Sunday Jamz | Shak | Album Blog | April

So, I listen to quite a lot of albums. Usually I try to listen to one a day (sometimes two), and naturally after every one I usually have a bunch of thoughts. I've now decided to start sharing these thoughts. For the most part, this is so I can refine my ability in writing about music through as much practice as I can get, but also largely because i'd hope others may share their thoughts on an album they have listened to as well, as this is something I always find interesting.

Anyway, I will be preserving these album blogs as a place where I share a few thoughts on all the albums I listen to. These are NOT reviews, any album I review I will listen to multiple times. Think of this as a diary, just a few lines of thought after the first listen and a reactionary score out of ten. Sometimes I will do a little update later on too, if I have a big change of opinion after a few more listens. The full reviews I will save for the Sunday Jamz Youtube channel and also some full written reviews outside of that, but this will very likely only be for 2017 releases. These immediate thoughts will be for any and every album I listen to, from any year and in any genre. 


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Artist: Max Roach

Album: We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite

Genre: Avant-Garde Jazz / Vocal Jazz

Year of Release: 1960

On First Listen (30th April 2017): Max Roach and his hyper-talented ensemble craft a versatile and relentless album here. We begin with Abbey Lincoln’s vocals on its own, singing what sounds like a song from the days of slavery, amplified by the call-and-response structure. Immediately the atmosphere is set for a sonically and spiritually powerful experience. Next in Driva’ Man the saxophone mirrors the wails of the introductory vocals, and as such the presence of the singing protest isn’t lost with the departure of the vocal. The album peaks in rebellious power in the Triptych Medley, which consists of just Lincoln and Roach. Most notably in the part of the medley labelled Protest, in which Lincoln’s vocals turn into chaotic screaming – atonal and horrifying, the drums become uncontrollable and the whole experience is overwhelmingly terrifying. It is clear Roach wants you to feel the horror of the black condition in both the USA and South Africa in 1960. This theme is climaxed perfectly with Tears for Johannesburg as an overt and clear emotional statement on the plight of the black men across the world from him under the viciously oppressive apartheid, whilst him and his own countrymen faced similar struggles.

But not only does this album pack a powerful punch thematically, musically the diversity and flow of the album is masterful. We have the slugging rhythm section of Driva Man’, making the song feel sweltering and heavy, perhaps like the cotton field. The listener is then thrown into a much faster pace on Freedom Day, with a technically proficient yet accessible drum solo planted in the latter moments of the track. Medley then opens things up, with the absences of instrumentation here creating a very spacious environment in contrast to the album thus far. All Africa then takes us into the natural, more tribal world with the congas now taking a lead. Then finally, Tears for Johannesburg is an epic reflection of all the rest of the album, with both Roach’s drumming and the congas, along with Lincoln’s moans and the return of the soulfully charged saxophone, all held tightly together by a hypnotically repetitive bassline. This album is talent, sentiment, creativity and action, explored in an unorthodox mode of jazz, especially for its time. I look forward to writing on my thoughts of this album a month down the line, because the initial impression on me is one of bewilderment. Although I must let this album grow longer on me before making any final judgements, this feels like a new favourite and a musical enterprise nearing  perfection. 

Highlights: Driva' Man, Freedom Day, Medley, All Africa, Tears for Johannesburg

Lowlights: None

Rating: 10/10

Artist: The Weeknd

Album: Beauty Behind the Madness

Genre: Alternative R&B

Year of Release: 2015

On First Listen (27th April 2017): The Weeknd has created a unique world of hedonism and self-deprecation with most of his music (particularly the earlier in his music that you go). With the exception of the retro and funky Can’t Feel My Face where Weeknd wears his influences brazenly on his sleeve, this album is no exception. Some of the strongest moments of him embracing this unique habitat is in his use of bass on the project. Whilst a heavy bass for some genres and sounds may seem like an easy and cheap trick to give a song undeserved gravity, Weeknd engineers it to create gloomy contradictions with the high registers of his vocals, most powerfully in the chorus of The Hills. He also achieves this atmosphere wonderfully with the uses of vocal sample manipulation on Often and the unsettling presence of surface noise that muddies the acoustic guitar in a song like Shameless. Most of the power of this record is in the pain of the vocals in unfamiliar musical, and also lyrical territory. For example, the tortured delivery in Often shedding new light on the darker sides of the life of a ‘stud’, with incredibly well structured and ever-changing vocal melodies throughout the song and an eerily uncertain yet boastful chorus.

