Microshift

Indie landfill

More worms than hooks (nailed it)

Ok

Not really too impressive and a dead band... this should not be on the list, but whatever...

Well made, but didn't really enjoy a whole lot from this album

It keeps going on in a rather dreadful way without hooks to hold on to.

Not my taste

I'd say that this is like an indie 2000s band but it's too similar to those experimental electronica albums of the late 70s that weren't good at all. This was just ok at best. 5/10.

Klingt erstmal stark nach Kraftwerk. Ist aber am Ende Indiepop mit viel Synthesizer, manchmal geht es ein bisschn in Richtung 80er. „Anonymous allegations of abuse by an unnamed woman that were reported by a third party against the band’s singer saw the dissolution of the Hookworms in 2018.“ Da hab ich doch schon keinen Bock mehr, das noch mal anzuhören!

Some of the selections on this list are positively mind boggling. Pedestrian shite!

weird and synth like

This lot must have listened to Secret Machines, who did it better.

a few good tracks, nice transitions but overall lacking

I found this sort of neutrally pleasant to listen to. Sort of surprised it was from 2018… sounds very 2004 or so to me.

It was really weird and not my style

Wasn't feeling this.

Annoying at times. Fading nicely into the background at others. Not really my thing.

This one isn’t my cup of tea. Some decent melodies, but it just doesn’t speak to me.

Feels very NPR, All Things Considered. Meh.

Middling 2010s indie electro pop rock. There is nothing unique or interesting about this whatsoever. Rating: 2/5 Playlist track: Negative Space Date listened: 03/11/23

5 4 3 - Negative Space (3.5) - Static Resistance 2 - Ullswater (would have been a 3, if not for the length) - The Soft Season - Opener (repetitious ... and ...... looonnng) - Each Time We Pass (ditto) - Reunion (why??) - Shortcomings (2.5) 1 - Boxing Day My heart sank with the opening bars to 'Negative Space' and I was thinking, "oh god no, another album of jerkoffs making weird sounds" ... and then, it all turned around. I ended up liking the first track. However, perhaps my opinion will change on 2nd listen (update:nope), but this gets harder to listen to the further down the track list you go. While it's not as bad as I initially feared, it ends up being just too repetitious and each song becomes bland.

Boring and bland meh.

Groupe de rock néo-psychédélique. La voix du chanteur s'écoute bien. Les sons électros sont juste un petit peu trop too much des fois. Oubliable pour moi.

Started off promising but really fell off after the first few songs

Aardig op de achtergrond

Interessante band, maar was toch wel wat negatief beïnvloed door het nieuws over de frontman.

I'm struggling a bit with rating this album. Didn't hate the music, but the synth sounds annoyed the hell out of me. It's like someone is playing old school video games in front of the mic. In the end, not worth listening again.

Quite dance-oriented overall. And often quite pop/new-wave sounding. A couple of interesting noisy/drone tracks, and some funky moments.

This was fine I guess, but with a rubbish closing song. I found it hard to pay any attention to this while it was on

I dig the album art. The album itself is okay, but sounds too much like other better bands to me 🤷‍♂️

Eipä tarjonnut kummoista kokemusta tämä(kään) levy. Vuodelta 2018 ja eipä oikeastaan mitään raikkautta. Harmiton, hajuton ja mauton.

Aika höpöhöpöhöttö.

Of all of the albums added for 2018, why was it this rehash album?

Found it pretty dull

Middle of the road with flourishes of brilliance

Embarrassed to admit, I actually own this - bought on the strength of a live session at the time. Sounded quite good on the radio, couldn't really make out the sad boy lyrics. They were really lauded when this came out and then totally disappeared - *looks up why* - aha, makes sense! About as good as a mediocre Charlatans album

Meh. 2/5

Sonic wankery. Boring.

It's not good. It's not bad. It's average, maybe. Some parts are annoying. I'm not sure if it's worth listening through for the decent parts.

Meh

Forgettable.

