Recent Purchases

[swan 0]

candlemass- "King of the Grey Islands" mmmmm doomy

 

and

 

Edguy= "rocket ride" semi-cheesy german power metal thats catchy as fuck.

 

 

[Gary Floyd 0]

Electric Wizard-Dopethrone (I've been meaning to buy this forever.)

Earth-The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull

[King Kamala 0]

Been listening to a lot of classics today

 

The Rolling Stones- Sticky Fingers

 

Bryan Ferry-These Foolish Things

 

David Bowie- Station To Station

 

[justsoyouknow 0]

The last CD I bought was Rihanna's "Good Girl Gone Bad" and I'll be fucked if it isn't fantastic.

[Garth 0]

Justice - †

Seasick Steve - Dog House Music

[AnnieEclectic 0]

Ummm...

 

I just bought two Les Paul clones for $200 - a solid purple and a solid black model. They play alright, sound great when put through my modelling amp, but I'm so lazy on tuning that I'm glad I can have 3 axes - one standard, one drop D, one full Dropped C. Now I can just pick up a guitar and play any Japanese metal song I want. Woo

 

-Annie

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

Carcass - Symphonies of Sickness

Not as good as I was expecting, honestly. Whenever you read about important death metal bands, especially during its first 10 years or so, you always read about Possessed, Morbid Angel, Death, Sepultura, and Carcass. I'm not sure if this is just a lame album or if I just need to listen to it more to appreciate it, but I was pretty underwhelmed by it. Then again, the genre has grown a little bit since the late 80's, so maybe that's why it just sounds tame compared to, say, Terratism or Skinless.

 

Stuck Mojo - Southern Born Killers

Finally: the new Mojo disc is in my possession. Stuck Mojo was once a pretty damn polarizing band. You either loved them or you hated them. You loved the way they brought funk and rap into a perfect groove metal/hardcore style, or you thought rap and metal should never mix. Then something happened: rap/rock and rapcore began dying off as a style due to the bulk of the bands playing it sounding atrocious. Kid Rock reverted into one step above a country singer, Rage Against The Machine called it quits, people realized how awful Limp Bizkit actually are, and metalheads stopped thinking throwing some rap into their music for fun was interesting anymore. Suddenly, Stuck Mojo were no longer polarizing, but rather just "there." This album doesn't help much. The first half is very solid. "I'm American" and the title track, "Southern Born Killers," are pure Mojo goodness. Lord Nelson makes as good a replacement for Bonz as anybody could ever help for, and in truth actually helps the music much more than Bonz ever did. He seems more versatile a rapper than Bonz was, and I'm sure it helps that his voice and rhyme styles are more similar to Chuck D of Public Enemy than they are to...I can't even think of who Bonz sounded like, but I'm sure they had a mouth full of marbles. "The Sky is Falling" and "Metal is Dead" are both right at home on a Mojo album, keeping the pace flowing, and if it weren't for how amazing Rising was in '98 I'd say this was the best Mojo has done on keeping a steady pace for the first half of an album. Much better than their Century Media debut, Snappin' Necks, or the follow-up Pigwalk, and Declaration of a Headhunter had too many spoken-word parts every few songs to have a steady flow, but so far this album just plays through freely. Then "For the Cause of Allah" comes in, which is Rich Ward noodling around in the background with a synthesizer and a drum machine as a spoken word regarding militant Islamic leaders and their plans of global domination as set forth by the Koran. "Open Seasons" cues in after the spoken word goes on too long, bringing us back to the fun, but the damage is already set: the flow has been slowed down, and it's a little choppier now. The final four tracks - "Prelude to Anger," "That's When I Burn," "Yoko," and "Home" - don't fit the album all too well at all, especially "Yoko," a stab at Yoko Ono and similar band-ruiners that I believe could be taken as Rich or Nelson's personal animosity towards somebody they know. It's a fun track, but it doesn't fit the theme or feel of the album at all. Overall, it's a solid return to form for Ward (and nobody should kid themselves: Rich Ward IS the creative force behind Stuck Mojo, always has been, but it's not truly Stuck Mojo unless Bonz is involved too), and Nelson's raps are solid, but it's not better Rising.

