(Sandy) Alex G - Rocket (Full Album Leak Sand In Your Pants Download)

I should have written an intro before I started listening but I didn't. It wouldn't be fair for me to say any more than that.

https://sandy.bandcamp.com/album/rocket

Poison Root

Well hey there, banjo. Nice to hear you. Humming, mumbling, buzzing I like this all right so far although it just kind of sounds like Old Hickory who sounded like folksy Nirvana. Or wait, is that Califone I’m thinking of? Probably both. The strings are a really nice touch – like the way they work their way up the scale and into the sky. I’m starting to get a little bored though because it’s just the same mumbled phrase over and over and the music isn’t going anywhere. Hey look at that, it’s over now.

Proud

This sounds a lot more like a real song. Sorry, a real POP song. Maybe I just wasn’t in an artistic enough frame of mind for the last song. This has a nice bounce to it and it’s nice that he wants to give his baby a bottle. I kind of wish the vocals were a little more at the forefront. It sounds like he’s trying to hide his voice among a chorus of high-voiced singers and I want to hear his voice separated more. I’m trying to figure out the lyrics because I think this is one of those “I’ll say something positive at the start of the song to throw you off but then get negative at the end to make you sad” songs. I guess. So far the lyrics aren’t remarkable but there’s a nice interlude with lots of “oooooh” parts. Not loving the way this song closes out though. Kind of flat and dull compared to the rest.

County

Oh god…high voice. Whitney killed high voice for me last year and now I’m overly judgmental about it. It just seems like such a cop out and I don’t even know who likes it. JUST SING NORMALLY. This song is trying to be…groovy? I don’t quite know. A minute in and it just lost track of itself with a weak guitar solo over clumsy bass guitar. None of the three instruments playing are in time with each other. Good thing high voice is back to not tie it all together. What the hell is going on here? So far there are two (mostly, I’m not quite done with this song) non-songs and one song. 33% song ratio so far.

Bobby

Yay, more strings! This better have some good singing. Nope. More weak warbling hiding with another voice but not actually singing together. At least it sounds more like a real song again, but I’m really starting to get fed up with the vocals on this album. The female vocalist is actually pretty nice from what I can hear BUT I can’t hear her very well because I’m not allowed to. No one is. This chorus might be kind of catchy if the sound of rosin dust falling off the violin wasn’t louder than the vocal track. Oh hey, right near the end and it’s actually getting a little louder. Should have been there from the get go. The lyrics are actually a little grating now but this is the best song so far. Sometime in college I realized that a lot of musicians would say things like “I know what you’re doing” and “I know you I do I do” when they didn’t have actual lyrics because they sounded introspective and rhymed. Sandy Alex, I know you, I do I do.

Witch

I would put money on that this song is just going to be a couple of sustained notes and echoing mumbled vocals with no real structure. Halfway through and I’m going to win this bet with myself. There’s a shrieky woman in the background – is she the witch? She’s being drowned out by a shriekier shrieky noise. Hey look at that, he’s trailing off everything 30 seconds before the song is over. I win money from me.

Horse

I kind of like the song names on this album but WHAT AM I LISTENING TO? Synthesizer poop being thrown at a row of wind-up clapping monkeys? That has to be a funny statement because it has a poop joke and a funny “k” but this is not a funny song. Or a good song. Or even a song at all. Is this supposed to be something I can appreciate artistically? It ends with 20 seconds of someone going “eeeaaagh, uggggh” like when kids in middle school would mock people with disabilities. I’m being mocked.

Brick

This is getting worse. I should have stopped after the first three songs. Godheadsilo can pull off the drum/bass/distortion thing – The Sandyman can’t. Even if I decide I like this album I will never listen to this song again. Mixed in with the basement thrash there’s a part that sounds like Anthrax’s jokey songs played through a child’s tape recorder. Except children don’t have those any more and neither should this band. Or is it a guy? I don’t care. I hate this song and anything would be better.

Sportstar

Funny robot voice. Almost a real beat. Piano…notes. No, the piano is just being hit randomly. The rest of this could be fine if it builds up to something. Anything. So far my main issue with this album is that it is afraid to commit. It goes nowhere. Not looking good for this song either. Hey, piano break! This is close to a song I could like but man am I in a bad mood after the last song. Also I still can’t hear the vocals and I can guarantee the song won’t commit to a structure and will eventually mumble its way out.

Yep

Judge

I’ve already judged by this point. Sorry, goat album. I think this is a Metallica cover. Whispermumble atonal singing. I wonder if the out of tune stuff is on purpose or if he(?) just doesn’t realize that everything is half a step off from where it should be. My headphones just told me “battery very low” and it’s the first time I’ve ever been happy to hear that. We’ll see if the headphones can stick out five more songs after this. This is another song where there are aspects of the music I might like if they weren’t paired with THE SHRIEKING SOUND YOU HEAR WHEN YOUR EARS ARE RINGING BECAUSE YOU JUST GOT HIT IN THE HEAD.

