Jan 2024 - Albums I have listened to

I can't decide what I think about this album.

I like it, but I can't figure out if I like it on its own merits, or because it entirely reminds me of The Bends-era Radiohead.

I kind of think it might be the latter, in which case maybe I think less of it because it's kind of derivative. That said, it is still an enjoyable listen.

I watched Wim Wenders' film Wings Of Desire over the weekend. In one scene in the middle, two characters are in a Berlin nightclub where a very goth/post-punk band is playing. Intrigued by the band, I checked the Wikipedia entry for the film and learned that it was Crime & the City Solution. Then I got distracted and forgot about it.

Flash forward to yesterday, when I happened to be reading that Mute Records was going to be reissuing These Immortal Souls' catalog. I had never heard of this band either, but the article mentioned that they were an offshoot of Crime & the City Solution. A-ha!

So I still haven't dig into CCS but I do really like this record. It lies somewhere between Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds (to which both of bands are also apparently related) and Echo & the Bunnymen. I'm always happy to discover another good post-punk band I've never heard before.

I know it is early still, but I think I have already found a potential candidate for my favorite albums of the year.

I have listened to this album three or four times over the last few days and I still find myself wanting to go back to it and listen some more. I find it to be a near-perfect mix of shoegaze/dream pop and electronic textures and I love it.

Maybe I had heard of this band before someone in my feed mentioned them this morning, but I had definitely never listened to any of their stuff until now.

If you're in the mood for some extremely well-crafted and straightforward guitar pop with the occasional vague hint of punk, I would highly recommend this album. It is a lot of fun and while nothing here is super-complex, there is not a bad song on the album. The band had two follow-up albums to this one and I am quite eager to give those a listen as soon as I'm done with this one.

It is hard to believe that this album is now ten years old. By the time it was released in 2013, I had mostly stopped listening to any new NIN stuff. Year Zero was a neat idea and had its moments but didn't really stick with me, while I found With Teeth to be actively disappointing.

So when I finally did listen to Hesitation Marks, I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. I think it still holds up. It strikes me as something of a turning point for Reznor; starting with this album, I have found his work to have more depth and maturity, and it feels like he has mostly cast off the angst of his early stuff without sacrificing his edginess or discomforting aspects.

I have spent so much time listening to Bleed Out that while I didn't miss that this album had come out, I had totally forgotten about it. This one is good, although I think I still like Bleed Out better; that one is probably my favorite of Darnielle's later-period albums, so the bar is pretty high, and this should not be taken as a criticism of Jenny From Thebes.

The first album of the year for me! When I was in college, a friend left this cassette in my car and I never returned it (sorry, Pat!). It stayed in my tape deck for weeks on end, auto-reversing over and over until I knew pretty much every word of every song. I've never been a big ska fan, but I still always enjoy this album and I can never get enough of the bass line on "Tears Of a Clown."