Round up

2015 Round Up – 23 album review bonanza

lyru2015layers

2015 Round Up – Six Months Late

tinyjunkheadv1a Without a year like 2015, it’s probable that Blahblahmusic.com wouldn’t exist. Years had passed since Ay-hole and I were really on the pulse of popular music, the reason being that everything simply sucked. It wasn’t just music: movies, television, all media seemed to have fallen into a rut. Nothing was creative, and nothing captivated us. Countless nights, we sat around drinking beer, listening to thirty year old music and swearing we were born too late.
But then 2015 hit like a truck full of bricks. It wasn’t until very late in the year that Ay-hole and I realized just what was going on. It started by playing a single album playing through his Ouya and spiraled out of control into a maelstrom of music sharing and discussion. Not long after, Ay-hole was determined to chronicle his listening travails here, and I gleefully followed suit.
Six months too late, we’re going to look back on that fateful year that helped bring us into existence and see what made it so damn good. 
tinyayholev1a  

I’d like to take a moment to revisit one of those beer drinking, remorseful times as a poem we wrote during those dark times:
My brain feels like it’s bleedin through me head
When I watch the modern movies
There’s nothing juicy to dissect
When I watch the modern movies
Why did they make this?Hollywood gets my money
When I watch the modern movies
The media force feeds my brain
When I watch the modern movies

You can replace movies with radio and Hollywood with that company that has C C as its initials.

tinyjunkheadv1a The C+C Music Factory?
tinyayholev1a You wish
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Jeff Bridges – Sleeping Tapes
tinyayholev1a First release of 2015:
Jeff Bridges – Sleeping Tapes
tinyjunkheadv1a  

This could have been Hollywood ennui or artistic genius, but thankfully it was the latter. Sleeping Tapes is everything I love about experimental music: dark, brooding, mysterious, and hilarious. I feel like way too many people miss that last part, but Jeff definitely understands how to use humor to grip the listener in his found sound landscapes.

tinyayholev1a I lost myself in the Temescal Canyon. I actually could smell the pine.
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John Carpenter – Lost Themes
tinyayholev1a Next is the aforementioned album that lifted our eyes. I had made a habit of listening to the old dudes who were still making music and John Carpenter’s solo album, Lost Themes caught my ears and my attention.
tinyjunkheadv1a  

Yeah, he has a massive body of great work already. Escape From New York and Halloween 2 are synth treasure troves and probably did just as much for electronic music as any Kraftwerk album.

tinyayholev1a My ego was selfishly pleased when Junkhead nearly jumped off the couch when I put it on.
tinyjunkheadv1a Yeah, I couldn’t believe it. It was instantly the only thing I wanted to hear in the universe. I bought it almost immediately.
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Litmus Green – More than Animals
tinyayholev1a Now for something more pop: Litmus Green – More than Animals
Pop is really not the best word to describe it. I am questioning that it is even more pop than Sleeping Tapes.
tinyjunkheadv1a  

It’s definitely the poppiest thing we’ve talked about I think. There’s barely any modern hardcore music, and when there is it’s all emo-influenced. Litmus Green just picked it up like nothing changed after a twenty year hiatus, hating everything not crustie/anarcho/whatever with a passion I can understand.

tinyayholev1a It should be called “Litmus test – is the listener a sheeple or at least a little open minded”
tinyjunkheadv1a Too many sheeple totally overlooked it. They were all too busy listening to new shitty LGBT-themed hardcore punk that Pitchfork’s championing.
tinyayholev1a Pitchfork just made it into the 2015 review. That should be enough to tell you the state of affairs we live in.
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Eclipse – Armageddonize
tinyayholev1a If you ever want to get Junkhead’s adrenaline going, especially after a long day of rescuing sheeple from other sheeple, just say one word:
Eclipse
Armageddonize was brought up in countless conversations and Junkhead played it every time I went over for months.
tinyjunkheadv1a  

I think I did that with everybody. Talk about the best band in the world. This album was an enormous leap in developing their unique sound: the over-the-top AOR/hard rock/metal in-your-face slam. No human being can resist banging their head when any of its tracks come on. A lot of the time I’ll be rolling into work, thinking about how much the drudgery of routine bogs me down, but then I’ll just think of songs like “Wide Open” or “Stand on Your Feet” and I’ll be in my happy place.
It’s a unique combination of sheer electric bite and positive, life-affirming melodies that make it so intoxicating. I’m guessing Eclipse will never really break out because they have a virtually non-existent touring schedule, but at least they can make the best studio material in the universe.

