Son Lux - Brighter Wounds (2018 Full Album Leak Download MP3 320)

Do you know how many times I’ve tried to listen to this album?  A lot. But until now I didn’t actually ever start.

https://sonlux.lnk.to/BrighterWounds

1. Forty Screams

Sounds like Son Lux so far! I love shimmering, and echoes, and falsettos. And YEAH THAT’S SOME SERIOUS BASS. I probably have the volume up too loud but who needs hearing later in life anyway? No one has anything all that different to say so I can probably fake it when I’m 80 and enjoy Son Lux super loud right now. I appreciate that this song isn’t rushing to get anywhere, just like 80-year-old me. I don’t know if I love the “Tommy” vibe halfway through but I’ll give it a chance.

“Young ghost in an old body”. Man…this is really coming together and I didn’t even plan it.

2. Dream State

I was just thinking about the one Radiohead album I actually like the other day (Kid A) and how much I appreciated the blaring horns at the start of one song. This has that too. Not as distinctive as the Radiohead version but it ropes me in with sharp cacophony and then just starts hammering away. Relentless. The AAAAOOOOOHHHH chorus in the background sounds like something that would be in a big summer pop hit, but it works. Because it’s evocative of PARTY TIME EVERYTHING IS GOOD but subverted by the overlaying lyrics of “Awake, awake / This is a dream state/ Though we were wide awake/ This is a dream state”. And pretty much all the other lyrics too. I want to type them all out but I won’t.

OK, one more:

How do we feel?

How do we feel in that photograph

And how do we feel it again?

So good.

3. Labor

I wanted shimmer and I got shimmer. 90 seconds of shimmer is just about my limit though. I’m not loving this song so far. After the endless shimmer there’s a stripped down lounge act thing happening and it doesn’t work. Am I supposed to envision this dude laying across a grand piano while wearing a red sequin gown. I don’t understand the ending of the song either. It’s dumb.

4. The Fool You Need

Not the fool you deserve? POW POW POW this song comes in to kick the crap out of my eardrums. Yeah, I probably have it way too loud. Oh well, this song is great so far. Although I’m still hoping for at least one really catchy number before we get too far into the album. This song is like all production tricks in a giant shiny ball but that’s OK as long as I can sing along with at least one of the songs before the album is over. “I am not letting go no matter what you do” is pretty fun at least. I can gargle water while I sing it and sound just like the album version. A couple minutes in there are giant mosquitoes buzzing in my ear but they buzz to the beat and pulse and pulse and I THINK I AM HYPNOTIZED BY MOSQUITOES.

5. Slowly

Whoa – was that it? Short song. Oh…haha…FOOLED YA IT’S JUST GETTING STARTED. This song is soulful. Through a ton of filters and distortion but still soulful. STOPPED AGAIN! FOOLED YA AGAIN! I really appreciate how “sharp” the sounds are on Son Lux albums. So many of the sounds have clear edges and nothing ever mushes together. I don’t care about this actual song so much yet but the sounds are so darn crisp. I do feel a little worn out at the end of each song, but good exhausted like if I actually exercised or something. I don’t exercise though so I guess I should listen to more Son Lux.

6. All Directions

Uh oh…another soulful ditty. I hate when two songs in a row are too similar. This has robot strings and electronic bouncy balls so I think I like this one better. It’s also not trying to trick me by stopping every so often. KIDDING! WE’RE STOPPING NOW! Dammit. I was excited for it to end with another ball drop but now there’s another song starting inside my song. Oh – it’s not even half over. You know, I’m not so mad after another minute of new song inside song – I think I like the second song better. It has real strings and the bouncy balls are more rubbery. And it has a chorus of voices that builds and builds and WOW

I’m really tired after that one. Great workout, me.

7. Aquatic

There’s lots of clicking and rustling sounds in the background on this album and this song has the most. Hey, he said “rustle in the dark”! Great observation, me. Even better than the workout aspect of Son Lux albums is the fact that they let you congratulate yourself so much. This is starting off great; really “classic Lux” with a little Antlers.

You won't find me where I fall

We may all begin aquatic

But we leave through the fire for our homes

This song is making me cry. It’s beautiful.

8. Surrounded

No rest after Aquatic – drum drum crazy drum time! “You're losing yourself / Slowly disappearing / Caught in your skin, surrounded” I’m going to need such a long nap after finishing this album. Even though the drumming is off the hook crazy yo there’s this glossy wave of sound slowly pulsing behind it that binds it all together. I’m super loving this album. I keep visualizing outer space and if I’m being honest with you live review I’m more than a little bit emotional. I think Son Lux did that to me.

