So is everything a nameless lie? Who, my god, am I?

I've been trying to figure out something. So, back in 1998, this label called Holy Records puts out a tribute album to one of my favourite bands - Paradise Lost. I got it pretty soon after it came out, and I played once - yes, just the once - and thought to myself 'what the fuck did I just listen to?', I found it to be that bad. It was full of really weird covers, and some worked very well, like Oprhaned Land's version of 'Mercy', and On Thorns I Lay's version of 'True Belief', but pretty much everything else was just horrid. I hated, hated, hated everything else there, pretty much. Insofar as it depended on me, I'd never - ever - listen to one of those bands again.

So what I'm trying is where I was at that time, late '98. And, I mean, I was like halfway through an unhappy relationship, my sex life was reduced to one, maybe two moments of bad sex, but other than that... I was pretty content in life. Sure, I was in a going nowhere fast relationship, but things were pretty much OK. So I really didn't have any reason to really hate this songs so much, and I wonder why I did.

Unfortunately, I forgot to write down my initial thoughts on a few of these bands and how I rated the album, so I'm going from memory here.

Argile - 'Spleen Angel'
I had no idea this band was a side project from another band to be featured here. And I even thought the band was called 'Argyle' and not 'Argile'. I actually really liked this one - Metal, yes, but also some neo-classical and acoustic bits. Let's start with a 7/10

Misanthrope - 'Embrasement'

So this is the band that is the main project from the Argile fellas. Knew them by name, and to be honest - I found them to be a lot less interesting than Argile. I'll give this a generous 6/10

Legenda - 'Eclipse'

A few seconds in, I was sure I wasn't going to enjoy this - at all. 'Shit, more Black Metal?', but soon after I started really enjoying the record. Way back when, I held this CD in my hands countless times, and I always ended up choosing something else other than this. This was a fun listen, it gets a good 7.5/10 

Godsend - 'A Wayfarer's Tears'
Jesus, all I can remember about this album was the singer's nasally voice. It was metal, but not really? Something not bad, but not good either, with some doom-y elements to it. I don't know. I really don't. Let's just give it a 5/10

Yearning - 'Merging Into Landscapes'

So... there's this genre called 'Beauty and the Beast', this type of Gothic Metal with a girl singing and a guy doing harsh/clean vocals. And what's this? Maybe 'The Really Annoying Beauty, The Beast and The Slightly Annoying Beast'. I don't think I disliked this, but neither did it leave such an impression that would warrant a really good rating. It gets a 6.5/10

S.U.P. - 'Room Seven'

I always thought that this band was either a Prog Metal band or some weird Metal/Techno combo thing.

It's true that I didn't love everything here - I remember being thoroughly unimpressed by the first few songs. And sometime they'd weirdly remind me of Nirvana, a band I absolutely loathe. But here and there they had some really, really great songs. I'll give it a worthy 7/10

Stille Volk - 'Nueit De Sabbat'

It's 2009 and the girl who I was dating at the time - and again, this was at the halfway point of a painful and complicated relationship - visits me in London, where I was living at the time. We go to Camden Market, and in this wee jewelry store, they were playing something I was sure I knew what was. So I asks the guy who was working there and he tells it was Stille Volk. This album came out in 2009 and I hoped it might sound familiar - but it doesn't, not one bit.

This is folk/celtic/medieval music, somewhat in the vein of In Extremo or Saltatio Mortis and even though I have nothing against this kind of music, it doesn't do much for me either. Not bad at all, though. I'll give it a 7/10

Things get tougher next week. Tune in to the same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel and you'll see what's what.