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Europe – War of Kings
tinyayholev1a Europe was actually one of the bands I was looking forward to in 2015. They played a cool rock festival in Sweden over a decade earlier so I was excited to listen to War of Kings
tinyjunkheadv1a The title track has to be the best metal song of 2015.
tinyayholev1a  

I enjoyed it. My most shocking experience with War of Kings was how no one around me bothered to listen to it. This really began my effort to forcefully educate people that real music was happening and they were oblivious to it. I can’t believe Tempest can still sing!

tinyjunkheadv1a Yeah, he’s honestly better now, I think. It’s the material. It’s all metal now, and he’s clearly a metal singer at heart.
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Elder – Lore
tinyayholev1a Dude, I messed up the order.
ELDER – LORE
It’s not the best elder. My favorite Elder story, however, is when M was listening to a youtube auto playlist and listened to the entire Lore album without shutting it off. So, it has to be good.
tinyjunkheadv1a  

Yeah, it has a cool furniture doom sound to it. Like it’s really heavy wallpaper.

tinyayholev1a The album art is really cool, too.
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Bubble Bones – In the Land of Zimandias
tinyayholev1a One more time warp, turns out I forgot to sync my list with Junkhead’s.
The FIRST cool album that I know of that came out in 2015 is Bubble Bones incredible album, In the Land of Zimandias.
tinyjunkheadv1a  

Sure that’s not 2014?
https://bubblebones.bandcamp.com/album/in-the-land-of-zimandias-2014

tinyayholev1a  

Whoops, that was their indie release. I had NO idea. Their label release was in January 2015 on nooirax.
If I go by the real rules, it’s okay because as long as something big happens in the year we are talking about it’s good. As official release vs. Promotional, or reissue vs original. So, this counts, because Ay-hole is my name.

tinyjunkheadv1a Sorry Ay-hole, I only talk 2015 and onward. Everything else is nothing to me.
tinyayholev1a So Bubble Bones gets ex-spelled because Junkhead doesn’t want to have to go and double check all of the reissues of 2015
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Moonspell – Extinct
tinyayholev1a I first listened to Moonspell’s Extinct on youtube and I saw what I’m assuming to be the original NSFW album cover. It is really upsetting and I was watching it on my crumby netbook because I was putting linux on it and it could only do one thing at a time, so I had to turn the screen around just to enjoy the music because I’m a naive little boy
tinyjunkheadv1a  

Dead boobs don’t bother me. I loved Moonspell back in high school and decided to check it out. It’s probably their best album, mixing pop, goth, and metal to reach new, more accessible heights. Moonspell’s gone down some pretty oddball paths over the past twenty years, but it’s nice to know they can turn out some great poppy crunch. My favorite’s either the surf-rocky “Medusalem” or the wholesale Sisters of Mercy rip-off “The Last of Us”

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Michael Schenker – Spirit on a Mission
tinyayholev1a Junkhead has a lot of man-crushes. One of the more powerful ones is Michael Schenker. I think he sleeps under a poster of him.
tinyjunkheadv1a  

He’s got a lot of power, that’s for sure. He’s one of those mid-range guys who actually injects a ton of melody into every solo he drops. Schenker hasn’t really turned out a great rockin’ album since 1984, but Spirit on a Mission returns to that UFO and MSG sound: concise songs, tight riffs, and searing vocals.

tinyayholev1a Candidate for lamest album cover of 2015.
tinyjunkheadv1a Yeah, books by their cover yadda-yadda. It’s 80 million times better than this year’s UFO album or most sexagenarian man crushes.
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Neuroticfish – A Sign of Life
tinyayholev1a In 1999, Neuroticfish released No Instruments, a fantastic futurepop album. Then, they released it two more times, and again two more times with different songs. But in 2015, they released A Sign of Life.
Still good, not as good as No Instruments.
tinyjunkheadv1a  

I like Gelb more.

