#however it’s like. do people genuinely not listen to lyrics ever like it baffles me

[grntaire]

if there’s one reason i know for sure that media literacy is dead it’s that there are people who slow dance and get engaged to this song.

[septicstories]

A/N: For some unfathomable reason, I get some fantasy BNHA vibe from the song, Ophelia by the Lumineers. not even the lyrics. Like, the instrumental. It also, for some reason, gives me such an intense feeling of nostalgia that it sort of makes me want to cry? And I don’t know why? Actually wait. Seeing that this song is from the same guys who performed “Ho Hey” that makes a bunch of sense. Okay, anyways, I’m just gonna write a Kiribaku fantasy thing. Just some fluff, nothing super major.

I, I, when I was younger

“Kacchan! Quit running off! Your mother is bound to be worried sick!”

“Shut up, Deku! I’m gonna be fucking fine! C’mon!”

“Kacchan!”

The two young boys ran through the forests. Katsuki had recently turned twelve, given his first sword. Nothing fancy, just a small cutlass. In a week, he’d get his very first tattoo. But only if he collected an animal’s blood. 

Easiest way to do that?

Kill it and bring it back to his village.

I, I, should have known better

“Uh, Kacchan? Do you see that?” the younger green haired boy asked.

Katsuki glanced in the direction, seeing that there was a pair of bright red wings popping out of the bushes.

“Is that a dragon?” the green haired boy whispered.

“No one’s ever had dragon blood for their tattoo before!” Katsuki whispered back with a feral grin.

The grin was odd and misshapen, something he didn’t do often. It hadn’t quite grown on the ash blond yet.

“Oi! Dragon! Show yourself!”

Katsuki took his cutlass, slicing through the bush. As the leaves and branches from the bush fell, the front of the dragon was revealed.

And I can't feel no remorse

A black haired boy looked up at him with big red eyes. A pair of horns protruded from his forehead, their base a bright red. A tail stuck out of the other side of the bush, also bright red.

“Sorry! No hurt, please,”

Katsuki dropped his cutlass to the ground.

A dragon shifter.

They were a rare species, only two thousand known in the world throughout time. 

“Are you hurt?” the green haired boy popped up beside Katsuki.

“Uh... wings. Stuck. Help?”

“Come with me afterward,” Katsuki said firmly.

“Huh?! Kacchan?! What are you doing?”

“Shut the fuck up, Deku,”

The boys freed the dragon shifter before Katsuki led him back to his parent’s castle.

“Oi, hag! Bring us a medic!” Katsuki yelled into the castle, kicking a door open.

“For fuck’s sake, Katsuki! Did you hurt Izuku aga--”

Queen Mitsuki entered the room, ready to whoop her son’s ass, only to find her son and the boy she called her nephew in perfect health. A third boy with dragon wings, scales, and horns, however, was not.

“Oh. Uhm... hello,” she said calmly.

The dragon boy gave a bow as Mitsuki called for a few medics.

And you don't feel nothing back

“Kacchan, it’s so weird for you to help someone like that. What about your tattoo?”

“Dumbass. Don’t you know that dragon shifters are a rare species? If I fucking killed one, I’d die, for sure. I’d be hunted down. And it felt... different. Like I couldn’t kill them, even if they weren’t a dragon shifter. I... they feel different,”

Katsuki sat outside of the infirmary where the dragon boy stayed.

Behind the door, the shifter had sat, listening. That was something he was good at. Listening. He didn’t know what most of it meant. He didn’t speak their language. Hell, he rarely spoke.

But hearing what the ash blond boy had to say made him feel weird. His tail thumped against the cot he sat on, a happy chirp leaving his mouth.

When Katsuki came back to see the dragon shifter, he was pounced on, happy chirping noises escaping his mouth. 

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Master! Teach fight!”

“What?! Master?”

“You save me. I stay until I save,”

Katsuki sat there, baffled. A dragon shifter wants to be his? And a cute one at that?

“So, you wanna know how to fight, huh?”

I, I, got a new girlfriend

“No fucking way, really?” Katsuki was snapped from his memories by Sero gawking at the drunken purple haired bard.

“Mhm! She’s super duper pretty,” she slurred happily. “She’s a princess!”

“Congrats!” Mina, the pink haired barkeep said with a smile.

“Oh, it’s Princess Yaoyorozu, right?” Tenya asked, sipping lightly from his glass of wine.

“Mhm! Momo is so great,” Jirou beamed.

Katsuki rolled his eyes, scoffing at Jirou’s words.

She feels like he's on top

The dragon prince-- no, king-- had changed greatly since he met the dragon shifter, Eijirou.

Katsuki’s original kingdom was attacked, his family and his people killed. It was bloody and traumatizing. He actually needed saving from Eijirou.

But he never left.

And I don't feel no remorse

“Oh! Katsuki!” Eijirou tugged on the king’s cape. “Look! Miss Frog brought her wife!”

He looked behind the bar to see Ochaco and Tsuyu, smiling sweetly at each other.

“Get a room!”

Denki and Sero laughed beside Katsuki before Ochaco flipped him off.

And you can't see past my blinders

“Ochaco, relax, kero,” Tsuyu mumbled.

“Yeah, Katsu’s just jealous that he can’t have what we have,” Ochaco said with a smile, pressing a kiss to her girlfriend’s nose.

“You want to be a lesbian?” Eijirou whispered to Katsuki, who choked on his brandy.

Eijirou frantically waved his hands. “Sorry! Hurt?”

Whenever Eijirou found himself flustered or speaking quickly, his speech would go back to the broken language he used when he was a child. It got his point across, it just wasn’t the most eloquent.

Oh, Ophelia

“I’m fine, shitty lizard,” he mumbled. “No, I don’t want to be a lesbian. I don’t like women. I would just want to date someone and... be happy with them, you know?”

“Oh! Dragons do that! We bite the neck of our mate, give our mate a mark!”

“What, some sort of binding mark?”

Eijirou nodded happily, a small chirp leaving his throat.

You've been on my mind girl since the flood

“Why hasn’t Ei gotten drunk?” Mina asked.

“Dragons don’t drink. Alcohol to them is like feeding chocolate to a dog,” Katsuki scoffed. “Figure you would’ve fucking known that since he’s declined your alcohol consistently for the past several years,”

“Mhm! Alcohol killed my family,” Eijirou said with a soft smile.

“Oh,” Denki murmured.

After the sudden dark turn, it was quiet. But only for a moment.

“Hi, Kacchan!”

Katsuki rolled his eyes, turning to the green haired boy, who had Prince Shouto walking behind him.

