Ok for the record I didn't forget to do this, I had it all lined up at the beginning of the year,
but then as I was writing it in instagram I had to do something and when I came back the
app had refreshed and all that I had written was gone. This of course sent me into a months
long sulk where it was not possible to do anything about it, then I listened to
heavy metal and diamond jubilee properly and realised I had to revise the rankings, and
then after that I forgot so I guess I did forget. Now I'm here, and to my loyal fans I must apologise, as I'm sure it's been
difficult to make it through almost 11/12 12 months of the year waiting with bated breath,
but breathe out, for at last it is here. Coposting it on main because it's funny and it got
to a point where I've written so much that I'm not letting it sail quietly into the night on
yearlyuploads, I need 10 more impressions so here it is.
Not an album but he don't make them anymore so it counts. This ep is amazing of course but it's elevated for me by one beautiful experience, I was sitting in bed reading something listening to this album, I called it for the night, turned off the light and in the darkness sat up in bed leaning against my pillow and I reached the unheard of unfathomable to all sitmaxxer loungecels state of perfect comfortableness, my weight perfectly supported, under my doona but not too hot or too cold, everything just right and at that moment the "let me hold you for a while" part of the song Shadow Paradise played and my heart swelled up and I cried a little because it was so beautiful, I'm tearing up writing this now it was such a perfect moment. In the grand scheme of life to be like yeah the moment when I sat in bed after a day I don't even remember and listened to a song may seem lackluster but it was perfect. Album itself is so warm and no one's doing it like Burial, it's insane because he's so goated that I had a semi-similar moment listened to his new song comafields this year, he's just so good.
First things first, when I was really listening to this album it made me come to the realisation that I've been living life wrong, all this time I've been answering a knock on my door with "Yeah?" when I really should be hitting the "come in!" but not the I'm a professor "come in", but the kind of "come in!" that weathdrday drops at the beginning of the first song. But dear reader I'm a fraud I'm a failure, it's been quite some time since this realisation and yet I'm still a fucking "Yeah?" guy fuck me man. I think I have the tone right but I haven't beaten the habit of yeah yet, so this is a renewal of effort, this time I'm gonna do it for sure and it's literally a 1% life improver right there although if any of you are also planning on implementing this in your life as I'm sure you must be, can you wait like a month or two so that you don't get it going before I do, you lapping me in the come in front would be devastating. The album itself is so good. more than anything it's got so much emotion packed into every song. I still need to dig into the lyrics more as I often do because I forget to listen to what people are saying, but the emotion shines through nonetheless. Mio min mio peakest of all peaks.
It's insane how many amazing songs this album has, to the point where I'm forgetting some
and ranking it lower than it really should be and upon further consideration I've bumped it
up 2 spots, like it's 15 songs all goated all so sick, it's lowkey almost a perfect album it's
unfair that this is number 4 only because the ones above simply mean too much to me to put
further down. Unless you're an unhappy sod you will love this album it's insane you have have
to listen to this I'm not kidding this is the most perfectest funnest album you gotta listen
to it it's spring almost summer cmon.
It's tears in my eyes every time, I'm choked up a little writing this listening to no food. Listening to that burial song in bed my heart swelled, listening to this album my heart sinks, they were dead on with the metaphors that's really what it feels like. The album really fills you with that feeling what an amazing piece of work what an incredible album man, truly gone way too soon, rest in peace.
I'm almost sorry to everyone I went around recommending this to, but I'm also not sorry because I feel like half you didn't even listen, tbf most of the people that didn't listen probably wouldn't have liked it too much, gyomber if you make it this far into the post and you didn't end up listening to this you better go listen to this now because I feel you'd actually like it. I think I'm a sucker for vocalists and instrumentation with a lot of emotion packed into them, and then lyrics come later, especially true with brave little abacus , I'm picking up maybe 50% of what he's saying even when I'm paying attention and that's ok because there are 2 of them and only one of me . Such a special combination of sounds and a generational vocalist putting together a magnum opus that has not been touched bro they just can't make them like this and it's fucked up, nobodies doing it like them at all not even the lead singer's new band, this is true for this and number 1 but they need to stop giving the money for the arts to programs for promising young artists who need to be nurtured, they just need to give it to bands who were sick but no one liked them, we're bringing the make sequels to established ip approach to midwest emo now and it WILL work.
