Good songs, good performance.. docking points because not really an album so much as some songs thrown together

I think the worst song on this album is Electioneering and if you had a whole album of songs the same quality as Electioneering, it would still be one of the best albums of the 90s If you took Let Down and put it in the middle of an album of 7 hours of fire alarms and dental drills, the strength of that song alone would bring it up to at least a 4

I don’t hate Meat Is Murder but I’m trying to be somewhat objective. Were I to rank my favorite groups, I imagine The Smiths would rank rather highly. I own a graphic novel about them and also Morrissey’s autobiography, which is the most hilariously overwritten book I’ve ever attempted to read. Yet I am unbiased enough to recognize that THIS album belongs nowhere near a greatest of all time list, particularly when a cursory review informs me that their (much better) self-titled debut is not featured. There are exactly 2 songs here in any sort of rotation for me (Headmaster Ritual and That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore). The title track is one of the dullest songs in existence, though I actually admire when a message is so in-your-face that no thought or interpretation is necessary. The original US release closes with How Soon Is Now? which is actually good enough to make the whole thing worth listening to, but alas that is not the version we’re reviewing.

I fucking adore Bat Out of Hell. I wish with all my heart that we could bring back this kind of big dumb loud 70s arena rock music. It’s an artistic achievement in bombast, maximalism, and some third thing to keep the rhythm of this sentence going. Every word Mr. Loaf sings is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD and he makes you feel that. The melodrama here is fantastic. An 8.5 minute epic about marrying someone to get them agree to bang in car? Whatever the fuck is going on at the beginning of You Took the Words Right of My Mouth? Give Jim Steinman a posthumous Pulitzer. This stupid album just puts me in such a good mood. There’s a very real part of me that says to award this album with more stars than there are stars in the universe—and the universe is infinite. But four out of five ain’t bad

My good mood from yesterday has been dashed. Nothing here grabbed me in any way and I wished for the album to be over within seconds. Indeed, had it gone on any longer then I fear I would have been forced to grind up a CD by whoever is the opposite of this (the Ramones, obvi) and mainline it into my bloodstream.

Enthusiastic about this one. Stuff like this is what I was hoping to get out of the album generator idea.

I like Metallica pretty well but they’ve always been more of a greatest hits band than an album band for me. There’s songs here I like a lot, always was a big fan of Sanitarium, but i don’t really feel the need to listen to it straight through very often, if ever

Expected to like this more than I did. First track kinda banged but overstayed its welcome. Didn’t know they had a vocalist before Bruce. Would have been better with Bruce.

Again, sonically, musically, melodically, rhythmically, I really dig these dudes. But goddamn that guy’s voice kills me

I'm generally more inclined to listen to New Order than Joy Division but still goddamn, dude. Unknown Pleasures is so so so so so so so so so so fundamentally important and influential on so much of what I love that came after. Disorder is in contention for best "album 1, side 1, track 1" of all time IMO. Love the production. Martin Hannett was a genius but also a monster. Things like spraying an aerosol can in time with the beat to create a "mechanical" sound on She's Lost Control, which in turn presumably caused Trent Reznor to spontaneously come into existence.

Listened to this twice, initially felt solid about a 3 but it grew on me. Coldplay frustrates me because their stuff I like, I like really like a lot but so much of it is forgettable.

“Horses tore my limbs off and put them back on in a whole different order. I was like: "Shit, yeah, oh my god!" then I threw up."” -Michael Stipe I’ve been listening to this album since I was like 14 and read Please Kill Me for the first time. Every time I hear it, I appreciate more and more just how special it really is. This time I listened with the lyrics pulled up, following along with every single line and, again, it hit me like never before. This album is like the big bang. You don't have to like it, but you can't deny it. This is one of the most truly perfect pieces of recorded media ever created. Horses was, I believe, the first album released by one of the resident CBGB artists and, for that reason, has a claim to being the first punk album. By blending "intellectual" influences and contemporaries like Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Television (Tom Verlaine is here!), and Talking Heads with the raw, simple, instrumentation of the Stooges, Ramones, and garage bands like the Kingsmen and Troggs, Patti Smith made a case for the NYC underground scene as something that demanded attention as it came to liberate us from the tyranny of masturbatory prog rock bullshit. There’s a reason she has been cited as an inspiration by everyone from Springsteen to Madonna (I'd argue there's a very direct line from the juxtaposition of sacred and profane in the version of "Gloria" on this record to that same trope being on display in "Like a Prayer") to Sonic Youth to Dua Lipa. Taylor Swift saying "I'm not Patti Smith" in the title track to TTPD was the closest she’s come to humility in the last 5 years. "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine" sounds like some edge-lord shit today but in 1975 it was a genuinely stunning mission statement. Such a simple declaration of autonomy and rejection of tradition. The storytelling here is visceral. You've got suicide, alien abductions, sex, drugs, rock and roll, religion. The lyrics to every song are like 10 pages long and sound borderline improvised and driven purely by emotion at points. It's like she's speaking in tongues.