The weaknesses of this album are in its indulgences in the cliché and overly-sentimental. The lack of subtlety of the vocal gymnastics in the bridge of As You Are for example, or the pseudo-epic arena rock-esque clichés all over the song Angel. Low points of the album can also be found on Earned It and Dark Times with forced, lounge-like, sleazy burlesque vibes which seem out of place amongst the cloudy, gloomy R&B he is so known for. Overall this album is glaringly inconsistent, and its high points on average are not quite as high as a project like House of Balloons, but it is still decent and enjoyable. And Often really is a towering achievement in his career.

Highlights: Often, The Hills, Acquainted, Shameless

Lowlights: Earned It, Dark Times, Angel

Rating: 6.0/10

Artist: Thantifaxath

Album: Sacred White Noise

Genre: Black Metal / Atmospheric Black Metal / Progressive Metal

Year of Release: 2014

On First Listen (9th April 2017): Thantifaxath are Canadian Black Metallers who seem more concerned than some (or many) of their contemporaries in trying to maintain some of the spirit of the infamous Norwegian Second Wave. While this album certainly does not just amount to throwback music, many aspects of this project borrow qualities from the old sound and champion them again. The vocals are harsh and guttural throughout, and are mixed to feel distant and emerging from a landscape, just as they were in the classic style, albeit still a lot less lo-fi than back then. Another obvious feature is the consistency of the blast beat drumming, which is paramount to the sound’s signature relentlessness. However, there is also a more intangible sense in which they seem to be able to hold on to the atmosphere of their predecessors, even in moments where they break out of the more concrete, musical confines of the genre traditions, and there are several moments when they achieve this. The steep tempo changes in Sacred White Noise carry with them a cold and abrasive air through the production and the way it blends with the vocals, and thus, keeps you firmly in the winter climate. Also, the beginning passage of Eternally Falling, although soft in a sense, uses dissonant and un-harmonious melodies from what seems like some sort of string section, perhaps a violin. In doing this, the album keeps you feeling uncomfortable even in the breaks from the aggression. The exiting riff on Where I End and the Hemlock Begins is creepy, menacing and outlined by a brutal rhythm section. And in the album’s closing track, we have a perfect emulation of treacherous winds to take us out, which stamps the spirit of the old sound down firmly in the last moments. Perhaps it is their Canadian understanding of the cold which gives them insight that other contemporaries lack, but even if not, they seem to capture an authenticity that is quite sparsely found today.

This album’s real problems are with its attempts at uniqueness. Aside from some playful explorations of time signatures and slight progressive tendencies, this album does not seem to have a prevailing character that awards it a serious spotlight in metal. The throwback riffs are nondescript, as they should be, but the more contemporary sounding ones, such as the one in the early moments of The Bright White Nothing at the End of the Tunnel, lack memorable distinction. If they had opted for exclusive wall-of-sound-esque guitar work, and fused this with their ability to maintain the authentic black metal experience through non-traditional means, perhaps they would have succeeded atmospherically where other “atmospheric” black metal bands do not. However, this is not what they chose to do, and some of their progressive tendencies and departures from the whirlwind 90s sound do not seem quite special or definitive enough to make this album feel like an important contemporary metal release. Nevertheless, this is a good, consistent project. It does well in avoiding the bad, but cannot quite reach the exceptional.