Fuck every single last person who was conscious enough to let this shit flop back in 2001. It was supposed to be the first in a trilogy man.... They're never getting back together properly either man, they just came back to get the mix right, played 2 shows then went back to their fucking office jobs man, ik they'll never care about the dystopian religious shoegaze odyssey that they were making 20 years ago, but it was peak bro. It's one of the greatest albums of all time and we're never getting more, chud god up above decreed it, and it's not on spotify in australia for some reason, so it's apple music sloppers or youtube for this one. Too dejected to spread the love atm (might amend later), but just know it's number 1 for a reason, also it's a headphones album.
This lyrics of this track aren't really much of anything, and it's got the instrumental palette of a 2010s edm pop song that saw way too much play on the radio. While I'm not too big a fan of the songs this brings to mind, the style doesn't imply shitness, there are many great songs in that style and this is obviously one of them. I will not lie to you, this song doesn't even break the "meh verse, catchy chorus" structure of pop songs of the era, but the chorus and final part are so euphoric that it does not matter one bit, the cheerleader chant part in the background? the final bit where he brings in the raise the ante extra synth? cmon man smile a little.
I will say that this being at 10 is partly because I've grown off peggy a little, but I do still love his music, I think the real reason it's at 10 is because it's just not his best. It's still great and that's why it's on the list but it doesn't all come together like it does on his other albums (apart from veteran which people overlook because the best songs on it are so good). I think part of it is I don't really like a decent number of the flows he has on some songs, like majority are still good but others are kind of sloppy and feel a bit amateurish icl, he does have one of his best flows going on I'll be right there though. I think peggy raps pretty well, like he's not amazing but he's not bad but when the flow ain't flowin and the beat ain't doing it for me and then on top of that he says some corny shit? It breaches my defences and I cringe a little. Plenty of great tracks and he tries a nice variety of new stuff and sticks the landing on like 90% of them. I'm more positive than I'm coming across it's post exams and I've been sitting around feeling almost glum, also I've lost some of the passion I have for him which is sad to have to think about, thot tactics still hits though.
Think back with me to 2024 the year of kendrick lamar funnies, the one guy on instagram making the same bim bap boom bip boom bap bam MUSTARDDDD video over and over again and complaining that he was being shadowbanned once the views fell off, the fall of fallenchungus, the unc the kid and the gooner. Drake is diddenbludden! He not like us! I'm us guys I'm us!
Albums that I've grown off of a bit I start talking in hypotheticals and rose tinted rememberances of listening to them last year, this time I'm gonna do a bit of both. I think if I went outside last year like 75% more this album would be higher up, unfortunately schlubbing around the house so much you're not in the mood for a more upbeat album which realistically you should be dancing or at least moving a little to, but if you're in that position where you're so slumped that you're essentially lying down with just your head propped up high enough to keep line of sight with the screen then it's not really a great fit. Listened to a lot of great wallowing music and had fun wallowing a little but lost the summer that could have been and this could've been that, coulda been that 2016 that uncs talk about but I've got a second chance.
MUSTARRDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!! shit get crazy, scary, spooky, hilarious hahaa yes dude mustard. The heart pt.6 so fire I played it and gloria too much and they lost most of their magic but it was a good few weeks, when SZA goes scaredtoletyouknowww that's good that's good. I wish there was more bite to more songs, like hey now and reincarnated have bite to them, I'm still feeling it heavy with hey now more than I am any of the other tracks. There's a general air of something about most of the beats that feels smoothed down, whether or not it's on softer cuts like gloria or dodger blue (definitely dodger blue) or something like peekaboo but it just feels like something's being held back but I'm not smart enough to be able to say what. But despite all that he's just really really good at bringing it all together and rapping, he's so good at rapping damn fuck.
