What music are you listening to?

[deli]

Finally got to listen to Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavillion. It's a bit of a hit and miss album, but the opener is spectacular.

[VerbalPuke]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxbTRh1o_RU

I remember my buddies and I jamming this in High School all of the time. I believe the guy in this group also fronted Big Black.

Edited December 30, 2012 by VerbalPuke

[thatshortguy]

Lifehouse and Soul Asylum's newest albums are actually quite good. I don't think they would make my top ten of 2012, but Jason Wade has a great sense of harmony and the guys from Soul Asylum are just so good at crafting catchy, legit rock songs.

[KONGO]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxbTRh1o_RU

I remember my buddies and I jamming this in High School all of the time. I believe the guy in this group also fronted Big Black.

Yeah I wonder who that dude was...

[VerbalPuke]

Steve Albini! Oh...and I found out Unsane released an album last year, which is awesome. They did that song Scrape, and Committed which was in the first Tony Hawk Pro Skater.

I found out that they covered Flipper's "Ha Ha Ha", and man did they do a great job.

Edited January 9, 2013 by VerbalPuke

[XxFutureLegend112xX]

[MalaCloudy Black]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ46iZGAno8

[SRN]

Steve Albini! Oh...and I found out Unsane released an album last year, which is awesome. They did that song Scrape, and Committed which was in the first Tony Hawk Pro Skater.

I found out that they covered Flipper's "Ha Ha Ha", and man did they do a great job.

I still need to get into Unsane. I saw a few reviews of Wreck last year and checked out a few tracks on YouTube but I never got around to listening to them. Any recommendations, man? Plus I love that fucking album cover; it is awesome.

[Crybaby Bunting]

Finally got to listen to Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavillion. It's a bit of a hit and miss album, but the opener is spectacular.

Is this the first Animal Collective album you've listened to, or did you go backwards from Centepede Hz?

Either way, if you enjoy the first track then just give it one more listen through and then leave it for a while. The textures are VERY jarring on the first listen through, but once there's a tiny bit of familiarity in the music then you'll find it much easier to enjoy it without being distracted by the production.

And if there isn't anything that sticks in your head after that then you're probably not going to like Animal Collective

But, if you're interested in trying a more 'laidback' AnCo album, check out Centepede Hz (if you haven't already) I found it much more accessible, but then again I was used to the Animal Collective 'sound' by then so maybe it will be just as inaccessible to you :/

[deli]

Yeah, it's my first AC album. And after listening to it for the third time, i'm starting to like it a bit. My Girls is fantastic.

[VerbalPuke]

Steve Albini! Oh...and I found out Unsane released an album last year, which is awesome. They did that song Scrape, and Committed which was in the first Tony Hawk Pro Skater.

I found out that they covered Flipper's "Ha Ha Ha", and man did they do a great job.

I still need to get into Unsane. I saw a few reviews of Wreck last year and checked out a few tracks on YouTube but I never got around to listening to them. Any recommendations, man? Plus I love that fucking album cover; it is awesome.

As far as I know, Committed and Scrape are there best known songs so I'd start there. The first album of there's that I really got into was Occupational Hazard, heavy album, in Unsane's own way (hard to categorize their sound honestly). I think it's their best work and probably the easiest to get into right off the bat, though Total Destruction and Scattered, Smothered, and Covered are great also.

My personal favorite song of theirs is Straight, it's on Total Destruction. Honestly, they don't experiment or change their style much, so you can start anywhere, and you'll either like it or you wont. I figure I'd suggest my personal favorites of them for a reference.

And speaking of the album cover, all of their album covers have some sort of violent imagery. Stuff such as a severed head on train tracks, a murder scene with a sledge hammer, and what I think is a girl drowning on their live album.

Edit - Oh and if you can find them, The Cutthroats 9 are worth checking out if you're interested in Unsane. It's Chris Spencer's side project that has a fairly similar sound to Unsane, you can find them on youtube (along with pretty much everything Unsane has recorded). I really dig the album, though not sure what the story is since you could slap the name Unsane on it and nobody would have known the difference.

Edited January 11, 2013 by VerbalPuke

[RPS]

Listening to late 90's electronic music - Daft Punk, Faithless, Orbital, Prodigy, Moby, Basement Jaxx, Chemical Brothers. To me, Basement Jaxx and Daft Punk have aged the best. Whereas Prodigy, Faithless, Chemical Brothers, Moby, etc. sound really dated, Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx actually sound pretty timeless.

[New Damage]

The Gaslight Anthem's first album "Sink or Swim" and their EP "The Senor and the Queen". I'm liking the rawer, more punkish sound.

As well as that, I'm listening to Brian Fallon's side project The Horrible Crowes album "Elsie". I really like this too. It's darker, but just as heartfelt because of way that Fallon has with words.

[jack95]

The Gaslight Anthem's first album "Sink or Swim" and their EP "The Senor and the Queen". I'm liking the rawer, more punkish sound.

As well as that, I'm listening to Brian Fallon's side project The Horrible Crowes album "Elsie". I really like this too. It's darker, but just as heartfelt because of way that Fallon has with words.

I think Elsie is brilliant. Sometimes it feels a bit like Gas-Lite Anthem (a terrific pun and I'm sure you will all agree) but on the whole I think it's probably my second favourite Fallon work behind The '59 Sound. Sugar, Black Betty & The Moon and Blood Loss are all terrific.

[thatshortguy]

Alright, we've had enough time to get stuff out there. Sooo......

