The Chorus Music Club Society • Page 194

Nice job navigating a Stone Sour album. I am in a similar camp as you on that front.

 

Awesome review!! Glad you found some stuff to dig in there! They're one of those bands I feel like just has some universal charm regardless of genre preference. The newest record "Morning Report" and the one before "High Noon" ("Michigan Left") are also super strong. Super underrated band here in the US!

Stay tuned for my write-up on the Dave Hause record :)

 

For my other outstanding review, @Micool1 provided me with Linkin Park's, A Thousand Suns. Released in 2010, this album features 15 songs clocking in at almost 48 minutes.

As someone that had a Limp Bizkit and Korn phase, I definitely owned Hybrid Theory, although that phase was short-lived. My fandom wavered as Meteora was getting ready to drop, but I am very aware of that album and Collision Course. The band sort of fell off my radar at that point. Knowing what the band does I was actually kind of excited for a throwback experience with this album. However, that was not to be. This album is nothing really like their previous rock/hip hop focused installments. This album really sounds like 2010 to me. It has dance/rock songs. Less screaming vocals. More EDM/dubstep influences, which looking back makes sense. There is actually a song that has a dubstep lite bass drop moment. Hearing this album a few times through makes their most recent release make a lot more sense now. It was cool to hear the band go for something different and not just drag and drop the same formula from earlier records. Unfortunately, the overall sound is not really up my alley, but that's okay. I am curious how the fanbase reacted to this album upon it's release and how it's looked back on now. Thank you for the rec!

 

Nice write-up, I love some Arkells.

 

Our newcomer @Spenny and I have agreed to trade.

He Gave Me:
Marianas Trench - Fix Me
The Spill Canvas - One Fell Swoop

And I gave him;
Bring Me The Horizon- That’s The Spirit
Thursday- A City By The Light Divided

 

I accidentally didn’t give you a partner for the coming week! @Nate_Johnson will take you

 

What album cover have you two @skurt and @JediMasterKevo182 got as your avatar atm? I presume if you’ve both got it he same one it’s prob worth a listen.

 

All great albums.

Hawthorne Heights-Bad Frequencies

 

Ah cool, I've got Hurt to do next week so I'll give that a quick spin afterwards to see what it's like.

 

Album comes out on April 27th, here's the 2 released songs from it though.

 

Look at @JediMasterKevo182 recommending a Thursday album! I’ve never been more proud :)

 

@bachna84, I'm sitting down to write your albums up now, just spinning both one more time while I write them

 

Awesome! I look forward to reading it

 

did you know actbld is my favorite album of all time no competition

 

That Thursday album is seriously underrated. I think I'd personally have it second behind Full Collapse in my ranking but my god its a great album.

 

Easily the best album Thursday ever put out. I was lucky enough to catch them when they were touring that record and they closed the set with Autumn Leaves Revisited...it was incredible.

 

i lied no devo definitely gives it some competition but those two are seriously flawless masterpieces. thursday is my favorite band of all time and i wanna get a second thursday tattoo

 

You owe me a review sir !

 

It is easily their most experimental album and at the time it came out, it was very polarizing among the fanbase. Honestly, at that time I hated it, but it was mostly because I was young and it wasn't what I expected from this band. As time passed by, I started to love it and I might agree with a lot of people saying it's their best album. You might have liked Minutes to Midnight or The Hunting Party more as they are more Rock than their other post-Meteora albums.

 

I've never listened to Thursday.

 

Your new target @bachna84

 

Glad this has been sticking around for you! You can thank @ImAMetaphor whom originally rec’d it to me. Love seeing recs get rec’d haha

 

I listened to it last night and it’s not TERRIBLE but it’s not good either. There are a couple decent tracks on there.

 

Right so this week I had @bachna84 and he gave me the following albums to review:


Tiny Moving Parts – Swell (2018)



Right so first up is Tiny Moving Parts album Swell. I’d heard of this band before as they’re on a record label I like but I’d not yet got round to checking them out. I also recognised the artwork from a review I’d read in here. They’re an emo revival band that you’d probably lump in with bands like The Hotelier, Modern Baseball, The World Is a Beautiful Place… and Tigers Jaw.