“Done fucking the prince yet? Or are you still his spite boyfriend?” Katsuki snarled.

“How dare y--” “Shou, it’s okay,”

“Ah? Having the lapdog shush the prince? Doesn’t that deserve some sort of punishment?” 

The shit eating grin on Katsuki’s face grew as Izuku’s face flushed at the word.

“Don’t be rude,” Eijirou hissed, smacking Katsuki’s shoulder. “Sorry for Katsuki. He is drunk.”

Oh, Ophelia

“Ah, it’s alright, Eijirou!” Izuku said with a grin.

“The master disobeying his dragon? Doesn’t that deserve some sort of punishment?” Shouto asked, giving a smug ass grin.

Katsuki’s grip on his glass tightened, the glass making a creaking noise.

“Shou!”

“What does he mean by that? I did not do anything wrong, did I? Did I go against a human rule again?” Eijirou whispered.

“No, Prince Shouto’s just being an asshole,” Katsuki mumbled.

“Stop being mean!” Eijirou said before pouting a little. “You’re better than that,”

Katsuki felt his heart clench at his oddly adorable dragon servant.

Actually, was servant the word to use? He didn’t feel as though Eijirou was his servant or inferior to him. Much more like a friend. 

One day, hopefully more.

Katsuki groaned, smacking his head with the heel of his palm. He needed to stop thinking like that. Eijirou would be a friend and nothing more.

Heaven help a fool who falls in love

So maybe Katsuki did end up falling in love with his dragon shifter friend. What did it matter?

He wasn’t going to act on his urges to kiss him, hold him, tell him he loved him- no! That’s preposterous! 

From time to time, he wonders what his mother would think of him if she saw him now:

Sitting in a bar as a dragon king, making fun of the prince of another kingdom, sitting beside his dragon shifter friend who he also held high affection for.

He was fucked, wasn’t he?

“Why did you hit yourself? Was there an insect? I could have gotten it for you,” Eijirou asked.

“You are not eating a fucking insect off my head again,”

“It was one time!”

“One time too many!”

I, I, got a little paycheck

“Anyway, Katsuki, we didn’t come here to hear endless innuendos,” Shouto sighed, pulling out a silken sack.

It jingled happily as it was dropped in front of Katsuki.

“We came here for the--”

“Yeah yeah, you came here for the head of that beast. I know. Ei, you got the satchel?”

“Right here!” Eijirou said, holding the heavy satchel, dripping in black blood. “The head is in a bag inside of the satchel. So grab the bag inside. Do not wear white gloves, I suggest black as that is the color of their blood,”

“Thank you, Eijirou,” Izuku said, giving a quick bow as he replaced his white gloves for black ones.

Katsuki was handed the sack and he popped it open.

“Ei, coin toss,” he growled, taking a golden coin and flicking it behind me.

Coin toss is what they’ve done to see if the money is genuine. Katsuki toss a coin behind him, Eijirou nibbles on it for a second, and then he gives it back if it’s good. If it’s bad, he eats it.

If he eats even a single coin, he has Katsuki’s permission to beat the shit out of them.

You got big plans and you gotta move

“Must you do this every time?” Shouto asked

“What, you give us a shit coin?” Katsuki asked, flipping Eijirou the next coin.

“No’ ye’,” Eijirou said, catching the coin between his teeth. “All solid,”

“Good. And yes, we fucking do, asshole,” Katsuki scoffed. “You could scam us out, and we’d have to kill ya for it,”

“Be nishe, Katshuki!” Eijirou said before slipping the coin out of his mouth.

And I don't feel nothing at all

“Hey guys, we’re gonna go head toward the inn! Heard they had a bonfire going! We also need to drop off our horses,” Sero said with his signature grin.

“Yeah, yeah,” Katsuki scoffed.

After quickly checking the rest of the coins and making sure they were genuine, Katsuki closed the silken sack.

“Thanks,” he grumbled out.

“Sure thing, Kacchan! It was a pleasure to work with you!”

“Fuck off!”

And you can't feel nothing small

“Hey, Katsuki?”

“What is it?” Katsuki asked, turning to Eijirou.

“I want to show you a place,”

“Oh yeah?” Katsuki had a smirk cross his face. “Where to, Shitty Lizard?”

“Come with me!”

Eijirou and Katsuki left the bar, leaving a few gold coins with small dents in them on the counter.

Eijirou stood behind the building, removing his clothing as not to rip them before Katsuki placed them in the satchel.

A few moments later, the redheaded hybrid became a full dragon, and the two tore up into the sky at vicious speeds.

But once they were over the clouds, Eijirou slowed to a glide.

“Nice job on speed. Doing better,”

A deep rumbling chirp came from Eijirou as they continued to soar above the clouds, Katsuki relaxing happily on Eijirou’s back.

Honey I love you, that's all she wrote

The duo began their descent, landing at the base of a mountain as Eijirou shifted back.

“So, what did you want to show me?” Katsuki asked, handing Eijirou his clothing.

“Top of the mountain,” Eijirou said, yanking on his clothes.

Katsuki blinked for a moment. “Then why the hell didn’t you fly us up there?”

“The path there is very pretty too,” Eijirou said, making Katsuki huff.

“Fine. Whatever. Let’s fucking go,”

Oh, Ophelia

The boys began their hike up the mountain. Nothing too rigorous, but still harder than a simple walk. Not like the two minded, though. They’ve grown used to things that take up far more energy than a hike.

“So, where exactly did you bring me?” Katsuki asked, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“Oh, we are climbing up a mountain. I cannot remember the name at the moment, so my apologies,” Eijirou chuckled, tugging at his scarf a tad.

“Fucking great. Any sort of civilization nearby?”

“Uhm... I believe there is a village that sits on the shore,”

You've been on my mind girl like a drug

Katsuki put a finger in his mouth, and after a moment, he pulled it out and held it to the sky.

The light breeze hit his wet finger tip, only a small part of it being cold.

“We in the East?”

After a moment, Eijirou nodded.

“Yes, yes!”

“And there’s a village by the water?”

Oh, Ophelia

“Yes, you will see it once we reach the top!” Eijirou chirped.

“So does the name Tuft Mountain ring any bells?”

“Oh, yes, yes!”

“And you wanted to show me the peak of Tuft?”

“Mhm!”

Heaven help a fool who falls in love

Katsuki knew what Eijirou was doing.

Anyone with half a damn brain cell knew what he was doing.

Oh, Ophelia

“YOU’RE FUCKING TAKING ME TO LOVER’S POND?!”

You've been on my mind girl since the flood

“Hush, hush! You’ll disturb the wildlife!” Eijirou said, thankful for the dark of the night that covered his flushed face.

