Memory keeper. Mostly music and movies, plus some series and video games. Obscure darkness meets pop culture glow.
I keep saying that I’ve never liked indie rock, and yet, I always stop to listen to any new Elbow record and I don’t think there’s been one I didn’t like. It’s the perfect laying on the carpet and watching the ceiling music.
I haven’t been expecting a Korn album this good in this lifetime. Well, in full honesty I also haven’t been looking for it. From their debut up until the turn of the millennium I was all up for everything Korn, then probably life just moved on. Interestingly some same-era stuff, like Deftones for example, stick with me way more and longer, but I never really got into a Korn relistening frenzy. And this time this new album came, and it has some of the same sound that is Korn in a very original way but also I see how it’s new and relevant. It has its hooks to cater for different audiences but still it’s completely true to its own roots and sound. I like this a lot.
In a way I have this feeling lately that I’m reliving an era of my childhood. Looking at the news it’s new Tool album released, Diablo 4 announced, Rage Against the Machine reuniting, watching a Pet Sematary remake, etc. But at the same time, some of these things are truly good output, at least as for the music part (and even D3 haters are optimistic about D4). I hear so much whining about the music industry being shit, music review media going down, and all that, but I love how so much great new music is being released. Well, whiners gonna whine.
All three singles released since the debut album are great, but this latest one definitely has the strongest hook. Both the beat and the words are just epic. This is one of those tracks where I feel the strongest that Prophets of Rage is getting a voice of its own.
They already wrote some awesome stuff, but there were a lot of echos of Rage Against The Machine or Street Sweeper Social Club, and that’s totally understandable and also something that I don’t mind. The musical heritage what these musicians represent is something that brings us under the flag of Prophets in the first place. But in this case that’s paired up with the killer flow of the MCs. And the latter aspect also shows in the lyrics. These MCs are hiphop MCs, they don’t come from where de la Rocha was coming from. In Rocha’s lyrics there were many repetitive revolutionairy slogans, but just little words without semantical meaning. Hiphop uses the language as a decorative tool as well or an instrument on its own, there are words that just keep the flow going, and this I feel is new here. Rocha would never have written a line that just says “La dee da dee”, but it’s here and this doesn’t diminish the seriousness of the words a bit. Or right in the title, they write “pop” and not “bang” or something more dramatic, which is so stylistic, so hiphop.
This is the first time these musicians found the exactly right place for these MCs they are working with. Or these MCs found their way around this music. Anyhow, it’s brewing and blending together better and better. Can’t wait for a next record to see where this goes.
I need to put this out here so that I can move on with my Play Later playlist. Probably I rather want to listen to it a hundred more times than say too much about it.
My short summary is that Tool’s journey can be heard on this one again, like through each one of their records. Again, it’s more refined, more nuanced, and more soft. This also means that it’s less raw, less surprising, and less revolting. Some Tool fans are not satisfied with this journey, and I’m not one of those fans. I like everything about it, I like what their music has become. My only concern is that with Maynard’s works in other areas of life I cannot help thinking whether his full soul is still in this project, or it’s just something that he gave in to and tried to accomplish to the best of his efforts. However, I have no doubt that they did everything as good as they humanly could to accomplish this record.
The music is not something I could describe with words like great, wonderful, or such. It works on a very different level and scale. I love that there are the most number of 10+ minute songs so far, and I love the path all those take from beginning to end. I’m meh for the short filler pieces, but the arcs of the epic ones blow me away, those are the ones why I have this album on constant replay for a week now.
On another note, I just realized that each Tool album represents a completely different stage in my life. This is also probably why I will always like their latest album the best. The music part is not something that’s up for debate, I know that their work will always resonate with me. It’s just what I add and how I connect to it.
Somehow I went backwards with Protomartyr’s discography. I can conclude that their first album is just as great as the last one.
That Saint Agnes arrived with the debut long player. It is all that good as I expected it to be. Porn level sexualistic dark witchery rock and roll. Also, I’ve come to adoring this woman, Kitty Arabella Austen.
I feel this to be the least special of the three albums so far, but that said with having the high bar of Ritual Howls itself in mind.
Let’s give it some context. In 2009 I had this first shock about the resurgence of new and really authentic goth music that came with Led Er Est and O. Children. Then there was this second coming with the likes of Ritual Howls, The KVB, and She Past Away. Nowadays I’m just not surprised anymore that good new goth music can happen. As unlikely as it is, it’s a wonderful thing though.
Saharan rock, now I know. Although it is somewhat different then rock and more like what indie is to rock—not in a quality sense, but more in a sidestepping different thing sense. On a different note: this cover.
Psychedelic rock and post-punk and cold wave.
Current dose of punk rock. The album cover and the title track music video are just unfathomable bad, no excuse for that. But the music still rocks.
Note: I liked their 2015 album, too, a lot actually, I wonder why that didn’t end up here. Funny thing is it was among my ten most listened-to records that year, but didn’t make the final cut of the Top 10 at the time.