Behind a different mask I know it's always the same face, always the same eyes greedy for agony

In the early-to-mid 90s, I had to distinct groups of friends : one survived the test of time, the other did not. One was in the city I grew up in, the other was on the other side of the river. Both groups had similar tastes in common - metal, comics, movies, action figures, but they rarely ever crossed over. However, both groups of friends - and some were just more acquaintances than friends, really - had people who, at that point in time, ridiculed Black Metal, especially that first wave that was coming in from Norway and other Scandinavian countries. Sometimes I felt that I was flying that banner all by myself, at least for a few years. I came across a compilation called 'Blackend : The Black Metal Compilation Volume 1' in one of the very few music stores that sold exclusively metal music, and I bought it at once. Some bands there I already knew and loved - Samael, Emperor, Mayhem, Impaled Nazarene, but there was a ton of bands there that I had never even heard of. I picked a bunch of those bands to give them a try, and boy oh boy, what a week.

Day 190 - Fleurety - 'Department Of Apocalyptical Affairs'

One thing I've learned about this band is that either people hate this band or they really hate this band. This one was pretty fucking weird. Black Metal? No. But definitely some metal. Also some Jazz, some Trip-Hop, lots of experimentation. good female voices, not so great almost atonal male voices. Was this bad? No. Was this good? Sort of? I don't know that I'll ever listen to it again, but this was certainly something. It gets a 6/10

Day 191 - Ved Buens Ende - 'Written In Waters'

Eh.... I wasn't overly convinced when I listened to the song that was featured in the compilation, and I wasn't won over now. Like Fleurety, it also has a bit of an experimental side, but the Black Metal is definitely more pronounced here. I don't know. I didn't really like it, but I didn't hate it either. Let's settle on a 5/10

Day 192 - Lord Belial - 'Unholy Trinity'

I used a song by them that was featured on this compilation to troll a couple of friends of mine, saying that this was the *new* Cradle Of Filth song, I even went so far to tell them that the band had had yet another personnel change - something very common in the band, even unto this day - and that they had decided to abandon the gothic symphonic type of Black Metal they were known for for some more traditional Black Metal. Of course, my fib was short lived, and I managed to fool no one. I bought their 1995 'Kiss the Goat (Sic Transit Gloria Mundi)' album, but I wasn't a huge fan of it - if I'm honest, that year would mark the end of my fascination with Black Metal, at least of this genre. Listening to their latest album was a great experience- I actually rather liked it. And I liked it a hell of a lot more than anything else I've listened from C.O.F. in many a year. It gets a respectable 8/10

Day 193 - Sigh - 'I Saw The World's End (Hangman's Hymn MMXXV Rerecorded)'

Sigh... and I do mean the name of the band as well as the act of, well sighing. I never managed to get into them. They were never a priority, though critically they were always well reviewed and I knew people who swore by them. And a Black Metal band from Japan? How much more enticing could that be? But I never found the time, or, indeed, the will to seek them out. And just like Lord Belial, I liked it a whole lot - I even liked it more than the solid Lord Belial record. Mirai has such an amazing voice, and now I have a hankering to go listen to more by them. I'll give it a pretty good 8.5/10

Day 194 - Enslaved - 'Heimdal'

I know, I know.... Enslaved are one of the more celebrated bands to come out from this era of Black Metal, and they were even Viking Metal precursors. But I'll be the first to admit that whenever I tried to listen to them in the past - and I tried maybe a couple of albums - I was never in the right frame of mind to appreciate them. I realized I was listening to something good, very good even, complex and very well put together, but by the time I was finished, I wouldn't be able to tell you a single thing about the record. So, looking at the bands featured on this compilation, listening to them was pretty much a no-brainer. And this time I finally got them. But it's fair to say that this isn't exactly Black Metal - though there are some bits of it there. This is much more in the Progressive Metal category, though on the heavier, harsher side of that spectrum. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this record and it's probably the strongest album I listened to this week. I'll give it a whopping 9/10

Day 195 - Dark Funeral - 'We Are The Apocalypse'

