Probably my favorite Bowie album. Even better than Ziggy Stardust. Life on Mars probably his best track in Bowie's catalog. Even love the weird B side stuff like Warhols, holes, holes. I mean, come on, Changes, Oh You Pretty Things, Kooks. It's an absolute masterpiece of an album. Everything I love about Bowie, 70's glam, rock and roll, theater, camp, art. 10/10. Perfect.
Absolutely incredible. I love 15 minute groove funk Afrobeat jam session sessions. It reminds me of Santana and the Dead and in the best possible way. Polyrhythmic grooving alive response gets the body going. This could literally reanimate a corpse. 9.5/10
All I can really say is that this album is really really well produced. Sounds fucking great. The album itself though. It’s fine. I guess. I didn’t hate it. I didn’t like it. Kind of pleasant in a soft rock piano and saxophone way. Somewhere halfway between Billy Joel and Pink Floyd but way worse than both. 6.7/10
A live album like none other. The crowd itself is as integral to the record as Johnny Cash is. The jeering for the officers. The clanking of locks and chains. The announcements. The banality of the prisoner Duffy, 4-5-6-7, come to this officer, that. All while, meanwhile, Johnny Cash puts his thumb in the eye of the jail authorities. I know everybody likes to talk about punk rock existing before this or that, but if this isn't punk rock, I don't know what is. Just the absolute sneering for the law, the man, the system, the judge, spitting in their faces right in front of them. And then you have Cash just absolutely bringing his A game. Amazing duets with June, high energy stuff like Cocaine Blues, Stripes, and the eponymous song, to heartbreaking moments like Long Black Veil. There's a reason this album is historic, and it's a pleasure to experience every time. 8/10.
This is music for people who are on drugs, but not taking the kinds of drugs that I like to take. This is like a shittier version of Radiohead fronted by a female vocalist. This is the sound that office printers and scanners make when they’re daydreaming. This is music that British vampires have murder orgies to in the rain. Music video to numb is fucking cool though. Scary as hell. Heroin nightmare music. 5.3/10
So don't get me wrong. I really like the record. I wish I can hear it with fresh ears. And I say that in two different ways. One, I wish I can hear it without having heard some of these songs thousands of times over the course of my life. I mean, Running with the Devil, Eruption, Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love, Jamie's Cryin', You Really Got Me. I've heard these songs so, so, so many times to the point where it's hard to appreciate them because I'm so overexposed to them. I also wish I can hear this album as somebody for the first time in 1978. By the time I heard this record, I had been exposed to Eddie Van Halen and his many eras. It would have been something to hear this for the first time, hear Eruption for the first time. It must have been mind-blowing. That being said, Eddie is not my favorite guitarist. I can certainly appreciate it from a technical standpoint, and I love the way his tone sounds, but it's just not how I play the guitar. I don't do tapping. I don't do insane pitch dives and stuff like that, feedback. I'm much more of an improvisational blues and riff rock kind of guy. I'm not really going for the sweeping and pinch harmonics. Guys like Vai and Petrucci and Satriani and all these guys who followed in Eddie's footsteps do almost nothing for me, aside from just technical impressiveness. But I know that I like this record at its core because the songs that I'm not exposed to, overexposed to, like Atomic Punk, On Fire. I can't wait to feel your love tonight. I'm the one. I really like those songs because I'm not so overexposed to them. I had a great time listening to them. I guess let's talk about David Lee Roth. In some ways he is still one of the prototypical frontmen of rock. His whole shtick with the jumping and kicking and leather pants and shirtless behavior defined what a rock and roll frontman singer, non-instrumentalist can be. His wild antics are legendary, but it's hard to separate that from the man who exists in the year 2026, who is still shirtless and in leather pants and 85 years old and looks like shit and sounds like shit and is still out there doing this. It's just kind of sad and it taints the David Lee Roth of 1978. He's also, like, apparently an asshole, and his feud with Eddie Van Halen, you know, isn't doing him any favors. But overall I really like this record. I wish I could hear it for the first time. I'll give it an 8.0 out of 10, four stars.
