BATS - Red In Tooth And Claw

despite the album being named after a song by Rosetta, an amazing sludge band, BATS play math-rock / post-hardcore. they have a vocalist who sometimes sings about SCIENCE. they're pretty great.

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Astronautalis - The Mighty Ocean and 9 Dark Theatres

another "hipster" hip-hop album, but this one couldn't be more different than Busdriver. i'd probably consider this an indie rock album with hip-hop influences, especially considering that it was apparently recorded after "a road trip of listening to almost nothing but shoegaze". there is the occasional rapping, and everything rhymes, but for the most part this is a slow and relaxing album.

standouts include Seaweed Sheets with its Modest Mouse-esque chorus (the vocalist is surprisingly good at sounding like Isaac Brock), the depressing Barrel Jumping (A Man Of Letters) and the 10 minute 'epic' Down and Out In The Bold New City of the South, which goes from an uplifting song about stalking to a positively sinister song with glitchy piano to a crescendo that wouldn't be out of place on a post-rock album.

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Busdriver - Fear Of A Black Tangent

if you're big into hip-hop, you probably won't like this... Busdriver is a rapper who is known for his extremely fast delivery and lyrics that border on nonsense. i've noticed that he's often criticised in the last.fm shoutbox by people who listen to loads of hip-hop for things such as his lack of flow or whatever. i'm not bothered by anything like that, i just enjoy his voice and his super-fast, experimental approach to hip-hop.

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Narrows - New Distances

Narrows is a band composed of various members of the hardcore scene, including members from These Arms Are Snakes, Some Girls and Botch's vocalist Dave Verellen. mainly due to the vocalist, this sounds like Botch if they didn't break up and matured their sound a bit.

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MERZBOW FUCK YEAH

(this is not an excuse to make up for not uploading anything, i swear)

so after reading a thread on /mu/ (lol) that involved listening only to an artist for a month straight, i have decided that starting june 1 i am going to listen to the MERZBOX, 50 CDs of noise. FUN

i value my sanity so i'm not spreading it out over a month, but instead a week. judging by my calculations this means roughly 3.5 hours of merzbow per day (something tells me i'm not going to go over this amount). since i am gay and also value my scrobbles feel free to check my updates at http://last.fm/user/MERZBOW_FAN and also chronicling my adventures (for when i look back at my 15 year old self and laugh) at http://ifuckinglovemerzbow.blogspot.com

i will keep updating this blog assuming i don't go absolutely insane and kill myself or something

if for some reason you want to listen along feel free to download it here, uploaded by some crazy individual.

Stars Like Fleas - Sun Lights Down on the Fence

the only way i can think of describing this band is 'ambient glitch folk', which sounds terrible but is pretty accurate. the glitchiness is similar in ways to World's End Girlfriend, but rather than going for an orchestral feel the music is subdued and relaxed.

MP3 V0 (the quality is awful for v0 but i think it's the best quality rip on the internet)

This Song Is A Mess But So Am I - Church Point, L.A.

this guy makes music that is, in more ways than one, similar to Xiu Xiu's noisier outings. the vocals in particular sound a lot like Jamie Stewart. however, he distances himself from Xiu Xiu's often chiptune-oriented works by making Church Point, L.A. noisy and similar to IDM, albeit simpler. the vocals are not the only part of the music similar to Xiu Xiu, though. this album creates an often frightening and always depressing atmosphere, due to the artist creating music to cope with his mother's death.

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Time To Burn - Island

this record is ridiculously loud. it is a sludge album, so it's expected to be loud and heavy, but this outclasses most bands in the genre. extremely heavy distorted guitars work together with crashing drums and screamed / growled vocals to make this album one of the most crushing in the genre. there are some restrained, ambient moments but for the most part they're few and far between.

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O! The Joy - Zen Mode

relatively unknown math rock / progressive rock, similar to The Fall of Troy or Tera Melos except a lot more mellow. the vocalist works perfectly with the band, adding dynamics to the 'harder' sections of the album. unfortunately this is the only album they made, would've liked another one as they are certainly technically proficient and creative.

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Melvins - A Senile Animal

the first of their albums with Big Business and in my opinion one of their best (quite a feat considering the number of albums they've released). buzz's guitarwork is at its absolute peak here, creating riffs that are both ridiculously heavy and catchy. the second vocalist and drummer creat brilliant harmonies and some crazy drum solos respectively.

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Höyry-Kone - Huono Parturi

finnish experimental progressive rock band. similar to Miasma & The Carousel of Headless Horses. guitar solos and cellos and shit! also, according to last.fm, their vocalist is 'one of the most sought after lyrical tenors in the world', which i guess explains why he is FUCKING AMAZING.

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Hrvatski - Irrevocably Overdriven Break Freakout Megamix

this is a live breakcore album, and it's still more versatile and insane than most studio albums. it contains 91 tracks yet barely goes for longer than 40 minutes. because of this you end up on track 20 before you know it. the sheer number of tracks makes sense, however - this album cycles through a variety of sounds so quickly that every track has something different going on. the whole album remains distorted and noisy throughout, though, so it's not an easy listen.

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toe - The Book About My Idle Plot On A Vague Anxiety

not much else to say that i didn't a couple posts down. aside from maybe "who thinks up these album names?"

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Isis - Mosquito Control

Isis were a sludge metal / post-rock band that disbanded yesterday or something. they made some great music so i'm posting my personal favourite. the Mosquito Control EP didn't stuff around with clean vocals or post-rock interludes unlike their latter albums. half an hour of sludge with killer riffs that barely stop throughout the album and maniacal vocals that alternate between growling and screaming, which Aaron Turner was definitely suited to.

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toe - Songs, Ideas We Forgot

toe are a japanese math rock band that flit between relaxing acoustic melodies and smooth jams complete with a dynamic drummer. people have called them the japanese Tera Melos but i don't really see that, this is relaxing for math rock. this is also just an EP but i'll post one of their full-lengths tomorrow.

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