The Skull Eclipses - s/t (Full Album 2018 Download 320 MP3)

Another mystery album.

https://theskulleclipses.bandcamp.com/album/the-skull-eclipses 

Yearn Infinite

Well this is not what I thought it would be. From the name and cover art I was pretty sure it would be standard indie rock. So far it’s way more Flying Lotus than anything else, which isn’t a bad thing to be at all.

All Fall

Oh geez…soulful woman repeating the same six words in an echo chamber. One of my bottom five ways to introduce a song. Except the rapper just said “echo chamber”! I wonder why when I look to see who’s singing I get a list of four different artists. I’ve listed the numbers four through six so far in this song.

Angels Don’t Mind

These songs end kind of abruptly. It’s OK background music at least. There’s a high-pitched church choir in the back of this song that I like. The clicking is kind of fun the way it’s pushed into the foreground. This song is Missy Elliot with less character. Also not a bad thing to be. Just not a great thing.

Pillars

Better be about salt and Sodom. “Body movin”? I guess I appreciate all the blatant references to things that somene is a fan of since they’re handled pretty well so far. I’m not getting any Sodom from this song though…it’s getting awfully political. This is not the most interesting rapping I’ve heard this month. This song is the most atonal of the four I’ve heard so far and the female vocal interludes are a little annoying. Also, did I mention no Sodom?

Take My

What happened to noname? She was awesome. Oh…she hasn’t done anything new. This song is more listenable than the last one but feels like filler. The female vocalist is my favorite so far, but she’s no noname. This album is sure inspiring me to say that’s it not things a lot.

Encyclopedia

Things are getting pretty bland by this point. I’d kill for any variety whatsoever.

//

I don’t remember what was happening in this song. It’s still atonal. Lost in the city, bruh.

Gone

The difference between this song and the last one is called flute. Is that Andre 3000? I know it’s not but it’s a pretty similar style. At least it got the song out of its rut. “Is my dick-bone connected to my heart bone” got me to laugh.

Gun Glitters

I don’t want to hear about anyone’s momma, but I like this so far. Raspy voice and rambling chimes, DJ Shadow drums in the background. I also like glitter and sunshine. Good thing for me they’re going to repeat those words over and over and over. Golden ratio, D. B. Cooper…really dropping some references there. Bottle rocket…gotta catch ‘em all! Sure I like a lot of the nouns he’s rattling off but without context I just feel like I’m reading Ready Player One. NOSTALGIA FLOOD. The song is fine though – not like I’m listening to this for the lyrics at this point.

Pushing Up The Hills

Ooh…this is like the slightly better version of the last song. Sisyphus? Phil Spector? I’m in. The drums are fuzzier and the gloss is glossier. This song eliminates the need for the previous song. He’s not talking about his momma at all either.

Yearn Infinite II

Filler. 90 seconds of ambient filler. I guess I’m glad it wasn’t packed into the last track.

Spacecrafts in Rajasthan

Here we go. Epic space opera. Come on, I’m ready. Um…darn. More random noun assault. Grace Kelly! Looking glass! Things! Stuff! The Big Lebowski! Jodorowsky! It just goes on and on. No melody, only nouns. Two minutes in it really hits its groove. I like the song overall.

Final rating:

Six random nouns out of 10. Despite all my complaining I did actually enjoy this. Just don’t go into it hoping for any kind of meaningful lyrical experience.

