video review: 'schlagenheim' by black midi

And here we go, a project that I'm genuinely surprised I liked as much as I did, but am very pleased that I got to cover it. 

Next up... okay, let's handle Ed Sheeran next - stay tuned!

album review: 'schlagenheim' by black midi

So full disclosure, the reason I'm choosing to cover this is exactly what you think it is: it got a ton of acclaim from critics I otherwise trust, and on a slow week, I figured I might as well knock it off my list. That also meant I could be setting myself up for that kind of album that I'm lukewarm on and everyone else loves, but hey, that seems to have been the running theme for most of 2019, so why not keep it up!

Anyway, black midi - English post-punk/noise rock group that seems to play fast and loose with genres, formed in 2015, released a couple of singles, performed at SXSW in 2018, got signed to Rough Trade, and now we have a debut album. Again, this is a project for which I'm going in cold and a little perturbed about what we could get with this: I kept hearing 'no wave' and 'math rock' show up in discussions of the debut with a very distinctly German-sounding name which translates to 'hit home', and I'm not the biggest fan of either genre. And the producer Dan Carey didn't really enthuse me either - I know him most for producing the worst Franz Ferdinand album Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, but other than that... again, going in cold here, so let's not waste any more time: what did black midi deliver with Schlagenheim?

video review: 'time will die and love will bury it' by rolo tomassi

So I will freely admit I did not expect for this to be nearly as good as it was, especially given their previous records... but yeah, I really did like this months late to the punch. If you haven't heard it, you definitely want to find time to do so, it's great!

Next up... well, I'm working on a top ten, but man that Lori McKenna looks tempting... stay tuned!

album review: 'time will die and love will bury it' by rolo tomassi

So this one's been taking its time rising up my schedule... and one that I've been rather perplexed about covering, not just because of its critical acclaim but also because it's received some popular backlash for possibly simplifying and streamlining their sound, which may have been that step needed to win over critics but would have alienated the diehard fans.

And speaking as someone who is definitely not one of those diehard fans, some of that might have been helpful, because Rolo Tomassi are not exactly close to an accessible act - screamo vocals balancing with female clean singing, wild shifts in time signatures and structure that recall something closer to jazz fusion than progressive rock or even mathcore, and let's not forget the synth tones that somehow picked a mutation of chiptune that gives me a splitting headache every time I listen to them. Yeah, let's not beat around the bush, having listened to all of Rolo Tomassi's records, I had a really hard time getting into them - sure, I can respect the sheer talent and there were some of the more restrained, atmospheric moments I liked, but I also get the impression that said moments were not the ones that are winning over the most acclaim from the diehard fans. But hey, Astraea was heading in a slightly more refined direction - as was Grievances in its own twisted, much darker way - and if Rolo Tomassi were looking to double down on those tones for future releases or even just accessibility a decade into their careers... well, it's a balancing act. So how is Time Will Die And Love Will Bury It?

video review: 'oh, yuck' by so much light

Look, sometimes you have to call a spade a spade, and this guy might just not be my thing. Eh, it happens.

Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN and something I probably should have covered two months ago... stay tuned!

album review: 'oh, yuck' by so much light

So I'm sure at this point many of you have seen a certain piece of bad writing at The Atlantic making the rounds with a particularly ugly clickbait title called 'Progressive Rock Is The Whitest Music Ever'. And yeah, the article lives down to the title, the sort of piece that reflects an uncanny lack of knowledge surrounding the genre and really a general disinterest in writing about it altogether. But aside from an easy opportunity to bag on awful music journalism, the article did get me thinking why people dislike the genre, because there are some points in calling out prog for its pretentiousness wankery, its underweight concept record with bloated orchestration, and complexity for its own sake.

Here's my point: there is a genre of music where this sort of thing bothers me... and progressive rock and metal is not really that genre. No, it's the more obscure and for me much more frustrating genre of math rock, known for complex time signatures and rigidly over-designed melodic and rhythm sections. And with less of a focus on lyricism, you can bet that I'm not really a fan - but it's also a relatively obscure subgenre and people don't tend to request it...

Until today, which takes us to So Much Light, a Sacramento-based project for Damien Verrett where on first listen you could definitely see traces of math rock in the complex, shifting time signatures and knotted melodies of his debut Supine/Spellbound in 2012. But the overall genre of the music proved to be tougher to follow: anchored almost entirely in acoustic guitar and with a pretty impressive backing list of musicians to flesh out the sound, it'd be easier to slot this towards acoustic-leaning indie rock... and then you get our frontman with a remarkably timid and thin vocal delivery and lyrics that would not be far removed from the weirder side of emo. So I'll be blunt and say I wasn't crazy about that debut at all - a couple fascinating arrangements, but little else that gripped me... but we would not see another full-length So Much Light record for another five years - an EP in 2015 and a few scattered singles, but then he signed to ANTI- and we now have a follow-up called Oh, Yuck. So okay, how did it turn out?