The two reached the peak, and Katsuki’s eyes widened.

Oh, Ophelia

The pond was surrounded by gorgeous flowers and other wild grasses, waving in the breeze nonchalantly.

Fireflies dotted the sky, their little lights glowing up against the water’s surface.

The pond itself was an irregular heart shape, yet it was naturally formed.

Heaven help a fool who falls in love

Legend says that those who sit at one side of the pond will have their soulmate appear at the other side.

This could take minutes, hours, days, months, weeks, even years.

The pond is for those who are willing to wait for their soulmate.

Oh, Ophelia

Eijirou went and sat at one end of the pond, and waited.

Katsuki felt a tug.

You've been on my mind girl like a drug

As though he was being forced closer to the pond.

His head foggy and walk awkward, his body slowly made it’s way to the other side of the pond.

Oh, Ophelia

The two boys gawked at each other, vermilion and scarlet eyes locking, jaws dropping.

Katsuki knew what had just happened and knew what he’d done, but he hadn’t felt as though he was in control of himself.

A smile bloomed on Eijirou’s face.

He covered his mouth with his hands as tears clumped up in his lashes.

His tail thumped on the ground, wings beating, and sobbing chirps of joy escaping his mouth.

Katsuki felt his eyes water as well as he grinned.

Heaven help a fool who falls in love

A/N: Okay! Thank you so much for reading this! I sincerely hope you enjoyed it! I just get sudden impulses to write, so I do, and then you get this. Ooh! I’ve also never done this before, but I’m gonna start a tag list! I’ll do this for every story! I’ve only got one person and my beta readers, but feel free to ask to be on the tag list! You’ll get a notif for any oneshot I post! Or story! If you want to see my artwork, then please make that specification. So I’ll tag you in both or one or the other. Okay? Okay!

Tag list: @king-queenie, @violet-fandom, @siivermoon​,

Okay! That’s all! Thank you!

[awkwardtaco056]

so now that i’m no longer in the Hell that was school and after finding the lovely blog @endcringe i’ve decided to talk about my own experiences with cringe culture, bullying, and why it’s Really Bad to not let people enjoy inherently harmless things, especially neurodivergent people (read more because this is gonna get long and triggering at times, TW for mentions of bullying, suicide, child abuse, a brief mention of incest shipping. I won’t be naming any of the peers that I discuss my experiences with, because my point with this post is Not to “cancel” anyone, I just want to speak out on my experiences)

I’m neurodivergent; I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 8 years old. I didn’t know a lot about it, and a family member even painted it as “oh it’s nothing blah blah blah just apply yourself more. Because of this, I had no idea about the concept of hyperfixations until I was in my late teens. Due to that, I would obsess over random things and my family would shame me relentlessly for it. My mother said I had an “addictive personality” and that she feared I’d end up a drug addict or alcoholic because of it.

I look younger than what I am, I’m short, and small. AKA, the perfect candidate for being picked on by people bigger and stronger than me. People made fun of my art when I was around 13, but fortunately that was an instance where spite fueled me to improve drastically. However, just because I happened to take the shitty comments and have it fuel me then does NOT mean bullying people will have that effect all the time. At some point someone put my old South Park fan art on a cringe blog. I was temporarily hurt, and a little angry, but I realized that if someone was making fun of a 15 year old’s art, they probably didn’t have much going for them in life, so I moved on.

Fast forward to high school. Everything was horrible and I’m not exaggerating when I say I barely made it out alive. I was living in an abusive household up until January 2018 and I found comfort in many different interests. I’ve always found great comfort in music and the arts in general. In 2016, I drew a picture of a mermaid. I was inspired by the chocolate opal gemstone, and I thought it’d be fun to draw a gay chubby mermaid with dark skin and a rainbow tail and freckles. Junior year was lousy and I wanted something that sparked Joy. I was immediately told that “scientifically, mermaids wouldn’t look like that. Mind you, my take looked like this:

Obviously I wasn’t going for realism, I just wanted to draw a cute mermaid. However, they continued to tell me that they wouldn’t look like that, going as far as writing so on the back of said drawing. When I got angry at her for taking it too far (as I’d established before that I didn’t like it when people wrote on my art without permission), they got angry back, accusing me of being unable to take criticism. Heated by the accusation, I went as far as asking my art teacher if it was fair for them to say that, and she said no, stating that constructive criticism would be talking about how I could improve my lineart and coloring in the digital version. I took her actual helpful criticism and since then have improved Drastically in digital art. Even with that being said, I found myself hesitant to participate in things such as MerMay because I was leery of hearing that peer berate me for having cartoony mermaids. 

 During high school I grew to love many musicians, a lot of emo/alternative stuff, a couple being Twenty One Pilots and Melanie Martinez. I love how unique TOP’s style is, their open discussion of mental illness, and as someone who had a rough childhood, I connected with every single song on Cry Baby. It was like nothing I’d ever heard. I started listening to mashups featuring all these different artists I love, adoring how they could change the tone and sound so drastically. A peer Bully of mine in junior year condemned these two artists, declaring that they made “Bad Music” simply because it didn’t fit their tastes. They’d throw my drawings on the ground, write over them in pen, steal my headphones so I couldn’t listen to music, push me around, complain that mashups sucked and gave them a headache, and in general shit all over conetnt that was actively preventing me from committing suicide. 

Some family members were no better. Once high school hit, I began listening to Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, and My Chemical Romance. Their deep complex lyrics stuck with me. I would write down quotes from my favorite songs and thanks to hyperfixating, I remember each studio album in order My mother resented when I fell in love with the “Emo Trinity” because “the Columbine  shooters were emo and that event traumatized me” Despite that, not only did the Columbine tragedy occur in 1999 and none of the bands got together until the early 2000s, but I have a pretty good feeling those groups aren’t For gun violence. The other side constantly criticized the fact that I love FOB, P!ATD, and MCR because I’m black and “why must you listen to that white people music.”

 I grew fond of Dan and Phil in high school (and I’m still a fan to this day!), I loved Phil’s kindness and positive aura and I deeply connect with Dan’s sense of humor and personality. Their content made me happy during some very dark times in my life. It’s November 2017, I’m over a close peer’s house at the time, and notice PINOF is upon us. I drew the PINOF whiskers on my face, my plan being to quietly watch them in the corner of peer’s bedroom on my phone through headphones, the others were doing their own thing and I knew they didn’t like them, so I thought they’d respect it if I silently indulged in it. Unfortunately, the complete opposite happened. I was immediately shunned and locked out of the bedroom, told that I’d only be let back in if I washed the whiskers off because “absolutely not”. Me, being stubborn, washed them off temporarily but drew them back on in the room. Life during then was especially bad for me, as the abusive household I was in was getting worse. They noticed, of course, and even though all I wanted was to enjoy this small tradition in a time during a deep depression, I was immediately shoved out the room and locked out, only to have said peer’s family members notice. I’m a relatively shy person, so this was honesty a really harrowing experience that had a lasting effect on me. 