I love the album art. I mean -- as soon as I saw this as some British rock band I've never heard of before, I bemoaned this. So far the first two songs sound exactly the same - in energy and beat. Each Time We Pass sounds a little like The Postal Service. To argue that this is such an amazing album -- there are other albums I would have considered such as Tame Impala's Lonerism or Origami Angel's Somewhere City. I enjoy the energy of the album -- but it's all the same. I just don't think it is something I would actively listen to in it's entirety again or call it a MUST-HEAR album. Maybe a select MUST-HEAR songs (like Dance Yourself Clean by LCD Soundsystem). There are plenty of great artists out there that have must-hear albums that could easily make it onto anyone's subjective listening list. :)

wasn't the most memorable thing I've ever heard.

what the hell is this?

How did this make the list?

Meh

I wanted to like a couple of the songs but they didn’t ever hit

Can appreciate the sounds, just not for me.

Derivative, but not bad for that. There's significant filler, but some very good tracks.

Meh. Plus hate the name.

Inget för mig alls...

Interesting but didn't fully hook me

Didn't find anything interesting for me.

Given there are so few albums from 2018 here, one has to ask what the to die for factor of this album is. And the obvious answer is: no. I suspect no one (but family & friends) would list this album in the year’s top 10, or even top 50 or 100. Especially when looking at the music produced all over the world, as opposed to limiting oneself to the English speaking world. If ever we needed proof this book turned into this website is rather bizarre/eccentric/myopic, or even nepotic, we have it now.

Not my cup of tea

Att blanda en boss genre som krautrock med en medioker genre som britpop verkar inte ha lett till en ny och fräsch take på någondera stilen. Istället blev resultatet långtråkigt, oinspirerat och sterilt men helt ok att passivt lyssna på.

Eine langweilige Platte, die genauso klingt wie jede andere Platte aus diesem Genre in jenem Jahrzehnt.

Experiential music. Would make good movie music. A little too repetitive and lacking something. Maybe too technical in its approach and maybe self hypnotic in some way.

this album has a sound we've not heard much on this list. it's electronic, but it's different from kraftwerk and other electronic artists part of this project. not to mention it's such a newer sound, so i'm not surprised it came out in 2018. while it was a calming and easy listen, i couldn't get into it. it was just too little. this was not a terrible listen, but there wasn't enough to grab me. the vocals were straight forward and bland. also, yikes about how hookworms disbanded.

i like negative space and static resistance okay once they get going - the intros and outros were not my style. Opener was alright too. pretty bold to name an album hookworms though. made me think of earworms and then made me think every song would be catchy and stuck in my head. They sound like a band that might be playing in a backroom in Brooklyn (knitting factory, baby's all right) and I'd dance my head off and be like man that was fun but never catch their name. I don't think this is special or original enough to put on this kind of a list though? But I think I need to continue to forget the premise (1001 albums to listen to before you die) and just accept their position on the list and react to them as albums alone.

Solid dance-punk full of polyrhythms and melody. Loses a star for the band's abhorrent alleged behavior.

Definitely an album i didn’t need to listen to before I died.

"Shortcomings" is the only track that was remotely memorable. I didn't dislike this album, but there wasn't really anything unique about it.

Glimpses of goodness, can't say more than nice I guess, however. Too weak for proper dance music

a micro shift indeed

Ni los conocía! No me parecería que merecieran estar entre estos 1001 discos esenciales.

Bland with shitty mixing

Interesting, but not something i'd but putting on my list.

2.5 good at times.

Microshift is the third & final album from British rock band Hookworms. There is not much information about this album, aside from the fact that it did perform well critically at release. I'm not even positive what genre this could be classified as because it's majority rock, but it switches forms to neo-psychedelia, space rock, noise rock, or drone rock based on the different electronic effects that make appearances. It was an interesting album for sure, but compared to other albums on this 1000 albums journey, it doesn't come close to some of them.

It was okay, not really my vibe though.

Not sure that this was a must-listen. It was okay. The neo-psychedelic label gets thrown around a lot, and I don’t always hear it. This was a perfect example of that.

When it first started I thought there was a problem with the file, and then it got better, but not really. It's odd, I like some electronica type stuff, but this just didn't hit for me.

It's... Alright. You can hear interesting influences. !!!, Vangelis, LCD Soundsystem. But ultimately this is a band with a brilliant drummer and some synths disguising the fact they are otherwise producing relatively milquetoast indie that bands like Freelance Whales had already done better about 10 years prior.