9. Young

OK, this was actually a short song. No robot trickery this time. By the time I started to write down my thoughts it was already over.

10. Resurrection

The filtered vocals sound like “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”. I wonder if that’s intentional. They also sound a little aquatic but that’s kind of a Son Lux thing overall. There’s a dissonant fuzzy organ loop pushing the vocals out of the way and vice versa and here we go – building and building and BOOM.

Can we be this ugly and still have a beautiful life

Be a beautiful wife?

'Cause I'm a believer but I'm not a fool

The blend of religious allusion and personal reflection is totally distracting me from the fact that this is the kind of song I usually hate because it’s so disjointed. But it works. And then at 3:25 it hits a new level and sounds like a musical about the bible where everyone is crying because each and every character just lost a loved one. Including me. Great job, Son Lux. You made me feel human emotion.

Final Rating:

Nine sparkles out of 10. No, maybe 10 sparkles. A lot of sparkles. Can I change my scale to be out of 100 shimmering space rainbows? 97 out of 100 shimmering space rainbows. Three demerits for putting two songs with the same tempo back to back. I’m going to go cry myself to sleep now.

Do Make Say Think - Persistent Stubborn Illusions (2017)

Do Make Say Think - Persistent Stubborn Illusions (2017)

I stumbled upon this group a few years back when I was on a music odyssey. This is their first album in 8 years, so I'm pretty excited. Unless there's some mass departure from these mugs, we should have a solid instrumental/post-rock type of thing happening here. Should be interesting for a live review.

War on Torpor : Ooooh a really nice build into some quick drums. There's so much sound in the first 30 seconds. It's building to a high crescendo and I don't think I'm a minute in.. Okay, whew a plateau. Otherwise, I think my head might have exploded. The bass drum is coaxing the back sounds through and allows another string (not a banjo, but something) into the forefront. Oh wow, I really like how this is featuring sound. There was this insane building cacophony of sound and then this deconstruction. This track has such a fast tempo that there's no time to linger on the featured sound, but there are these distinct, clean breaks that strip out sound here and there that really bring your attention to the individual elements. Wow. Pretty rad first track.

Horripilation : Nice transition into track two. Just coasts right in, but it's clear there's a different tenor here. Some nice strings moving us along. These two songs leave little time to rest. They are pulling you right through the song. Some really soothing guitar work here. The way the guitar and drums are playing off each other here is exquisite. They are building into each other and what started as a two entities has built into a single theme.. and then the guitar drops out. The transition into some high keyboard sounds is lovely. The drum isn't overpowering here. They are working so hard to demonstrate mastery over a sound transitions and they are fucking killing it. The distorted fade out into some chirps feels like a trope of the genre, but they bring in the overpowering dirge of an organ sound. It's not the end of the song - it's a transition. I'd say it's a lull, but the tempo doesn't give you room to breath even though you want to take a moment to soak in that brooding organ. Oh what a supreme move back into an up tempo drum and guitar. We are two songs in and I'm so excited to listen to this album again (specifically this track). Oh this song won't go quietly. It's taking me back down, stripping it all down, but keeping tempo. The movement of sound and bit parts of instruments just draw my focus. I can hardly type with these loops. I had to check. That was 10 minutes and 27 seconds of joy. I cannot wait to get in my car and blast this track.

Murder of Thoughts : A slow intro. This doesn't have the up tempo movement of the previous two songs, but rather a stroll along the guitar. Some waning guitar fades that remind me of Pink Floyd's Echoes or Meddle. It's that waxing/waning space sound that is covered by easy guitar twangs. The Pink Floyd influence here seems pretty strong. This track feels like the albums attempt to slow you down after fury of the first two songs. If that's the song's task, it does it's job. Not unpleasant.

Bound : Picking guitar intro. Lightly though - there's not a sharp pick here - probably more of a soft touch. Then a nice transition from the high strings to a bell-like sound and our drum softly enters. Oh nice.. the drum is a herald for the movement into some synth type of sounds. The drum is such a nice moving compliment to the twinkling lights. Just like that, I've been walked into a wall of sound. I can still hear the twinkling underneath and then.. as sudden as the wall appeared it has been removed. Just the twinkling. Wow, it's back. These transitions are excellent. Somewhat abrupt, but I feel guided into the transitions so that it's not out of place. Really nice loops.

