thread to dis hyped releases that you don't get/don't like/wanna complain about

no defences of albums itt imo

I've said this elsewhere I'm sure but the Julien Baker love-in is an album late; the new one is flat and mostly a disappointment

Where's the fun in that? xp

OK fine

but no holds barred. except like actual bigotry

KING KRULE is kind of boring.

oh yeah I can't take his voice for a second

Not as boring as The National though

That Big Thief album is boring as well. A charisma vacuum.

:o you're dead to me

I do like the Big Thief album a lot :(

LCD Soundsystem should be banned on the basis of that atrocious album cover alone. The music stinks, is completely irrelevant up to the point of self-charicture, and seeing critics hailing this has-been baffles me.

*caricature

thoroughly agree with every dis so far btw*. sleeve ur emperor palpatine

*not heard the bjork or big thief yet

Guided By Voices - the songs are twice as long and half as good (tbh I dunno how hyped this really was, but let's open the thread up to all contenders regardless of hype level/EOY standings)

I tried listening to the War on Drugs album once and I had to check the album wasn't starting over at some point. Still can't remember any of the songs in there.

@Moka, same here. It's drab.

Lorde is the new Carly Rae Jepsen - "pop" music that non-professionals spit out after a single taste, but which critics will continue to ride for forever.

Xp that is sort of the point with WoD - it's aural valium for the inhibited and the terminally nostalgic.

Me included.

Sounds like WoD do The Caretaker better than The Caretaker does!

I can't really diss it because I don't hate it at all but Yaeji seems overrated as hell to me. There's just not much going on musically and lyrically... every song seems she runs out of ideas and she just resorts to repeating words in the same monotonic voice.

Again, I don't hate it but I don't see what's so special about it either or why she's making it into so many EOY best songs lists.

Ok I'm done taking those out of my chest... I think... those are the ones frustrating me about their roaring approval.

Well, those an Bodak Yellow heh

i rate the yaeji EPs (2 isn't as good imo) but found it pretty easy to get burned out on her stuff. Not much replay value as there's not a whole lot of depth, ya

laurel halo album was a disappointment for me, way too esoteric and weird for weird sake

Xxp Kirby has a concept, though. Granduciel is walking in socks over cold coals.

I still don't really get what everyone liked so much about Black Beatles. I don't hate it, just does nothing much for me.

I think this is the first Laurel Halo album I like mainly on the strength of Moontalk alone but yes... it's way too dependent on its own quirks and weirdness.

moontalk is an amazing song! yeah

moka check out the king felix stuff if you haven't heard it, "spring" by king felix and her halo album "king felix"

I did not know about that project. Listening to spring now and it sounds amazing! Thanks for the recommendation.

:) sweet

the Fever Ray album was really disappointing to me

why? show your work :)

Sleaford Mods - this guy used to sound angry, now he just sounds bored (I do like most of the previous records)

Fever Ray was also so-so for me. I like the knife and the first fever ray album a lot, so I thought for sure this would be one of my favorite albums of the year but alas it ended being one of the most dissapointing ones for me. It’s just so hard to sit through... even harder than ‘shaking the habitual’ and that’s saying something.

I can get past the hamfisted lyrics (either way lyrics has never been her strong point), but the textures and production are sort of uninteresting too, the middle of the album is specially boring or annoying and contains some of her worst songs ever (“this country” really wtf is up with that).

I don’t know... I guess it’s just alright in small doses but I don’t want ‘just alright’ from her.

Ok maybe the production isn’t uninteresting... but it’s too harsh and irritating more often than not. I get that maybe that was her intent with this particular album but I’m not a masochist, sorry.

Yeah, my love for the first Fever Ray album is immense, this one is not bAd exactly, just very disappointing

yeah I agree with all of that Moka

the production mostly feels like lesser retreads of Silent Shout and the Fever Ray s/t, and the songwriting lacks the memorable melodies. the lyrics are a step down too - Silent Shout especially could be quite evocative but they're more hamfisted here and the BDSM subject matter of some of it is completely uninteresting to me

Sleaford Mods - this guy used to sound angry, now he just sounds bored (I do like most of the previous records)

heh this = lack of money > money

King Krule was the overrated hype of the year for me. Could barely get through that mess 3 times.