I grew to adore Sanders Sides as well, but the moment I found out most of my peers didn’t like Thomas, I was terrified.  I stopped watching Dan and Phil’s content for months and shied away from other fandoms too, only occasionally indulging in times of complete solitude. One time when said peers were due to visit my house for the first time, I saw the Phandom and Fander stuff I’d hung up on my wall in my little sanctuary that was my bedroom (it was the first time in years I’d had my own room), and I was filled with panic and fear. I took them down and hid them away, genuinely terrified of what they’d do to me if they saw. It’s still incites so much anger in me to this day because they turned around and ended up shipping incest, but somehow liking D&P and Sanders Sides was So. Much. Worse.

They were baffled by my actions, despite having humiliated me Twice by going on a private blog of mine separate from everything so that I could fully indulge and laughing at everything on there, once at a peer’s house, once right in school. I don’t think they realized how traumatizing it was to have a large group of people in public laughing at something I was deeply self conscious about for all of my life. I put on a brave face at the time, but ended up crying in the bathroom after first period began. I continued to be treated as lesser until things came to an ugly head August 2018 when I ended up in the hospital because I nearly attempted suicide. Years of child abuse, bullying, and being deemed “cringy” made me feel like I didn’t deserve to be alive, that everyone would be happier if I were gone.

After arguably one of the lowest points in my life, I cut them off and slowly began to embrace the Real Me. I started letting myself enjoy the things again, made true friends and even found love, my first boyfriend ever at 18. I still get choked up retelling it, but when PINOF 10 dropped, after he found out how much I’d been hurt over the incident in 2017, I was greeted with a photo of him with the whiskers on his face. I cried for a while, blown away at such a pure act of kindness. He listens to me ramble about my interests, he compliments my taste in music, he watched K-12 with me. 

This got incredibly long, but my point is this: Cringe Culture hurts people. You might think it’s whatever if the Thing doesn’t apply to your interests, but content you’re denouncing as cringy could be something that’s keeping them alive, that one flicker of light in a void of darkness. When I was contemplating suicide, I listened to The Black Parade, repeating Gee’s words to myself over and over, that nothing in the world was worth hurting yourself over. Some friendly joshing here and there is okay, but actively ripping someone to shreds constantly to the point where they have a mental breakdown in front of you and later on plan their own demise is disgusting. Nobody should abuse anyone for having harmless interests, no one. Unless you’re participating in p*dophilic/inc*st/s*xual assault/inherently abusive ships/content and pretending it’s not bad because “Fiction doesn’t impact reality!”, you have every right to like what you like and be happy. Read homestuck. Play Undertale. Draw up the Wildest OCs you can imagine. And stay away from people who try to rob you of innocent fun, life is too short and in this cruel, unforgiving world, you deserve to be happy, whether you’re a 13 year old who draws cute furries, a 16 year old cosplayer on TikTok, a VSCO girl, a 30 year old who writes/draws self insert art or a 20 year old who adores Invader Zim. 

Cringe Culture is just bullying under a different name, and it can lead to many instances of people, especially fellow neurodivergent folk to feel isolated and ostracized. Attempting to bully someone out of an interest they have isn’t going to fix them; it’s more often than not going to cause more damage. I suffer from diagnosed C-PTSD, anxiety, and depression, and sometimes I still find myself trying to over-justify my interests. To all who are roped up in bad homes and lousy “friends” who berate you for your innocent passions, I’m sorry you’re suffering, things will one day get better even if it doesn’t feel like it, and fuck those people. I’d also like to note that sometimes even if it seems more terrifying, it’s better to have one or two close friends you can truly trust than a whole group that walks all over you. You have every right to call them out for treating you poorly, and if things don’t improve, you also have every right to leave.

You have a right to live your True Self.

[johannesviii]

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2007

18 to 19 years old. Things were slowly starting to get better and better.

15 honorable mentions, but this is still only a top 10. What an incredible, amazing year for music. My favorite hit song for the entire decade is in there! I think everyone already knows what that is because I am, in fact, extremely predictable.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

Second to third year of my History studies. Met a great guy. So great, in fact, that I married him in 2019 because we’re still living together 13 years later. Got my first summer job but spent my first pay on driving lessons, because, again, I needed to get out of my parents’ appartment and knowing how to drive would be good to find a job. I had a much better access to internet. I still had great grades. Things were getting much better.

I stopped making my personal lists of favorite songs that year, and I had an mp3 player, which really opened a world of possibilities even if you could only put something like 40 songs on it, at best.

I was still reading Rock Mag a lot. As you can see, the biggest controversy at the time was what was emo and what wasn’t.

We were alright.

As far as non-elligible songs go, well there’s I Still Remember by Bloc Party (and the fact I can’t put it on the list is a heartbreak and a half) and basically everything from Year Zero by Nine Inch Nails. Nightwish, Epica and Within Temptation all had pretty good albums too.

Here’s a metric ton of honorable mentions first!

Snow (Red Hot Chili Peppers) - Perfectly pleasant song.

D.A.N.C.E (Justice) - Never understood why this was so popular. Still good.

Love is Gone (David Guetta) - Heyyyy another repetitive dance track, perfect.

Miracle (Cascada), Smack That (Akon), Chasing Cars (Snow Patrol), SexyBack (Justin Timberlake) and Say It Right (Nelly Furtado & Timbaland) - Still elligible songs for that year. Still great songs. Still not making the list.

Butterfly (Superbus) - I didn’t like this band, but I liked that song.

Thanks for the Memories (Fall Out Boy) - Same here basically.

Who Knew (Pink) - Not her best, but not her worst by a mile either.

Walk It Out (Unk) - Stayed in my head for days, I swear. I have no idea what the general opinion about it is nowadays. Maybe that’s a humiliating pick and I genuinely have no idea.

Crank That (Soulja Boy) - I do, however, know that the fact this very nearly made the list IS hilarious.

Alive (Mondotek) - Laugh all you want about the tektonik phenomenon, this is still a banger and a half.

Sound of Freedom (Bob Sinclar & Cutee B) - Not as good as Rock This Party. That’s the only thing I can say against it.