Fun fact : a friend of mine, a guy who I've not talked to in ages called Paulo, borrowed this compilation from me fairly early on. On the back of this, he went and bought the first Dark Funeral CD, which he then lent to me, and I really didn't like it, for whatever reason. In 30+ years I never felt the urge to go and listen to anything by them, so I figured why the hell not and give them a try? And this is good, old-school Black Metal - no fancy shmancy choirs or piano segues. It's more melodic than I would've thought, actually, which made for a surprisingly solid listen. I'll give it a 7.5/10

Day 196 - Throne Of Ahaz - 'On Twilight Enthroned'

Who? Throne Of Ahaz. Never heard of them? Well, I only know the one song by them, but it was a toss up between them and Bestial Warlust, Unanimated or Havohej - all of them bands featured in this compilation that I never got to know anything about. So Throne Of Ahaz it was. Or should that be 'it waz'? OK, I'll stop. And if Dark Funeral was a no frills piece of Black Metal, this one has even less frills, like negative frills, but not as much as a Burzum or Immortal or Darkthrone album - which have infinity negative frills. Liked it, didn't love it, could have been maybe ten minutes shorter. It gets a 6/10

I have one more compilation whose bands I want to revisit. It's not a compilation, but a tribute to a band I loved dearly at the time - Paradise Lost. When I first listened to it, I was dumbfounded by some of the cover versions. I liked maybe a couple of the songs there, and everything else... just no. But that was me almost 30 years ago, maybe now I can appreciate some of the bands that were featured in that tribute? We'll see, won't we?

It's like I'm waiting for the scars to heal

A week spent in the darker pits of metal, mostly Black Metal, but also some folksy and neoclassical stuff.

Day 183 - Pillorian - 'Obsidian Arc'

So, this being the band that John Haughm founded after Agalloch disbanded, it's no surprise that this is in fact very Agallich coded - everything that made that band is present here. It's also maybe just a tad catchier, it's gothy and dark metal-ish in parts, which makes for a surprisingly good one and done album - this is the only thing they ever released. A decent 8/10 to start off the week ain't that bad!

Day 184 - Fluisteraars - 'Manifestaties van de ontworteling'

It has to be said that when I like something, I'll give it a pretty good score. When I just sort of like it, it can go anywhere from a middling score to an almost negative one. But when I listen to something that's so incredibly bad that it makes me want to retch in disgust, you bet your sweet ass I'll award it accordingly. And this awful, terrible, atrocious bit of very bad ambient deserves nothing less than a 0/10

Day 185 - Afsky - 'Faellesskab'

And here's a decent bit of Black Metal, they sound exactly like something you’d find like in Adipocere Records catalogues, or maybe labels like Deathlike Silence or Cacophonous. It was like going back to 1993 and discovering these bands that had maybe not very good production values when it came to how they sounded, but they still delivered something good. These guts did, and so it gets 7/10

Day 186 - Uada - 'Crepuscule Natura'

And in opposition to the previous record, this one is definitely better produced, though I didn’t think I’d like it because I didn’t gel with the voice at first. I got used to it fairly quickly, especially because it turned out to be pretty diverse vocally. Overall good, I'll give a 7/10

Day 187 - Panzerfaust - 'The Suns of Perdition - Chapter IV: To Shadow Zion'

I mean, I could have started with Chapter I, and since I know nothing about this band, maybe there's some sort of overarching theme an story to these albums? Maybe, I don't know. What I do know is that this one was the best of the black metal from this run. A strong 8/10 for this one.

Day 188 - The Flight Of Sleipnir - 'Nature's Cadence' 

Last week I wrote this about one of the bands I listened to : 'Sometimes I do things like these. I see a band's name and I imagine that they'll sound something like some other band I like. Even the song's titles led me to believed that this would sound like Agalloch.'