One of the best. Simultaneously, a great party/dance record, a rock record, a new wave/synth pop record, a guitar virtuoso, a pop phenom. Some of the album's sound can be a little dated in that '80s synth-pop and electronic drum sound way, but there's no denying that this is a masterpiece. 9/10.
Not my favorite Springsteen album, but still tremendous. I think I would go BTR, Darkness, Greetings, River, Shuffle, USA, Rising, Nebraska, Tunnel, the rest. It's interesting how much of Bruce's image to this date comes from this record. The sleeveless jean jacket and bandana, the "heartland" rock or Americana sound. Sure, a lot of Darkness deals with the forgotten American town and worker, but this album really seals the door. There's a lot that I love, the title track, Cover Me, im on fire, I'm Goin Down, the two radio rock masterpeices of Glory Days and Dancin. No surrender and Bobby Jean are crowd anthems that are good enough to hang with Springsteens best like Badlands and Born to Run. but there's a ton that doesnt land for me, Darlington Country, Workin on the Highway. It's good, its just not like his 70's stuff. Also, there's a big mid-80's production sound here. Interesting that we reviewed this back to back with Purple Rain, because both synth and drum sounds havent aged great. 8.4/10.
One of my desert island records. Probably a top-ten record for me. It's everything that I love about the Allmans. Duane is at his peak, Greg sounds great, we get some all-time versions of Liz Reed and Whipping Post, that whole B Side is just massive. This album, along with Cream's first couple fo records were the real first "jam" records I knew. The thrill of a 17 minute blues improvisation turned me on way more than any 3 minute pop song. I know this album like the back of my hand. The recording sounds great too. One of the greatest live albums ever. One of greatest rock albums ever, period. 10/10.
I really, really like this album. It has so much of that late-’60s British R&B sound, sharing DNA with the Kinks, Stones, Who, Cream and Jethro Tull. What’s clear to me is that I prefer the Winwood material to the Dave Mason stuff. “Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring” and “40,000 Headmen” are great. I love how these songs start out eerie, sparse and open, almost freeform, then coalesce into these heavy blues jams. They get into that Cream- or Who-style rock-out territory, with the bass doing its own thing and the keys doing theirs. Just truly awesome stuff.
Don’t get me wrong, Mason’s crowning achievement here is “Feelin’ Alright?” But some of his other material, particularly “You Can All Join In,” “Don’t Be Sad” and “Vagabond Virgin,” sounds dated to me. Campy, maybe. I don’t quite want to call it corny, but that ’60s sing-along feel hasn’t aged as well as the bluesier, jazzier material, which feels much more timeless.
All in all, I really enjoyed the record. 8.1/10.
I really hadn’t given Drive-By Truckers a fair second chance. I saw them at the Stone Pony many years ago, and I think again at Bonnaroo, and neither time did it click. I figured I just didn’t get what this band was doing. But my tastes have evolved a lot over the last twenty years, and Southern Rock Opera has completely won me over. There’s some great guitar riffing and country rocking here. To my ears, it sounds like the Mother Hips meets the Minutemen meets ZZ Top. I’m really enjoying the whole thing, but I think what will stick with me is the Skynyrd material: “I Never Saw Lynyrd Skynyrd,” the length of “Free Bird,” the George Wallace stuff. The storytelling really lands for me now. Those spoken-word bits were probably part of what lost me twenty years ago, but now I really dig them. Funny how you can come back to a band after that long and finally hear what you were missing. This is so good. 8.3/10
Can't believe this album is now 20 years old. Can't believe I didnt it love it when I first heard it. Can't believe this album doesnt have Valerie and Rehab. What a talent, would love to have seen her career develop. I think she would have become a pop superstar in the league of Lady Gaga. Such a great and unique sound bringing this classic r&b soul up to date with some boom bap drums and crisp production. Also I love how much she uses the word "fuckery". 7.5/10
This is an absolute time-travel record for me. Hearing it immediately brings me back to where I was when I first discovered it, but it also feels like such a perfect time capsule of the late ’90s and early 2000s. There’s a certain millennial earnestness to it, that slightly quirky, emotionally sincere sensibility that has become easy to make fun of in retrospect, but none of that really matters because the record is just so freaking good.
