xm32U?si=ZDcJXjbbQuao4LiUUbY6gw
The Belle Album by Al Green [1977]
I have been meaning to get into older funky shit and soul shit. Al Green delivers and he delivers hard. Everything on The Belle Album is chill as fuck but still has memorable moments. Nothing is ambient just for the sake of being ambient. Nothing is too dancey just for the sake of being dance-worthy. Nothing is too repetitive for the sake of being considered catchy later. It really dresses up the fact that a lot of the songs are just different shades of wanting to fuck. It's a 70s album and it's a 70s Al Green album. If you expected anything else from that, you might be a goober. I personally think it makes up for it. I don't remember every song after listening to it a few times but I remember liking every song and don't mind shuffling the whole thing into my big Spotify playlist (which is just everything I would go out of my way to listen to in one giant playlist). I am pleasantly caught off guard every time a song from this album comes on. I want to check out more Al Green and hopefully be blown away by something. I won't say The Belle Album necessarily blew me away but I like it enough to recommend it.
https://open.spotify.com/album/4RQHNjzrVVxNSlkcmnZDCG?si=TyUluQErRpybrY9bCBIU8Q
Bad Self Portraits by Lake Street Dive [2014]
I have yet to listen to a song by Lake Street Dive that I don't like. I haven't listened to everything yet but the stuff I have listened to from three different albums and some covers of other people's songs they did on YouTube has sold me. They are a great fucking band that knows how to focus on making a great and entertaining song before worrying about their egos. Plus all of the musicians are talented as fuck. Based on bullshit like fucking Paramore, Flyleaf, and everything No Doubt did after Tragic Kingdom, it is easy to look at a band that looks like Lake Street Dive and go "girl band!" and make assumptions that it is going to be one of those. Lake Street Dive indirectly says fuck that. I'm sure there is an interview somewhere that directly says fuck that. Every member of the band has writing credits. Every member of the band knows how to perform their instrument. On that note, some of them perform multiple instruments from a wide variety and it never feels... "hipstery" for lack of a better term. Some songs are rockier so they have more guitar. Some have no guitar at all when they are jazzier so they focus more on the upright bass. If nothing else, Rachel Price is god tier. I cannot believe that there is a vocalist who makes music this accessible and sings this well and not everyone and their unborn brother is talking about her and her band. It is honestly baffling. I don't want to be that guy, you know the one. Like I love Protest the Hero, The Mars Volta, Mr. Bungle, The Gazette. For the same reasons I love those bands, I get why most people wouldn't. I get why nobody meets me and goes "pffft, you like The Knife, why don't you pick something even more mainstream to listen to, basic bitch?". The thing with Lake Street Dive is that most of their shit is absolutely radio-friendly and accessible to a wider audience. Someone somewhere is dropping the give-a-fuck ball. Maybe it's for the best? Maybe it's the band's collective decision behind the scenes to not be as big a deal as they could be. But popularity is not an important thing, this is just me thinking out loud.
So I picked Bad Self Portraits as the recommended album here because it has the most songs that I find myself singing aloud. There are equally interesting songs and individual moments on their self-titled album and Side Pony. You cannot go wrong. You just can't. Do yourself a favor and just check out a handful of songs. I guarantee that you will find one song that you at least think is alright. If not, you are trying too hard to not like things. It's simple as that. They haven't done like prog deathcore or anything but there is so much variety in their discography that I can't fathom someone listening to them with a truly open mind and hating everything. I can't imagine someone genuinely trying out Lake Street Dive and getting pissed off.
https://open.spotify.com/album/1Ie34DR7t2RGL8bWBPNWVF?si=WUS1-L8USgSq5-wq76Ob-Q
Okay, well, I might do one of these again one day. Good thing I have this blog to do shit like this. God. Can you actually imagine if I made a video out of this? Like...
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