And this band does not sound like Agalloch at all, and yet they have these folksy, almost pastoral side to their music that just makes you feel immersed in nature. I really loved this one, it served as a great palate cleanser after all the harshness from the previous days. I'll give it a good 8.5/10

Day 189 - Osi And The Jupiter - 'Larvatus' 

Sometimes, when I'm doing these weekly 'challenges', I pray that the last record of the week turns out to be the best listen of the week and, Ideally, something that will speak directly to my soul. Now, I've said this before and I sure as hell will say it again : at the end of the day, there's too much of everything and you only have so much free time, so there will always be things that slip through the cracks. This is one such band, one I've been trying to get into for well over a decade, but the right time never came along. And boy - this one was just so good, so, so beautiful, so peaceful, that my week couldn't have ended on a higher note. And on that note, badum-tss, thanks folks I'll be here all week!, it deservedly gets  a 9/10

I'll be spending next week with some more Black Metal - it's actually something I was meant to do months ago but I forgot all about it. I'm going to dive in a few bands from a classic compilation from way back in the day. 

We sang dirges in the dark the day the music died

When I was still buying vinyl, Dunk! Records was one of the labels that got me to spend a lot of money. And for my money, they had some of the very best pressings anywhere in the world. both in terms of how their records sounded as well as how beautiful they were. It didn't help me one bit that they seemed to cater to my particular tastes. I selected a bunch of bands that I'd always had an interest in but never really got around to listening to them.

Day 176 - Am Fost La Munte Și Mi-a Plăcut - 'I Went To The Mountain'

Let's begin with a band from Romania, whose name means 'I Went To The Mountain And I Liked It'. Crushingly heavy, sometimes reminding me of early Opeth or 'Pentecost III'-era Anathema. Then moments of beautiful tranquility, and it's eerily reminiscent of Explosions In The Sky. I loved this one, It gets a strong 8/10 to start off the week!

Day 177 - Le Temps Du Loup - 'Leteo'

Proof positive that not every band from a genre you adore actually makes the cut.

This one is more like instrumental metal, with some bits where fuzz comes in and for me that's always not good. This was the least pleasant listen of the week, it gets just a 6/10

Day 178 - Ranges – 'Sin'

And this one is just the opposite to the previous record. I found it to be rich in melody and some soaring keys just make this one a really good listen. A good 8/10

Day 179 - Celestial Wolves – 'V I I I V'

Sometimes I do things like these. I see a band's name and I imagine that they'll sound something like some other band I like. Even the song's titles led me to believed that this would sound like Agalloch. And, of course they don't.

This one's strange - it's like there are two different bands here, with two separate identities, one very instrumental metal, the other filled with Explosions In The Sky type Melodies. I liked it OK, but I didn't love it. Still gets a decent 7/10

Day 180 - Feed Me To The Waves – 'Apart'

Ultimately, bands that wear their influences on their sleeves sometimes make them hard to differentiate from one another. The  Explosions In The Sky matrix is vrey prevalent here. but there's also some We Lost The Sea. It gets a 7.5/10

Day 181 - indignu - 'Adeus'

A Post-Rock band from Portugal, who knew? And I can't think of this band without thinking about a girl I once dated call Eunice. We connected through a social network back in 2005, and for a number of years we were very heavily flirting with each other, but we never seemed to find the right timing to get together : if I was seeing someone, then she was single. If I was single, she was seeing someone. But come late 2010 and finally things seemed to align and we finally met. And let's get this straight : in pretty much every single way, she was my dream woman. And when we met, things went nuclear almost instantly, we ended up having sex in poorly lit alleyways all night long. But, alas... the scalding, red hot sex aside, I just couldn't make an emotional connection with her. In truth, I had just come out of a long relationship and my heart was still very much broken and my mind completely on another person. And then there's this really beautiful and yet tragic moment between two people who may or may not be in love with each other when they're sharing what they like, what books they read, what movies inspire them, what music moves them - and dear Eunice sent me a song by a band I'd never heard of : indignu. I listened to the whole song, alone in the dark of the room where I lived for so many years of my life, and I spent the rest of the night bawling my heart out. Ever since then I've been keeping tabs on the band, but only listening to a few songs here and there - the ache their previous offering had awakened in me still on my mind. When I learnt that Dunk! was to release an album of theirs, I just had to go and buy it - I still have it, unplayed, itself now a rare collector's item.