And Boundless : Tricky movement between songs. I happened to glace down after a change in tone and noticed the song change. Otherwise, it might slip by. This is much harder and droning sound. Up tempo with short loops. There's so much that can be accomplished in these transitions and the band is coaxing every bit of attention out of me. This song rolls right along. I need to listen to these two tracks (Bound - And Boundless) in isolation and then again together, I think. There's a movement in And Boundless from the beginning to end that sounded like something from Bound, but I need to go back over it. Alas, that's not the way of a live review. For now, I am intrigued by the connection of these two songs that I want to spend more time listening here.

|| pause in the action ||

Her Eyes On The Horizon :  This track is a tumble. The sounds are falling and rolling over each other, but in a good way. The ebb and flow of the song is really smooth. I don't really feel like any of the sounds are out of place or are introduced for no reason. Usually, I can get a stronger understanding of the song on instrumental tracks after a few solid listens, but we don't have that luxury here. Off the cuff, I can see why this track appears after the two previous songs. It's good, but didn't grab me like the previous tracks. That could be because of the pause, but I'm not sure.

As Far As The Eye Can See : Hot dog. Oh this is some sexy sound building. The far away talking guitar and a close up. This song feels like they are playing with aperture through sound. Which makes sense given the title of the song. I dig it when a song title really seems to fit, and this one does. There's movement all over the place with the guitar, but it's not overwhelming. It's just a guide. The guitar is taking you through each section with some foundation. Other than the drums, it's unified this track so far. What a song. I don't know how they edit this stuff, but this is beautifully executed. What a great track. Might be up there with Horripilation for top track on the album so far.

Shlomo's Son : Solo piano with a guitar string slap to start. On an album like this, a stripped down sound of a piano can really feel intimate. This is so sparse compared to the other tracks. There's a wispy sound that must be a violin, but is close to a theremin, but not quite a singing saw. Whatever it is, it's working for me. The slow tempo, piano, and wispy whine of drawn out sound really begs you to slow it down for a moment. An odd ending though. Some glitchy hiccups to close.

Return, Return Again : Two electric guitars working out. A nice rhythm is establish and you can feel the break coming. There it is, but gone almost immediately. There's some left overs and it trims down. That had to be an introduction. Pairing down and boom. Yep, this is a solid closing track. This song feels like closing up shop. They are walking down sounds, but putting a lot of the album's work on display. The technical proficiency here from both the musical and editing standpoint has to be pretty damn good here. I don't know anything about how to do either of those things, but I do know that not many albums pull this kind of thing off well.

All in all, I give this a 4.75 posts out of 5.38 rocks. Really liked the first time through. I'm going to roll it back through right now.

Kelly Lee Owens - Kelly Lee Owens (2017 Full Album Download 320 RAR Review)

https://kellyleeowens.bandcamp.com/album/kelly-lee-owens

S.O

Why isn’t there a period after the “O”? Does this stand for something or does it represent a stylized dragon in love with a pig and their tiny pigdragon egg? Listen to those gauzy, slight too-high vocals and ambient sounds. Not grabbing me. OK, here’s some electro-conga drumming so there’s at least a beat now but the vocals aren’t really grabbing me. It would help if the song could hit a groove but it isn’t happening. Oh whoa. Those are some coins falling all over that conga drum. THE END, SONG

Arthur

The falling rain is much nicer than the falling coins. That first song kind of put me on edge. Oooooh! I like the Ooooooh singing broken up by tiny cuts and now this bassline is building up just fine. Busting into the actual song makes the rain go away and I’m a little sad about that. There’s a solid Juno Reactor feeling to this song (or should I say “track”? Electronic music fans always say “track” instead of “song” but I’ll stick with “song”). The rain and static are cutting in and out here and there and so far there have been no actual words. I’m a fan. At 2:30 the vocal sounds start to overlap and almost harmonize and I’m a superfan. I could listen to this song and stare at the ceiling or sky for a few hours and feel fine. A fine fan.

Anxi.

More dots! What does it stand for??? Is it anxiety? Because it’s making me anxious. BUM BUM BUMM sorta ominous bass beats and then here come some more humming women. Or ladies. Some women find “ladies” offensive but some ladies find “women” offensive. Oh yuck. The humming sort-of word singing was pretty nice but the spoken word stuff is a stink. About two minutes in and it all fades away to clickity-clackety Plastikman fun. This sounds like carrying balloons and running around a museum while going “eeeeaaaaaoooooouuuuu”. So far in this album I’m most in favor of the vocals when they don’t result in words. Because just before the end of this song there’s some more irritating talking. At least it’s edited into chopped up bits so I can’t really understand what she’s saying.