tinyayholev1a I would probably still buy A Sign of Life if it was available on vinyl.
tinyjunkheadv1a A Sign of Life doesn’t really have any great songs, but it has a phenomenal atmosphere. It’s more of futurepop’s last gasp than anything else, but it’s a good hearty one.
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Teenage Bottlerocket – Tales from Wyoming
tinyayholev1a Teenage Bottlerocket does not sound like punk to me.
tinyjunkheadv1a  

I guess their drummer died last year after this came out? It’s sad, they’ve been making cool music and touring non-stop for a long time.

tinyayholev1a  

That’s tragic. Accidents destroy bands. I mean, they destroy lives…
Of course, now I’m referring to all death as an accident, when it’s actually inevitable.

tinyjunkheadv1a  

But yeah, I think the power pop guy in me like’s this one. It’s totally more of the same, but they’re so good at their little pop-punk niche.

tinyayholev1a Power pop it is.
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Ghost Bath – Moonlover
tinyayholev1a As we are about to talk about Ghost Bath – Moonlover, let me remind you that it is the summer solstice tonight and a full moon.
tinyjunkheadv1a  

Every mix CD I’ve made this year has the second track off this one on it. It takes up 9 minutes, but it’s so damn good.

tinyayholev1a  

Also, I’ve tested this theory, and you can play Ghost Bath in the background during any other experience. It fits. The ultimate bar music.
I can hear all of the kiddos talking about their finals, their hotty girlfriend, the new episode of Naruto, while this plays in the background.

tinyjunkheadv1a  

Yeah, they don’t let the math rock/post-hardcore noodling get in the way of their black metal intensity, but you barely notice.
It’s great music for making out, eating, walking the dog.

tinyayholev1a I read one review that said it was subliminally positive metal.
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Bosse-de-Nage – All Fours
tinyayholev1a Another fantastic background album, only, a little more aggressive sounding.
There are a lot of emotions flying around on this album.
tinyjunkheadv1a  

Bosse-de-Nage is everything I love about Slint and Shellac mashed up with everything great about Darkthrone. It’s definitely emotional, but it’s not foofy at all.
This is supposed to be in the blackgaze category too, but you still feel like the band has a soul outside of atmospheric wankery.

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Peste Noire – La Chaise-Dyable
tinyayholev1a Speaking of atmosphere,
PESTE NOIRE – LA CHAISE-DYABLE
I don’t know how to pronounce it but I listened to it a ton.
tinyjunkheadv1a  

Yeah, the title track onward is perfect. Searing electric ballads of a diseased rural French guy.

tinyayholev1a  

The first half is good because one will be listening trying to figure out what is going on when more stuff happens and the listener still is trying to figure out what just happened.
I could see myself in an experimental band that tries to do the same thing, just a lot less artistically. I guess I’m not French enough, though I could go for 30 hour work weeks.

tinyjunkheadv1a  

Yeah, there’s nothing quite like it. Keep in mind this guy’s been honing his experimental black metal folk junk for fifteen years on some farm somewhere. He’s probably just fucking nuts.

tinyayholev1a I hope the album cover is his kitchen.
tinyjunkheadv1a  

It has to be. Album art of 2015?
Michael Schenker loses to some crazy diseased French guy for sure.

tinyayholev1a Definitely better than the generic skull art featured on many of the 2015 releases.
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Faith No More – Sol Invictus
tinyayholev1a Faith No More released Sol Invictus in 2015. First thoughts, not as bad as I remembered Faith No More. They were made famous when they covered “Easy like Sunday morning,” and “Warpigs.”
tinyjunkheadv1a  

Faith No More was the junk back in the day along with most things Mike Patton. I skipped it last year because I don’t care about either anymore. What’s it sound like?

tinyayholev1a Like more interesting agro butt rock. I think they’ve adapted new sounds pretty well. I was never really a fan of them in the 90’s, but I was listening to other boy bands.
tinyjunkheadv1a Fantomas was great until I realized they were a total Naked City rip-off. I liked Patton’s band Tomahawk, too. Their gimmick was that they were the Jesus Lizard with Mike Patton in it.
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Reno Bo – Lessons from a Shooting Star
tinyayholev1a Reno Bo – Lessons from a Shooting Star
Amusingly addicting
Like sugary ice cream
but with better flavors
tinyjunkheadv1a  

Shooting Star is the best power pop album in a long time. The sugary sweet stuff is the best.
No one was expecting this to be so awesome. Too much power pop spends a lot of time looking back, but Reno Bo does a good job looking for new paths in a dead and buried style.