So I have a feeling I’m not really going to do this album the justice it deserves due to the fact I haven’t really given it enough listens for it to really click with me yet. I’ve only given it two proper listens so far, you can blame the other album for this

To be honset ’ve not been particularly overwhelmed with it; I thought it was alright but nothing amazing. With this sort of style of music I really feel there needs to be loads of hooks for it to gel with me and I didn’t really find this album had too many songs like that.

As for their sound they play heartfelt emo that’s vocally like a lot of the newer emo/pop punk sound but musically a lot like the 90’s style of emo with the twinkling guitars. There were a few songs that stood out to me which I did enjoy a fair bit these being Smooth it Out and Caution and Malfunction which I feel all had very strong choruses. I will add musically I can’t fault this album at all but I just haven’t been able to click with the vocalist.

I'll give this album a couple more tries over the next month and see if it eventually clicks but it's not looking likely it will atm.

Favourite Tracks: Smooth It Out, Caution and Malfunction.

RIYL: The emo revival scene


Deafheaven – Sunbather (2013)



Right so I’ve been looking forward to reviewing this one all week, out of all the albums I’ve done so far this one has been truly a special discovery for me, what an album.

For those of you who don’t know who Deafheaven are they’re a post-metal band with a lot of black metal influence in there too, particularly in the vocals. This album got a lot of hype at the time of its release and had glowing reviews from the likes of Pitchfork, Rolling Stone and even AP’s very own Drew Beringer gave it 100%.

I’d heard about this album at the time of its release but I never got round to checking it out, probably because my musical tastes back then had shifted from metal a bit as I’d got a bit bored with the genre as a whole (thanks generic metalcore ). It’s only in the last couple of years my love for all things metal has been rekindled. Because I know how influential this album has since gone on to become, when @bachna84 suggested this album I jumped at the chance and my god I’m glad I did.

So to the sound of this album, from the second the album starts with Dream House this music is intense, there’s no two ways about that but it’s a beautiful intensity. It starts with the guitars playing fast but faintly in the background and then all of a sudden it kicks in. The volume goes straight up with the guitars and drums pummelling away at you for a good minute and then the black metal vocals come in over the top giving it such an abrasive edge. The music just keeps building from there like most post metal bands do, taking you on a journey where layers upon layers just keep getting added in. Then after about 5 minutes of this it all just fades away into beautiful guitar plucking that gives you time to breathe before the next onslaught kicks in. The album then keeps doing this in various ways across its 7 tracks, most of the songs clocking in at around the 7 to 10 minute marks, everyone taking you on a real rollercoaster ride of emotions.

The magnum opus of this album though is the track Vertigo that clocks in at over 14 minutes, this track is just incredible. This song is such a wild ride it starts off very post-metally and you can really see the Isis and Pelican influences shining through. It just keeps building that lovely proggy post metal sound from there. Then at the 04.30 mark that guitar solo comes in and it’s just so beautiful and then straight after that the song just boots you right in the face, where the intensity of the music ramps up and the vocals kick in, it’s just all sounds so sublime. From then on the track just keeps building and building its intensity throughout the rest of the 14 minutes but when it pauses for breathers those moments are just so beautiful and reflective.

Honesty this album has blown me away every time I’ve listened to it (and I’ve listened to it a lot this week). It’s a real master class in this genre and you can really see how influential it’s gone on to become in that scene. You just need to look at Oathbreaker’s Rheia and Ghost Bath’s Moonlover both of which I’ve loved over the last few years to hear that influence.

Anyways thanks for recommending this album @bachna84 as my god is it good. This will be on heavy rotation for me for a long time and it’s even got me contemplating dropping £50 on discogs to get it on vinyl when I get my bonus this month.

Favourite Tracks: All of them, but if your gonna check out one make it Vertigo

RIYL: Post-Metal but with extreme vocals and lots of intensity. Also if you like having your head feeling like it's been rattled about for ages and then calmly nursed back to health.

(ps sorry for the essay)

 

Morning Report is a super fun listen, not really familiar with their other albums. I should probably dig into their discography a bit more.