New Kids On The Block - Thankful (2017 Full Album EP 320 MP3 Download)

(see also: http://paperstreetleakco.blogspot.com/2017/05/new-kids-on-block-nkotb-thankful-2017.html)

I can’t believe I’m doing this. Thanks a lot, Anonymous Rex.

1.            Heartbeat

You can tell it’s a heartbeat because it sounds like a heartbeat. If a robot duck had a beating heart. But it doesn’t because it’s only made for quacking and killing and this duck is all out of quacks. But in case I didn’t get the heartbeat thing by the way they were cooing “heartbeat” over and over here are some drum rolls and then sung narration that the drumming is happening JUST LIKE A HEARTBEAT. I’m actually really hoping the rest of the EP follows suit and there are lines like “Baaaaby, now the synthesizer will bleepbloop” and “If you wait for just two seconds, a trumpet will play, now it happened, oooooooh”. It’s kind of hard to live review a song that’s just two 20-second parts repeated until it’s over.

It’s over. I was going to use this live review to complain about EPs but this music is complex enough that I really need to focus on what’s happening here.

2.            Thankful

Even though I don’t know any New Kids On The Block songs, I always kind of thought they were a Christian band. The opening of this song is only cementing that. Of course, for all I know they are a Christian band now. I’d look it up but since it reinforces my personal worldview I’ll just accept it as fact. This Christian song at least sounds different from the last one. For one thing, there are significantly more “oooooooooh” sounds. Mostly this song makes me think “what do I love about How To Dress Well that’s so different from this?” I mean besides that How To Dress Well is good. The obvious answer on this song is that NKOTB (I’m such an insider) have awful vocals and How To Dress Well doesn’t. And maybe trite lyrics vs. something introspective and emotional. But this isn’t about How To Dress Well, it’s a live review of a song that I mostly just missed because I was thinking about a different artist’s music.

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3.            One More Night

Did he open by saying, “she gets me hight”? I think that’s a mix of “high” and “hot”, which is not an entirely unreasonable portmanteau. The music for this is the least offensive but as this album EP goes on the vocals are becoming more and more grating to me. They all sound different enough that I can tell there are different singers but not so much that any of them sound like a unique person. I don’t like the funky guitar at two minutes. I was as funked as I needed to be for this increasingly-ominous song. “Give me one more night to love you” sounded threatening to begin with but by the time the music goes silent at 2:41 I feel like I’m at the climax of a murder drama with already-dim lights flashing on and off in the alley behind an hourly motel.

4.            Hard (Not Luvin U)

Nick Cave taught me to never accept a song with a single letter in the title that’s not “A” or “I”. So right from the start I don’t accept this song. The worst vocals so far with lots of high voice but I’m charmed by the lyrics. I’m 100% sure he’s saying “Baby you’re a muffin and a problem/give me one taste so I can make it stop”. Maybe after the slaughter in the last song he baked his love into a muffin and the problem is that he needs to get rid of all the muffins before the police catch on. It’s so hard to get rid of muffins when everyone is gluten-free! I’ve come around on this one. It’s my new favorite song, not just on the album but ever. All that muffin man talk in the chorus is delightful and the icing on the muffin is the deep-voiced break in the song reminding me IT’S SO HARD. Song of the year, probably of my life.

5.            Still Sounds Good

Hand clapping. Not my favorite rhythmic device. And it took me too long to realize that this was a look back in time and not a song about ogling underage individuals. I appreciate the confidence here, but the overall message of “I refuse to grow or change in any way” doesn’t exactly resonate with me. I think this is supposed to be a summer jam (oh wait, as I was writing that they told me it was summertime – I’m a musical psychic!) but it’s not really a song yet and is just a couple of disparate “retro” pieces adjacent to each other. Remember rapping? I’m pretty sure the rap part is lumping about 30 years of pop culture into 1988. And like that it’s over…that was a worse fade out than normal. If any effort had gone into the production of this EP I’d say it was to intentionally simulate the awkward transitions of 80s radio but I know that’s not the case. A real missed opportunity here to have someone do a poor impersonation of a radio DJ to close out the song and EP experience.

Download links:

Hotfile

Coldfile

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.

Download links:

Google Drive

Napster

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.

Download links:

Userscloud

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