Tracey Thorn - Record (2018 Full Album Leak MP3 320 Download)

Another magical musical mystery. No clue what this is. The cover looks really 80s and I hate it.

https://traceythorn.lnk.to/RecPreWE

1. Queen
• Hey man, that’s so 80s. This singer has a deep voice and they synths are crazy out of the gate. Is this a woman? I thought it was from the name and album cover but the vocals are pretty mannish. I kind of like them so far but I’m only like a minute in. Do some people really have an artistic vision that leads them to make this kind of music independent of anything derivative or any nostalgia? “I’d like to make this kind of music. Oh, it’s representative of the absolute worst type of music in all of pop history? Totally unintentional.”
2. Air
• That last song was really dated but OH GOD I CAN’T TAKE A WHOLE ALBUM OF THIS. This song is “slow adult contemporary jam, with extra synth”. Or something. It’s terrible.
3. Guitar
• What have I done to myself? I was trying to live review good or at least interesting albums so all my live reviews weren’t about trash. “Hey boy, you taught me my first song” blah blah blah tell me about your stupid affair with your music teacher or whatever is happening. My guitar teacher would snort when he got really into playing classical guitar. Took away from the overall effect a bit, unless he was really going for “sweet but snorty”. This song is better than the last but still sounds like a gay middle schooler wrote it in 1987.
4. Smoke
• What in the heck made me think I should listen to this album? It’s everything I dislike about pop music. Oh good…this one is sort of old-timey. Which just means the synths are downplayed a little and it sounds like a medieval ballad about…I don’t know.  “London you in my blood and/You've been there for so long/London you in my blood but/I feel you going wrong” Oh. It’s dumb stupid autobiographical crap. OH MY GOD That’s why I knew this name – she’s the singer for Everything But The Girl! That might make me like this less though. It’s not good at all.
5. Sister
• I stopped paying attention. This song has the big dumb synth drum hits going all the way through it and I pretty much tune that out whenever I hear it. Her voice is actually the best so far on the album though when she howls “SIIIIIIIII-IIII-SSSSTER”. OK, I take it back about the drum. I think this is my favorite song on the album. It sounds like a ghost train and at least half of it has no singing.
6. Go
• Something about the sounds in this make me feel like I’m watching someone lick their lips a lot while they talk, especially mid-word. That’s not a good association. The song is fine I guess. I definitely like this album better when it slows down.
7. Babies
• Oh no. Fast song again. This one is like a country line dance (are there other kinds of line dances?) if all the instruments were replaced by Game Boys. And I’m pretty sure she’s singing the most trite observations about babies imaginable but I’m not going to look up the lyrics because what I can hear is bad enough. If my mom wrote a song about babies it would be this. Scratch that…if any mom wrote a song about babies it would be this. Keep in mind that most moms aren’t good songwriters. Nothing against moms, it’s just that most people aren’t good songwriters and most moms are people.
8. Face
• What the…what has happened to this album? It was bad enough but now seems to be an absolute literal walk through middle age insecurities. This has a piano so it must be heartfelt, right? Heartfelt clicking on a Facebook photo and refreshing the browser and OH MY GOD THIS IS JUST THE WORST THING EVER. The rest of the song is more about playing with her Googles using the Window computer on Netscapes.
9. Dancefloor
• Farting frog synthesizers might be obnoxious, but not as much as that last song. Nothing could be that bad. Oh no…except for maybe this song. Was the whole first half of the album this uninspired and I just missed it? There’s no subtlety to the last half at all for sure.

Final Rating:

Four flatulent frogs from fifteen. I barely care about the mundane details of my own life and I sure as heck don’t care about Tracey’s.

Gwenno - Le Kov (2018 Full Album Download Leak 320 MP3 Stream)

I’m bizarrely excited to listen to this album but I can’t even remember why. I also can’t remember if the artist name is “Le Kov” or “Gwenno”. Oh well.

http://heavenlyrecordings.com/artist/gwenno/

1. Hi a Skoellyas Liv a Dhagrow
• Well that sure is a song name. This…is probably not an English-speaking album. Although if it’s all ambient like this first song that won’t be a problem. Now the 1960’s come in and spoil it all with spacey lounge music.  I kind of like the vibe, but I would have liked it a lot more 20 years ago. Yeah, they’re not speaking English. At least I don’t think so. It sounded like she said “the croissant pony”. I’m already bored though. Five-and-a-half minutes is way too long for what’s happening here.