So I will probably dig his next record :P

Fever ray album is fucking great, just took time to grow on me. I mean it's not that different texturally from
The debut it's just more hyper kinetic arrangement wise. Give it some time, mustn't hurry

Lyrics aren't her strong point?? When I grow up and seven would put that theory to the test, memorable imo

heh this = lack of money > money

think dude had a pretty decent office job for a fair while before the band blew up so I'm not sure this is a big factor. latest album hasn't really landed for me like the previous ones though, could be a law of diminishing returns thing but I had (have) no issue with their complete lack of progression so idk

You’re right I take it back, heartbeats alone is one of the few sweet songs they have and it has some beautiful lines in there. The debut also has some stunning imagery... I’m just way too frustrated with this album.

moka, all good bud :)

i found the album hard to parse for quite a while tbh

This thread is tonic

Charly bliss - musical equivalent of doing lines of pixie stix

(Sandy) Alex g - i guess at a certain point all music / art will become a sort of lightly branded tabula rasa content for us to project upon

'Reclaims the avant-garde' is probably a worse line than anything in that 'overpraise' thread. It's nearly time for my hitpiece

Oh yea, the avant-garde has been reclaimed by some Berklee kid with an expensive synth set-up, a cloying lyrical sensibility and no songwriting skill to speak of! But it all sounds so burbly. Oo goo this be thee musick of thee spheres!

I could and will go on

man, fuck you

TBH I fully encourage him to keep all this annoying shit in here this year.

I've had a bad day, so fuck you

it's an interesting album because it is full of great ideas but ends up being pretty bad in spite of that, they forgot to write actual songs

your consistent defence of interesting songwriting is always cheering, but by the same token, how great is a great idea if the execution is lame

ffs i'm going to have to listen myself and become part of the problem lol

Everyone I know is over the moon aboit the Cindy Lee album, and I am just like “huh? we went through this in the mid 2000s!”

that was 20 years ago tho

I saw someone on twitter call this album a "non-problematic Ariel Pink," and while I acknowledge that this is a reductive criticism, it is now all I can hear

to engage w/the discourse i got about three hours into the new Taylor Swift album and tapped out, i think i was only on track nine.

BNM for an album I find almost impressively irritating:

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/still-house-plants-if-i-dont-make-it-i-love-u/

(I do find myself wondering what ILM poster imago thinks of it; which may be a sign I need a long sabbatical…)

I'll check it out right away!!

Initially quite liked it, wearing off now

yeah it's a sort of slow-burn annoyance, creeps up on you and rewires you to its idiosyncrasies lol

my unhealthy provincials aversion to london accents makes its a bit of a struggle

fantastic band imo. new one is like tirzah fronting this heat. incredible expressive voice, band kind of reminds me of the dead c's improvised approach to rock, but without the distortion pedals.

lacks the focused intensity of tirzah or the swelling momentum of this heat imo - the brew is compelling but ultimately a bit too static

if anything the best moments are when it seems to fall apart, lose momentum and submit to entropy - i guess that's a vibe that works for a few tracks but over a whole album it gets a little stale

Well that's all part of improvisation, I think they just write the intros and then take it from there. I personally love the sound they have so it's all good to me.

btw imago while you're here, plz go listen to the clarissa connelly album ok? :)

haha okay okay

i am catching up with some recent folk atm in fact! that OXN is pretty good eh

(now onto harry gorski-brown, which is v promising at first contact)

band kind of reminds me of the dead c's improvised approach to rock, but without the distortion pedals.

oh I'd semi-forgotten about that whole era of bands but that is a good shout

"whole era of splattery noise bands" i meant to type

many xps This Harry Gorski-Brown is great! If our job is to reduce everything, this is like Richard Dawson lobbing a molotov into a Wednesday-night folk club.

well this exchange has managed to make me want to listen to Still House Plants so well done everyone

I've not listened to a minute of Still House Plants but the conversation has made me think they sound like Life Without Buildings. I'll make like Colonel Poo and go see.

really do not get the hype around the cindy lee album because it's never any better than ok? who possibly needed 2 hours of this?

entirely vibes no actual songs

The 2020 album is good

Vibes are doing well with Big Listener atm, you know this

the vibes are nothing special either though

I mean, I've put that one off indefinitely due to the length (and dark talk of 'no songs')

it's just two hours of very alright 'hypnagogic pop'. i guess pleasant enough background music but nothing more

'it's just vibes' critique seems crazy to me, it's a record full of well written pop songs with catchy hooks!

I do feel the complaint that the Cindy Lee album is “just vibes” but uhhh isn’t that all feted hypnogogic stuff

Lil Ugly Mane - Volcanic Bird Enemy And The Voiced Concern begs to differ!

RYM also informs me that Blanche Blanche Blanche are 'Hypnagogic Pop' which I'm not completely sure about but they could write a song too yeah

also that one Surface To Air Missive side-project Dream Love. okay we're out of the realm of 'feted' at this stage

i mean ariel pink as much as i loathe to talk about him did write some very solid tunes back in his cassette days

that does remind me that the cindy lee album falls into a kinda uncanny valley with its retro reverb sound, there's this cold digital sound to it too