Highlights: Where I End and the Hemlock Begins, Panic Becomes Despair
Lowlights: The Bright White Nothing at the End of the Tunnel

Rating: 7.5/10

Artist: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

Album: Flying Microtonal Banana

Genre: Psychedelic Rock 

Year of Release: 2017

On First Listen (6th April 2017): After spending nearly all of last year meaning to listen to Nonagon Infinity and never getting around to it, I felt it important to get Flying Microtonal Banana out of the way early. Being my first Gizzard album though, I can only critique it for itself and not in any context of their discography. This album uses many musical ideas again and again throughout, making it feel very tightly uniform. The vocals all drown in psychedelic reverb, and all have an intoxicating, mantra-like quality to them. No better example can really be given for this than the constantly reiterating lyrics and melodies of the vocals in Rattlesnake. Another key defining factor here is the personality-driven guitar solos that dance and improvise in between the vocal passages on the seemingly ever-present rock rhythm section, similar in a sense to the Krautrock scene, that this album I would imagine draws some influence from. There are also recurring moments of unusual guitars, that sound as if they are pulled from some kind of Eastern/Arabic folk guitar, making the album feel occasionally quite sonically experimental and exploratory. This is found most notably on the title track and closer of the album. And finally, the last reappearing element I wanted to highlight is how frequently the vocals are emphasised by the guitar, which traces its melodies, note-by-note, on almost every song. This is both a strength and weakness of the project for me. On tracks like Sleep Drifter it only helps to make the already hypnotic vocals even more infectious, but on some less enticing, memorable and infectious singing performances such as Nuclear Fusion, it leaves you wishing the guitar would do something else to alleviate the slight boredom. 

Much of this album’s triumphs are double-edged swords, the singular feeling of the album, through its repeated use of various defining characteristics, can become slightly tedious. And the veil of effects over the vocals, which succeed so well in conjuring an other-worldly atmosphere also feels somewhat cold and distant from feeling (with the exception of Billabong Valley). This album has a lot to boast, but in those achievements I find small irritations that stop me from loving it. I think perhaps these irritations will wear away and this album will be a grower, but they may also grow. Whilst I definitely enjoyed and look forward to returning to the album, for now I am reserved from singing its highest praise.   

Highlights: Rattlesnake, Sleep Drifter, Billabong Valley, Flying Microtonal Banana

Lowlights: Doom City, Nuclear Fusion
Rating: 7.5/10

Artist: Aphex Twin

Album: ...I Care Because You Do

Genre: IDM / Ambient Techno / Drill and Bass 

Year of Release: 1995

On First Listen (5th April 2017): Aphex Twin’s third album, …I Care Because You Do, seems to begin his overall musical direction away from ambience and into the Drill and Bass sound he helped pioneer and popularise. This album very much embodies the Passover between these two phases. The incredible album opener implements a cold, sharp percussion, reminiscent of contemporaries Autechre, echoing the more mechanised future of James’ sound with Aphex Twin. But with that, comes the heavenly, compressed violin alongside the electronic whistling synth to create the ambient warmth found on his first two projects. After this song, the following tracks trade-off between the various sounds frequently. The second track, The Waxen Pith, uses prominent strings, and a later track, Alberto Balsam, employs light synths and compressed, digitised piano sounds to create homely and comforting atmospheres, both of these tracks however, still sit on top of dance percussion, but lean closer to the IDM genre than Drill and Bass. Other songs though, like the assaulting and abrasive Ventolin and the speedy, hard-hitting Start As You Mean To Go On use tearing drum sounds and uncomfortable time signatures which pushes us forward to the Drill and Bass future of James, which projects like Come To Daddy and Richard D. James Album fully embrace. On the other hand, a track like Icct Hedral has little to no percussion, no danceability, and focuses on some form of grandiose ambient techno, where atmospheres build rather than repeat, but is very unlike the faster sounds of the later albums. And the closer, Next Heap With¸ is arguably minimal enough to fit onto Selected Ambient Works Volume II. 

Because of this album bridging the two eras of Aphex Twin, it suffers from problems with overall cohesion and a sensible album flow. Some of the processions seem to not work to much effect, and the sounds on the album seem to be paced and spread sporadically. And along with clear weak tracks like the bland and disengaging Come On You Slags, this album falls short of being an amazing work. However, the overall strength of most of these tracks, and the overwhelming success of these different sounds still makes it a great listen. Whilst it feels a bit of a mess, each avenue is, for the most part, triumphantly explored. 