Wayne Coyne’s vocals are a huge part of it. He has this delicate, vulnerable quality, like he might emotionally disintegrate at any moment, and there’s really nobody else who sounds quite like him. The Flaming Lips hit exactly the right level of weirdness here while still having incredible pop instincts. There are genuinely great three-minute power-pop songs alongside these huge, atmospheric, layered, almost Pink Floyd-esque soundscapes.
It’s not quite my favorite Flaming Lips record. That would be the next one, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. But they’re neck and neck, and The Soft Bulletin is still a great record that means a lot to me.
8.1/10.
Gotta get this off my chest: I fucking hate this album.
Songs in the Key of Life is constantly rated as one of the greatest albums of all time. People talk about it like it’s fucking Sgt. Pepper. And I just do not get it.
So much of this thing is cheesy as hell. Overproduced. Corny. Easy-listening soft R&B. It makes me feel like I’m trapped at a cocktail hour I don’t want to be at, listening to music that’s a heartbeat away from Lionel Richie-era ’80s telephone-hold muzak.
The album is at its best when Stevie turns the funk all the way up. I can get behind the funky organs, clavinet, electric guitars, and weird instrumental stuff, especially something like “Contusion.” That gets close to P-Funk in a really good way, almost prog-rock at times.
I really like “I Wish” too. Very funky, very fun. Maybe part of that is because I love Will Smith’s sampled/stolen version in “Wild Wild West,” but that bass-and-guitar figure is just fantastic. The way those lines do this chromatic walk in opposite directions is ridiculously cool.
Speaking of samples, I legitimately did not know until today that “Gangsta’s Paradise” came from “Pastime Paradise.” Somehow that escaped me my entire life.
And there is definitely some cool stuff on the later part of the second disc. “As” and “Another Star” are both very cool, very funky, and a hell of a lot more interesting to me than the softer stuff.
But then there’s something like “Isn’t She Lovely,” and I’m right back at the cocktail hour.
Basically, I’m in when Stevie hews closer to “Superstition,” and I’m out when he gets closer to “I Just Called to Say I Love You.”
I know this is considered one of the greatest albums ever made. I know this is probably music-nerd sacrilege.
I’d rather get a root canal. 5.3/10
Also, he’s faking the whole blind thing.
Thoroughly enjoyed this listen. There’s a Riot Goin’ On shares a lot of DNA with one of my favorite records, Maggot Brain by Funkadelic. It doesn’t have quite as much of the extended guitar-jam stuff, but holy shit does it bring the funk.
It’s kind of a shame Sly Stone doesn’t get talked about in the same breath as guys like Hendrix or Prince as this absolute musical virtuoso. I know he probably did for a long time, but I feel like he’s been lost to time in a way those guys haven’t. Maybe some of that has to do with what happened to him later in life. But as a songwriter, producer, arranger, bandleader, multi-instrumentalist, just a total musical architect, the guy was ridiculous.
And I always love that nasty envelope-filter quack. There are moments on this record where I swear you can hear the DNA of Shakedown Street and a lot of the disco-funk Dead that came later. Then you’ve got that huge, honking bass sound just driving the whole thing forward like a freight train. The record feels murky and loose and kind of fucked up, but the groove never lets go.
One of my favorite tracks is “Runnin’ Away,” mostly because it sounds like it wandered in from a completely different record. I can’t even really tell if Sly is singing half the time. It almost sounds like some lost B-side from Magical Mystery Tour. Just this strange, delightful little pop song in the middle of all this grimy funk. It’s like Aftermath-era Stones meets Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd meets late Beatles meets George Clinton. Such a killer track.
And of course “Family Affair” and “Thank You for Talkin’ to Me Africa” are huge standouts too. Those were the ones that felt familiar going in, unlike most of the rest of the album.