This has a... portugueseness about it that I think only Portuguese people will really grasp, not only in its instrumentation, as well as the emotions it evokes. This one is supremely good, it gets a fully deserved 9/10 

Day 182 - We Lost The Sea - 'A Single Flower'

Out of the many exercises in futility I've made, one of them has never been the dreaded 'Desert Island Discs' one. I came close to making it once, back when me and a couple of my closest friends were recording a podcast and we'd agreed that we'd do one episode where we'd showcase our picks. We never got around to that, though, because life, indeed, got in the way. 

Now, that said... I only know of ONE record that makes that cut one hundred percent. A thousand percent. It's that record plus another ten, always and forever. And that record is 'Departure Songs' by Australian Post-Rock band We Lost The Sea. And for me, for my tastes, for my preferences, for my everything, that is a fucking perfect record. I loved its follow up, 'Triumph And Disaster', and since then I've been eagerly awaiting for their new album - which actually came out last year, and I've been waiting for the perfect time for me to listen to it. And in no way does it disappoint, it's beautiful, it's heavy when it has to be but never for its own sake, it's dark - but the kind of darkness that's more inward than outward, and if there's a band that not only makes me love a 27 minute song, but makes me wish it was actually longer... it's We Lost The Sea. It's a juggernaut of a record, I'll give it a whopping 9.5/10

Next week I want to do another label. I'm still figuring out a handful of challenges and whilst I do just that, I'll do something I might yet enjoy. That said, it's Eisenwald all the way next week, baby!

How I could've been yours, and you'd be mine, it could've been me and you until the end of time

I have to say, this week was pretty good when it comes to what I listened to. Admittedly, I already knew there would be a very high chance of that to happen, as I would be diving into one of my favourite labels - Pelagic Records. They are, for me, one of the top three labels when it comes to Post-Rock and Post-Metal.
There was a lot I could have chosen from, but ultimately I'm pretty happy with my choices - even if, in truth, it really didn't get off to a great start.

Day 169 - Abraham - 'Idsungwüssä'

I had their previous record - 'Débris De Mondes Perdus' - both on vinyl and on tape, but it never really called out to me. But for some reason, what with the french title, I was thinking that this was something maybe along the vein of Alcest? Alas, it is not.
It's very heavy, very harsh, almost on the point of being too abrasive even for me.  It's certainly not something I'd easily recommend to everyone. In the end I jus wasn't a huge fan of it, and I'll just give it a 6/10

Day 170 - Hiroe - 'Wield'

Now we're talking here. This is excellent instrumental post-rock, with some shreddy bits. Utterly loved this one. A stellar 9/10

Day 171 - Oh Hiroshima - 'And The Dead Trees Give No Shelter'

You know how ultimately there's just too much of everything and somethings you never get around to listening or reading or watching? This is one such case. I've always felt curious, but I never made that leap. This one is filled with the type of soaring guitars that make Post-Rock such an emotional experience, and a voice that's just calm and beautiful, even at their heaviest.

Pretty awesome 8/10 for this one

Day 172 - Pothamus - 'Abur' 

Weirdest listen of the week, but also one of the very best and most memorable ones. I can't even really begin to explain this one. Post whatever? Sure. But it sounds decidedly ritualistic, in some weird way, it sounds like something a cult that worships Kali and seeks the Mahapralaya would sound if they decided to create a soundtrack to the dissolution of everything. It's so fucking weird and I loved every minute of it. It gets a strong 8.5/10

Day 173 - Hippotraktor - 'Stasis'
This one was, in a sense, very similar to the Pothamus record - and yet nothing alike.