Lucid

Well those are some pretty strings. Thanks, strings! Real words being sungspoken now that I can really understand and – GREAT NEWS – she’s saying the name of the song right away so I don’t forget it. I’m totally forgiving of that with singing but the talking aspect makes me much more critical of the content. Not that I can really tell what is being said most of the time. “Different from the rest”, “where we ought to be”, LUCID, LUCID, DON’T YOU SEE. I think. I don’t know. This song is kind of bugging me and it just did the same trick the last two did where a stronger beat comes in a minute before the end. Let’s try something different next time, Kel. Lee Ow.

Evolution

 Opens with “Eevolution. Evolution.”. Tomato, tomahto? The backing beat sounds kind of like a Tim & Eric joke so I hope DJ Douggpound is on this song. Pretty fun music overall but the dispassionate minimalist talk-singing just isn’t working for me. I’m not going to be tha revolution OR see tha reevolution unless you really make me feel it. Adult. pulled this off but other than this song making me nostalgic for a Best of Rave Vol. 2 CD I had in 1996 I don’t get anything out of it. If she was even slightly more singing and/or passionate the insipid lyrics would be harder to hear and easier to leave open-ended.

Bird

That shrieking sound does kind of sound like a bird I guess. Ooh –glockenspiel! This has a very pretty intro. Now please don’t screw it up by saying “Bird. Buhrd.” over and over for five minutes. Strings! Or horns. Or both. I dunno. It’s still working though. YEAH two minutes in and still no talking. This is my favorite song so far. The beat came before the last minute of the song and it feels like an ev // I don’t remember what I was thinking it felt like. I went back and listened and it’s kind of jungle night-time wind-down hyphen-using music.

Throwing Lines

This song opens with some of the same sounds that closed out the last one. I would have liked it better if there was a more direct link but then would have been annoyed at the slight break between songs because Play Music still seems to have an issue with seamless playback. The sweeping bass tones in this song are exceedingly pleasant. The vocals are just as insipid as ever but the words fell away pretty quickly back into just “mmmmmm” and “aaaaah”. This is the sleeping in the hyphen jungle after a long day bird watching song. This song pairs very well with Bird.

CBM

The album seems to be hitting its stride. I like the timbre of everything I’m hearing with a fast but soft tapping over some bass and then NO! PLEASE STOP WITH THE RAVER SPOKEN WORD CRAP! I wonder if there’s a word-free remix of this album. I want to keep all the vocal sounds but none of the words. This song is just as strong as the last two except for the fact that she keeps talking every minute or so. I wonder if she knows how annoying it is and that’s why she’s trying to get out of the way on the cover.

Keep Walking

I just realized that the stylized dots disappeared from the song names after the first few songs. At this point I doubt they meant anything though because while the music is pleasing I don’t get a lot of “deep thoughts” from this album. This song has singing that’s close to actual singing and it’s not even so bad. Lots of held notes overlapping and even the repeated “keep walkin’” command isn’t annoying me too much. I haven’t heard the last song yet but I’m going to strongly recommend starting this album by listening from Bird to the end and then treating the first five songs as an appendix. This song does feel a little out of place after the last few since it’s more like Radiohead than Rave Til Dawn but I’ll still take it in place of some of the songs on the first half of the album.

8

Is that an oud? I hope it’s an oud. Or an electric zither. Some kind of strange stringed instrument. This song has a lot of build-up, which I’m more than fine with as long as no one starts talking. I’m thinking about song name meanings so I’m probably reading too much into it but is the “8” supposed to be a sideways infinity symbol? The first two minutes of the song feel like a space journey. Great news – the vocals are breathy and nonsensical, just like I like them. Definitely outer space. After the introduction I’m walking down the empty corridors of a spaceship wondering where everyone else went. I don’t think I’ll get implanted by an alien baby, just that I’ll probably die out here alone but in the long wait for the end I’ll discover so much more about myself than I ever did through all my missed opportunities back when I had human contact. OK, I love this song. The whole album should have been this. In fact, I think at almost 10 minutes this should have been its own album. The rest of the album would be the appendix, except for the first five songs which would be the appendix to the appendix.

Download links:

Zippyshare

Rapidgator

Zippygator