[Steviekick 0]

Carcass - Symphonies of Sickness

Not as good as I was expecting, honestly. Whenever you read about important death metal bands, especially during its first 10 years or so, you always read about Possessed, Morbid Angel, Death, Sepultura, and Carcass. I'm not sure if this is just a lame album or if I just need to listen to it more to appreciate it, but I was pretty underwhelmed by it. Then again, the genre has grown a little bit since the late 80's, so maybe that's why it just sounds tame compared to, say, Terratism or Skinless.

 

To me, the Carcass catalog really picked up on their next album when they added Michael Amott to the band. Amott and Bill Steer both playing really helped create their sound.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

I caught a show with Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks at the Vogue on Saturday night, and I am getting acquainted with their new album.

 

 

 

So far I like it more than Face the Truth, but not as much as the first two albums. It's still early, though.

[Gary Floyd 0]

[Gary Floyd 0]

[Bruiser Chong 0]

Snatched a brand new copy of Stankonia for $4.50

[Janpei 0]

Vampire Weekend

E=MC2

Oracular Spectacular

Distortion

The Cool

Love Movement

Texas

 

Those were my last purchases.

[Bruiser Chong 0]

This won't mean a ton to the majority of you, but I just received a huge box of hip-hop albums as part of a swank eBay transaction. I landed the 60-album lot for $90 shipped. Some definite filler in there, but among the highlights:

 

- The Infamous (Mobb Deep)

- Hell on Earth (Mobb Deep)

- Murda Muzik (Mobb Deep)

- Stillmatic (Nas)

- Still Standing (Goodie Mobb)

- Capital Punishment (Big Pun)

- Wu-Tang Forever (Wu-Tang Clan)

- Slim Shady LP (Eminem)

- Illmatic (Nas)

- ATLiens (OutKast)

- Aquemini (OutKast)

- I Am...(Nas)

- When Disaster Strikes (Busta Rhymes)

- R. (R. Kelly)

- Life After Death (Notorious B.I.G.)

- Enter the Wu-Tang (Wu-Tang Clan)

- 2Pacalypse Now (2Pac)

- Me Against the World (2Pac)

- Tical (Method Man)

- Doggystyle (Snoop Dog)

- The Chronic (Dr. Dre)

- All Eyez on Me (2Pac)

- It Was Written (Nas)

- The Pillage (Cappadonna)

- Ready to Die (Notorious B.I.G.)

 

There's some fluff elsewhere in the lot, but it's nice to finally own legit copies of so many classics.

[Ravenbomb 0]

"Challengers: Executive Edition" by The New Pornographers. 2 albums worth of material plus a ton of photos and two music videos for $5. I got it signed after the show.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

From the "I should have bought these forever ago" category:

 

 

[Copper Feel 0]

Yes - Fragile

Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones

Radiohead - In Rainbows

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

Exodus - Tempo of the Damned

The album that brought Exodus back to life. And it's exactly how it should sound: gritty, fast, heavy, with just enough melody to catch your attention. Souza's vocals never take the same form they did for Fabulous Disaster, but that works out to the album's advantage, as it sounds as though Souza tries harder to keep up with the pace of the songs than ever before. The lyrics are your typical thrash fare, poking fun at religion and trying to sound political while being more or less adolescent in world views. The best line of the album comes from the fourth song, "Shroud of Urine," and that line is "You're cruci-fucked / And you're outta luck." The album also has a decent running time, somewhere around 40-45 minutes, which would be greatly expanded upon with the next two Exodus albums (which, by the way, are superior to this one, albeit just a little) Shovel Headed Kill Machine and The Atrocity Exhibition - Exhibit A, but the one flaw I see is that each song bleeds into the next, which is a flaw in thrash metal itself. That said, the return album for one of thrash metal's godfathers has blown every album released from the mid-90's onward by the "Big 4" of thrash - Anthrax, Megadeth, Metallica, and Slayer - away entirely. The only band I would say that has been doing thrash metal better than Exodus in the new millenium would be Municipal Waste, whose style borrows heavily from the very scene that Exodus helped maked famous. A worthwhile pick-up for fans of the Bay Area legends, and any fan of heavy music in general.

