F O U R T H E Y E

It only feels like a few days ago I did one of these. A few albums were listened too in March, possibly some others as well, but unfortunately my HDD died so this list may be incomplete!

Cancer Bats - Searching for Zero Searching for some kind of musical form it seems. Sadly falling into a trap many bands do - release a couple of great albums, and then several mediocre ones until death. 6/10

Elder - Lore Great Stoner rock/metal album that I posted about in the New Music thread. 8/10

Lightning Bolt - Fantasy Empire A bit of a cleaner sound this time around, but still the same old band, same old sounds. I look forward to seeing them live again one day. 7/10

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Freedom Tower - No Wave Dance Party 2015 Only really listened to this a couple of times, but seems to be about on par for a JSBE album. 7/10

The Prodigy - The Day Is My Enemy Probably not going to win any awards or make any top 10 lists, but the album actually turned out better than I'd hoped based on the singles. 7/10

Torche - Restarter I didn't think much of the last Torche album, but this one gets off to a pretty good start. Features the usually fuzzy/buzzy guitars with their usual laid back vocals. A nice collection of riffs, and yet another 7/10 for March. 7/10

Wand - Golem Great album, fuzzy psychadelic rock from a band I've never heard of before. Catch, fuzzy ands trippy. The best album of 2015 so far. 9/10

Zu - Cortar Todo Italian Instrumental Math Rock. Their work is pretty consistent, but I found this to be better than their last couple of albums. Well worth a listen. 8/10

Death Grips - The Powers That B (disc 1 Niggas on the Moon) Another yawnfest from a band that should probably stay broken up. 4/10
Death Grips - The Powers That B (disc 2 Jenny Death) If they make more music like this, then they probably shouldn't break up after all. 7/10

Ufomammut - Ecate Their last album was pretty good, and this one follows that noble tradition in also being pretty good. Heavy stoner doomy rock/metal, a little bit more prog this time around I thought. Could possibly Italian as well, which means I've listened to two Italian artists this month. 8/10

Update: I'm redacting that Death Grips review for now. I need to listen to the second album a little more.

Thanks for the reviews. Elder was a good one, going to check out Wand next.

The new Lightning Bolt is seriously good value. Which is a good thing. It's been YEARS since those guys did ANYTHING worthwhile.

There was a time when I was the biggest LB fan on the planet.....

Calfium Jay wrote:The new Lightning Bolt is seriously good value. Which is a good thing. It's been YEARS since those guys did ANYTHING worthwhile.

There was a time when I was the biggest LB fan on the planet.....

Their early stuff is pretty good, but they got a little repetitive I found. This album is certainly better than their last few. I think they did a goods job adding some clarity to their recordings, but still holding the chaotic feel of their music.

hellboy wrote:Wand - Golem Great album, fuzzy psychadelic rock from a band I've never heard of before. Catch, fuzzy ands trippy. The best album of 2015 so far. 9/10

This was an ok album. Nothing spectacular though. Had a 60's sound to it.

So anyway, it turns out that Death Grips album is part of a two album set. The first is pretty forgettable (which was in fact Niggas on the Moon, the Bjork sample filled album from last year). I probably gave that a 4 or something last year, and I stand by that.

The second disc seems to be called Jenny Death and is probably their best album behind The Money Store. It's a minor change of style, as it seems to have a lot more live drums and guitar than on their previous albums, but also mixes in plenty of harsh noise from their earlier stuff. It's not going to set the world on fire, nor is it likely to win any new fans, but I'd give it a 7/10.