Kind of reminds me of Phoenix or LCD Soundsystem if both bands weren't as... good. Let's call it what it is, this record feels very inconsequential. Overall forgettable. Favorite tracks: "Ullswater" "Boxing Day"

Aquest indie britànic, mig psicodèlic mig electrònic, pretesament lisèrgic, va tenir els seus millors moments a finals dels 00's, començaments dels 10's amb bandes com Wooden Shjips o les últims discos de Maccabees. 'Microshift' sóna a tot això, amb records també al krautrock setenter. Res memorable, res especial

Hookworms? Aren’t there pills for that?

meh hip indie rock.

It’s like a tamer Tame Impala.

This should have connected with me more: shimmery synths, Foals-style grooves, beta male vocals. It doesn't quite add up. And then you read the band dissolved almost immediately after this album's release due to sexual assault allegations against the lead singer.

I like the album cover. I dislike how much noise(?) there is. It sounds fuzzy and it drowns out the singing. I’m not a huge fan of the genre either. Highlights: -

Forgettable.

The beats and the hooks are nice. But they cranked the volume up to 11, then whooshed it out with the classic indie rock TV static noise, at the top of that, there's these fever dream-sy vocals that only amplifies the monotonicity and messiness of the overall sound. These guys know how to make great sounds, but they probably got carried away while producing.

Música electrónica estilo Depeche mode

Pretty boring but not the worst thing ever

Hints of Kraftwerk and Daft Punk but mostly repetitive and droning. The Soft Season started strong and then... wow. Didn't hate but didn't add.

Unspecial but not offensive.

Not sure why this album is on the list. Pretty underwhelming and nothing too special about it. It wasn't awful, but it was very forgettable...

Narp. Soz.

Late night listen. Not bad but not something I'd revisit.

Psychodelic

forgot it was playing

It was OK. Didn't really stick with me. Too polished and produced, could've done with stripping back a bit.

Alright. This is an album. It has some slightly interesting but not entirely new approaches. That's it. No idea what could possibly merit the inclusion on this list.

Decent enough but wouldn't rush back to it.

Boooring

Meh, the album.

This is kinda generic indie rock. And we can't say they were pioneers because this album came in 2018. The sound felt old, something we have heard before.

Didn't do much for me

Started off promising, but ended up sounding pretty generic. Drone rock is one of the listed genres on Wikipedia, and is apt - pedal tones over rock does not an interesting album make.

A : 1？, Its like fifa music on shrooms JL : 1, Reunion

if geese's publicity company ran a psyop then this list is a misinformation campaign

No, no I don’t think so

1. zpace - 1 2. ztatic - 1 3. uuater - 0 4. zoft - 1 5. open - 1 6. pazz- 1 7. bozing - 1 8. reunion - 2 9. zhort - 1

Microshit.

Har aldrig hört det här förut. Det hade inte gjort något om det förblivit så. Det är kanske inte genomuselt. Bara totalt ointressant. Släppt 2018. Vad har albumet tillfört musikhistorien som berättigar en plats i boken? Absolut ingenting.

This is on my 1001 albums to never listen to before you die list

Background music for elevators.

Tried to like this album, hoped every song would be better than the last. Was disappointed. Finally liked the last one, Shortcomings. Too much synthesized noise. Boring vocals with no range, sounded like the same 2 alternating notes were sung, no melody whatsoever. Only real instrument I could hear were drums and they were excellently played. Keyboards were heard a few times. Give me my 45 minutes back.

This exact album has been done better by many different artists. the opening track is cool and made me excited for the rest of the albums. Unfortunately most of the rest was bland and repetitive. Most of the songs were a drag.i feel like hookworms were trying to be unique It was more intensive than anything.some of the songs are way too long for what it was. It does not belong on this type of list. Strong 2 to a light 3

Por ratos como que pop otros psicodélico nisik, interesante mezcla pero no me agrado mucho

Yet another in an endless stream of electronic music, this time synthpop, whatever that is. The lyrics paint a bleak picture of this guy's relationship with women which I suppose reflects his real life practice of assaulting women.