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Jono – Silence
tinyjunkheadv1a It’s totally Queen on steroids! “Wasting Time” is the song I want to play whenever I walk in the room.
tinyayholev1a I usually hate this kind of sub-avant-garde emo pop. But this is good stuff. Nice mix, good writing, and very interesting melodies.
tinyjunkheadv1a I’d probably throw it in the melodic prog category, but that works too. They have a strong grasp of what makes melodic rock and progressive stuff, so well that it never feels like a “revival” album.
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Iskra – Ruins
tinyayholev1a Iskra, the crust punk band that everyone considers black metal. I really enjoyed listening to Ruins. I am very excited about socio-political music that is not just media friendly bologna.
tinyjunkheadv1a  

Yeah, I don’t care how many crappy anarcho-quotes you throw in your liner notes, tremolo guitars/blast beats/shrieky chick vocals=black metal baby. Ay-Hole, my girlfriend and I are pretty good at reproducing the sound a capella.

tinyayholev1a  

C: BAH BAH BAH BAH BAAAAAH
A: (blast beat)
What did you do again?

tinyjunkheadv1a I did the tremolo guitars playing some evil sounding riff.
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Daniel Romano – If I’ve Only One Time Askin’
tinyjunkheadv1a Pop country is a dirty word, but this recalls a time when the term had something akin to a soul.
tinyayholev1a I’m just waiting to talk about
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Seal – 7
tinyayholev1a I do not think anyone listened to this.
tinyjunkheadv1a I didn’t, although I had a Seal kick back in 2014.
That’s totally why I missed it.
tinyayholev1a I did. It was just as boring as expected.
tinyjunkheadv1a If only Haddaway had an album last year.
Totally would have given that a chance.
And that’s totally all I have to say about that.
tinyayholev1a I have been actually waiting to talk about…
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Stryper – Fallen
tinyayholev1a Who’s hotter, Micheal or Robert Sweet?
tinyjunkheadv1a Michael for sure. He’s in Boston now, so he’s automatically a sex machine.
The three throwaway ballads aside, this is some awesome metal.
tinyayholev1a  

Robert definitely knows how to sport the flairs and even with his open shirt I can rarely tell him apart from a woman.
I regularly enjoy screaming “YAH-WEH!”

tinyjunkheadv1a  

Huge production, great song. “Yaweh” is a six minute epic that feels like the love of Jesus is going to crush the shit out of you.
The title track rips too. The verse and chorus don’t really blend, but I think it’s the jarring screams of “FALLLLEN” that make the whole thing.

tinyayholev1a Also, best Black Sabbath cover of 2015.
tinyjunkheadv1a  

Yeah, for real. I was listening to my vinyl copy of this last week and I realized the ending track, “King of Kings” is a virtual re-write of the Sabbath cover in terms of the first verses lyrical content.
“Do you believe in Jesus?/He’s good/But your friends don’t like him/And you’re a sheeple dingus”

tinyayholev1a Whoo. I’m getting hot. We should move on. And what better transition than to…
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Powers from Hell – Devil’s Whorehouse
tinyayholev1a Powers from Hell – Devil’s Whorehouse, with album art featuring a naked and tattooed nun. EXCELLENT mixing.
The sound that is.
tinyjunkheadv1a  

The grimy old school thrashy black metal sound is great, and Devil’s Whorehouse kicks it out hard.
If I were a nun, this music probably would inspire me to get naked tattooed.

tinyayholev1a  

It most likely happened like this: “Yea, we had an old Panasonic camcorder in the basement and set it up to practice. The cut came out so good we just sent the video to the producer and he made a CD out of it. We never got any studio time.”

tinyjunkheadv1a  

Studio time isn’t very black metal. Iskra is probably closer to Beyonce than Devil’s Whorehouse when you think about production values.
Powers From Hell needs to make more more more.