Dude I’m a pretty recent convert to Missy Elliott (actually listened to this for the first time like a month ago maybe) but she’s pretty fucking awesome and has some of the coolest aesthetic choices in music videos especially. Timbaland is also great here. A chorus that’s just saying “I’m such a good rapper”??? Babe what? I love this. I will probably restate this a 5 later after a few more spins.

I like this album but have nothing to say about it beyond reiterating that Brass In Pocket is a perfect pop song.

*Insert Principal Skinner "No, it's the children who are wrong" meme* I think I largely have fairly middle of the road takes. Usually, when things are highly regarded, I like them. I don't try to force myself to enjoy things that are popular, but I also don't try to be contrarian; the only thing worse than liking stuff just because other people like it is hating stuff just because other people like it. With that preface out of the way, I submit to you that Pink Floyd is not so much a band to me as they are a t-shirt brand. To me, Pink Floyd's entire career is like a concept album where the concept is "boring as shit" and every lead vocal sounds like it's being wheezed out by one of those cartoon wizards in a blue robe covered in stars and shit. Of all the albums that show up on every single "greatest albums" list, there is none that I find more alienating than this one. You cannot find me a thing I have attempted to listen to more while enjoying it less. Flashback to less than a week ago, when I gushed over Patti Smith for, as I put it, "liberat[ing] us from the tyranny of masturbatory prog rock bullshit." This album is incapable of penetrating my consciousness. I've heard the whole thing 900 goddamn times and cannot hum you a bar of a single song that didn't get overplayed on classic rock radio. I want you to imagine my brain as the prism on the album cover and this album is the light... Except rather than going through the prism and making a rainbow, it just bounces right the fuck off. I almost just wrote 😴 and called it a day. I guess if I had to pick a favorite song it would be the one where David Gilmour tunelessly moans like a ghost in the world’s most apathetic haunted house. I almost gave it a 1/5 but then I remembered that King Crimson album exists and I do like this album dramatically more than that one, in the same way that I'd like having all my teeth pulled out by a dentist dramatically more than I would hate having all my teeth knocked out by a UFC fighter. I also remembered I'm probably going to have to review a Rush album at some point (such review will read, in its entirety, "fart sounds + jack-off motions") so I can’t let my scale bottom out just yet.

This album is a pretty interesting time capsule for the state of play in British music circa 1990. Let’s set the scene. We're a couple years past the post-punk/new wave era but a couple years ahead of the Britpop era and everyone is either really sad, doing a lot of ecstasy, or both. Lovable Scottish coke fiend Alan McGee has stacked Creation Records with a pretty stellar roster of indie acts including, most relevantly to this discussion, the Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine. Ride, the then-new kid on the Creation block, is clearly pulling from both of those bands but with more of a pop music sensibility. Most shoegaze/no-wave/noise rock groups had an ethos opposed to classic pop rock bands (The Beatles, et al) but Ride clearly has a reverence for that style of music. All of the dream-like soundscapes and heavy distortion but with much more focus on melody. More than fellow shoegazers, the influence that I hear most on this album is actually the Stone Roses which, again, makes sense given that they were the hottest commodity in British music for a very brief and beautiful flash in 1989-90. Turn down the fuzz a bit, mix the drums a bit lower and the vocals a bit higher, then like half these songs could be by the Roses. “This sounds like it could be by the Stone Roses” is about the nicest thing I can say about music. Special mention to the bass line on Seagull, the guitar tone on Paralysed, and every second of Vapour Trail. If I can borrow from the Tipton system, I’m gonna give this 4.5, maybe even 4.75. Like the Missy Elliott album, there’s decent odds I re-rate a perfect score in the future.