Esto tampoco debería estar en la lista y menos en la actualización de weas modernas, indie genérico y nada más

Não curto rock moderninho não. :/

Awful, not even music

It wasn't a pleasant listen, at all. I don't get why this one is included here. The modular synth pads are lifeless and uninteresting and vocals didn't do anything. I know it's not a valid criticism but I have found them annoying as hell. I don't want to hear it ever again. Unfortunately, a 1

Read the Wikipedia page and noped out.

UK slop

Anxiety producing

Are you joking this ELEVEN YEARS after the MGMT album it's copying, badly. Microshit!

This is another one that I don’t really understand how it got on a list like this.

Bleh

I was incredibly bored listening to this. I also can’t figure out for the life of me why this belongs on the list.

Not for me.

This album did nothing for me. It felt like "What if MGMT was really big into Bowie's Berlin era?" Bowie and Eno, these guys aren't. Favorite song: Shortcomings

Horror

Hey uhh with all this new AI clogging up every aspect of their once great operating system, Microsoft is more like uhhh hehe, uhh MicroSHIT hey? What's that? It's MicroSHIFT? Another Britrock band? This time from from 2018? Can I guess the album duration? 57 minutes. 46! That's a valuable 9, but as I attempt to navigate yet another British rock project that isn't the Beatles or the Stone Roses, I shudder. I am taken back to the disorienting boredom of Blur, or the abject pain of U2 and I convulse. I had escaped. My project was deactivated on this site. I have a child. I was free, yet still, I re-entered the animus in order to endure albums that sound like this for the purpose of saying I've heard them. "Hey guys, have you heard Microshift by Hookworms" "No, of course not, nobody has heard that or even heard OF that." "Well, just imagine a canvas painted grey hanging in Bono's palatial estate, splashed with tepid tea that was painted by a guy with allegations of sexual abuse." "Sir, you're upsetting everybody at the kindergarten talent show." This is why I do this. To intellectually enrich myself and others. The crusade continues. May I put each and every Britrock album to the sword in the name of joy and ultimately, creativity. 0.5 HIGHLIGHTS: High? Nooo. Light? Barely.

Not for me. 1/5

One of the band members has the same name as my initials, so there is little proof that it is not me

Not for me

• it was a little bit boring

No

Forgetable. One of those that I would dismiss :-(

This is the first record I've drawn that can rival The xx's I See You in its inessential nature. I had not heard of this band, and was unsurprised to learn they are from Leeds. The is Alt-J, except Hookworms can't coast off two good hooks. (I had to laugh, upon looking up Alt-J, that I found they are also from Leeds!) Even the Hookworms name annoys me. Are you doing a Beatles play? Are you suggesting (wrongly) that your hooks are earworms? They all credit themselves only by their initials, lmao. And they're cancelled!! What a bizarre inclusion!

Never heard of the band. Was really, really boring.

Marketed as “psych,” but it’s sleek indie-electro with reverb slapped on. No grit, no trip—just polished loops dressed up as depth. Modern garbage.

Yet another album that I could have done with not hearing before I die.

This is the kind of music I feel like you'd hear in a store like Urban Outfitters if the manager is feeling particularly energetic and planning to make the staff rearrange a bunch of things. That's to say: this feels like the outer edge of bland mainstream 2010s psychedelic/hipster/indie/brit rock on the corporate retail safe-list. They sound like a band you should have heard of but somehow don't know anything about. My tasting notes include hints of Passion Pit, undertones of Arctic Monkeys, and the cinematic flourishes of Muse - all bands that came before Hookworms, not bands that would have taken influence from them. And I guess that's where I'm struggling with this one. While this album is totally fine, I don't understand why it's on this list or what lasting impact it's had on the music industry. Like many reviewers, I've never heard of this band/album before and that's weird because it's one of the most contemporary albums on the list. Most of this review was developed during "Ullswater" which somehow felt like the longest 7 minutes in recorded history, only to be outdone by the 8:35 runtime of "Opener" (which is track 5, despite its name). If this list is supposed to stay at 1001 albums, I hope this record is replaced by a more meaningful work soon.

This was bad.

Realmente extraño y con una producción peculiar. Algunas canciones son extremadamente largas y hace que el álbum aburra.

Utterly pointless Arcade Fire rip-off. C'mon guys, let's try a little harder next time. (Oops, guess there won't be a next time.)