 

D.I. - On the Western Front

A legendar SoCal punk act, D.I.'s On the Western Front was released in 2007 after being hinted at and hyped since 2003 or so. I actually remember wanting to get the album specifically due to how good DI's set during the Fiend Fest '03 tour (supporting for The Dickies, The Damned, and The Misfits), especially since they hyped the song "OC's Burning" during their set, and it stood out as easily the most memorable song of the evening (even more so than the set performed by Jerry, Marky, and Dez). The album is, unfortunately, generic punk. And, oddly, this works to its advantage, as today is a day in which "punk rock" has meant lame haircuts, hipster posturing, and naming bands just to get a form of street cred. The first half of this album is perfect: the title track gets the flow going, "OC's Burning" steals the show at the second track with a diatribe of how Orange County went from suburban paradise to shithole in the span of a decade (at least through the eyes of frontman Casey Royer), "Gutters of Paradise" is as catchy a punk tune can be while still remaining somewhat gritty, and "Prison Riot" and "Punk Rock Suicide" are both solid enough songs to keep the blood flowing. That isn't to say that the second half of the album drops off, it's just that no other song comes close to matching the feel of the first three. Overall, I'd say it's worth a pick-up if you like older punk bands, or even just bands out of the SoCal scene.

[Kinetic 0]

Portishead- Third

Richard Hell- Destiny Street

Pretty Things- S.F. Sorrow

Faces- A Nod is as Good as a Wink...To a Blind Horse

Them- The Story of Them

VA- No Thanks!: The 70s Punk Rebellion

 

I'm considering d/ling a couple of other Rhino box sets, as well. The one on early rock and roll seems particularly interesting, as that's one area of music that I like but haven't really explored.

[Bruiser Chong 0]

The Roots - Rising Down

[PLAGIARISM! 0]

Son of Dave - 03.

 

Obviously he'll always struggle to capture his live show on record, but the songs are much stronger than 02, with 'Hellhound' being particularly cool.

[Steviekick 0]

Portishead- Third

Richard Hell- Destiny Street

Pretty Things- S.F. Sorrow

Faces- A Nod is as Good as a Wink...To a Blind Horse

Them- The Story of Them

VA- No Thanks!: The 70s Punk Rebellion

 

I'm considering d/ling a couple of other Rhino box sets, as well. The one on early rock and roll seems particularly interesting, as that's one area of music that I like but haven't really explored.

 

I can't wait to pick that up.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

Portishead- Third

 

I can't wait to pick that up.

 

It's about damn time. Christ. I have this feeling that no matter how good it is that it will be for nigh. They put this album off for way too long. I sort of resent them for it. Still, it'll probably be the only new release that I will purchase with any confidence this year.

[Kinetic 0]

VA- No Thanks!: The 70s Punk Rebellion

 

This is fantastic. There's 100 songs on 4 discs. Of that bunch, I'd estimate that I already had about 25 songs somewhere in my collection, so that's 75 songs that I'm not familiar with, many of which are excellent. They play pretty fast and loose with the definition of "punk" here, too, so it casts a really wide net. Like, everything from the Dead Boys' "Sonic Reducer" to Joe Jackson's "Is She Really Going Out With Him?"

[Kinetic 0]

It occurs to me now that Guided by Voices stole everything from Eddie & the Hot Rods.

[Gary Floyd 0]

Portishead- Third

I got that today. It's really good, probably one of my favorites of the year.

[Kinetic 0]

I feel that a hug is appropriate. Do you mind, Mr. Ballocaust?

[Gary Floyd 0]

I feel that a hug is appropriate. Do you mind, Mr. Ballocaust?

Sure.

[Kinetic 0]

I'm gonna give you a hug. It's a big ol' hug. You are a champion. You are Mister Man!

[PLAGIARISM! 0]

It occurs to me now that Guided by Voices stole everything from Eddie & the Hot Rods.

 

Well that's my day ruined