Problem with doing the 2024 best albums list mainly in late 2025, albums that you were really hot on in 2024 you may not love so much in 2025. I know part of it is because of vanisher, which while I liked some tracks it didn't really do it for me + all the quadeca whites on twitter soured me a little and that's put up a stupid barrier in my heart. Realising this is a good first step I think but I'm not back in my 2024 self yet , I was writing something else while listening to it my guard lowered and I was back there but I finished and guard went back up before I got to guide dog and texas blue which would've been a real deciding moment, but I'm gonna side with past less chud me on this one. I know I'm way too influenced by the thoughts of others in really all aspects of life so now I've elevated the problem to being a whole life thing so it's too big to handle tonight so maybe quadeca ain't getting solved for a bit. No actually nevermind I've solved it tonight, if you just sing along to the songs it all works out.
Now actual album talk, some albums you listen to parts and you're like this is the perfected version of this sound, scrapyard doesn't have this resounding feeling of perfectness but it's got a great sound and on a day where I'm not chudding it up everything comes together so nicely. I'm back in a place of evilness and the mean thought that it's an album best enjoyed when doing something else has appeared in my head, I'll put it here because evil me deserves to speak too.
Okay I'm getting kind of bored of writing these reviews so they're probably gonna be shorter, I spent most of my words all in one place even though the guy who gave me them warned me about that exact situation, kind of like eggs in a basket, who lays eggs? chickens, who are chickens friends with? sheep, what do sheep lay? lambs, lamb-girl furry post rock album? a lonely sinner! Idk I always forget how good this album is, my bad. It's got a great blend of quieter acoustic guitar sort of lazy river winding along through a forest and then it passes through a clearing where a herd of sheep graze, kind of little bit like some of the stuff off of windswept adan by ichiko aoba, but it also really delivers in the heavier moments and it doesn't have that yearning chord group that post rock loves to have which although is goated it doesn't have to be everywhere, sometimes you just want a powerful drop not no persistent yearning chords that have a nice life godspeed you black emperor ts.
I think maybe she was cooking by putting real house first, I think if it were anywhere else you'd let your guard down and let it play out and get you, so having it first you get to make a simple yes or not today choice. I think partially I haven't given this as much of a listen as it really deserves, but I'm looking at this tracklist and I cannot even think of what candleflame, already lost and cell phone says sound like but I can look at the others and listen to them in my head and they all sound great, apart from maybe fool, fool ain't quite there. Now I don't think that she should record every album in a cabin with just her and her guitar but idk it was so good last time and I kinda don't like how fool sounds compared to the rest of the album, vampire empire best version this version, I think this could be bumped up like 4 spots if I saw her live but she's so america and big thief it'd never happen.
Not only was I working in hospitality during 2024 with a employee controlled speaker, there was also one notable gay coworker who often played his music, this is not any dig, merely just an indicator of how much I have listened to brat. I am unsurprisingly quite sick of it but that'd be true of pretty much any album when you listen to it enough, it also doesn't help that you have 360, 365, 360 remix featuring yung lean(?) and someone else, 365 remix feat shy girl(?) and then also the club classics remix which just fucking turns into 365 halfway through because whoever was remixing couldn't resist bumping that dial 999 it's a good time which is fucked up because club classics one of my favourites off the og... oh well.
One more anecdote before any more thoughts: I actually chanced to listen to brat at midnight the day that it came out because I was chatting to oliver and then of course he was talking about basketball shoes and the changed charli lyric and then that segued into charli talk then into oh yeah isn't she dropping an album tonight? We listened to it then at midnight and was like yeah that was quite good apart from rewind and then I listened to it again when I wasn't sitting in bed late at night and thought damn this is great apart from rewind which is still shit apart from like 20 seconds where there's a hopeful synth kind of thing and then it's shit again because she says "bring the beat back" and the beat doesn't do anything.