Ik ken dit niet en het Wikipedia artikel past op een bierviltje, dus dat geeft weinig houvast. Het klinkt een beetje als Glass Animals, maar dan ontzettend druk. Het neigt een beetje naar van die FIFA soundtrack muziek (misschien omdat Glass Animals daar ook in zat), maar het is te aanwezig daarvoor. Dit is weer zo'n album waar ik niet tegen kan, ondanks dat het geen slechte muziek is. Al die galmende laagjes (o.a. het orgeltje) in combinatie met die zenuwachtige synthjes en de aardig hoge zang trekken bij mij de batterij compleet leeg. Dit wringt precies op de verkeerde plek. Ik vind dit verschrikkelijk. Ik herhaal: Dit is niet objectief slecht (voor zover dat bestaat), maar ik kan hier niet tegen. Ik zet hem af (na track 3) en ik kan niet anders dan 1 ster geven.

The sounds of an octopus f**king a bagpipe. Soulless guitar driven dance music that will keep you off the dance floor, off your tits or not. Microshift? More like microshit grande.

I actually really dig this style of music and could see myself reslistening to this for sure. I unfortunately have the same issue I have with most recent albums here though - I simply don't think this album is remotely relevant enough to justify its inclusion in this list. I don't think it's proven influential or culturally relevant at all. I hadn't even heard of it until now.

Wow this was a chore to get through. It’s some pretentious crap. Now I love pretentious crap, but when you get all pretentious then the bar is that much higher to make music that is meaningful and connects with the listener. This is just weak songs wrapped in repetitive noise. Also never heard of them, it’s pretty new, no listens on Spotify, not sure what got them on the list. One star.

Honestly, how did this album even make it onto this list? It’s just bad, forgettable background noise. To make matters worse, the band’s troubling past only reinforces that this disaster deserves the lowest rating possible. If this is your only listening option, I’d suggest just staring at a wall instead. At least that won’t leave you feeling confused and uneasy!

p951. 2018. 1 star. Microshit more like. Bland noise with limp vocals. Zero redeeming features. WTF is this on the list?

NOT my style.

Like this is not something I needed to listen to before I die, it might kill me how bad this is, noisy nonsense.

I was trying to enjoy it but 1) never heard of this band before [derrogatory], 2) went to google the band and had the bad news that they broke up because the singer was accused of doing bad stuff to a few women, 3) I just couldn't get into the damn album.

I know a Gen X British guy made this list because he clearly is not aware all of this sounds like an iPhone commercial from 15 years ago and does not belong on this list. It has a few moments in the end but this is just slop... it's musically competent but still soulless and uninspired. FFO Target checkout line music

No thanks.

Did not like. Too old

No way I will listen to this.

This is an album I really wanted to like. The genre, the era of electronic music, the album cover (god, it's so cool)... all signs point to a sonic masterpiece. Or, at the very least, something to which I could give a respectful nod and create a vague mental note to tell my friends, "Hey guys, look, I listened to something post-2000 today! And it was pretty good!". But alas – it was not good. Pretty bad, in fact. The first three tracks are actually fairly promising, showcasing repeated layered synths (à la Daft Punk or, at a stretch, Pink Floyd) and decent singing. The album opener, Negative Space, is a fantastic track, setting the tone for what would ideally follow. But the energy begins to dissipate with the lengthy interlude Ullswater, and for the next three songs disappears completely. The Soft Season / Opener / Each Time We Pass is a brutally slow album midsection. The singing is either absent – leaving a barren landscape with hardly anything to catch the listener's attention – or it's present, but not very good. By the time you've reached the end of the tunnel with the song Boxing Day, it's hard to pick up the pieces. Boxing Day itself is a fairly good nu-rock/experimental track, and Shortcoming is a surprisingly gritty hard-rock song to end the album on a high-energy note. It's between a 1 and a 2 for me. I've chosen a 1 because there are countless other, better albums that could've been chosen from this era of music. A Moon Shaped Pool, Blackstar, WWAFAWDWG, NFR... But Microshift? I think I could die without having listened to this. It could be worse, sure, but I feel it's too early to tout the importance of a (comparatively) anonymous electronic album released just seven years ago. 1/5 Key tracks: Negative Space, Static Resistance

Again, questioning the validity of this being on a list of "must hear" albums. Really? It's just overly synth-heavy bland techno pop, and it's too new to be an influence on much of anything. The freneticism of most of the tracks is also anxiety inducing.