I think this record probably gets overshadowed a little by some of Sly’s more commercially successful late-’60s stuff, especially Stand!, but I honestly think I like this better. Stand! feels like this intersection of psychedelic rock, protest music, soul, R&B, gospel, funk, all of it happening at once.
This one is just:
Funk. Funk. Funk. Funk. Funk.
And I mean that as the highest possible compliment. 7.8/10
This album feels much more like a proof of concept for System of a Down than a fully realized version of the band. It’s an amazing concept, obviously, because some of their later records are among my absolute favorites. But honestly, I think every album they made after this is better, which makes me a little surprised to see the debut on a list of the 1,001 greatest albums.
Don’t get me wrong, I like it. There are definitely tracks where you can hear exactly what’s coming, especially “Sugar,” “Suite-Pee,” “Spiders,” and “War?” But a lot of the time it still feels like a more conventional late-’90s metal album, with Serj doing that scream-roar thing you’d hear from bands like Pantera, Sepultura, Lamb of God, whatever.
The really interesting moments are when he stops sounding like a metal singer and starts sounding like Serj Tankian.
You get those bizarre pitched-up and pitched-down voices, the sudden character changes, the rapid-fire almost-spoken, almost-rapped delivery. They would lean into that stuff so much harder on the later records, and that’s when the band really becomes something nobody else could possibly imitate.
You can also already hear the Armenian and Middle Eastern melodic ideas creeping into the music, which would become another huge part of their identity. When that starts mixing with the metal, the hardcore, the strange vocal stuff, and eventually these absurdly catchy pop hooks, that’s the System of a Down I love.
And the politics are already completely there. That part of the band did not need to be figured out. From the beginning, they knew what they wanted to say. The anger, the anti-authoritarianism, the Armenian political consciousness, the criticism of war and power and institutions, all of that is baked into the record from the outset and would remain a defining part of who they were as a band.
The comparison I keep coming back to is Rage Against the Machine. Rage also sounded like absolutely nobody else when they appeared. The difference is that when Rage Against the Machine came out, they were basically fully formed. You heard that first record and thought, what the fuck is this? They had already figured out exactly what Rage Against the Machine was. And although The Battle of Los Angeles is a very good record, I don’t think anything else in their catalog quite touches the debut.
System of a Down feels almost like the reverse of that.
The debut gives you the blueprint. The politics are there. The weirdness is there. The Armenian melodies are there. Serj is beginning to become Serj. But they’re still figuring out exactly how all of those ingredients fit together.
And then the record ended, and Spotify immediately played “Deer Dance” from Toxicity.
Holy shit. Yes. THAT is System of a Down.
Toxicity is obviously a little more polished in terms of production, but more importantly, the songwriting just levels up dramatically. Suddenly all of those strange ingredients that are fighting for space on the debut lock together perfectly.
This is a good record by a band that was about to become great. 6.8/10
I've never really understood the appeal of Black Flag. Henry Rollins is an interesting, crazy dude, but the music itself has never done much for me. This wasn't my first time hearing Damaged, but lately I've had some surprisingly revelatory experiences revisiting bands I previously disliked, like Drive-By Truckers, so I went into this hoping for a similar experience.
I get that the shitty production, sloppy playing, stupid songs, and DIY aesthetic are kind of the point. Doesn’t make it any less shitty. I enjoy plenty of rough-around-the-edges music, from early Ramones to Nirvana's Bleach. There are even moments here where I genuinely like the guitar playing, particularly some of the power-chord rhythms. But then Rollins starts screaming about how he's stupid, confused, hates himself, hates his life, hates the world, wants to die, etc., and I just cringe. Maybe that kind of adolescent angst was groundbreaking in 1981, but listening to it now feels like being screamed at by a Spencer Gifts T-shirt.
There are two positive things I can say about this record. First, "TV Party" is genuinely funny and fun, and probably the only song I'd ever voluntarily listen to again. Second, I can absolutely imagine Black Flag being a blast at some sweaty basement show, blackout drunk in the middle of a circle pit. But sitting in my office listening to this album through headphones? Fucking torturous.