Rocket

I’m getting tempted to skip to the end of songs at this point but it’s not fair so I won’t. This opens with a plunky saloon piano bit…and then I missed the whole song. Totally checked out. Not going back.

Powerful Man

Almost real singing! The powerful man sings powerfully. Ish. Clear voice, clear guitar, clear violin…hey, I’ll take it! The lyrics are awfully trite (I never raised a kid but I bet I’d do a good job if I did) but whatever. This is better than anything else on the album even if it sounds like a high school band’s first attempt at playing something other than what their teacher assigned them. Even the background vocals are OK (but flat, of course). Solid C+. Extra credit for the BATTERY VERY LOW PLEASE CHARGE NOW part at the end.

Alina

This sounds like a real song too! The pick scraping works pretty well in the intro but god am I sick of these vocals. Back to the mumbled faded vocals again. Still in the top three songs on the album but the piano is just going up and down the scale and it’s starting to distract from the rest of the song. One minute intro…now start singing the real song? Nope. More guitar pick. And now the same loop from the first minute. Dammit. It just got demoted to being only in the top four songs on the album. Who am I kidding…I’m not keeping track. Another song that goes nowhere

POWER OFF

I missed the last minute.

If my headphones had battery I would have listened to these two songs but they didn’t so I won’t.

Big Fish

Guilty

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The Mountain Goats - Goths (High Quality 4K MP3 Full Album Download)

(see also: http://paperstreetleakco.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-mountain-goats-goths-320-kbps-mp3.html)

Thumpy thump thump!

Absolutely agree with a Beat the Champ feeling. I wish the vocals were a little louder and the thumpline (pretty sure that’s a thing) was down a bit.

Sometimes when they harmonize or kind of try to harmonize it makes the lead singer’s voice sound like Weird Al. Always shocks me when I hear it.

Oooo – I like the soft tones at the end of track 1.

Track 2 – One thing I have always loved about this band is the writing. This may be offensive to you, but the writing reminds me of Wilco’s writing. It’s poetry to me. I hear tracks like this and I know I’m going to listen to it again and again and again while reading the lyrics.

Track 3 -  “I’m hardcore, but I’m not that hardcore.” HAHAH I love this line so much.  

                Oh man. This song. Yep… going to listen to this one a lot. Even the tempered maybe smooth jazzy type of end is okay with me in the context of the song. Wow. I… really want to listen to this song again, but… onward and upward!

Track 4 – need to re-listen. Didn’t stick out and I was trying to do a little work, but maybe that’s because it didn’t grab me like the 2^nd & 3^rd songs did.

Track 5 – “Unicorn Tolerance” haha – these goofs. Song is okay.

Track 6 – The music is really setting in. Almost in an overbearing way. I’d kill for some strings right now. I feel like it would accompany the lyrics so well. I guess if you have a project thesis, you want to stick to it, but… I always liked tangents.

Track 7 – Playing in the background. Don’t remember anything. Will have to re-listen.

Track 8 – okayyyyy… I hear the “smooth jazz” now. The woodwinds will do that sometimes. This is.. not my favorite part of the album.

Track 9 – okay stop with the sax. Maybe it was just that short bit, but I doubt it. It’s difficult to separate this song from any of the previous 3.

Track 10 – whoa wait. Okay this is a little different. I think that’s a synthesizer or whatever, but I really like how it’s muted to make the vocals stand out. Oh boy – this is a musician talking about music. A little 80s sound peeking through after the half. Okay – I kinda like this one. Probably need to re-listen.

Track 11 & 12 – Have to relisten to these. Distracted, but they didn’t annoy me or catch me.

  

That’s it..That’s all I have for a first listen. Overall, it’s a Mountain Goats album. I like it, but I wonder if it could have been better. Later, you’ll add a song to your mix from this album. I hear it in that context and absolutely love it. I’ll wonder how I missed it. I’ll go back and listen to the album, and then I’ll realize that I missed it because it’s a nugget buried in an album that required more attention than I originally gave it.

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The Mountain Goats - Goths (320 kbps MP3 FLAC Leak Download)

(see also: http://paperstreetleakco.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-mountain-goats-goths-high-quality.html)

Well, I like the first song more than any of their last few albums out of the gate. I'm live-reviewing my experience for you in an effort to totally spoil the album for anyone who isn’t a HIGH QUALITY MP3 DOWNLOAD.