Umbrella (Rihanna) - This is an edit because holy shit I forgot Umbrella. It very nearly made the list too. Sorry.

And now, possibly one of the best top tens yet.

10 - This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race (Fall Out Boy)

US: #32 / FR: #71

Almost everyone got the lyrics wrong. The title is way too long. I really don’t like this band of pretentious idiots; if you’re gonna be pretentious at least write about something more grand and epic than your own navel, and go all out (more on that later). Nobody ever really cared about their supposed feud with Panic! At The Disco. And, to make matters even worse, the singer looked exactly like the terrible ex I had punched in the face the previous year.

This is still a damn good song and it’s on the list instead of any of the honorable mentions.

RIP me.

9 - How To Save A Life (The Fray)

US: #24 / FR: Not on the list

You already know I loved The Fray. This song could have apparently also made the previous list but it’s on this one instead. It was overplayed. I still loved it.

8 - U + Ur Hand (Pink)

US: #29 / FR: Not on the list

In 2002, I bought Pink’s Missundaztood album and as you might remember this was the second album I ever bought in my life, right before the gigantic trainwreck that highschool was.

The fact that about five years (that felt like twelve) later, Pink was on the other side of that trainwreck, back in my earphones, just as energetic and fun as she was before, was nothing short of heartwarming.

7 - Je Suis Un Homme (Zazie)

US: Not on the list / FR: #43

I’m not gonna beat around the bush. This song is terrifying.

Here’s a translation. Yeah, it’s about humanity destroying the Earth and itself in various ways, and it’s preachy, but holy shit, how can something be so bleak, so scary and still so catchy. It’s a mystery.

6 - Double Je (Christophe Willem)

US: Not on the list / FR: #2

When I first heard this song, I genuinely thought that was also Zazie and I was like oh wow, she’s learned to have fun again after that bleak, bleak song.

But no. She only wrote it, and it’s sung by this guy. It’s relatable as hell (”When I grow up it’s gonna be easy, I’ll finally know what I am”, “Who’s fault is it? / I’m something and its opposite / Double me”). The fact that a guy had this kind of voice and that a ton of people loved it (enough for him to win a big talent show and make this the second biggest song of the year!) also did wonders for my dysphoria, by the way.

5 - Ta Meuf (Faf Larage)

US: Not on the list / FR: #19

This is a song applying the most obnoxious rap and hip hop clichés about gangsters (and guys in general) to a woman, and she ends up terrorising all the guys and they’re realising these clichés might, in fact, be really toxic.

It’s a great song about gender roles usually seen in this kind of music and instead of being preachy, it’s hilarious, and well-written (I mean, it’s Faf Larage, it’s a given, but still). Check it out.

4 - Relax Take It Easy (Mika)

US: Not on the list / FR: #12

All hail the new king of pop. He was here to stay and what a breath of fresh air he was. This was very much his year in Europe as soon as the album Life In Cartoon Motion dropped.

My significant other absolutely loved this album and we listened to it wayyyy, way too much, and even with all the radio overplay AND the overplay when we were together, I still can’t get enough of this album.

3 - Love Today (Mika)

US: Not on the list / FR: #39

Here he is again!

If this was any other year this would top the list very easily. What were the US even thinking back then to not let this guy chart. Why isn’t Mika a huge star over there too. What is your problem guys. Do you have something against fun or what.

Anyway, here’s possibly the best comment on the music video:

I mean. You’re not wrong.

2 - What I’ve Done (Linkin Park)

US: #38 / FR: Not on the list

Aaaaaaand they’re back. And they’re once again topping my list. Lord have mercy on me. I loved them so much.

This was the first step into their modern sound, less raw, more U2. A couple of years later, when Lacuna Coil released Shallow Life, I used to joke that Lacuna Coil was trying to sound more and more like Linkin Park, that Linkin Park was trying to sound more and more like U2, and that U2 was trying to sound more and more like boring garbage and. I mean. I wasn’t wrong there.

My absolute favorite part of the song is at 2:24, when the music calms down a bit and the lyrics go “I start again / And whatever pain may come / Today this ends / I’m forgiving what I’ve done” and then the guitar explodes again. So powerful. Love it.

And now you’re probably thinking “so... Linkin Park was back, and with such a top quality song and it’s NOT your #1? After you put a Linkin Park song or a Linkin Park remix at #1 for three years in a row in 2002, 2003 AND 2004? What’s going on, Jo? Are you okay?”

Oh I’m more than okay. Friends and enemies, here comes the absolute best hit song of the entire decade and possibly of my entire life so far.

You probably already know what it is.

1 - Welcome to the Black Parade (My Chemical Romance)

US: #59 / FR: Not on the list (shame on you French charts)

I know I keep complaining about stuff I love not charting, or charting but not high enough to make any year-end list, but... How was this even allowed to chart. Why and how did it end up on the US year-end list when so many more radio-friendly hits I loved couldn’t even scratch the hot 100.

I’m not complaining at all. I’m just baffled.

Play the first note on a piano and I’m already a wreck. Heck, I’m pretty sure everyone from my generation is. It was basically our very own Bohemian Rhapsody. It still is. Where do I even start.

Oh. I know. Look at this page from a 2006 Rock Mag, it’s gold.

Yep, they highlighted The Open Door by Evanescence and praised it, and were like “this is very risky and ambitious and we’re not sure you’re gonna like this” for The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance. Hilarious in hindsight.

A few months later, the same magazine was desesperately using double pages to interview them because everyone adored the album.

So in case you’ve never listened to it (I’m... not even sure why I’m doing this since I’m pretty sure even people who don’t like this type of music have tried to out of sheer curiosity), it’s a concept album about a guy (...possibly. I mean there’s a lot of trans and/or nonbinary hints in the lyrics and did you really NEED to make all of this more relatable? What the hell guys) dying of cancer, remembering all the good and the bad things that happened in his life, and since his fondest memory is seeing a marching band once as a child, death arrives in the form of a marching band. He then settles some scores with his friends and family, says his goodbyes, and... and doesn’t die in the end. He ends up surviving the whole ordeal, and the last song, Famous Last Words, is one the most incredible things I’ve ever heard. It’s so propulsive, uplifting and motivating. “I am not afraid to keep on living / I am not afraid to walk this world alone”. Holy. Shit. Sadly, it’s not elligible.

Welcome to the Black Parade is basically the centerpiece of the album, as you already know or might have guessed, but here’s the thing. It also works out of context because there’s already an entire narrative arc within this one song. It’s larger than life. It’s about death and the meaning of existence. It basically contains all the stages of grief, and the conclusion it reaches is that this guy will be remembered and therefore, he will transcend death. It’s full of rage and passion and triumph. There’s key changes. There’s tempo changes. There’s everything. It’s a rock opera in a single song. I put it on my mp3 player immediately after listening to the album, and it’s still on my mp3 player today. I never, ever removed it. I listened to it countless times and every single time, it feels like rewatching one of my favorite movies.