??

Indietä spektrin (vieläkin) koukuttomammasta päästä.

Really strange music

The fact that this is on the list is unjustified for me.

Incredibly boring. I thought it might have been revolutionary in its days. But the days were in 2018? I don't understand why it's a must listen.

Ok

Totally new band to me. Once again first half of the album was better than the last. More or less nondescript music for me. No points.

I really use to enjoy this album and band. But the lead singer is an abuser so I can't bring myself to listen to it. As a record I'd give it a 4. But I can't divorce the art from the artist on this one.

This is the newest album I've gotten, 245 days in. All bands that sound like this, sound exactly like this! Can't tell the difference between any of them. I'm bored

Edit: I was clearly feeling generous by giving it a 2, but this is bad. I don’t think there’s a universe in which I need to hear this before I die.

Guy is already in the dungeon but I'll extend the sentence a bit. This was very forgettable. Will I listen to again: 0%

have I heard of this band? *googles Hookworms* oooooh that's how I know about Hookworms (derogatory). This is a very good example of the middle ground of "separate the art from the artist;" in some cases an artist's actions are so unconscionable there's no quality of work good enough that one could look past them; other times the work is so undeniable one can enjoy it while also holding the artist's ugliness in the other hand; and, in this case, the music is so just-fine that one person can tell me the lead singer abused them and I'm absolutely fine never listening to Microshift again.

not my taste

No lo conocía, ni el disco ni al grupo. Pero no me atrapó. Olvidable para mí

When more people have opinions of your non-musical activites than they do of your music, it isn't a must listen to album.

Chaotic, art house electronica. one star because no stars is not an option.

Oh boy, another mid British rock band I’ve never heard of! :/ Oh hey, there is a connection to Joanna Gruesome’s vocalist Lan McArdle. That’s one of my favorite modern bands! :) Oh no, the connection is that Lan made some extremely credible sexual assault allegations against the vocalist of Hookworms public! :(

co za szajs

Pretty terrible, but one of the band is seemingly a pretty terrible person. I only checked the wiki link to see why I hadn't heard of them, given when and where they were active, but it turns out they have been pretty comprehensively scrubbed from the records - but not the book! Losing them is no great loss though - late period landfill electro-indie is not my idea of a good time

White boy critics love this. It’s safe, it’s predictable but you can look down on the noobs who like Elton, or Billy Joel, or Celine Dion or Taylor swift. I’d grown tired of this stuff by 2003 or so. This adds nothing to music, musical knowledge or technique or songwriting. Shortcomings was ok. The rest was … blergh. 1 star

ick

Not my cup of tea

Music was aight - front man is a beast and I don’t know how to give something 0

I'm a big fan of electronic music, 'Berlin School', this is just lame. It's not going on my turntable. No, it's going straight into the bin of musical failures. It doesn't even get a 'Micro Star'!

New to me, now I'm happy my time with it has concluded so this album can be new to somebody else.

1. Not interested

Ахуенный набор звуков. Я, как фанат какофонии, одобряю

There's another techno album. It's greatest achievement is that it will be forgotten before I finish listening to the next selection.

Not going to listen to sexual abusers

Seguimos con los truños infumables.

Cancel 🫤

No

without merit. music: hated. (⌐■_■)

Nope

Never listened but based off of feedback I did myself a favor

# 49 : What? Who? Why?

More like 1,001 wrong'uns you must hear before you die. Like you, I'd never heard of this band before, but if you'd like to make your own Hookworms song, it's easy enough to program: if (vocalsound == vowel) { pitch.change; }

Una de las porquerías más grandes que escuché. Es como un pop con electrónica, onda los Yeah Yeah Yes.

It is now time to dance on Sprockets. Seriously, why is this very mid shit on this list? 1/5

I ALREADY RATED THIS YOU IDIOTS

This album sucked.

Yeah nah.

Completely uneventful and totally meh…

Not a fan of this.

Synthesize. Not for me.

Wow. Dehär va ass

Who cares.

terrible shit

Nah

Didn’t like