Blogger ate my post. It rolled back five days of on and off writing.
Fuck Blogger.
Here's what you're getting.
Nine Inch Nails
So, you know the score for Ken Burns' Vietnam doc...it's not really great.
Notes/Standouts:
Less Likely
Justified Response - NIN does early 00's Marilyn Manson
Before Dawn - organic evolution - crickets looping cool stuff
A World Away into The Rights Things
Passing the Point - trance inducing
Strangers in Lockstep - sounds like How To Destroy Angels instrumental
Before/After Faith - ha! Bet you thought this was going to be all soft and shit and have a melody! PSYCH!!!
Haunted - Was really hoping for more than just texture on the closer.
Aside from a few moments ("Less Likely", "A World Away", "The Right Things"), a lot of this feels a touch featureless. There's a distinct lack of melody on everything but a few tracks. There's dynamism and levels and everything is beautifully crafted, but it's a beautifully crafted blandness, if that makes sense. "Justified Response", "What Comes Back", "Before And After Faith"...these all sound great, but they're missing something. Maybe Burns and whoever else was in charge thought too much melody would distract from the subject matter or maybe R & R made that choice to get out of the way of said subject matter, either way, yeah.that would distract from subject matter? One could say it's more texture, or one could say R/R need to branch out a bit.
They Might Be Giants
Dial-A-Song 2018 has been announced, but unlike the original DAS in 2015 which featured one new song every week for the whole year, this time around, the Johns are only releasing twenty-six. Ouch. The inherent and unspoken upside to releasing fifty-two tracks is that if three or eight or twenty-three of them suck, there are still twenty-nine fucking songs that don't, not that anything from 2015 sucked. There were a small handful that weren't my cup of tea*, but whatever. Gift horse, mouth, etc. Looking forward to half an avalanche of new They Night be Giants music starting in a few months.
A review of The Meadows
Er. Not really, since I only saw two bands. So, let's say a review of Gorillaz with TV On The Radio as an opener.
This was the second time I've seen TVOTR and, as I felt after seeing them the first time (at the Apollo on their Seeds tour), I wish I knew their lyrics better. My live experiences are marred by more than just people and potential shitty sound; if I don't know the lyric to EVERYTHING being played, I feel like I'm just standing in a crowd of people mumbling. Their set consisted of almost half of Seeds, a fact with which I was completely fine. "Lazerray" and "Happy Idiot" are some of my favorites. "Province" was heartbreakingly beautiful, but the highlight of the evening was right before they launched into "Trouble", when Tunde said someone had told him once that "everything will be okay in the end, and, if things aren't okay, then it's not the end." Now, if I saw this written in some floaty handwriting with a tree at sunset in the background on social media, I might sneer on a good day and sneer and unfollow that person on a bad day. It's one of those brainless, wistful truisms like "today is the first day of the rest of your life", "good things are good" or "well, when it's not raining, it's the time when there's no rain" that plague the internet. But, having this dude, at that point in their highly emotional set and at this point in human history say this before that particular song...I got choked up. And, during the song itself, yeah, I got more than a little weepy.
So.
I guess the point I'm making is: location, location, location.
Moving on.
I'd been a fan of Gorillaz since they first came out (even if I didn't understand exactly what was going on, didn't smoke weed, and hate reggae), and the mythos of the band along with...literally everything else had me fall deep for this weird side project of Damon Albarn's, but I'd never seen them live. To cut right to it, it was a Gorillaz show. For their songs that had music videos, they played those in the background...each one about a second out of sync with the audio, which was very distracting. Aside from that, there were two huge drawbacks, first, the people. I retain that the biggest problem at concerts, the biggest problem with mass transit, the biggest problem with this world as we know it is the people that trundle and slump across its face. Well, I've never flip flopped on that...
The poeple were just...CONSTANTLY MOVING. THIS IS TONIGHT'S HEADLINER! THESE ARE THE ARTISTS YOU CAME TO SEE! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO, HEAD DOWN, EYES SLIDING OVER YOUR PHONES.
You kids...with your Saturday night, post-Gorillaz plans...
Second problem, "Sex Murder Party". Even though, in my original review of Humanz I said that, while I didn't love the album, I understood it was a great album...well...I don't know now. "Sex Murder Party" is a singular song. A singular song that should never be played live. Especially with an added two minute break down, further fucking up the flow of the entire set. It was like placing a black hole in the middle of a wedding reception right between cake and coffee.
However, I got to see Gorillaz live. And, while Albarn and Hewlett have yet to master the human vs animated live balance and I don't know if they ever will and the show desperately needed more Murdoc and Noodle, I saw Gorillaz live. Don't know if I would see them again unless I loved the album they were supporting and they were not headlining a fucking festival, but "El Manana" is still an incredible song.
Marilyn Manson - Heaven Upside Down
Oh man, I am so happy about this album. Review is here.**
For context, here are my reviews of his albums/singles before this.
Born Villain
"Third Day Of A Seven Day Binge"
"Deep Six"
The Pale Emperor
Along with everything else last month, Tori released her newest, Native Invader. I'll be completely honest; this got a bit lost in the shuffle. I have listened to it and there is a lot of artistry here, but nothing grabbed me on my first handful of playthroughs. This doesn't mean something won't, it just means I need more time with it.
But, speaking of talented female artists...call me infatuated. Maybe I am. But, here's the thing, I should be. Everyone should be. Her voice is smoked honey and she's not doing the normal, boring thing all the singers with smoked honey voices are doing with their smoked honey voices. I met her in a star-lit room in Brooklyn. Here's my review of her debut single as Kat Cunning. Skip the review if you must, but listen to the song.
And, finally, still reeling from the shock and confusion of the end of its third season (and, perhaps, its end period?), the two musical accompaniments to Twin Peaks: The Return are out and I reviewed them both. Got a little unhinged with these... Here are my reviews of both the soundtrack and the score. I was thinking about reviewing the album of collected ambient noises and soundscraps that filled in the gaps between the talking, soundtrack, and score, but come on, I don't want to come off as obsessed...
Next month new Beck and new St. Vincent! What have I done to deserve such happy?!?!?! Also, last month, I purchased a little collector's box of all of Ian Dury's albums, Might dig into that when I need a break from reality.
Or maybe Blogger with become sentient, invent time travel and go back to erase Ian Dury from the timeline.
Either way.
Blogger can eat a missive bit-dick.
*...em...bee...gee...sorry.
** Unformatted because the site I occasionally review for is, more often than not, janked like a motherfucker.
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