She's so british on club classics because she's talking, I do forget otherwise that she's just a young girl from essex, apart from pinkpantheress are there any other british pop stars atm? even pinkpantheress doesn't really sound british and I only remember because she dressed british up and down for fancy that, something something that one bcnr line except I'd argue that isaac wood does sing british, although maybe I'm just equating miserable with british, let me know by dropping a comment down below ⬇️!
Despite feeling a tiny bit nauseous when I hear von dutch or 360, talk talk, club classics, everything is romantic, girl, so confusing remix (and the og), and I think about it all the time, they all still hit, this album is still great. She's got so many lovely and catchy parts and songs, the girl Girl GIRL girl girl, that synth coming in on club classics, bumpin that of course, great album, would've been nice for it to actually be summer when she released brat but I know I would've whiffed it like I did GNX but that's besides the point. I need to go a year or two without hearing it and then it'll be back in high favour but right now it's in the ABBA zone where I need to detox for a few years, although ABBA may have almost done their time.
I had quite a pace going writing my thoughts in november going into december but as I've approached the top of the list it's slowed down, both because of my ingrained procrastinational instincts letting me know I can put it off a little bit now that I moved slightly ahead of schedule for something that's realistically a year overdue, but I'm gonna get it done before new years day I gotta. The other reason is that it's much easier to say what I don't like than what I do. I like all the albums I've put on my list, but when I'm in the right mood for them and listening to them why would I spoil that by stopping why would I spoil that by stopping and writing something on my phone when I'm having such a good time?
Do not worry, for I have come up with an ingenious solution, I think thoughts then I remember them. However I'm lowkey stupid and the one main thought about imaginal disk that I managed to remember was that the final song having a reocurring motif from the first is sick, the idea is sick most of the time, but especially on a song like the ballad of matt and mika which is just such a beautiful way to wrap things up, like this is our song, joyous celebration, it's the music that plays at the end of the movie but I can't place the trope, it's not dance party, I think it's a credits song where as the credits scroll we see stills of moments from scenes a reminder of the journey type shit.
Starting with the final track on some mercurial world type shit by accident, speaking of; that's also amazing, they were going for a different, more catchy and addictive delivery sort of thing. I used to be a mercurial over imaginal guy but I think the joy and lightness of imaginal disk has won me over, also latter half off mercurial just ain't the same sadly. I'm singing along and strutting (Secrets (Your Fire)) more to mercurial but walking around town listening to imaginal disk I think I'm happier.
It is really such a spring album, not this spring we just had, rubbish spring, it gathered itself around the end but poor performance, spring sprung in the tailend of winter more than it did for most of spring, but last spring there was an idyllic day like the day after imaginal disk dropped and it was the sound of spring, like I was feeling so wow listening to it I could've dropped a millenial office reaction gif.
I really should have gone to magdalena bay instead of peggy that one night, peggy show was still great but ik mag bay ain't coming back for like 5 years at least whereas peggy's here every second fortnight, if only my prac econ exam had been a different day back in year 12 then I would've had the satisfaction of a solo peggy show under my belt and might've chosen differently, but alas.
I remember when it came out (I was glop brained a little with this notion I will admit) but I was like oh a poppy album that I like a lot, coworker loves brat, it must be the year of pop music that I like getting big it's magdalena bay's time!! it lowkey was, but brat was real famous, magdalena bay went from artist that people on twitter would be like mercurial bay W pick to quote tweet Israel GPT dunking on imaginal disk aoty screenshots, so not quite where I'd like to see it, either way coworker was ambivalent to it and the end result from that was him adding killshot to his work playlist which is their most popular song for some reason, it and the cover of the EP that it's from have the vibe of an alternate universe where they were lowkey ass, had one tik tok song and only ever released singles, WHY IS KILLSHOT SLOWED + REVERB THEIR SECOND MOST STREAMED SONG BY FAR ONLY SECOND TO THE ORIGINAL, fuck everyone else's lives and make them chud.