-A.R. Rahman's got two new singles out. "Nenjukkule" & "Elay Keechan". Both are standard Rahman arrangements, though "Elay" has a country flair mixed in thanks to it seemingly being in the key of G. He is this generation's Ravi Shankar, for better or worse. Good stuff if you want an Eastern/Indian fix.

-New Alice In Chains single didn't bowl me over. Gotta give that a few more listens to see if I missed something.

-Bon Jovi's latest is garbage. Swear that band has been mailing it in for decades now.

-New Bowie single is good, though I've stayed away from the video for now. Reminds me of when Tom Waits would slow things down. You just picture the rundown bar with the tired band in the corner, finishing their set for the two people who came in from the rain. Then again, Bowie's always been good at painting those pictures.

-My Chemical Romance have been doing these numbered releases with #4 coming out just as 2013 kicked off. I will say there hasn't been a weak release of the four, but these two tracks ("Kiss The Ring" & "Make Room") stand out to me. MCR is not a band that should do albums, though I liked "Black Parade". This is a band best suited to give you three songs in ten minutes and then vanish.

-Talib Kweli's "One Two" is solid stuff. He may have my favorite flow of anybody around right now. Doesn't hurt that he is usually solid with his word choice. One of the few rappers that can paint a picture of the world around him that doesn't feature everyone dying.

-Chris Tomlin album is alright. First half starts strongly, then it just loses all its steam halfway through and never picks up. He shows a great proficiency for harmony (seemingly a staple in making a good contemporary Christian song), but he's yet to put together a solid full-length.

-Blink-182 singles were nothing great, except for "Boxing Day". Something about an acoustic guitar and DeLonge's voice just works in this day and age. Kept feeling Travis Barker is just using Blink as his personal resume for other gigs.

-OneRepublic's newest would have fared much better to me had Lifehouse's "Almeria" not just stomped all over everything Teddy's done.

-Atoms for Peace is effectively Radiohead's electronic side.

-Seyfried's version of "Little Red Riding Hood" sounds as if Taylor Swift did it and someone "conveniently" forgot to record the four-on-the-floor dance beat. She adds no mystery to the track, instead trying to play it more like Red than the Wolf. Unfortunately, it falls flat, as she sounds kinda listless -- she's scared she might screw up a line. It's not as bad as ScarJo (lawl) trying to convince me she's Tammy Waits, but it's still a pass.

-Let nobody try to sway you otherwise: Ben Gibbard and James Blunt patterned their vocal stylings after Neil Tennant. I wonder if Blunt "retired" because he heard "Leaving" and thought "welp, that's that sorted. Game over."

-To Hear List: Black Veil Brides' newest, two Blake Shelton singles, Dropkick Murphys "Bound in Blood", Isis' "Tribal Dance", Thick As Thieves' EP, & Tim Armstrong's "Why Complain" album.

[SRN]

I decided to listen to Strapping Young Lad's discography today. Alien or the self-titled LP are still my favorites; Alien because it is simply just the best album Devin has produced and mixed, plus it has some of my favorite SYL songs; Strapping Young Lad because it was the album that really got me into that project and it has "Relentless", "Consequences" and "Force Fed".

I also listened to Wadge's Total Volcano Exploding, which is a fun mix of grindcore and surf rock, with the theme and lyrics basically all being about Hawaii and living on the beach and having a jolly ol' time. Actually, I think that is the whole idea behind Wadge since another one of their albums have the distinctive name Grindcore Lu'au. After all that bullshit though, I wanted something hip and cool so I threw on Brian Eno & David Byrne's My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, a record my dad actually got me into, if that is a phrase. It is just, well, David Byrne being David Byrne and Brian Eno being... well, Roxy Music-era Brian Eno. For anyone who haven't listened to it, it is pretty much just a wide arrange of samples from all over the place and then Byrne and Eno play music around it. Quite innovative, and weird, and really cool. This reminds me that I need to listen to that follow-up they released a few years ago.

And now I just finished another re-listen which is Weakling's Dead As Dreams; really downtrodden, heavy black metal that is just bleak and dark. You could compare it to Liturgy, if Liturgy were trying to sound like Marduk or something. For all people interested in thick and really emotive, dark metal, Weakling is definitely one to check out.

[thatshortguy]

-To Hear List: Black Veil Brides' newest, two Blake Shelton singles, Dropkick Murphys "Bound in Blood", Isis' "Tribal Dance", Thick As Thieves' EP, & Tim Armstrong's "Why Complain" album.

BVB album is okay for what it is. Biersack sounds like he's trying to mix Chad Kroeger with Motley Crue. I'm not offended by it, but I'm not rushing out to go get it.

Blake Shelton...yep. Pop Country Song #257 & #258.

Dropkick Murphys aren't what I would call a subtle band. They just don't really slow down, which can wear on ya after an hour of it. "Rose Tattoo" is a good one, though.

Tim Armstrong's album may be my favorite of the bunch, which makes it the very early leader for Album of 2013.

1. Tim Armstrong - Why Complain

2. Black Veil Brides - Wretched & Devine: The Story of the Wild Ones

3. Chris Tomlin - Burning Lights

4. Dropkick Murphys - Signed & Sealed In Blood

[New Damage]

I can't stop listening to Brian Fallon's cover of Brand New's "Sowing Season".

[Your Mom]

I didn't know I had already heard one of their songs a bunch of times but The Lumineers were on SNL last night and I really liked them.

[Dr. Acula]

I've found myself listening to a lot of Converge and HTRK lately. I think I've been more angry then I realized.