I understand the historical significance, and I can appreciate what they were going for, but this particular brand of hardcore punk has never resonated with me. I was hoping this album might change my mind.
The last few albums I've approached with negative preconceptions have been revelatory. This one was reaffirming. 2.4/10
Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin (1969)
“Good Times Bad Times” comes out of nowhere like a thunderbolt. I can only imagine what it must have sounded like hearing this for the first time in 1969. It’s probably the greatest opening track on a debut album ever. You can hear where the band came from, the Yardbirds, Cream, the Jeff Beck Group, but it also sounds completely different. All four members of this, for all intents and purposes, supergroup announce themselves immediately. Bonham’s drumming in particular is just insane. Absolutely insane.
“Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” gives you a glimpse of where Zeppelin would eventually go, and what they would ultimately perfect. That distinctly Zeppelin atmosphere, like an ethereal fog rolling over the English countryside, with this undercurrent of occult dread, mysticism, ancient legends and mythology, while Plant’s vocals soar over everything. It’s all there already, on the second track of their first record.
A lot of this album is essentially a straight blues record, probably more so than any of their subsequent albums. But unlike Cream, Traffic, the Yardbirds, the Spencer Davis Group, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, or any of those other English bands interpreting American blues music, Zeppelin completely transforms it by running it through this live-wire electrical conduit. It sounds like the American blues being played by the thunder of the gods in Valhalla.
“Dazed and Confused” is the apotheosis of all of this. It’s like being trapped inside a sonic hurricane. Plant belting, Page’s guitar answering him, Bonham’s thundering drums, and John Paul Jones’s ominous, prowling bass. Jones deserves special mention because his playing is so distinctive and so integral to the sound that you simply cannot separate him from the equation. He’s every bit as important as the other three. That’s the thing about Zeppelin. You can hear four extraordinarily talented musicians doing their own thing, but somehow it all comes together into something greater than the sum of its parts.
And Jimmy Page is one of my absolute guitar idols. His riff-forward, Gibson-into-a-Marshall approach to guitar playing is basically my approach to guitar playing. I learned it from him. How could it be any other way?
What struck me most about revisiting this album is how fresh it still sounds. When I recently listened to Van Halen’s debut again, as much as I love that record, I couldn’t really get past the feeling that I’d heard it a million times. My ears were tired of it. I couldn’t hear it with fresh ears anymore. I expected that might happen here, too, but it was the complete opposite. I’m hearing things I hadn’t appreciated before, marveling at the interplay between these four guys, and remembering exactly why I fell in love with this band in the first place.
And now, having finished their debut for probably the thousandth time, all I want to do is listen to the entire Led Zeppelin discography again. Right now. That’s how good this record still is. 9.1/10
I really did not like this album. And it's not that it's bad, necessarily. It's just absolutely, unequivocally not for me.
It's got that contemporary R&B sound that I really struggle to connect with. Everything is so slick, so polished, so meticulously produced that it almost feels overproduced to the point of sterility. There's definitely a neo-soul thing happening here, somewhere in the universe of Frank Ocean and D'Angelo, neither of whom are particularly my cup of tea either. But where those artists at least have a certain weirdness or experimental quality that I can appreciate, this feels comparatively straightforward and conventional to me. And frankly, less interesting as a result.
Kelela is clearly a talented vocalist. I don't think there's any denying that. But she's doing that sort of Mariah Carey-inspired, melismatic R&B vocal thing that just does absolutely nothing for me. I can recognize the technical ability without deriving any particular enjoyment from listening to it. It's an aesthetic that I've never particularly cared for, and there's a whole lot of it here.
I can certainly appreciate that there's a lot of craft involved in making a record like this, and I understand why it might appeal to people who enjoy this particular genre. But I just found the whole experience kind of boring. Nothing really grabbed me. Nothing made me want to go back and listen again. The production, the songwriting, the vocal performances, none of it elicited much of an emotional response beyond general disinterest.