tinyayholev1a  

I’m telling you, man. The Call of the Winter Moon.
But the real coup-de-grace of 2015, possibly the album that made us wet our pants for future releases:

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Baroness – Purple
tinyayholev1a I cried when I first listened to it, probably.
tinyjunkheadv1a I dunno if I’m even capable of gushing over this album anymore. I did it back in my review of the live show.
tinyayholev1a  

You did memorize all of the lyrics, then listened to the entire discography and learned most of those songs, too.
If anyone has not heard the Purple album yet, and not Whitesnake’s 2015 release, listen to Baroness ASAP.

tinyjunkheadv1a  

I knew the Blue and Yellow and Green from before, but those kind of sucked.
Purple’s so perfect, it’s like a totally new band.

tinyayholev1a  

An example of fortitude.
Now that a new day has dawned, we will listen, we will research lightly, we will consider with great prerogative to absorb and implement modern music back into our previously malnourished diet full of old punk and never popular rock and roll bands.

tinyjunkheadv1a  

Hell yeah.
Keep it very light on the research. I didn’t even know Transilvanian was how they spelled it in Scandinavia.
I thought it was like a punk rawk way to spell it.

tinyayholev1a I still deny Transilvania is a real place.
tinyjunkheadv1a  

Transilvania is like my black metal/punk rawk happy place. Where dude’s chill in vans in the foresty mountains somewhere with naked tattooed nuns and churn out good music.

Honerable unmentionables :
Purity Ring
Nightwish
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Blur
Whitesnake, only because they also released the Purple Album
Lifehouse
Third Eye Blind
Public Enemy
Ratatat
Lamb of God (the hard rockin one)
Six Feet Under
Dear Hunter
Wand
Strange Wilds
Buckethead (he releases like, thirty albums a minute and maybe 5% of those are good, so right on)

FIRST THIRD ROUND UP: SOME METAL

13rdmetal

ayholev1tmbCaliban – Gravity

Butt-rock metal. Most of the album sounds like a post-industrial attempt at that stuff the metal hipsters listen to nowadays where everything sounds as “epic” as possible and there are parts where the instruments just repeat random atonal garbage and there does not appear to be a standard time signature, meaning things just happen whenever. “Left for Dead” is good until the breakdown. “The Ocean’s Heart” appears to be the only fully listenable track. The rest of the album is just typical butt-metal garbage.  The album cover is boring, too.

1/5

Endless – The Truth, The Chaos, The Insanity

Progressive metal. Most of the tracks are high energy, fast tempo, and extremely busy. Not quite “speedy.” The title track sounds like the most well put together one. Maybe the name should have been “The Truth, Designed, Well Organized.” It features a lot of styles and the sections are very identifiable. “Under the Sun” is some sort of electro-pop rock, which makes it the most interesting track. Tracks 6,7,8,11, and 12 all are toned down ballads, with track 13 as just a straight emotional piano image. The non ballad tracks are okay and feature some good technical shredding.  The album cover looks like a mess.

2/5

Wisdom – Rise of the Wise

Power folk metal. The melodies and singalong qualities are what push every song. “My Heart is Alive” sounds dumb but is actually quite inspiring. Many of the songs become straight arena rock, like “Through the Fire.” The second half is much better than the first. “Secret life” is so catchy one might sing along. The next track continues to build but is snuffed out by the last track, which happens to be the title track and the most boring as well.  The album cover looks cool at first, but upon a second glance…

3/5

Lamashtu – Fallna Själar

Castlevania rip offs with odd up front female vocals. All of the songs are very complex and a treat for the music analyst. Lots of sound effects and a huge variety of orchestral sounds. The guitars also employ many 90’s pedal effects like the plagal effect. Each song has a completely different feel to it. The only complaint is I swear I heard a cowbell on more than one track. There is some sort of ragtime on track 6.  The album cover is very scary.

4/5

Final Chapters – Legions of the Sunday

Crazy speed power metal. It all sounds like video game music. There are a lot of melodies, but many of them are overused and boring. Some of the tracks are just rock songs with shredding and synth hits. Probably something a lot of high-schoolers are into. Track 7 actually has some emotion in the male vocals and is the only one I could recommend.  I like the album cover because it has many colors.

2/5