I liked this well enough. "Must hear before you die" feels like a stretch but it is a good album.

I'm older than everybody on this cover art and that's pretty fucked up. And I think the title is in the Twin Peaks font. CSN(and sometimes Y) are interesting because they're a supergroup that is arguably more popular than its predecessor bands. Like, I'd definitely call them more popular than Buffalo Springfield or the Hollies and probably the Byrds. David Crosby and Graham Nash are about as good at harmonizing and melody-crafting as anyone this side of Lennon/McCartney. And Stephen Stills is the second best songwriter/guitarist from Buffalo Springfield who subsequently joined this band. Neil Young is his own beast but he’s not here yet. One time I saw Graham Nash at the Lexington Opera House and he introduced every song by telling the story of what inspired it and like half the time the story was just the lyrics of the song. I don't even think it was intentional but it was really funny and for that reason, I will always love him. This album is a breeze to get through and there's always something pleasant or at least interesting going on. Vocal layers, lyrical complexity, the token “after a nuclear war” song that every single folk adjacent 60s singer had in the arsenal. Probably best enjoyed in an environment other than “in my office at work” or “in my kitchen cooking dinner” but that’s what I had to work with. If I'm being nitpicky, and I am being nitpicky because there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it, I'd prefer this to be structured a little differently. "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" is so fantastic that there's nowhere to go but down from there, so I wish it came way later in the album after some build, where it can be the "centerpiece" that it is. As it stands, I think the centerpiece honor goes to "Helplessly Hoping," which is admittedly their most streamed song on Spotify so maybe they’re better at this than I am. If I'm being extra nitpicky, and I am being extra nitpicky, because who's going to stop me? Kellen? I hate that part in "Wooden Ships" where they're talking about the purple berries. It’s annoying. But like this is still a no-skips album, no matter what order it's in and no matter how many berry-based diatribes there are. So, I don't know. Something I strongly believe is that you can never fully appreciate anything on a first listen, even if you immediately fall in love with it, and this is a good example of that. I’ve had the album on repeat all day, really since last night, and it’s grown on me more each time. I was pretty well locked in on a 3 on first listen then a 4 then up to a 5 then back down to a 4 (because of the berries. It’s always about the berries). I’m gonna give it the softest possible 5. Like when I took my driver’s license test those many years ago and the lady made a point of telling me I only passed by 1 point. Hoping for Neil Young soon

I wrote up a whole long thing and then I erased it because I don’t think I need that many words to say this album fucking rips and Neil Young is the greatest.

None of the songs are bad and most are well above average. But, prescient politics aside, it's just nothing special and feels like Radiohead going back and seeing what worked before (albeit in a mix-and-match manner), which, for better or worse, is an impulse that they generally resist. Basically taking Kid A(mnesiac) style lyrics and combining them with more OK Computer style instrumentals. The album is entirely too long and could have used some editing. I don't think there's too terribly much individual identity on these tracks. It's one of those things where I know every single one of them but can't match the titles to the songs. Just pick 3 to cut and it's a better album. Any 3. According to Wikipedia, "In 2008, Yorke posted an alternative track listing on Radiohead's website, omitting "Backdrifts", "We Suck Young Blood", "I Will" and "A Punchup at a Wedding,"" which would have knocked this down to a lovely 39:17. So, I removed those tracks and re-ordered the album per Thom's suggested alternative. It was an overall better experience. I just can't really tell you a situation outside a random album of the day generator where I feel inclined to sit down with this and listen front to back. Also the last Radiohead concert I went to had a very HTTT heavy setlist and I found it boring.