And that's really all I can say about it. Sometimes an album challenges your tastes and wins you over. Sometimes you discover something completely outside your musical wheelhouse that blows you away. And sometimes you listen to an album that's probably quite good at what it's trying to do, but what it's trying to do is something you have absolutely no interest in hearing.
This is very much the latter. 3.2/10
What can possibly be said about *Rubber Soul* that hasn't already been said? It's probably the most reviewed, analyzed, and celebrated album of all time, and rightfully so. It's one of the greatest albums ever made, one of the most important albums in the history of rock and roll, and a masterpiece whose musical brilliance and historical significance are matched in equal measure. It's in the running for the greatest album ever made, by the greatest band that ever was. The accolades are endless, and frankly, they're all deserved.
Personally, this might be my favorite Beatles album. It's certainly in my top four, but at this level, we're really just splitting hairs.
What distinguishes *Rubber Soul* from some of their later albums, particularly *The White Album* and beyond, is its cohesiveness. You're hearing the Beatles as a musical unit, a band firing on all cylinders, rather than four increasingly distinct creative personalities sharing space on the same record. That's not to say you can't hear their individual identities. "Drive My Car" is unmistakably a Paul song, while "Norwegian Wood" and "Nowhere Man" have John written all over them. But there's something about the interplay here, the way they complement each other, that makes the whole feel greater than the sum of its already extraordinary parts.
And the influence of this record is almost impossible to overstate. They're helping establish a blueprint for a kind of jangly, folk-inflected guitar rock that would resonate for the next half-century and beyond. Some of the sound is admittedly locked in that mid-'60s psychedelic folk era, but those chiming guitars, those melodies, those harmonies! You can hear their influence in contemporaries like the Byrds and trace it all the way through alternative rock in the '90s and beyond. The harmonies on a song like "Nowhere Man" are practically unparalleled.
I want to highlight four songs, one for each Beatle, because each represents something I love about this album. And yes, I realize I just spent a paragraph praising the band's cohesiveness, but the fact that a song is unmistakably John, Paul, or George doesn't mean you can't hear the fingerprints of the others all over it.
First, "I'm Looking Through You." This is an absolutely quintessential Paul McCartney song. He's taking that Little Richard-inspired rock and roll scream he'd perfected on covers like "Kansas City" and songs like "I'm Down" and incorporating it into his own increasingly sophisticated songwriting. The result is, as the kids would say, an absolute banger. That organ riff that comes in after the chorus is so infectious, and the whole thing is just an extraordinary piece of pop rock craftsmanship. Nobody did this stuff better than Paul.
Next, "In My Life." This might be John Lennon's masterpiece. People often look to his post-Beatles career when discussing his greatest artistic achievements, but for me, this is it. This is a song that belongs in the pantheon of the greatest compositions of all time, not just rock songs, but music, period. There's something almost mythic, something approaching divinity, in its beauty. The melody, the arrangement, the lyrics, they somehow combine to produce this overwhelming emotional response that's difficult to even articulate. It's the kind of song that can make you well up with tears without entirely understanding why. And that's really the magic of music, isn't it? Why do these particular frequencies, arranged in this particular sequence, make human beings feel something so profound? What is it about music that allows it to reach into us and pull out emotions we didn't even know were there? "In My Life" possesses that mysterious quality in abundance. Maybe some of that is my own deeply personal relationship with Lennon and the Beatles, but I find this song devastatingly beautiful. It's why we listen to music.
Then there's George's "If I Needed Someone." He's finally got one on the board that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the Lennon-McCartney material. It's not quite at the level of the masterpieces he'd produce later, but it's an incredible song in its own right. In fact, if I had to pick one track that captures the quintessential *Rubber Soul* sound, this might be it. Those gorgeous, jangling guitars, the folk-rock sensibility, the harmonies. It's a sound that countless bands would spend decades trying to recreate.