Best hit song of 2007 by a mile. Best hit song of the decade, hands down, and now that the 2010s are over, I’m pretty confident in saying nothing has topped it so far. I’d say “fight me” if I thought this was a controversial opinion, but it’s not even that controversial.

And that feels damn right.

Next up: Is... is this a list with actual filler? Are you telling us there was ONE mediocre year for music in the 2000s? Sounds fake but okay

[amorningshadeofyellow-blog]

Suggestion O’Clock

As February ends and March begins, here’s a reflection of some things I’ve been listening to and watching. Everybody needs suggestions, take them as you need.

Music: I am a firm believer in Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlists which automatically update themselves based on your listening patterns and what not. The BEST place to go for some handpicked tunes. However, here are a few I’ve come to love the past month.

• The Neighbourhood’s Hard To Imagine EP: Unlike the last three works they’ve put out, Hard To Imagine is something all it’s own. Very far from I Love You and Wiped Out!, HTI is full of songs that definitely reach outside of the usual boundaries they’d set for themselves. Though I am not a fan of the EP in its entirety, there are a few songs that make it worthwhile. ‘Void’ being in the top spot with that one lyric, “Wonder how I got by this week, only touched you once.” Just feels so smooth. Following in no definite order are Scary Love, Nervous (which dropped 5 days ago), You Get Me So High, and Roll Call. Honorable mention to 24/7 and Sadderdaze- both catchy, but in a way that will get old really fast. If there’s such a thing as dishonorable mention, Dust takes that. I could have gone the whole album without that.

• Sufjan Stevens- Visions of Gideon: Top Spot for WEEKS in the category of “Songs That Will Ruin My Day”. This is one of the most gutwrenching songs for me. So pretty, so smooth, so full of feeling. Sufjan is an artist that has definitely made more waves since the Call Me By Your Name soundtrack’s Oscar nomination he got for “Mystery of Love.” I hate to say that the Academy was wrong, but picking that over Visions of Gideon was nothing but wrong. Seriously, listen to this and tell me you didn’t cry.

• Viola Beach- Call You Up: The song I want to montage videos of myself dancing on a beach at sunset with a bottle of wine to. Definitely that annoying indie sounding voice, but it works for this. Lyrics you’d find in the diary of young people in some summer love. “I’ll call you up in the middle of the night in hopes that you want to hear from me. I just wanna know if you’re feeling alright.” It’s just so CATCHY you just gotta sway your head and hips and close your eyes when you sing it. Has a beachy feel. One of those in the middle sort of songs. Not a breakup song, not a love song. Takes a seat on the harshly drawn middle line. Just give it a listen, I can’t stop playing it in my car because it’s impossible to not sing along to.

• Manchester Orchestra- Colly Strings. I don’t know what they are, but I know this song makes me perform power house vocals in the shower. Definitely something the singer wrote to be specific to himself, but still vague enough to feel like it relates. Simple, heavily lyric focused, not technically impressive at all. Just really plain, but I love it. Listen to this on drives home. “CONFESSEDLY, THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IVE LOVED YOU AND GOD, I MEAN IT. GOD, I MEAN IT. I HOPE THAT I MEAN IT. CAUSE LIKE DIANE YOUNG, IDOLS GET THE BEST OF ME. WELL, DONT STOP CALLING- YOURE THE REASON I LOVE LOSING SLEEP.” a... slammer. A true indie king. Strange that I’ve never liked Manchester Orchestra’s other songs.

• The Last Shadow Puppets- Miracle Aligner: IN CASE YOU ARENT AWARE, Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys is the front man of this band. Basically, its Arctic Monkeys music under a different band name. TLSP had Sweet Dreams, Tennessee which I learned about a summer or so ago and loved. How I never found Miracle Aligner baffles me. It’s got that same AM vibe that most of Alex Turner’s work does. Feels a bit like a background song for a 60’s feel good family show. This one’s upbeat for his fashion, but I dig it. Alex Turner is the man I’ve always wanted to meet. I cannot believe he is real. I’ve been convinced he’s sincerely an enigma.

• From the Dining Table- Harry Styles: OKAY, I know it‘s overdue. I didn’t give much listen to Harry’s album because it mimics so many British rock classics so closely that I just.. I didn’t want to. And I’m the biggest one direction stan alive. Sometimes, I cringe at the lyrics. Aside from that, it’s a song I’d fall asleep to and that’s why I like it. It’s something I would sing to put someone to sleep. After a minute and a half we can stop the song because the third verse/bridge/ whatever is so close to resembling Over the Rainbow in my head. Just throw it on your playlist if you’ve not already. I’m sure almost everyone has.

• Jamie T- Magnolia Melancholia: I AM SO MANY THINGS AFTER THIS SONG. First off, Jamie T has been around for a few years, and I’ve always liked some of his stuff. Don’t You Find, and Zombie were two that I definitely was like, huh, this is new. He’s one of those British singers that really actually sounds British. Most of it’s a little more spoken than sung. Anyway, outside of this- magnolia melancholia is very different compared to his other music. Almost similar to Dont You Find, but it’s the only thing close. The song is sincerely just so impactful to me because of the lyrics, but I think it’s a good song overall to have. Like I said, different. “Nice to meet ya, boy, I know your mama knows. I fell in love with her seven thousand summer ago. I was a runner, boy,” just something I think he stripped from my diary and made his own. Definitely really excited to have seen his name come back on my screen and feel something so personal and nostalgic. Really think he’s an underrated artist.

Films: Of course, it’s March when I’m writing this, so the Oscars have come and gone. However, Oscar nominees or not- these are the films I’ve seen, loved, and suggest.

• The Shape of Water- Winner of Best Picture, The Shape of Water is obviously something you look at and say, “Hm, I should probably see that.” TSOW is insanely creative, but there should be nothing less expected from its director. Following a black woman, gay man, and a mute woman’s romance with an amphibian man- it’s definitely up there in terms of diversity. In short, the feel of the film and its tenderness paired with intrinsic visual detail is stimulating in a multitude of ways. You leave the theater feeling something.

• Black Panther- I would literally pay the first person who reads this and hasn’t seen Black Panther $20. I’m pretty sure it’s like... the top grossing movie ever at this point. If you don’t care for superhero movies, just go for the complete bad-assery. And Michael B Jordan. Who I don’t think is a great actor, but I do find him almost as gorgeous as Lupita.

• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri: Another Oscar nominee. Frances McDormand who plays the lead took home best actress while supporting actor went to her co star Sam Rockwell. Really, in all honesty, the thing that I think about when I explain the film is the character arc they gave San Rockwell’s character. Watching this man grow and change throughout the film was impressive both in the acting and the writing.

• Hostiles- ROSAMUND PIKE BEING A BADASS COLONIAL WOMAN!! CHRISTIAN BALE HAVING A GOOD HEART!!! SWEET ENDINGS!!!

• Atonement- Look, I’m just asking you to go on Netflix and add this to your Watch List for an afternoon when you’re laying in bed and want to cry. James McAvoy and Natalie Portman, a heart wrenching love story during war time, but still far more than that.

• The Warriors- We Love A Good 70/80’s film, and this is what that was. Based around gangs and a journey back home, this is full of companionship, unity, wit, and lots and lots of leather vests. (prime)

• Wonderstruck- Ultimately a feel good film that is unlike any other. Complex story line, wonderful depiction, just creative and free. Feels so sweet to see something so pure.

• Captain Fantastic- okay, everything I’ve deemed “creative” is subpar when it comes to Captain Fantastic. Surrounding the theme of family, mental illness, and exclusion- the film depicts a family living off grid with their dad after losing their mother to depression, the following days are full of humorous and heartfelt feats as they attempt to attend their mothers funeral despite the grandfathers wishes. The complete disconnect between the modern world and the world this family lives in puts them at no sort of disadvantage, and the theme of unity and pride of where you come from shines through.

• Blade Runner 2049- Rewatched it. Felt so happy to have my eyes glued to a screen. Genuinely equivalent to being induced into a coma because you’re not leaving your seat. And if you haven’t seen the original Blade Runner- do yourself and Harrison Ford a favor.

• Honorable Mention to Lady Bird, CMBYN, Dunkirk, Phantom Thread, and The Florida Project all of which will be included in an “Oscars in Review” post I have queued for next week

As far as music and movies go, that is a slight look into some of the things February and March have brought thus far. For every time Lauren needs a suggestion, I feel as though it’s necessary to compile a list for whoever else may need it.

[christhatcher]

12 albums from 2016

These aren’t in any particular order. I have, and continue to, love them all. If I’d have listened to the Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard album more often I reckon that would’ve got in too. Unfortunately I do a lot of listening to music in the car, and I’m perpetually late for work, and it’s impossible to drive at anything approaching the speed limit when you’re listening to an album by a band called Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard.

Underworld - Barbara, Barbara We Face A Shining Future

Oh Underworld you've soundtracked many significant moments in my life from the 90s onwards, and as we both get older you keep reminding me that youth and fire in the belly aren't the only ingredients necessary for making vital music. Underworld have blown me away again with an album which finds them at their most intimate yet transcendent. To my mind that's the perfect balance to pitch on an album that takes its name from some of a husband's final words to his wife.

The lyrics to Low Burn ('Time, The first time, Blush, Be bold, Be beautiful, Free, Totally, Unlimited') could, in the wrong hands, all too easily find their way onto a platitudinous meme but they sound vital in the context of the tune, a cresting wave of synths, strings, bass throb and eventually Hounds of Love toms. The perspective shifts on the penultimate line to include, "Panic, craving, nothing... Time, the first time..." and it transforms the vocal from a call for the Living to one that seems to encompass life and death's full cycle. Played back to back with Nylon Strung, whose refrain 'I want to hold you, laughing' assumes a mantra like quality, the two tracks feel like a compellingly heartfelt plea to embrace utterly the short moments we have.

David Bowie - Blackstar

We will never see his like again. To some extent that’s probably true, but that’s because Rock n roll is now nearing the point of anachronism; it's passing is inevitable but not something to mourn. We can't be forever young and full of piss and vinegar and I think if you're determined to be 18 till you die you've set your sights pretty low. I actually hope that the future of expressive culture lies not solely in the hands of men and women on raised stages preaching to the masses but in increasingly indivisible hands and minds brought together and operating in the spaces where the real and virtual world blur. I hope it's a place where individuals come second to the product of expression. In short, I hope there isn't another David Bowie. I love the guy (as much as it's possible to love someone you've never met), but I hope that before too long we no longer require these figureheads to align ourselves with or against. I want his work to survive and be celebrated but I hope that the culture he sprung from baffles my descendants, because there's something rotten about our obsession with the shock of the new that is the third quarter of the 20th Century.

Jez: Look, Mark, I'm a musician, in case you've forgotten. I answer to a higher law, the law of "If it feels good, do it."

Mark: Oh, that's a great law, isn't it? What's that, Gaddafi's law?

Jez: It's the musician's law. Colonel Gaddafi could not lay down a bass hook, Mark. That should be clear even to you. - Peep Show (series 3 ep 5)

It was the shock of the new, not a Solomonesque cultural cache. And now the world is moving on. Not diminishing in talent over time as we speed further away from the grand ejaculation of the Big Rock n Roll Bang. Music hasn’t descended into an over reliance on auto tune, or computers. There isn’t a dearth of ‘real’ musicians learning ‘real’ instruments, learning their song ‘craft’… ‘organically’. The world is moving on. But still we get to listen to the fucking bullshit put about by old people convinced that the brief period when you’re most emotionally engaged in the cultural stimuli around you happens to be the apex of civilisation; and you should never underestimate a Baby Boomer’s ability to slip a pair of rose tinted blinkers over your eyes when you’re moving into the crawl space they’ve rented out to you from their burgeoning property portfolios (Hippies and Yuppies – only really distinguishable by the proportion of their income spent on joss sticks).

But back to Bowie. Guilty of none of the above. His capacity for re-invention and forward thinking doesn’t need re-iterating, the back catalogue up to and including Blackstar speaks for itself. This has turned into a rant but, sod it, I'm not in the mood for not ranting.

Here's to Mr Bowie, perhaps the ultimate rebuttal to those who cite ‘honesty’ or ‘realness’ or ‘rocknroooooll’ as fundamental to making ‘organic’, ‘real’ music and writing ‘proper’ songs. Who used artifice, and sounds regardless of source, was fearless and transcended rock n roll and took it higher than it deserves, subverted and utterly disregarded hoary, chin stroking… fuck it… boring… notions of what a song/album/concert could/should be.

And he left us with Blackstar. All of the above.