1.  Rain In Soho

2.  Andrew Eldritch Is Moving Back To Leeds

No guitars is working all right so far. Song one broke it up with a chorus of voices and song two has a marimba.

I hope song three uses armpit farts. Weird Al did it with hand farts: https://youtu.be/beTsDOBRs8I

3. The Grey King And The Silver Flame Attunement

No farts in three. But a pretty hardcore refrain.

That's an inside joke for when you do listen to it.

This is going really well for me.

4. We Do It Different On The West Coast

Three and four should have taken some time off from each other. Smooth jazz bass (which I feel is technically a guitar) is a little too smooth to put side-by-side.

I appreciate that they rediscovered the concept of repetition for this album. My ability to enjoy music is now based on "do they repeat something as many times as Taylor Swift so that it's easy to sing along?" The answer so far is "yes".

Extra points for song four's repeated line also being the song title.

5.       Unicorn Tolerance (the formatting got screwed up here but I don't care)

Song five is the biggest cop-out so far with this "no guitars" shtick.

Five is a poop. Which is too bad because it talks about unicorns a lot and has some good horn work. Obviously.

6.       Stench Of The Unburied

Hitting a low point. Too many mushy minor notes in song six and they forgot about things like choruses and rhyming.

And it's about half the tempo it should be.

7.       Wear Black

I hope I'm just missing a larger arc in the album that's not clear the first time through. Song seven sounds like half a song idea running under the same two words.

GOOD GOOD SURE OK POOP BLAH WHAT

That's my seven-word review of the first seven songs.

8.       Paid In Cocaine

Song eight must be a Christmas song. There's no way this wasn't originally a Christmas song. Except for maybe the part where it's called "Paid In Cocaine". But I guess that's Christmas for some people. The smooth jazz saxophone is getting excessive.

9.       Rage Of Travers

Put away the sax, song nine. I might not have hated this song if it opened differently. Mercifully, the sax player went off to enjoy his Christmas cocaine after the intro.

This experience is really taking a turn for the worse. I'm reminded that I don't like John's "whisper singing" voice, but especially not when it's followed by EVEN MORE SMOOTH JAZZ SAX.

10.   Shelved

No sax to kick off song 10. GETTING BETTER.

It has a good beat, and you can dance to it. Normal singing, clever writing. I can dig it. Whether or not there's a chorus will make or break this one. It doesn't help that I listened to old Mountain Goats last night. Why isn't the whole album just "Up The Wolves" repeated over and over?

Hey, eighties style chorus with just enough modern Goat-like sensibility to make it stand on its own. Great job for finishing on a decent note, Goat.

11.   For The Portuguese Goth Metal Bands

…song eleven, singing in high voice, sing it highhhhhhh…

But no saxophone, piano is nice, conga conga conga lightly in the background. I'll take this sleepy near-ending. Maybe John just brought me down so he could bring me back up again. I'm holding out hope that the whole album comes together in an arc.

12.   Abandoned Flesh

The instruments are faded nicely into the background so that even the goddamn saxophone isn't bothering me. This sounds a lot like prime Mountain Goats but the lyrics are a little trite. I think John is just flipping through his early 80s albums and reading song names and liner notes. Not bad, but  everything he's mentioned is a list of my old friendboss’ favorite bands from back when she did a lot of meth. So I can't get her bug eyes out of my head listening to Red Lorry Yellow Lorry references.

                In Summary

It's over. Initial assessment, on par with Beat The Champ but different enough that I won't write it off. Definitely looking forward to listening to the first half again, maybe not so much the middle half. The last half could be OK again.

Post-Live Review Live Review (Three Listens)

Tracks 11 and 12 have really grown on me and I feel like they do a great job of recovering from the smooth jazz crap interlude in a way that makes sense in the context of the overall album narrative. I realized when I was listening to it that my issue with the last few Mountain Goats albums has been that they stick too closely to their concept. I think a concept album can absolutely have a track that diverts from the subject as long as it retains the theme/emotion. So for this one it’s an arc of someone’s life and career….great. There’s probably a way to keep that feeling in the second act without literally describing all aspects of that slump period.

 I was finally able to listen closely to the lyrics all the way through and there are some solid parts even in the crappy musical section. There are some nice recurring lyrical themes throughout the album that reminded me he can still write poetically. My favorite line right now is “everybody tests the membrane/but no-one pushes through” from the second song but in “Stench Of The Unburied” I love the way he delivers “And outside it's ninety two… degrees/And KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees” because it messes with the sense of time to keep you in line with the character. Is it the eighties or the nineties? Who knows at this point! Drugs!

 Also, they really should have appropriated the Willie Nelson line “Be careful what you’re dreaming, or soon your dreams will be dreaming you.” in some way for this album.

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