One of the things that struck me in both records was how similar the harsher vocals were, and how they remind me - at times - of Sakis Tolis, from Greek band Rotting Christ, around their 'Κατά τον δαίμονα εαυτού' and 'Rituals' era. I didn't enjoy this one as much, but I'll be the first to admit that due to personal reasons I had to listen to this one in less than ideal circumstances. I might revisit it in the future, though. As it stands, it gets a 7/10

Day 174 - i Häxa - 'i Häxa' 

So, this is isn't Post-Rock. Or Post-Metal, even. What it is is a combination of electronica, trip-hop. ambient passages, some decidedly heavy bits here and there, as well as piano infused moments of sheer beauty. All this makes for a wonderfully cinematic listen, that is best done in one sitting. I say this because this album is in fact four different EPs brought together in one package, made up of four parts. Each, on their own, is outstanding - but listening to the whole thing straight through just makes it all the better. This was the surprise of the week - it's got spoken word bits, it's full of conenctive tissue throughout, it's got a remarkably haunting voice from Rebecca Need-Menear, and by the end of the it I was feeling just so completely uplifted by the whole experience of it. For sure the best listen of the week, I'll award it a 9.5/10

Day 175 - Wang Wen - Painful Clown & Ninja Tiger'

Oh boy. Back when I still used social media, and I followed Pelagic on Instagram, I remember this one time when they made a post about this band - probably regarding some new release - and I made a comment on it that went something like this : 'Wang Wen? Sounds like a very horny asian chick asking her boyfriend when they're gonna have sex', and obviously, the amount of vitriol I got in return was enormous. And I say fuck them. 

So Wang Wen? I say Wang now. Thanks a lot! I'll be here all week!

But all kidding aside, it's another case of things slipping through. I knew of them, I knew that I'd probably enjoy them a great deal, but I never gave them the chance they deserved. And boy howdy, is this good. It's a bit jazzy in some parts - something not unheard of in Post-Rock - and it's sung in Chinese, because duh, they are Chinese. And it didn't even matter that I didn't understand a word - I didn't need to. Everything here was just so good and.. and pleasant to listen to. I loved this one to death. Big 9/10

Next week is Dunk!

Nobody has gained or accomplished anything

This week was very much so on the unpleasant side. Personally, I mean - and while I didn't feel cranky, I did feel deflated, defeated and sad. I'm trying to put things in motion that will maybe make things be better someday, but God alone knows when that might be. 

Day 162 - Loscil - 'Lake Fire'
There's a brilliantly funny sketch in the TV show 'Big Train' where this guy's on a pub with a bunch of people, and one other guy is saying something that the first guy thinks is really interesting and clever, and he makes a mental note to one day try and pass it off as his own idea, and obviously, when he does, it backfires on him completely and he ends up being ridiculed and lambasted by everyone around him. And it's so absolutely hilarious that you won't even see the punchline coming your way. All that just to say that many years ago my friend Rui was talking to me about Loscil (I think... I was very drunk... pretty sure it was Loscil, but then again maybe not), and I sort of remember him telling me something about this one album that had music you'd listen not on actual clubs, but rather this was the sort of muffled music that you'd hear coming from the inside of the club when the doors were being opened and you could just sort of make out what it was. At that drunken moment I found this concept to be amazing and to this day I'm not 100% certain if I heard everything he was telling me correctly or not. I might have misunderstood what he said or something like that. So cue to summer 2015, and here I found myself backstage of one of the biggest festivals we have over here, and Florence herself walks past me and I didn't notice her until someone points her out to me, and I'm hanging out with the Franz Ferdinand guys, drinking and eating like a lord, drunk off my feet, and I'm talking to their now ex-drummer Paul, and I'm asking him what I feel are good questions, like what inspires him, and shit like that. Then out of the blue I remember that convo about maybe Loscil I had with Rui years earlier, and I ask poor Paul if he knows them. He just sort of shrugs his head, and oh boy, on I go on this rambling, drunken tirade about music that you could hear on clubs, but not really on clubs, on the outside soer of thing, and soon enough he's very kindly telling me he has somewhere else he need to be. *Le sigh*

