What are you currently listening to?

[scrilla4rella]

i love carl craig. i still have all my Paperclip People 12"s from the 1990s

I'm jelly bro. To me the platonic ideal of a dance track is Paperclip People's 'Throw'.

I need to cop the compilation that was repressed a few years ago.

[soprano1]

https://lukhash.bandcamp.com/album/better-than-reality
A little bit of synthwave and chiptune, and some (good) EDM in the mix.

[soprano1]

https://store.ffdistantworlds.com/album ... al-fantasy
These concerts repeat many tracks, but I like them. The Opera from FF VI is different, they used English actors.

[Stevens]

https://lukhash.bandcamp.com/album/better-than-reality
A little bit of synthwave and chiptune, and some (good) EDM in the mix.

Only discovered Lukhash within the last few months. This has been on repeat since its release.

Listening to it now actually.

[soprano1]

Only discovered Lukhash within the last few months. This has been on repeat since its release.

Listening to it now actually.

My favourite track: https://lukhash.bandcamp.com/track/pixelove
Gotta play fucking loud!

[Stevens]

I bought everything from Falling Apart on wards.

Falling Apart and Glitch are really good. Ghosts is probably the weakest because of the vocals, but that is largely an opinion. I still enjoy it and it has the four songs from the 85 EP.

The Other Side and Better Than Reality are easily his best work. I can't get over how good BTR is.

You have a BC page?

[Stevens]

This on repeat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahp7I9S3U20

Entire ost is really good.

[vol.2]

George Mukabi

https://youtu.be/_oEMAxvCMOo

Super early proto-Afrobeat. Only had a few records because he was murdered quite young.
It's uplifting and tragic at the same time. Just can't get enough.

[soprano1]

https://nighttempo.bandcamp.com/album/s ... s-groove-2
Forgot about this one.
More 80's J-pop/future funk goodness. Check out the first if you haven't.

[Marc]

I'm actually trying NOT to listen to new tracks by The Appleseed Cast as the new LP is on its way from Graveface. The bits I've heard sound good though.

[soprano1]

https://mortgarson.bandcamp.com/album/m ... -plantasia
Moog goodness all around, great stuff.

[system11]

I just discovered this is a thing that exists:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py4excFPdVI



And holy shit is it good, reminds me I need to get the stereo in the Fury working.

[Necronopticous]

New Flabbercasters:

[FinalBaton]

Gearing up for HEAVY MTL fest where I am unbelievably stoked to see : Demolition Hammer, Slayer and Watain.

Also very much looking forward to seeing Clutch, Fu Manchu, Dopethrone and Municipal Waste.



Can't believe I'm actually about to see Watain perform, I'm basically flipping out just thinking about that. been wanting to see them live so bad but missed them the last 2 times they came here (in 2018 w/ Destroyer 666 and in 2015 w/Mayhem)

[soprano1]

https://twrp.bandcamp.com/album/return-to-wherever
New TWRP album is out! Another rock/synth mesh of goodness for sure.

https://tommyvonvoigt.bandcamp.com/releases
A fun synthwave/dance pop album.

Top Gun OST
THE 80's soundtrack, no question about it. Fucking pumping badassary all around.

[soprano1]

https://neoncityrecords.bandcamp.com/al ... ker-rewind
Not sure if I posted this one here, but here we go, a classic and fun Future Funk album.

[Marc]

First two Roxy Music albums. For Your Pleasure in particular is absolutely amazing. They became significantly less interesting once Eno left.

[soprano1]

https://neoncityrecords.bandcamp.com/al ... ity-cruise
More Future Funk.

https://analogafrica.bandcamp.com/album ... a-amaz-nia
Amazing Afrobeat/Cumbia beats from the Amazon.

[BIL]

Revisiting an old uncle-rock favourite.



Wait! Don't shoot, bitch! (・｀W´・) Legitimately great hard rock record, bridging fiery NWOBHM melodicism and floorboard-rattling AC/DC stomp. Kicks ass from start to finish. Just the right layer of production, that is, minimal. Guitar and drum sound is balls-hard, and besides lots of yowling hedonistic ROCKIN', some of this stuff's intensity is unmistakably shmuppin as fuck.



YEAH EXACTLY DR STONED IN ROCK N ROLL THERES NO SAFETY NET Meanwhile Mirror Mirror's eerily keening, lurching solo sounds like something outta frickin Splatterhouse Part 3. Hammering album closer No No No wouldn't be the least bit out of place seeing off Killers or Overkill.