Godfuckingdamnit this is how it's done. Up there with the likes of The Byrds, Townes Van Zandt and Gram Parsons as far as being forebears of what we would now call alt country, John Prine is the embodiment of what hackish music journos would call a "songwriter's songwriter." He might not have been the biggest mainstream star, but pretty much anyone in the country/folk/Americana sphere with any sort of cultural cache will sing his praises endlessly. Bob Dylan once compared him to Proust—a stark contrast to that one time Bob Dylan got angry at me in 2019 (But at least he thought about me. ) Anyway, what John Prine is best at (and maybe is, in fact, THE best at), is crafting entire worlds within the span of a 3-4 minute song. There's so many songs out there that purport to "tell stories" but are effectively meaningless until you've been told what they're about and they become retroactively clever. But John Prine's songs don’t require explanation or close reading. They are effectively full on studies of characters who feel real, fleshed out, rounded, without needing to engage in too much interpretation. By the time Sam Stone dies of that overdose, you know him. There’s an image in your mind. You know things about this man that the song never tells you. But you know him. Excluding choruses, "Angel from Montgomery" is 3 verses, 12 lines. And yet, again, you can envision the subject and understand basically everything about her just from that sparse description. I've always interpreted "Hello In There" as a companion song, the perspective of the husband/old man/child that’s grown old/cowboy from "Angel from Montgomery"... just two sad people whose lives didn't go how they always thought they would. I’m not smart enough to read Proust but I can definitely apply some of that Hemingway iceberg shit to these songs. And the older I get, the more I can relate to some of these ideas. "Blow up your iPhone" doesn't sound as good as "blow up your TV" but the sentiment is the same. Just unplugging and living a real life. I dig that more and more every day. Growing up in an area that has basically been demolished by coal mining, "Paradise" is really personal to me.. I also used to play against Muhlenberg County's Quiz Bowl team and they were nice people. When I’m president, “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore” will be the national anthem. I love John Prine. I love this album.

This is a bit hard for me to grade because it detours at times into holdcore (a term I just invented for the music that plays when you're on hold with customer service) and pretty much any given 10 seconds could be the "welcome back" stinger to a public access talk show. But I liked it well enough. Not something I’m putting on during a road trip or anything but it’s pleasant. Good album art too. And good Jaco Pastorius.

meant to rate this a 4 initially but it was 3am and i wanted to see the next album whoops

At a certain point a few years back, I decided that it was no longer worth my time follow new releases as closely as I did in the past. Anything worth hearing, I resolved, would make its way to me eventually but there was no need to rush. That, unfortunately, led me to become fairly insulated, only listening to the same stuff over and over ad nauseum, and it got boring. But I still wasn’t willing to put in the effort to look into every hyped up new release. So, my compromise was to dig into the past, exploring the already extant discographies of artists from yesterday. Sure enough, this has been pretty damn fulfilling for me, as I've found a veritable treasure trove of awesome shit that has just been sitting there for decades, waiting for me to find it. Weirdly, most of it was British and from the 90s. If I remember 2025 for nothing else, I will still think of it as the year I got, like, super into Britpop (my eventual Definitely Maybe review is going to be LONG), finding what came out of the UK in the early-mid-90s to be the first "movement" to match my love of what came out of CBGB in the mid-late-70s. Even before that, though, Supergrass had existed on the periphery of my awareness for quite some time. I first heard "Alright" after it was sampled by, of all people, Travie McCoy on that album that I had on iTunes for some reason back in 2010. Aside from that tangential connection, these dudes truly came onto my radar a few months ago and my immense enjoyment of this album was probably the single biggest direct factor that led me to pitch doing this project. I think it’s a pretty regular occurrence when talking about rock music (particularly older rock music) to hear about how impressive it is that x artist recorded y album when he was “only z years old” but it’s pretty fun to hear an album that unmistakably sounds like it was recorded by a bunch of young people and could only have been recorded by a bunch of young people. Gaz and his goofy sideburns were 17 when they started recording and you can tell; it's just got that energy, exuberance, hopefulness, feeling of invincibility, whatever you want to call it. It's infectious; Steven Spielberg saw the "Alright" music video and offered to produce a Monkees style television show, a veritable Sliding Doors moment if ever there was one. Over on channel.WAV, circa 9/12/2025, I said, "Supergrass has a remarkable ability to make me feel nostalgia for things that had no part in my own childhood." I don't know if that reads like as high of a compliment as I intend it to be, but I can listen to this thing and capture fleeting glimpses of feelings I haven't had since I was a kid. That's something truly magical. But, fleeting is the key word. The back half of the album sees whimsy give way to wistfulness and songs that have more of a melancholic vibe. I Should Coco is all the feelings of growing up packed into 40 minutes.