So, that all said, I finally listened to a Loscil record - and let me tell you this : I really liked it, it's really good, but the likelihood that I'll ever listen to it again is close to zero. Very ambient, very planetarium kind of music, like when you're looking up that dome and you see the cosmos and this chill music just leaves you at ease. Pretty good, liked it a whole bunch, I think I'll give it a good 8/10

Day 163 - Stars Of The Lid - 'The Tired Sounds Of Stars Of The Lid'

At the end of the day, there's just too much of everything. Too much content. Too many bands, too many movies, too many games, too many books, and there will always be a lot of things that just slip you by. You may even be aware of them, and somewhere deep down there's a mental note you made twenty years ago about how you should really check something out. And one of those very many things for me is Stars Of The Lid. Especially because over the years I've had a number of people telling me just how much I'd like them. And I remember seeing this record back at the music store where I worked at, and for some reason it - along with a record called 'The Troubled Sleep Of Piano Magic' by Piano Magic - always seemed to be calling out at me. And whereas the latter I'd come to get to know and adore, this one just fell by the wayside.

And just like the Loscil record, it was pretty good, I enjoyed it a lot for what it was - instrumental music, with some incidental bits thrown in, ambient tinged with some ominous darkness that you'd find in a David Lynch movie, but this record is over two hours long, and that, my friends, is far too much for me, so I'll be pretty content with finally just have listened to it. Like the Loscil record, I'll award it a decent 8/10

Day 164 - Labradford - 'Fixed :: Context'

Back when I used to work at the music store, I'd often take a gander at the section that housed this band's records and I'd think 'what a singularly stupid name for a band that is', I mean, who would make a portmanteau of Labrador and Bradford?

And this one was super cool post-rock in the vein of Mogwai, but with some Angelo Badalamenti vibes to it. Really good, I'll give it a rollicking 8/10

Day 165 - Pan American - 'Fly The Ocean In A Silver Plane'

A side project, maybe even the main project now of the Labradford mastermind. Similar, but maybe a bit more electronic, a bit more experimental. Albums that are under 40 minutes are always very appreciated by me, and this one is decent enough to get a 7/10

Day 166 - A Winged Victory For The Sullen - 'Invisible Cities'

I kinda cheated on this one, but not on purpose. You see, I was entirely convinced that this album was released by Kranky, their label. But apparently they also release stuff on Erased Tapes and Ninja Tune, who put out this one. But - spoiler alert - I ended up loving this one so much that I picked it anyway. It's stupid, but I had their whole discography on vinyl once upon a time, and yet I knew maybe just one or two songs by them. This one was just so incredibly beautiful, that I almost felt myself drifting away into the quiet of the night. It's a 9/10 all the way

Day 167 - Grouper - 'Shade'

So here's the deal : I've listened to a few songs by Grouper in isolation, and I've really loved them. She has this haunting, ethereal voice that just gets directly to your soul. But about ten years ago I tried to listen to a whole album and I feel asleep shortly afterwards. So after that I never tried again. And this one was so, so good - achingly beautiful in parts, dense and mysterious in others, it was quite the needed balm for my soul. It gets a pretty solid 8/10

Day 168 - Tim Hecker - 'No Highs'

And I finally got to Tim Hecker. He's a name that I've heard many great things about in the past, but I never felt the urge to pull that trigger. So, this one being an album that handles pretty heady themes - depression, anxiety, all that fun stuff - it's amazing just how those feelings are translated into music here. It doesn't mean that this is full of sad and miserable songs, quite far from that. What we have here is a collection of songs that at times can feel heavy, oppressive, a burden you feel deep inside, especially when you have those voices inside your head saying how truly worthless you are, and you feel crushed by yourself. It's confusion, it's disjointed, and it's pretty damn good. This one gets a very deserving 8/10

I don't 'know yet about next week- there are still a few labels I might want to explore. Two, for sure, those being Pelagic Records and Dunk! Records. I might also take a look into Temporary Residence, who knows?