Gravitated to this BITD because where I grew up, the radio was mad on Hootie & The Blowfish, Blues Traveler, Dave Matthews Band and other pseudo-folksy alterna-lite shite. I'm sure they're nice chaps and all, but sweet Jesus, the sheer milquetoast made me want to bite my own dick off and bleed to death. Still does!

RIP Steve Clark, cool cat even on subsequently syrupy, production-caked Leppard LPs. Those don't quite make me want to bite my own dick off, but they were also radio-popular and lame! Still, even there, Desert Song has another gem of his - bitterly burnt-out yet beautifully phrased. Could've come straight off Perfect Selection Dracula Battle. Dude was a good'un!

[Obiwanshinobi]

Playing it through 2.1 speakers lately (mere 320 kbps MP3, too), I feel somewhat humbled by the (mouthy as she might be) Azealia Banks' Broke with Expensive Taste album, for not having appreciated it quite enough in my times of listening to the music mostly via puny earphones.



"Monolithic" is the word that comes to mind. The previous album benefitting THIS much from that frequency response, to my ears, was no other than Peter Gabriel's "Third".



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAzUh_H7yV0

(By the way, could it be that we owe the sound of drums in much of nineteen-eighties' pop & rock music mostly to Phil Collins? Pretty natural to my generation of listeners, but I think it's period-specific, in hindsight.)

That Intruder song always reminds me of the mem-(o)-re film. Oddly, as I did not think much of it when watching some time ago (for a "cinematographic" reason - quite simply, I've a soft spot for Strange Days the movie and a hard time viewing someone else's supposed memories filmed from a third person perspective).

[BIL]

Revisiting some scattered metal favourites from the Maiden/Priest orbit.

Anthem - Silent Cross (from Domestic Booty) One hell of a downtempo power ballad. Actually, it's more of a power requiem - a yearning lament delivered with Ronnie James Dio-esque conviction by Yukio Morikawa. However, the main draw is that staggeringly heavy guitar tone and relentless executioner's trudge. The jaggedly pummelling opening riff is goddamn near Sabbath's Into The Void. If you're patient, let it lead in from the spectrally soaring dual leads and pensive twelve-strings of Willesden High Road.

Parent album, the masterfully-named Domestic Booty, is a power glam gem. These motherfuckers could (and can!) tear it up. BROWING UP MY MIND~

This lineup of Anthem contains the primary force behind landmark Castlevania AST Perfect Selection Dracula Battle, namely bassist and founding mainstay Naoto Shibata and guitarist Akio Shimizu. Fans of that album will instantly recall Shibata's sledgehammering, operatic take on PSDB2's Iron Blue Intention here. Booty was even produced by Chris Tsangarides, he of Judas Priest's respective 70s/90s landmarks Sad Wings of Destiny and Painkiller, plus a seemingly bottomless well of other goodies I'm still discovering. The guy got around!

Steve Harris - The Lesson (from British Lion) Still enjoying a bit of Maiden now and then, and finding their more recent output surprisingly vital, I never really got into this side project. This track's the exception, it's an affectingly bleak yet hooky little dirge with some haunting imagery and sentiment. Surprisingly despairing for Harris's usually dogged lyrical tone, guess he needed to decompress. No idea about the rest of the album, the lead single caned me away like a confused pupper and I've not been back!

I should at least give it a go, because Maiden colleague Bruce Dickinson's three solo albums between 1997-2005 (the first two with Maiden guitarist and classic writing partner Adrian Smith, all backed up by equally formidable shredder and crack producer Roy Z) fucking smoke anything Maiden did with or without them in the same period, rivalling even their canonical Good Stuff. (see also Glenn Tipton's fiendishly intense, technical, changeable Baptizm of Fire. Glenn sounds like Galvatron by default and Starscream once he really gets going, couldn't believe he was such a capable mini-Halford)

GIVE IT TO ME / I WON'T O.D. / YOU TALK TOO MUCH / SHUT THE FUCK UP <--word

Title track is the best Mahou Daisakusen music that never was. A real rain-lashed 900MPH STRATO STORM/FOREST OF DEAD/DEVIDED BY ZERO neoclassical inferno!

So you've come of age
And you want to meet "God"
Sure you can
He's right here
NEXT TO ME

Back to Bruce though - "ARISE! AWAKE!" Fuuuck me, what a howl-along chorus! AND sludgy, guttering, Sabbathy tone, with duelling Smith/Z solos erupting phoenixesque from the muck! Full circle motherfucker!