The Smashing Pumpkins had one of the stronger runs of any group in the 90s (before“they” disappeared right up “their” own ass) and I don’t think I ever hear anybody who isn’t a critic talk about it. Some of that is through no fault of the band but most of it owes to one William Patrick “Billy Pumpkins” “‘90s Morrissey” Corgan being like the biggest dick head in music (non-actual-criminal division) and doing shit like spending the last 30 years complaining about that one time Pavement was mean to him. In regard to the parts that are not the band's fault, there is a weird tendency to lump them in with the 90s post-Nirvana also-rans of the world, which is odd to me. They're not particularly pulling from the same influences and, whereas it was trendy in the 90s to be apathetic, Billy Corgan is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an apathetic person. It's hard to be aloof when you're so whiny. The laziest folks in the world will jump to point to Butch Vig's production of this album as evidence of the Nirvana coattail riding, despite Vig having also produced The Smashing Pumpkins' wonderful debut album, Gish, which came out 4 months before Nevermind. Billy Corgan will never let anyone forget this as long as he draws breath, but it's one of the few legitimate grievances he has with the world. Anyway, sonically we are cribbing from a neat mishmash. Billy loved him some shoegaze at this time and you can hear the influence of My Bloody Valentine and the Jesus and Mary Chain in the heavy distortion and vocal stylings. That's the biggest thing here but there's also some Black Sabbath in the riffs, some Queen in the bombastic arrangements, a sprinkle of The Cure and Prince in the production, and, very unfortunately, Rush, from whom elements of "Cherub Rock" were very blatantly lifted. This is a testament to the greatness of The Smashing Pumpkins because "Cherub Rock" is amazing while Rush is the musical equivalent of a 12 page single spaced book report about the ingredients on the back of a box of graham crackers. The production of this album was a bit of a nightmare. Billy wrote the songs in tandem with therapy sessions while dealing with suicidal ideation, which really comes through in songs like "Today." He also composed one of the most beautiful songs ever written and called it "Mayonaise." (Sic) James Iha and D'arcy Wretzky were in the midst of a breakup while recording and apparently had to be kept apart--the dysfunction led Billy Corgan to pull the legendary dick move of personally re-recording the bass and guitar parts. Iha and Wretzky are both credited on the album, but apparently neither of them actually play. Elsewhere, drummer Jimmy Chamberlin was staying true to his jazz roots by hitting rock bottom in his heroin addiction and disappearing for days on end. He also refused to use a click track when recording his parts and, yet, he's still the best goddamn part of this album. There’s a reason the drum roll on “Cherub Rock” is the first sound you hear on this record. I always see Jimmy called the Smashing Pumpkins' "secret weapon," which just isn't true when everyone in the world is saying it. Can you really be underrated when literally everyone with ears agrees that you're amazing? My question now to myself is whether this album is better than Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness, and I think it is. While Siamese Dream doesn't quite reach the same highs ("1979" has been my favorite song for as long as I have had a favorite song), it is also dramatically more consistent and doesn't suffer from the bloat of being 2 hours long. Remarkably in my travels, I’ve managed to come across a piece of writing that I feel perfectly sums up the Smashing Pumpkins experience. The following is an excerpt from an article (about Soundgarden) that originally ran in Spin in April of 1994 and which I think is a perfect microcosm of the Smashing Pumpkins. I have lightly edited the excerpt for clarity. “In the lobby bar of one of the tallest hotels, [Chris] Cornell and [Kim] Thayil are settling back with a couple of beers when Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins wanders through, and decides to join them for a strawberry margarita. Corgan chatters about the pain of his life, the supposed incompetence of his band (everybody rolls their eyes), the lifesaving virtues of Jungian therapy, bands that suck. Cornell gets up to leave. Corgan tells Thayil how important Soundgarden used to be to him, and he baits him by saying that the Pumpkins sometimes do a cover of Soundgarden’s “Outshined” that segues into a Depeche Mode song or something. “I’m think of making my next album really new wave,” Corgan says, “like ’83-’84 new wave, not like Berlin. I spend all my time doing things that may be a bit tangential, but I think I’m going to go back to the core, the heart music. Echo and the Bunnymen.” This is standard stuff to anybody who has read even a single Billy Corgan profile, the basic curriculum of Pumpkins 101. But Thayil isn’t buying. He’s sore. “Don’t you see,” Thayil says, “you’re this incredibly talented guy. People like your music. You have a good band. You sell a lot of records. You don’t need all this…stuff.” “What sign are you?” Corgan asks. “What do you mean, what sign am I?” Thayil says. “What difference could that possibly make?” “C’mon,” wheedles Corgan, “when is your birthday?” “All right, goddamn it: September 4th.” “Aha!” Corgan says. “A Virgo. You’re argumentative.” “Damn right, I’m argumentative,” Thayil says, and takes a long, angry pull at his beer, “which you should know because I’ve been arguing with you for half an hour, not because of any sign.” “I’m a Pisces,” Corgan replies. “We pick up on those things.” A minute later, Corgan, still probing, finally finds the key to Thayil’s heart: “I hate how in magazine pictures, they always stick me somewhere in the back.” Thayil explodes: “What do you mean? You write all the songs, and you do all the interviews. You play the instruments on the album. You control the band to the extent that most people think of Smashing Pumpkins as the Billy Corgan Experience, and all you care about is some photography?” “But I hate it,” Corgan says, “it means they don’t think I’m the cute one.” “Ooh,” Thayil says a little too loudly as Corgan walks away, “I’ll bet he’s going to call his therapist in Chicago, wake her up at four in the morning, and tell her about that big, mean bear who made fun of him.” The next day at the Big Day Out festival, Thayil is talking to Kim and Kelley Deal in the Breeders’ dressing room when Corgan walks past wearing a long-sleeved Superman T-shirt like the one your four-year-old nephew probably owns. “You hurt me deeply,” Corgan says, touching the giant S on his chest and pouting. “You hurt me deeply in my heart.” The Pumpkins go on to play the best set anybody has ever heard them play…” In sum, Billy sucks, but the Smashing Pumpkins deliver.