The Comet is Coming - Channel The Spirits

It's quite hard to believe that this is the sound of just sax, synths and drums (or ‘skins’, if I'm trying to be vaguely alliterative) recorded (to tape no less) in a three day burst of creativity. The sound, all pervading atmosphere and ethos at large here is worthy of the entire Arkestra, amped up and channelled through Funkadelic via Leftfield at their most furious. If they've heard Channel The Spirits, then I imagine that the house band at the Restaurant At The End Of The Universe are probably worried about losing their residency. Sub point: Slam Dunk In A Blackhole (which wouldn't sound out of place on either Blackstar or Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly) is my song title of the year.

Savages - Adore Life

Opening with the three chord grind of The Answer, Adore Life positively pulses and howls (the guitars sound feral) before dissolving into more cerebral territory for the title track. Jehnny Beth's lyrics run the gamut of love, turning the subject inside out fearlessly, never breaking eye contact. It's an intense, beautifully paced piece of work, packaged in monochrome but red blooded through and through.

David Holmes – Late Night Tales

I was introduced to Mr Holmes via one of those late 90s Chillout compilations. The culprit, 'Rodney Yates' is a journey borne on floating ride cymbal and strings a la Lalo Schriffin, which led me to its mother album 'Let's Get Killed'. Over the subsequent years, I've lapped up pretty much everything he's done, be it soundtracks (Out of Sight springs to mind), Psychedelic Funk mix albums (Come Get it I Got It), freaky Hip Hop (The Free Association) and this year, Late Night Tales and Unloved (more of the latter in a bit).

If there's a unifying thread to Mr Holmes' work, to these ears, it's the sense that he's a man outside of time. His work is peppered with samples and ideas from pretty much every decade since it became possible to capture and replicate sound. But this is not the back catalogue of a retro mongering throwback, it's a body of work that speaks of a genuine love of sound and an overarching desire to share it. I have no idea how much of his own music is created from samples and how much is original composition... the lines are utterly blurred and it makes for compelling listening.

In these interconnected times, the Internet, behaving like it's second syllable, drags the endless bounty of musical creativity onwards with ever decreasing regard for chronology and Holmes has a rare talent for sifting through the haul for treasures. If you're on the search for new artists then Mr Holmes beats Spotify or any app you could imagine hands down. He's arguably never been better than on Late Night Tales. It's a beautiful, torchlit collection made all the more striking by the fact that it's largely beatless and full of acoustic and vocal performances thematically linked to questions of love and loss. A truly mesmerising experience.

Church of The Cosmic Skull – Is Satan Real?

I've spent the last few years resolutely trying to engage with modern sounds after years in a proto metal, Sabbath indebted cul de sac (not a bad place to be admittedly, but it's good to shake things up every so often). This year however, I've found myself slipping back into my comfort zone, maybe as a way of escaping the hideousness of 2016, maybe because albums like Is Satan Real? are so fucking tasty. It combines the vocal, harmonic... There's no other way of saying this... pomp of Queen, hooks and almost jazzy flourishes that The Zombies would've actually stayed split up over and a deliciously sparse smattering of Sabbathian crunch. The fact that they only properly let rip on the closing 'Evil In Your Eye' is a masterstroke that has had me reaching for the repeat button, repeatedly.

Metronomy - Summer '08

Joe Mount is not cool, he’s no rock star and he doesn’t swagger, but the music he makes does, albeit in a slightly jerky, twitchy St Vitus on espresso way. When I was small I used to make myself spaceships out of bits of furniture, and go on adventures of the imagination… Listening to Metronomy has always felt a little like being invited into someone else's world of 'let's pretend'. One where the lightsabers are still visibly made from mismatched lego bricks and the Darth Vader helmet is quite obviously a plastic policeman's helmet with a flap of cardboard inexpertly sellotaped around the back. They aren’t smooth. They're not making music for parties in and around Jacuzzis and JD shaped swimming pools, but 40 minutes in the company of this collection of off kilter electro funk, break and disco beats and aching slow jams might allow you to pretend that you are. And, once again, the artifice is far more stimulating and appealing than reality.

Opeth - Sorceress

Opeth. Opeth. Opeth. I just bloody love them. That's a shit review, but it's basically how I feel. I guess that how you feel about Opeth depends on your views on progressive music. If you think it's wanky and unnecessary then you'd be forgiven for avoiding Opeth but I'd argue that you're mistaken, because there are very few elements included in an Opeth number that could be considered unnecessarily wanky. Dramatic shifts in tempo and volume and time signature abound on this, as all, their albums. The key to their success though, is that they're artfully and meticulously placed with an almost architectural eye for detail that seems set on firing the imagination, rather than bludgeoning the listener with its own cleverness. In the truest sense of the word Sorceress is a wonderful addition to an enviable back catalogue.

Hedvig Mollestad Trio – Black Stabat Mater

 I don't really know much about these ladies. I'm not sure whether to describe it as Jazzy proto metal or proto metallic jazz... maybe the latter. But it is fierce. Really fierce. The five tracks slowly descend from a (relatively) straight forward opening freak out on a jazzy, turning bluesy groove, to nightmarish feedback and clatter that could be mistaken for King Crimson being dissolved in a rusted cauldron of battery acid stirred by Trolls. Also: One of my favourite album covers in a long time.

Paul Simon - Stranger To Stranger

Received wisdom has it that 74 year olds should just rest on the canon, firing blanks, cashing in on the willingness of Mojo readers to part with their coin for ever more padded out and barrel scraping reissues. Paul Simon seems to think that the best way to get through one's three score and tens is to build an album from the beats up and then bring in a designer and player of micro tonal instruments to add layer upon layer of otherwordly sound. I like Paul Simon. A lot.

Unloved - Guilty of Love

A collaboration between Jade Vincent, Keefus Ciancia and David Holmes (him again). As with Late Night Tales, Unloved is a creature of the night, but this time with teeth, paraffin eyes and a taste for smoke in the back of the throat. Guitars twang, drums can be heard reverberating up blackened alleyways and the astonishing voice of Jade Vincent entices, admonishes, damns and defies. When A Woman is Around should be considered a classic, 'Truth is seldom found (by a man) when a woman is around... Lose that Cheshire grin, take it like a man, keep what's yours, leave me mine.' Although there's a dark 60s vibe at work here, it's beautifully realised, with the faultless songwriting, performance and production giving it an elusive timelessness.

Nissenenmondai - N/A

This album is a perfect example of singular and fearless exploration.

They're a power trio, but that's where the similarities to that particular trope end.

They veer closest to making minimalist Techno, but with guitar, bass and drums.

They sound like they're being beamed in from the future, and not necessarily a good one.

Some of the album is hard to listen to and imagine it having been created by humans.

That's why I love it.