Highlights: Acrid Avid Jam Shred, The Waxen Pith, Start As You Mean To Go On, Alberto Balsam

Lowlights: Come On You Slags, Mookid
Rating: 8.5/10

Artist: King Crimson

Album: Larks' Tongues in Aspic

Genre: Progressive Rock

Year of Release: 1973

On First Listen (4th April 2017): Larks’ Tongues in Aspic delivers a more electrified, more varied and more unusual sound than the seminal albums of the earlier King Crimson days. Tracks like Larks’ Tongues in Aspic Part II bend the traditional progressive sound with a barrage of time signatures which switch rapidly and constantly, and a song like Book of Saturday wonders into the world of Avant music with electric guitars warped into playing backwards, hanging over sombre vocals and acoustics. We have crushing, bordering on early Metal riffs on display in both parts of the title track and Easy Money, jazz-like explosions of technicality in the title track’s Part I, classical-esque passages of violin all over the album, and laid-back bongos in The Talking Drum. This album manages an almost paradoxical feat, jumping around constantly in mood, tempo and even genre somewhat, yet as a project, still feeling cohesive and appropriately arranged. My only gripe is some of the uses of sound effects here, specifically on Easy Money, which seems to have a slightly dated and uncomfortable quality in the context of the rest of the album. This in turn slants the album, making it overall A-side heavy in quality (as the first three tracks are all very strong), and in turn gives the album an overall feeling of declining quality (although the final track helps to make this feeling not too prominent, making an argument for the strongest track). Nevertheless, this is a great album, and undoubtedly a high-point in their discography.

Highlights: Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part I, Book of Saturday, Exiles, Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part II

Lowlights: Easy Money

Rating: 8.5/10

Artist: Grimes

Album: Art Angels

Genre: Electropop / Dance-Pop

Year of Release: 2015

On First Listen (3rd April 2017): Art Angels uses the sounds, registers, melodies and naive-sounding innocence that remind me heavily of the manufactured bubblegum-esque dance-pop/k-pop acts and creates a wonderful marriage between this and "high art" sonic experimentation, through off-the-wall and creative electronic collages of sound. Often incredibly catchy choruses, youthful high tones and infectious dance-able grooves will be surrounded and submerged in heavy effects and a variety of prominent high and low synths that refuse to just sit back and compliment in the background. One of the most prominent moments of this was World Princess Part II, where we had a non-standard pop progressions, ethereal wash-y synths to drown the howling vocal in the chorus, and a synth lead that was able to rival the catchiness of the vocal melodies. The weak points in this album are when the songs are not catchy or contagious enough to hold my attention. Whilst of course a song does not have to be catchy, with songs like this that experiment on top of the base of a very catchy pop song, without that base, nothing on top is quite interesting or expansive enough to compensate. A track like Artangels would serve as an example of this, where the album has trouble in mastering the fusion it aims to achieve. Overall though, the combination of the "high" and "low" art is done with originality and precision. Whilst there was not much on this project for me to fall in love with, this is a charming project that I have no doubt I will be returning to, and seen as this is my first Grimes album, I will also be very likely exploring her back-catalogue on the back of my enjoyment of this.

Highlights: Flesh Without Blood, Belly of the Beat, Realiti, World Princess Part II

Lowlights: Artangels, Venus Fly

Rating: 7.5/10

UPDATE: This album is addictive. No song has worn on me, and I finally get the full appeal of the explosive chorus in Kill V. Maim. This album is simplicity done in the best way, the catchy choruses and easy appeal persists on repeated listens whilst subtler nuances unearth themselves. Artangels still sticks out as having a weaker appeal, most importantly in its comparable lack of memorability.

However, Venus Fly has found its fondness with me. The bombastic beating bass felt tacky at first but now I can appreciate it as a harsher, power pop moment on the album.

Highlights: Flesh Without Blood, Belly of the Beat, Kill V. Maim, Realiti, World Princess Part II
Lowlights: Artangels

Rating: 8.0-8.5/10