I'm pretty sure I didn’t hate this album but the "Summertime Blues" cover is one of the least tolerable pieces of music I've ever heard. Like... I'm being pedantic but taking out the end of the verses to replace with instrumentals kinda detracts from the whole point of the song. It's some kind of Hendrix meets Peter & The Wolf meets Peanuts nightmare where all the grownups are replaced by instruments. You called your congressman and he said, quote, "*drum fill*"? What did Eddie Cochran do to deserve that? The rest of the record is still a bit “jammy” for my liking, but is just controlled enough that I can find some sounds that I dig. Also, anything with this much fuzz and distortion in 1968 is probably pretty influential on a lot of the stuff I am into. On a lark, I googled “Blue Cheer Iggy Pop” and was unsurprised to learn that they and the MC5 (<3) had played together in 1968. Prooooobably not going in the rotation but I don’t regret listening and am not opposed to revisiting tracks 2 - 5.

The short version: I don't like this album at all. The long version: What I’ve learned today is that I would much rather listen to music in a genre I hate that is done well than music in a genre I like that is done poorly. I went into this with pretty high hopes (the genres and the influences ticked the boxes for me AND it's a band I've never heard of) and in return received an album that goes for “deep and mysterious” and sticks the landing hard on “teenager in a Che Guevara shirt who always talks about “neoliberalism” and does his damnedest to pivot every conversation to ‘yeah I do weed now.’” Listening to this, in between bouts of wincing at the lyrics, I was transported back in time to a particularly dreadful night in college that I spent in the company of a poor misshapen soul I dubbed “The Revolutionary.” I’ll bet that guy loves this album, wherever he is now. Based on these lyrics, whoever wrote this shit (apparently his name is Sonic Boom) seems to think he’s the first person to ever conflate drugs and religion. So profound. Oh wow a song about starting a “revolution” because… he’s mad that drugs are illegal. I said surely there’s more to this. So I went to Genius and saw the following explanation, written by some neckbeard who thinks this album is in any way intelligent: "Sonic Boom is upset and disapproves of having those in power determine if specific drugs are acceptable in today’s society, leaving those who use illegal substances feeling like outsiders, and being looked down upon by others. Even in a society where drugs like alcohol is socially accepted with similar if not worse effects to other popular illegal drugs." Fuuuuuuuuuuuck off. Knowing nothing else about this group aside from what's on this record, I’m comfortable with saying I hate them irredeemably. I always try to listen to these albums at least 2-3 times (hence my disdain for the longer ones), and way more if we count the times I let them play in the background while I’m doing other stuff, but I gave this one spin and got what I needed to get out of it. When coming up with ratings, I always try to consider “what does this do better than other albums?” and the answer in this case is “irritate me.” I almost rated this as “did not listen” in a desperate and vain attempt to try and manifest a world in which I did not.