we're nearing the last week of january and still no thread for this?

i'll start things rollin' with steve earle - j.t.. you know what to expect if you recognize the name. it's country if you don't.

I was going to start one, but I was waiting until I had at least a couple nice releases under my belt. So far, in 2021, the only non-archived album I've been able to dig is the new album "Fuck Art" by The Dirty Nil. They're a Canadian punk/alt rock band, very much for fans of Pup, Jeff Rosenstock, Off With Their Heads.

The opening track "Doom Boy" starts with some nice, cheesy metal riffs and has a hilarious lyric of,

"We could hold hands, listen to Slayer, in the back of my dodge caravan (it's my mom's dodge caravan)"

I've enjoyed albums so far from Dead Astronauts, Sithu Aye, Blue Stahli, and Front Line Assembly, but I don't have strong enough opinions of them just yet to specifically recommend one. Typically I wait until something really catches my attention, which requires a more impactful first listen or an album grows on me in a second or further play.

I'm listening to Nicaurs, a one-woman project making some kind of stoner/doom flavored rock, really cool and a beautiful voice

Yeah, the new Dirty Nil album is absolutely fantastic. Bold of them to release what's probably gonna be one of the best albums of the year on the first of January... Gonna be hard for other (non-archived) bands to follow up now.

Well, the first month of 2021 is complete, and I actually only heard two non-archived albums so far.

One, of course, is The Dirty Nil album "Fuck Art", which i quite enjoy. Really into the songs "Doom Boy", "Elvis, 77" and "Possession". The closer is pretty good, too.

The other one was by a band I had never heard of named Lonely The Brave, but I didn't dig it at all. Anyway, this is a huge, huge decrease for me, as I usually hear closer to 10 a month.

Weezer has had a very spotty at best discography since their last truly great album, Make Believe (IMO, anyways), was released in 2005. But this new album OK Human is actually a really interesting listen. Time will tell if it is a truly great album or not, but the idea of replacing guitars and bass with strings and piano is an interesting one (albeit not a new one), and well done here.

That said, this is allegedly the first of four albums Weezer is putting out this year; there’s this, the delayed Van Weezer (a harder rocking album), a mellow rock album where all songs are in the vein of “Island In The Sun” (this could be good), and a dance rock record in the vein of Franz Ferdinand. Quantity over quality? We’ll see. If the last 15 or so years are any indication, most of this could be garbage.

Also worth mentioning is the new Hazy Mountains album Pull Of The Moon. This is an excellent synthwave/dream pop/funk/disco hybrid.

https://hazymountains.bandcamp.com/

The new Transatlantic, The Absolute Universe is instrumentally and vocally phenomenal.

I’ve been extremely conflicted about this band. Tremendous music made in part by some of my favorite musicians. Prog to excess.

But I can’t get behind Neal Morse as a lyricist at all. The born again-isms are so strong on 2009’s The Whirlwind that I wrote the band off completely and totally skipped 2014’s Kaleidoscope. I am also sketchy on Flying Colors because of his involvement.

To be fair, I have yet to deep dive this album’s lyrics, so I am in awe of this record on a surface musical level.

It’s worth hearing the Forevermore (Extended) version, but supposedly The Breath Of Life (Abridged) version is so distinct that it’s essentially a totally different album.

And yeah, I know this band is listed on MA, but come on-there is nothing metal about this band.

Yeah, Steven Wilson’s The Future Bites is amazing. As expected, really.

I know people are cold on this album because it’s not a guitar-centric rock album (fans of progressive music are weird like that), but fuck it-the writing, performances, production, textures, atmosphere, theme, etc. are all expertly crafted and carry immense emotional weight.

I think quite the opposite, it's his worst album. I have nothing against pop, my problem with the album is that Steven is a bad pop artist. Vocals are bad and the lyrics are some of the dumbest stuff I've read in a while. Really heinous and dumb anti-consumerism message that could have been done by a teenager. The overall vibe I get from the concept of the album is that it was made by someone completely detached from reality with no real issues with consumerism. The marketing behind the albums is plain disgusting, how can you advertise and sell special editions most people can't afford while complaining about consumerism and special editions? Best case scenario it's all irony and he's actually laughing at... himself? Makes no sense if you ask me.

i'm currently listening to haerdsmaelta – all alone in the danger zone, and while i've only got to the fifth track, so far this is some really good slightly off-kilter, skilfully made modern punk rock (i'm shit at categorizing this kind of stuff, so listen for yourself)