#songsfromthedepths

[obanigemini]

Week 3 - Björk - Debut

(Original post on Bluesky)

I'm going to open this week's review with a potentially hot take.

Björk ran so Grimes could walk.

I did not mis-speak, I feel very strongly about this, because the last week of listening to this album was honestly so much fun. Everything about it just seemed to work in ways I wasn't expecting. It's a very unique blend of sounds and genre, and somehow it all just works.

Let me set some background. I knew Björk for one song before this, and that was from the magnificent All is Full of Love video. I'd argue it's her most well known song, but I'm also aware her second album is very popular too. In spite of this, I went with her first album after the "fun" experience of jumping into the later part of a band's catalogue last week and discovering how difficult this can be (and a bit offputting).

Someone once showed me a meme that stated that Björk doesn't want to be someone else, she wants to be shrunk down and go on a big adventure, and this album feels like that as an idea.

This album was fantastic, it's such a eclectic yet well put together set of different voices and instruments, and somehow it's never grating or hard to listen to. There's this incredible feeling of whimsy throughout, like someone just going through their local town spots with a group of friends. which is very well put forward by the opening song being called Human Behaviour.

My two standouts for this track are There's More To Life Than This and Human Behaviour, but I honestly could have picked any two songs off this album. It was such a nice refresh after last week, and the mix of genres makes it even more unique, Avant Garde is indeed the best description. Everything from the start all the way to The Anchor Song was so good I'm still listening to it a week on here and there. hopefully it doesn't affect Week 4's review.

This is right up there and definitely worth it, I'm looking forward to getting around to her next album in her releases, Post, when I can, which is when her sound started into that more electric sound she's now known for.

It gets a very high number out of a similarly high number.

[obanigemini]

Week 2 - Tool - 10,000 Days

(Original post on Bluesky.)

I'm going to be very honest, I don't think I've ever given Tool a proper chance. They always seemed like that one band only very dedicated prog-heads were into, and most of my major exposure to them over the years was not so much their music as much as stoners who couldn't move past the idea that Lateralus had Fibonacci Sequencing. Alas, YT and Spotify always tried to push me towards them, so I decided to go with the one album I did know.

I picked it for two reasons, one was that over the run up to Christmas I had been listening to a remake version of Vicarious using midi instruments derived from Super Mario 64, and I eventually went and listened to Vicarious itself, which suprised me with how much I liked it. My other reason was actually something a little more nostalgic that might come up a few more times on here.

Back in the day (1988-2011ish) there was an independent record store in my home city that catered mainly to alternative and metal audiences by stocking lots of bands other places wouldn't touch, such as HIM, Slipknot, System of a Down, and of course Tool. I have a very distinct memory of seeing this album for the first time in that shop due to the unique gatefold setup of the album featuring a set of stereoscopic lenses built into a third fold on the cover (pictured below). The idea was that you could use the lens to create a 3D effect while looking at the art of the album in the booklet.

This album as I have discovered this week was very much made for fans of Tool after a five year drought from the band, and during this time the various members went off to forge ahead with other projects, most notably Maynard James Keenan's A Perfect Circle. The best way I can describe it is "noodle-y", it kind of shoots around going one way and then another and back again constantly, and sometimes this works very well. The standouts of Vicarious and The Pot are great, but it's really hard to enjoy the rest of the album from an outside perspective.

It's a long album. it's only eleven songs but with an average of 6.5 minutes to each, it's a stretch at times, especially the two eleven minute tracks in the center of the album (10,000 Days and Rosetta Stoned) which seem to just go on as improv jam pieces. There's bits and pieces in both that kind of caught my attention, but as quickly as they came, they left, and it just felt a bit arduous to keep pushing through something I wasn't fully enjoying. The interludes also didn't really help, unlike my last entry where the interludes were nice, calm, spacey sections to provide some feeling, the interludes here felt a bit jarring or unsettling.

I'm not saying it's a bad album, but it's very clearly not for me, and there were probably better starting points with Tool, maybe I'll give Lateralus or Ænima a go a bit further down the list due to the rules, but it's for fans for sure. Vicarious is still damn good, and the artwork is fantastic. Alex Grey knocked it out of the park with the presentation and detail with this one, especially the infinite godhead artwork throughout the album design, which is a piece named Net of Being (you can view that piece on his site, here).

Even with this praise, it doesn't overcome my general lack of enjoyment, it might need a revisit later after some other albums.

I give it a moderately low score out of a relatively high score.

[obanigemini]

Week 1 - Portion Control - Psycho-Bod Saves The World

(Originally posted on Bluesky.)

I got this album from @thefallingdream over christmas as an unexpected gift and hadn't heard of them, so I threw this on for a few days, and overall I really liked it, very good Industrial and a reputation of "your favourite band's favourite band" for groups like Nine Inch Nails, Orbital, and Skinny Puppy.

I was even more surprised when I started to look into the album a bit more as part of this and found out that the vinyl I received had to be an original from 1986. According to some digging on Discogs, this album only ever received two proper releases; the original vinyl in 1986 on the Dead Man's Curve label, and then a special re-release version on casette tape in 2021. So this is actually potentially a rare find, Portion Control weren't exactly a big name, and Dead Man's Curve were a niche indie label that went bust in 1988 when their distributor Red Rhino Records became insolvent.

My two standouts are Danger Zone and Thrashville Baby, but honestly the whole album is just great, the interludes really add to it, giving it some nice calm moments between the heavier sections. I'll forgive some mild dissonance with drum tracks given it's an early use of sequencers in Industrial music, you can hear similar work in Nine Inch Nails' first album Pretty Hate Machine. It's a fun little cyberpunk inspired concept for an album that feels very 2000AD, totally worth a spin.

I give it a very high number out of a similarly high number.

[obanigemini]

So I started a small challenge for this year as a resolution, to listen to one new album every week that I had either never heard before or only really listened to one song. I would then write up my brief thoughts on each on Bluesky.

Upon completing week 2 I realised that sometimes I'll have a bit more to say about these works as I go and a new place to put more longform writeups was needed, so I dragged this blog from 2014 I had on here up from the depths and decided to make this the home of those.

As the challenge stipulates, I have to listen to a different album each week, no repeats. and I can't use the same artist or genre for two weeks after that review.

My asks are open and if you feel so inclined I'm willing to take suggestions. hopefully you enjoy my journey.