Now the actual album, if you don't really listen to music much, like on some ABBA and 80s type timing and have stuck around still, first of all thank you for the perseverance and interest, so for you a little treat, Cry For Me perfect song in general but also perfect song for you, I'm not tapped into 80s nostalgia bait spotify recommendation algorithm music so I could be wrong but no one's done it better than cry for me, rest of the album I think you'd like but like cry for me you gotta try if nothing else.
Those fucking little dial up internet esque sounds in that one part on She Looked Like Me before the big drop so good, the shimmering (I actually mean that, some people say shimmering synths and it ain't but these are) synths that come in at the end of the instrumental break in image, such a nice touch, the barely whispered notes at the beginning of Vampire in the Corner... Lots of nice little sounds and lots of amazing big sounds and payoffs, all around great sounds apart from how Mika's voice sounds on some of the climaxes when she goes like ooooOOOOOH on like vampire in the corner, that's like 5% off in my mind but I might be seeing things.
The songs they make are good songs that are good. Angel on a satellite
I wish you a merry christmas, I wish you a merry christmas, I wish you a merry christmas and a happy new year.
Tears in my eyes when the guitars shimmer. Idk how patrick and cindy did it. Truly unique album from a different time except also 2024 somehow, like this album coming out in 2024 makes no sense at all, how bizarre, no one's doing it like cindy lee no joke no corniness. This album is pretty long, but most albums that are very long are usually just on some long song shit, give me a pattern of notes and repeat it with a couple of variations and builds for 15 minutes call it a day, don't get me wrong, love that too, but it's rare for a long album to have so many tracks and for all of them to be so good, like they flip the stinker/hit coin so many times and it still manages to come up hit almost every time (sorry gayblevision). It manages a weird feat of being composed largely of simple familiar sounds yet sounds like nothing I've ever heard.
I don't think I grasp this album fully at all yet tbh, what I do understand is that I like it, I love the ballads there's really something so special about them just listening to government cheque right now wow... , I love the grooves, she's living like dracula, I love the guitar tones. I have written a paragraph of glumph which hasn't said too much which is probably true for most of my reviews here, but more for this, my thoughts aren't all there yet but I really should get this list out before 2025 ends so I'm not gonna give it like an extra year of listening and rumination for my final thoughts. Album not on streaming so add it via local files or listen on youtube, put it on one afternoon/evening and let it play, you're on holiday you've got time.
I'm not in a good mood to write this review, it is currently december 31st midday, I have delayed it almost as long as possible, and I'm going to delay it even more now because I can technically roll the mood d6 one more time and write this review after I've done the coding for putting this stuff on my website, maybe then I'll be feeling just right. For now I'm going to put off doing that as well because I think the crossword should be out now. It wasn't, coding it is.
I like how he sings on this one, he sings in a way that when I sing along I want to roll Rs that even he isn't, it tempts me to walk all funny and make hand movements like I'm the "how I would conduct this piece having actual conducting experience" video. Cringe as that may be, that's client-side, this isn't a guilty pleasure album, this is a great album.
It's not the only way music can be good, but having a bunch of interesting stuff going on at all times is a good way to do it, this album they always got something happening, even when there's a repetitive phrase there's always something slightly different being added on as a layer or as a fun little transitional flourish. So many flourishes both vocally and instrumentally and they're all so good I love love flourishes.
If the flourishes and layers and phrases weren't all so good then it'd just be an unending torrent of shit, but instead it's a duodecuple scoop ice cream, I'm multi-fandom enjoyer-ing it up bro, the tunes so catchy and irresistible. . Like all the instruments sound so nice they even have that one instrument that sounds like a monkey or some kinda animal going oOH ooH ooH ooha on Terra in the background in some parts, that guitar at the beginning of holy holy which has the effect on it that makes it sound good idk what it's called, I like pretty much every instrument in the mix in this album apart from the horns/trumpets on like Through a war and a little bit on Terra, they don't really do it for me sadly.