2. Tir Ha Mor
• How the heck did I even find this album? Maybe on Album Of The Year? Oh yeah…I bet that’s it - https://www.albumoftheyear.org/album/95218-gwenno-le-kov.php. More space lounge. Generic space lounge, with heavier drums and a harp. What in the world language is this?...Cornish? (http://www.theargus.co.uk/leisure/arts_and_entertainments/16076106.Welsh_singer_Gwenno_s_new_album_is_written_entirely_in_the_Cornish_language___here_s_why/) This live review is turning into a research project. Don’t actually read that page though because you will hate this dumb person and their dumb person views on art and education and the real world.

3. Herdhya
• Another ambient intro. I wish she’d gone this route the whole album, and also not decided to sing. Her singing is totally generic for the Euro-lounge thing…slightly raspy, a little breathy, way too sweet. More than a minute in with no wacky space sounds though so that’s a plus. I fell asleep, just a little bit.

4. Eus Keus?
• WOKE ME UP! Wacky sounds, up and down! She’s so sultry now, except she’s not because she sounds like she’s faking the tone and also speaking goo goo ga ga made-up language. Aaaand there’s the shouted chorus of multiple voices that are all hers. She’s really hitting all the marks. I’m starting to get annoyed that this got good reviews when all she really did was take a standard retro album and make the lyrics unintelligible. Dear Mr. Google, can you have a hit album in a language no one understands? https://www.villagevoice.com/2013/05/23/different-tongues-10-foreign-language-songs-that-rule-the-world/ or http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/foreign-language-songs-that-got-to-number-1__19039/ . So…no?

5. Jynn-amontya
• Ugh…why are all the songs five minutes long? I guess I can tune out a little to get to the next one. Because nothing of interest is happening in this song. Like at all, for reals. In a normal album I could at least focus on the lyrics but these are all “JYNN AMONTYA BLOO BLAH MANANA”. Her stupid website isn’t any help. Genius isn’t any help. You can get her last album in English (https://ydyddolaf.wordpress.com/) but that’s not much help either. This is the best I can do:

Is there cheese?

Is there or isn’t there?

If there’s cheese, bring cheese

And if there isn’t cheese – bring what’s easy!

From https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/mar/02/gwenno-le-kov-review-cornish-identity

Come on…seriously?

6. Den Heb Taves
• Birdies. Shrieking. Six minutes.

7. Daromres y’n Howl
• I got a scam phone call toward the end of the last song. It was the best part. This one does the “start with disjointed random crap and coalesce into something less crappy” trick to distract you from the fact that this is just another lounge rock song with mediocre vocals. Oh whoa! The male vocals that cut in halfway through are ABRUPT but I also like them. They have way more character than her singing for sure.

8. Aremorika
• I’ll pretend this is a cutting commentary on America but I don’t care enough to confirm that. Sounds like the best way to comment on America is to forget what you’re doing halfway through and slow to almost a stop while the remaining instruments drone on atonally. What the hell was with that ending? Fadeoutrightnowquick!

9. Hunros
• Is this the last song? Please be. Almost. It’s so much more of a chore to listen to a dull album like this than it is a bad album. At least with a truly terrible album there are things to talk about. This is a bad concept but the actual music is totally forgettable. And this song is annoying with the lifeless harp strums and her bland singing. Did I already use “bland”? Probably. I’m running out of boring words for boring.

10.  Koweth Ker
• Maybe this song is in Klingon. Shoot…it’s not. http://tradukka.com/translate/en/tlh says the English translation is just “ker koweth”. I forgot that I was supposed to be researching things. This song is also six minutes. It’s more song-like than the last one but at this point I don’t even care. SPACE NOISES! FROM THE 60s! What a waste of time.

Final rating:

Three synonyms for “dull” out of 10. This album could have probably been remarkable in the late 90s but everything on here has been done to death and it doesn’t even have any emotion behind it to move it past generic and derivative.