[Obiwanshinobi]

I can't even remember whether I've ever heard it, but this album cover



springs to mind, alongside someone else's opinion that Bruce had never sung quite as well with Maiden as he did on it.

[BIL]

Ah, Thunderstick. Sexy chap.

By the time I had access to his earliest stuff, I'd gravitated away from Maiden's theatrical power/melodic approach to more stripped-down Motorhead et al (Jesus, middle schooler me would've blown his load for Napster) - but I have heard some good stuff from his Bruce Bruce days. Riding With The Angels is pretty much the TV edit of rambly banger Two Minutes To Midnight.

That's a good concert/film, actually. I still have my Tattooed Millionaire LP, thought it was the coolest thing ever when I were a lad. Ain't keen on most of it now, to put it mildly - but the live version of Dive! Dive! Dive! is great. Blows away the studio cut's lame-ass Mutt Lange "owos" with Bruce's primal holler, and demonstrates he and his cohort's improv mastery by pitting them against not a ten-foot zombie, but... Dead Mike!

"The worst shit... the worst shit happens. Had a good dinner?"

His vocal style went to utter shit in the early 90s, around that time. I assumed he'd blown himself out, Ian Gillan-style, but nope. Back to fine form once grunge was over. Getting a bit thin nowadays but his innate technique and genuine passion serves him well. The last few minutes from Empire of the Clouds are magic.

"Dreams live on...
Dreams live on!"

Interesting review of Bruce, Halford, Dio and a couple other miscreants by a classical voice coach. Poor Oz. Immense raw talent, soon enough just plain raw. I'm way the hell more likely to blast this out my windows than the majority of Maiden's catalogue these days.

[FinalBaton]

Recently picked up a cd version of a remaster of one of my all-time faves : Priest's Screaming for Vengence. That was a couple bucks really well invested, to hear ol' Rob's sassy/sexy four-on-the-floor degenerate anthems, and epic rock 'n rollas. with fluid yet laser-etched K. K. Downing and Glen Tipton riffage that bites your face off, all in pristine sound quality. A true feast for the senses, and oldschool tough as nails rock and roll badassery all around

Speaking of Maiden, I got Powerslave on vinyl last month (one of the most consistent outing in the Maiden catalog, for sure). Another great one to spin in it's entirety, just like the above. I'm due for listening to more Maiden and Bruce AKA The Air Raid Siren, it's been awhile. My good buddy and bandmate got Somewhere in Time on vinyl this summer and that's a hell of a solid one too. I also need to revisit the early stuff with Paul diAnno

[BIL]

I had this fucked up tic as a kid where I'd deliberately get the black sheep of the iconic bands' catalogues, sometimes at the expense of their best stuff. Mob Rules? Naw let's go for Technical Ecstasy, boyeee! So I grew up with Defenders of the Faith and Painkiller, certainly respectable records both (PK fucking slays from end to end, gleaming yet HEAVY Chris Tsangarides sound, like a chromium-plated anvil, and the band were clearly mad as all hell after all the courtroom bollocks), but only really knew Screaming in bits and pieces via compilations/live albums. Didn't hear it in contiguous LP form much later. Super solid record.

Did a similarly bizarre thing with Ace of Spades, knew pretty much the whole record via comps but it's no substitute for playing it end-to-end.

Somewhere in Time's title track is one of those things (in music, movies, games, whatever) I deliberately check back in on every few years, to ensure I'm not remembering it as better than it really is. I ain't! Face-melting full-throttle space-metal epic, and I don't use that tormented last word lightly! It's fuckin HAWT

Some crazy Evil Doctor Who shit going on. TIME IS ALWAYS ON MY SIDE

[FinalBaton]

I had this fucked up tic as a kid where I'd deliberately get the black sheep of the iconic bands' catalogues, sometimes at the expense of their best stuff. Mob Rules? Naw let's go for Technical Ecstasy, boyeee! So I grew up with Defenders of the Faith and Painkiller, certainly respectable records both (PK fucking slays from end to end, gleaming yet HEAVY Chris Tsangarides sound, like a chromium-plated anvil, and the band were clearly mad as all hell after all the courtroom bollocks), but only really knew Screaming in bits and pieces via compilations/live albums. Didn't hear it in contiguous LP form much later. Super solid record.