And finally, Ringo's "What Goes On." I absolutely love when Ringo does country music. Love it. Can't get enough of it. And this is a terrific example of why. The band is just swinging here. It's loose, fun, infectious, and endlessly singable. I much prefer this side of Ringo to some of his earlier, somewhat awkward attempts at R&B and early rock and roll covers. This is his wheelhouse, and he sounds completely at home.
Of course, there are a few things to nitpick. "Run for Your Life" is a bit of a bust for me, particularly as the album's closer. And a handful of tracks, like "You Won't See Me," "Think for Yourself," and "The Word," feel a little more anchored to their particular moment in the mid-'60s. But we're talking about the Beatles here. Even the lesser material is operating on a level that most bands could only dream of reaching.
Is this the greatest Beatles album? Maybe. Is *Revolver* better? Maybe. Could you make the case for *Sgt. Pepper*, *Abbey Road*, or any number of the records that followed? Absolutely. We're talking about a band whose creative achievements over a remarkably short period of time are almost beyond comprehension.
I'll end with this. It's October 13th as I'm writing this, a beautiful, crisp autumn day in New Jersey. The air is cool, the leaves are changing colors, and there's that unmistakable feeling of fall settling in. And as I listen to this record, I can't help but think that *Rubber Soul* is the ultimate autumn album. There's something about its warmth, its melancholy, its jangling guitars and gorgeous harmonies that feels perfectly suited to a day like today.
Sixty-one years later, it's still magic. 10/10
First time hearing this album, and holy shit. Incredible. It's like a new wave version of IDLES, except somehow from 1977. These guys are just firing on all cylinders. Fast-moving, absolutely ferocious basslines, killer synths and keyboards, and this relentless energy that never really lets up. The keyboard work in particular is phenomenal. There's so much Ray Manzarek in here, but I also hear Sparks, Steve Nieve from Elvis Costello and the Attractions, and even some Zappa. Imagine Steve Nieve playing with the Doors while Glenn Danzig handles lead vocals. That's sort of what we're dealing with here.
It's so aggressively, unmistakably British. It's giving Buzzcocks. It's giving the Misfits. It's giving the Smiths. I can hear the influence on the Strokes, and it really reminds me of Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, especially in that combination of driving, almost primitive rock and roll with these wonderfully absurd, deadpan lyrics. And the lyrics! They're so fucking dumb that they're brilliant. There's something almost confrontational about how ridiculous some of this stuff is. Like they're daring you to take it seriously, while the music behind it is absolutely phenomenal.
And that's what really elevates this album for me. Underneath all the punk and new wave attitude, there's some seriously sophisticated musicianship going on. The basslines are practically lead instruments, and the keyboards aren't just adding texture. They're weaving in and out of everything, sometimes driving the melody, sometimes doing these wild, almost psychedelic runs that sound straight out of the Doors. The whole thing has this fascinating layered quality, where it feels like instruments and musical ideas are being stacked on top of one another. There's almost a progressive rock or jam-band sensibility to some of the arrangements, like Zappa filtered through the British punk scene. It's chaotic, but somehow incredibly tight and deliberate. These guys can really fucking play.
And I mean, any album that closes with a miniature, multi-part rock opera about sewer rats is absolutely my shit. "Down in the Sewer" is just glorious. It's ridiculous, ambitious, musically adventurous, and completely committed to the bit. Who the hell thinks to do something like that on their debut album? And who manages to make it work this well?
I think what I love most about this record is how many seemingly incompatible things are happening at once. It's punk, but it's too musically sophisticated to fit comfortably into that box. It's new wave, but it's dirtier, meaner, and more aggressive. It's got the manic energy of garage rock, the keyboards of psychedelic rock, the attitude of punk, and these weird, almost progressive arrangements holding everything together. And somehow it all works. It sounds like a band that doesn't particularly give a shit what they're supposed to sound like, and the result is something completely distinctive.
This is exactly the kind of album I love discovering through this project. Something I'd never really spent time with before, that sounds simultaneously like a dozen bands I already love and yet entirely like its own thing. It's funny, nasty, weird, absurd, incredibly catchy, and musically brilliant.
What a fucking debut. 9.1/10.
