2020 Catch Up #1

     Recently I asked my socials to give me a list of albums, singles, any other projects that I may have missed in 2020. I'm trying this year to really *hear* music as I've spent most of my life in a pretty hard musical echo chamber filled with only artists I like or what like minded friends recommend to me. Since moving out of a family home and being around people who like different things than I do more I see that I've missed *so much* great music over the years and I do not want to be in that again.

     So with the list of 30-odd albums I had recommended to me I'm going to try to "react" to them in this series of writings. I missed writing about the first batch as I hadn't even thought to make this account yet but we're going to tackle my second week of the "catch up" below.

Heaven Shall Burn

"Of Truth & Sacrifice"

Century Media Records

Extreme Metal

     This was a double LP broken into "Of Truth" and "& Sacrifice" as two sides of the record and I had to listen to it across two different days because of my own time restraints and the length. It did a good job of being two "different" bodies of work so to speak. The first half was very run-of-the-mill for the genre and to be honest, got pretty stale pretty fast. Maybe it's just that I don't like this type of metal but I feel like it can usually be boiled down to moderately interesting riffs, fast, fast drums and typical vocals.

     As for the second half, things got a bit more creative and kept my interest for a bit longer but was still a bit hard to keep me in. It used some electronics, some alternate instruments, etc. Ultimately I just wanted to be done with this and it was tough to get through for me personally.

The Weeknd

"After Hours"

XO/Republic

Lo-Fi (?) Pop

     When I made said posts on my accounts nearly *everyone* recommended this. Regardless of other genre they liked or anything like that. So my expectations were pretty high. I'm not really familiar with The Weeknd minus "Can't Feel My Face" so I didn't really know what to expect. What I got was a very low energy experience where all ideas were established by track one. I felt I was just listening to the same thought process 14-tracks in a row. Nothing really grabbed me and the closest I came to enjoying a track was the lead single, "Heartless."

Dua Lipa

"Future Nostalgia"

Warner

Pop

     My only prior knowledge of hearing any of this album was two songs that, when they came on, I said "oh! This song!" out loud. That being said, this really drew me in. Right from the beginning you get get this bass heavy, catchy pop that is easy to learn to sing along to and is pretty good song writing wise as well. The only "negative" I can give this is that it does sort of get worse as the track listing goes on and therefore the last two tracks didn't really stick with me in ways that maybe the rest did solely because their lyrical ideas just become silly. Overall the first thing in this week that I truly enjoyed.

Waxahatchee

"Saint Cloud"

Merge

Indie(?) Country(?)

     I was actually recommended this personally during my making of this list based on my love for Beach Bunny, Soccer Mommy, music like it. Very interesting indie aesthetic country that, while it didn't overly impress me was nice for a listen through the one time.

August Burns Red

"Guardians"

Fearless

Metalcore

     As someone whose been engrossed in this scene of music most of my life I'm pretty familiar with ABR but have never really appreciated them all that much and after some debates online I was kind of being stubborn in giving this album a shot. That all being said this is fine, it reminded me of certain eras of The Devil Wears Prada. It wasn't anything that really kept me in for the duration of the record.

Charmer

"ivy"

No Sleep Records

Alt. Rock

     When I looked at this cover I was expecting something heavy. Instead what I got was a seemingly 90s inspired alternative record with vocals that seemed to have a Deftones feel to them. I don't have too much to say here, it was good but not great.

Peach Pit

"You and Your Friends"

Stoner Rock(?)

     When you turn this album on your greeted with a song that has this mellow mood to it led by auto-tuned vocals. For the genre this is exuding it was an interesting opener and what I remember most about this. For the rest of the record you get a chilled out rock album that was a pretty easy listen. One of the stops on this journey I enjoyed but maybe not enough to revisit.

Thundercat

"It is What it is"

Brainfeeder

Jazz

     By the cover of this I had guess it was a Hip Hop record but got hit with this cool Jazz record. Very chilled out and nice to listen to and definitely a highlight on the week of discovery. I wouldn't add this to a playlist as I feel it could only be appreciated as an entire body of work. Every track flows perfectly into the next and it was a good experience.

Bilmuri

"Muri and Friends"

Alt Rock/Covers

     Growing up I was a huge fan of Attack Attack! and Johnny Franck. The amount of heat on this project is crazy and the amount of content the guy pumps out is truly impressive. That being said I haven't really been a fan of it. *That* being said, I *am* a fan of this.

     It might be the fact that it's covers and that it's easy to digest. It might be that there's a feature on every song. Something about this little album was so much fun. At the start of working my way through recommendations I listened to the new Halsey record and liked the song "Graveyard" but thought it was missing something. Turns out that something was Tilian's vocals. (Maybe that's a bit biased of me.) All-in-all this was another album I saved from the list and it's a fun time if you're into Pop Goes Punk-style covers.

Drain

"California Cursed"

Thrash

Revelation Records

     I don't have too much to say here. It was a short trash metal record with some punk influence and if you like those two things you're more than likely going to enjoy it.