That's weird. Not highlighting/recommending that hyped "record which is the only one people ever bother to mention from the band", I understand, so as to encourage people to give a listen to other albums in the band's catalog and not just that single one. But as far as not hearing it? Bad move. These over-hyped records are not bad, their just that : over-hyped. usually liked for a good reason. and always worth a listen. And in the case of Screaming for Vengenace, they're great. I will say though that the mythical status of Ace of Spade has overshadowed better albums by the band. Now if only people listened to more than just one fucking album to judge a band...

[BIL]

I'd genuinely rate Spades near the top of their catalogue, if not necessarily for the reasons the mainstream would approve (title track is a perfect intro and a fine tune, but once it's gone I don't miss it) - but Motorhead is without a doubt a band whose discography rewards close examination (there being two preceding members of the classic early trilogy, right off the bat, plus a daaamned cool trailblazer ST). Another Perfect Day and Overnight Sensation loyalist here. Zen (PBUH) balked at my shameless love of Dancing On Your Grave's Boston-esque opening arpeggio - oi Zen, I know you're reading this from Gamer High Command - I don't give a fuck, tovarisch! I earn this hooky goodness! I blast Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing end to end while holding my hand over stove - then I eat Frosted Flakes and rawk the fuck out to yankee corporate sound!

Robbo's glassy, shimmering tone and balls-hard yet articulate bluesy style are cool. Even if he was apparently a bit of a nob in person with his Lemmy-annoying, Richard Simmons-esque battyriders!



Sacrifice is a motherfucker too. Order/Fade To Black is a masterpiece of aggressively ugly punk-driven metal. Perfect synergy of nightmarish imagery and harrying, violent stop/start pacing. A cruel chase with no hooks whatsoever.

Chop out that boring Pistols cover and We Are Motorhead is a record I'd put dead-even with Spades. Similar mode and balance, tuned to slash more than smash. Aerodynamic.

I never did get around to adding the live albums and singles/b-sides to my MH discography review. Imma get round to it soon. Nuclear aggression of Everything Louder Than...'s BURNER sounds goddamn bionic. Boils my piss when hack journos call this a "revolving door" band... Phil Campbell and Mikkey Dee racked up easily as much killer material to their names as Philthy and Eddie over their two decades' comradeship with Lem. And WURZEL did his bit too. Make My Day's granite-crunching, TNT-shitting riff and Campbell's incendiary outro will leg-sweep & throat-stomp hack journos until they are too brain-fucked to shit out even one more cliche!

[BIL]

Ah, Thunderstick! Sexy chap!

By the way, I ain't kidding! Witness the NWOBHM / beltscrolling crossover hit that is...

BICEPS OF STEEL

Cheesy no-budget fun. Thunderstick is badass, he beats the living shit out of those day-release convicts so the kids can rock out to Samson. I could swear that's a Double Dragon sample at 3m52s, but the game wouldn't be out for another six/seven years. Maybe Technos sampled Biceps.



Fucking lmao

And yes, some quality stuff on Head On! Vice Versa smoulders authentically - nails that Deep Purple brooding/barn-burning dynamism.

[Herr Schatten]

I had this fucked up tic as a kid where I'd deliberately get the black sheep of the iconic bands' catalogues, sometimes at the expense of their best stuff.

Same here, although less born from a desire of swimming against the (main) stream, but from a firm conviction that my favourite bands cruelly hid some of their best work on subpar albums, presumably to make these hidden gems shine a little more.

Case in point, March Ör Die certainly qualifies as one of Motörhead’s weakest releases, but the wonderfully energetic opener Stand and the grim and monotonous title track never cease to amaze me.

Same goes for Maiden’s Fear Of The Dark that bizarrely buries the sublime trio of Be Quick…, Afraid… and the title track in a sea of painful dross.

Two records I really learned to appreciate the CD format over vinyl for.

[BIL]

Strangers, what an atmospheric gem. Was my metal gateway drug, specifically those lyrical guitar bridges and soaring dual leads. I know "soaring dual lead" is standard-issue for Maiden/Priest et al, but I was totally new and it absolutely stunned me - I can distinctly recall where I was, listening to a friend's battered cassette copy of Fear on the bus home. Hearing such fiery and catchy hooks during peak Hootie was revelatory.

On par with Fight Fire With Fire's opening riff blowing my head off, long since inured but at the time it was like a baby biting a lemon.