You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness

Twenty odd years ago, back when I was working at a big box store kind of thing, and I was working at the music section, I was one of the people responsible for restocking the pop/rock section, among other related duties. There were a few other sections as well, and most everyone there got along really well with one another. Every section had designated people who were responsible for it, and one of the sections that I truly and well despised back then was the alternative / indie section. Not only because when I started working there, it did not, in fact anyone really looking after it, which meant it wasn't particularly looked after and it wasn't really well stocked, but also because at the time I was still mostly into metal and EBM/Synthpop/Darkwave and all that shit. That'd soon change when thus guy I know came in from a different branch and started to really lift that section up, and eventually I started seeing things there that'd pique my curiosity. I'd also come to find out that quite a number of these bands shared a common identity, and very often, shared artists between many bands on their label - Constellation Records. 

Day 155 - Do Make Say Think 

I used to think I knew what these guys sounded like, apparently I knew jack shit. I absolutely loved this record and I'm certainly going to listen from more stuff by them. A 9/10 to start off this week was just what I needed.

Day 156 - Godspeed You! Black Emperor - ' "No Title As of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead" ', yes, with quotes and all just to piss me off even more.

This is one of those bands where the hype is so immense that I... I just never saw it. I tried, I really did, but for some reason I just find them to be boring. So I tried again, and I didn't enjoy everything here, sometimes it irritated the holy hell out of me, but there are some brilliant, brilliant moments that just save the whole thing. Ehhh... I'll give it a 7/10

Day 157 - Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra - 'Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light on Everything'

This wasn't bad, but neither was it great. There's some good bits there, but I didn’t really enjoy the fuzz of the instruments and neither did I find the vocals to be that good either. It's a generous 6/10

Day 158 - Fly Pan Am - 'Frontera'

This one was beyond good. It was unexpectedly amazing, and the highlights are the songs 'Parkour' and 'Parkour 2' - the first of which has these post-hardcore screams, almost black metal-ish that are just so out of nowhere that I couldn't stop being blown away by what I was listening. One of the week's bets, I'll give it a 9/10 

Day 159 - All Hands_Make Light ' "Darling the Dawn" ' , motherfuckers can you please stop putting quotes in your album's titles? Please? Pretty please with a cherry on top? It would be much appreciated.

I didn’t love the voice, and when that happens, I rarely come to like what I'm listening to. That said... this is... huh. It’s different, good in spots but not great. Maybe a 6/10 

Day 160 - Black Ox Orkestar - 'Everything Returns'

This is a tough one, but more and more I find that there are things that are technically good, I just can't seem to enjoy. And this is one such case. But first, one thing : I tend to stay away from certain types of music - like Klezmer, Yiddish, Arabic, you know... stuff that has a cultural and religious meaning that I just won't understand. If I listen to it, I'll realize that, yes, this is something that's good, and important, and that probably has the weight of untold generations behind it, but... it's just not for me. Especially if, like in this case, the music does tend to get a bit more to the more sombre aspects of it. And what I found here, I found to be good - but I didn't enjoy a single second of it. The singer has a very good, very deep voice, and as I listened to his singing, I wondered just what it was I was reminded of, and I got a flash of Sopor Aeternus circa 'Dead Lover's Sarabande', and some of the lugubrious woodwind instrumentation reminded me even more of that band. Was this good? Yes. Did I like it? No.

I'll give it a 5/10 because it would be disrespectful to give them less than that, bbut I can't be moved to give it any more than that.

Day 161 - Esmerine - 'Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More'

I'd known the band by name for years. I probably even had all their stuff on one of my external hard drives once upon a time. And this caught me completely by surprise, it did. What we got here is something like the soudntrack to the saddest movie never made, quite akin to Clint Mansell's soundtrack to 'The Fountain'. They sound nothing alike, and yet they seem to share the same spirit. I really loved this one, and this week ends on a banger with the third 9/10.

Next week - Kranky. The label, not my mood...