The album is indulgence and lots of it, in the lyrical content, instrumental palette, song structure, and also the context in which this album was made. But against all odds I think it isn't over-indulgent, it's easy to say that the album about indulgence doesn't over-indulge because that's what it's going for, but - apart from the like extra imo superfluous minute of noises at the end of The Magician - he doesn't go overboard with going overboard. Which is a bit of a surprise because it seems like black midi was disbanded for the purpose of him making this album exactly the way he wanted, without their purview, creating music under his own name despite there still being other band members which is a situation that seems like it would result in some degree of disaster but against all odds it worked out fabulous.
The characters and their stories are interesting from when I actually turn on my brain listen, I like the terra museum of human suffering director, I like the holy holy delusional perv, I like the Walk Up lech especially because he looks through the company books and he trawls the accounts, I like the As if Waltz and The Magician guy even though they're lowkey very similar to each other but I really like the character and the songs themselves are some of the best on the album so that makes up for it
Some of my favourite moments
When on Blues they do the big build and then remove most of the instruments and then it's time for the frenetic arpeggio on an instrument that sounds spindly that's good
All of holy holy bro
The part on walk up in the part where if you're listening you've got to be walking with a pace and determination when he walking with his coworker and he sees his favourite prostitute and then the music cuts out for a second and then it comes back with "But she stays quiet" and then it all comes back and you're moving again.
The energy of the drums pushing the song forward on motorbike and I like how he fantasizes about becoming an anecdote that the townspeople will tell.
The part on as if waltz when he brings in the singers who go "ahhhhh" all low for like 2 bars over the song and it hits bro, they come back but with a different ahhhh later and that one's also good but not quite the same level.
The guitar solo as well on as if waltz with the backing guitar hitting that beautiful rhythm oh my god oh yeah and the singers are back and they hit the "ohhhhhhh" come on.
The magician, bro when the smoke clears it remaiiins it remains
At the end of the day I just really like listening to this album because it sounds good to listen to, especially when you're moving, I'm listening to it as I write this and all I can do is kind of bob my knee a little.
I don't think I'm going to be able to it justice at all but oh well
The first 5 songs on this album is maybe my favourite 5 song run of all time, not to say that the back half isn't also amazing, but try as they may some of those songs just don't touch me emotionally the same way, although $0 definitely does, and so does We're thinking the same thing to an extent. I read in an interview with either him or the engineer he worked with for this album that in recording some of these songs he would often sing them a dozen times until he felt that his voice was sufficiently worn out and weak and then they'd go with that take, and it comes through so well, it makes his voice come across warmer and more personal like he's just singing to you instead of projecting his voice to everyone. Thank you cameron winter.
I like to do my thinking about these albums listening to them in the perfect environment for that album, sadly heavy metal is actually a car album, it works pretty well as a late night in bed album but a sing a long in the car is the real peak, Love takes miles you should be moving while listening, Nina + field of cops is meant for belting even if I lose the remember the words battle like 50 times because it goes a little too crazy for me to keep up, leaving me with the swirly eyes 𖦹 𖦹. I've already taken one hit to the license so sadly I'm not the thinker on the road and must be the thinker elsewhere.
I really like the warmth of this album, the instrumental palette and his voice so so good. As much as the winter lovers are chuds, cancer of the skull is some amazing cold outside, warmly but slightly dimly lit room, warmth in your heart, but not overdone sensation wise music.
He does have a way with words, I don't have nearly a way like that, so I'm having a hard time describing it, if I put this on my website I can edit this later and cop out all my loyal fans who are reading this day one. For now it's not a cop out, I'm simply inviting the reader to listen to and think about the album themselves instead of being completely influenced by my opinions.
I am full of heavy metals,
I am a heavy metal man,
I have work in the morning,
I have two bags over each hand,
I came up the stairs,
I came to meet your cigarettes,
You'd like to keep my salesman's teeth wouldn't you babbyyyy
Describing music is hard, I've done not quite my best but it's the 31st of december so I think this is all I got for now. Thank you for sticking with my ramblings to the end, or ig thanks for being curious enough that you scrolled to the bottom to see what my number 1 was. See you next year maybe, maybe sooner than you think.