Last updated 6/18/09



Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Music Recommendations

I buy lots of CD's. I know its probably a better Idea to just go online to itunes or whatever and just download them digitally, but I like hunting around looking for good CD's. Makes me feel like I've accomplished something (even though all I have really accomplished is wasting my money). So here are some brief reviews of CD's I've bought over the last few months.

1. Electric Wizard "Witchcult Today"


I had been wanted to see what Electric Wizard was like for a while, so when I saw this in the music store I figured I'd give it a try. Think Black Sabbath slowed down and tuned down a few steps and you get the Picture. Lyrics are what you would expect on an album named "Witchcult Today" (meaning ridiculous) but they fit with the mood the instruments create. Album starts out strong but by the end it becomes a little monotonous. Its called stoner music, so maybe it would sound better stoned. Too bad I will never find out.



2. Mogwai "Mr. Beast"

This was my first Mogwai CD, and I must say that its pretty good. A bit hard to describe. Most of the tracks are instrumental and range from full out hard-rock (Glasgow Mega-Snake) to atmospheric piano driven songs (my personal favorite "Friend of the Night"). There are few tracks here and there with vocals and most of these are pretty good. A bit like radiohead, albeit louder and less vocal driven (I'm not sure if the Radiohead comparison works here, but its the closest well-known band I can think of). The only song thats doesn't work for me is "I chose Horses" which consists of background music and the Vocalist from the Japanese Band "envy" talking. I'm not a fan of spoken word in music in such large doses and it just strikes me as boring. That track aside I highly I high recommend this one.


3. Cult of Luna "Eternal Kingdom"

Cult of Luna is one of my favorite bands. I have many fond memories of listening to Cult of Luna and their brand of atmospheric/post-rock/post-hardcore/experimental/*insert random genre* music while walking around town drunk thinking the world is going to end. You of course do not need to be paranoid nor drunk to enjoy Cult of Luna. Their latest "Eternal Kingdom" did not dissapoint. I drove all around town looking for this CD. Didn't find it either until I went out of town to visit a friend and found it at a CD store there. "Eternal Kingdom" is much darker and heavier than their previous (though still quite good) "Somewhere along the Highway." There is an evil owl-man creature on the front with glowing eyes; what would you expect? Gone are the clean vocals and banjo's. Just anguished screams, detuned guitars, electronic walls of sound, thundering bass and.....trumpets. The trumpets work though, trust me. Not a bad song on the album, even the several instrumental interlude tracks are worth listening to. Not sure how I feel about the ending to the song "Ghost Trail." Its one of my favorites on the album, but the ending just seems like it goes on for a bit to long and doesn't quite fit, but it is growing on me. Maybe they wanted it to just come out of nowhere. The title track is also good and worth looking up if you have time.


You can listen to most of these bands on youtube or itunes if any of my ramblings peaked your interest. I will try to put up some album reviews often. Though putting the stupid pictures in the post is kind of a pain. Anyway take a listen to some of the bands and let me know what you think. I'm also open to recommendations :)

4 comments:

Blue Shoe said...

Funny you should mention Radiohead - I never really took interest in them, but the other day I bought their recently released "Best of" album. Not bad, although the lead vocalist (Thom Yorke?) starts to grate after a while. And that is the first time I've seen "Tom" spelled "Thom."

Gobbler said...

Yeah the best radiohead album is OK Computer. After that I just kind of lost interest. The Bends is pretty good too. But definetely OK Computer. maybe you should send out an email again to everyone you know reminding them that you have a blog and that there will be regular posting.

Blue Shoe said...

Heh, yeah, just did. We're on the same wavelength.

Anonymous said...

Any fan of Mogwai is a friend of mine. Well, no, actually. For all I know, you could be a real bouche-dag. That aside, I have all their albums. It's all good, but Rock Action was my first, and so, I suppose my favorite due to sentimental reasons. The instrumentality of them is why I listen to Mogwai when I write. Pleasant, but not distracting.