September 11, 2020

September 18, 2020October 16, 2020 ZackLeave a comment

Marilyn Manson – We Are Chaos (Loma Vista/Marilyn Manson)

As most of 2020 has felt and looked like a sideshow to the Manson circus, it’s no surprise that We Are Chaos is his best work since Antichrist Superstar. On the title track, he bawls in his iconic warble, “We are sick, fucked up, and complicated. We are Chaos, We can’t be cured.” This is a sentiment that ties the tumultuous universe of the last 7 months to the angsty youth paradigm that gave the Dope Show its first staging.

After spending the last few years steeping himself in various pop and folk subgenres, covering Johnny Cash, and generally getting away from what he does best, We Are Chaos displays the musical maturity that comes from all that travelling. But DAMN! it’s good to be home.

“RED, BLACK AND BLUE” is a psycho-glam masterpiece that opens with a creepy monologue, then launches into a full-on angry gothic takeover. “PAINT YOU” starts as a guitar and piano homage to Bowie and McCartney before ascending into noise. Classic Manson.

Through his career, he has spent a lot of energy and lyrically punches on the falsity of celebrity and the foolishness of hero-worship, and that is just as true here. Some examples: “Just ‘cuz you’re famous doesn’t mean you’re worth anything / In this world or the next one or the one before” (“INFINITE DARKNESS”). “I’m not special, I’m just broken. And I don’t want to be fixed” (“SOLVE COAGULA”). “Am I a man or a show or a moment” (“WE ARE CHAOS”).

While it’s not as chaotic as the title seems to indicate, it is as Manson as it gets. His self-torment and cultural flagellation are front and center. The album closer, “BROKEN NEEDLE”, sees him playing the part of a turntable stylus, broken by the grooves that mistreat it, scratching up the instigator, putting it away, and promising to “Never ever play you again”. That kind of lyric sticks with you.

-JR

September 4, 2020

September 11, 2020October 16, 2020 monkeyhammer81Leave a comment

All Them Witches – Nothing As The Ideal (New West Records)

Wow. Musically this is a treat.

This Nashville quartet is steeped in blues, psychedelia, prog, and stoner metal. While they are a hard rock outfit, they employ classical guitar, gothic tones, and their own blend of everything that came out of the Delta Swamp (Dr. John, Soylent Green, Junior Kimbrough, etc).

This is their 6th album, if you don’t count live releases, which I don’t. That’s in just 8 years, making them almost as prolific as King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard or Steve Buscemi. Much like the aforementioned genre-bending geniuses, you never quite know what to expect from these cats. Even just on this record, there are significant differences among the tracks.

The album opens with a slow build into a Tool-esque jam in 6/8 (“Saturnine & Iron Jaw”), “Everest” is a Led Zeppelin-meets-Donovan guitar instrumental, which bleeds into a Soundgarden-style downbeat banger (“See You Next Fall”). That gets followed up by a folk/country/blues track (“The Children of Coyote Woman”). The latter of these brings me to my next point, because it is the first song on the album that truly works with this dude’s voice. Up to this point, his voice is sort of like a blemish on an otherwise pristine surface. It’s not bad enough to make you stop listening, may even make it interesting, but causes you to hold back.

The next 2 songs show a different characteristic to his voice without actually changing what he’s doing. The music just finally suits the nearly monotonous style of the singing. “The Children of Coyote Woman”, “41”, and the album closer, “Rats in Ruin”, almost seem like they came from a different band.

The album returns you to regularly scheduled programming: brilliant music and subpar-if-interesting vocals. I, personally, still found that the record was a great listen, but I would understand if you don’t agree.

FFO: Deaf Radio, Agents of Oblivion, King Gizzard

-JR

Podcast the Twelfth: Our Favorite Guilty Pleasure Songs

September 11, 2020December 25, 2020 ProducerLunchboxLeave a comment

What songs do we love, even though we probably shouldn’t? The guys hammer out their top 5 favorite guilty pleasure songs in this week’s Fairly Kickass.

Get in on the shamefest with the videos below and be sure to add some of your favorite songs that you’re not supposed to love in the comments section.

Jeremy’s Top 5 Guilty Pleasures:
5. Kiss – Beth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHkojuUSDO8

August 28, 2020

September 4, 2020September 14, 2020 monkeyhammer81Leave a comment

Katy Perry – Smile (Capitol Records)

Since joining the Fairly KickAss Familia (I’ll explain later), I’ve developed a greater appreciation for pop music, in all its glorious forms. I’ve reviewed several great pop albums, including some that thoroughly surprised me in how good they were, most notably Carly Rae Jespen’s Dedicated Side B. I’ve reviewed some pop albums that weren’t all that great. But, Dear Readers, I must tell you that I have not reviewed a pop album with as much disdain as I will be reviewing Katy Perry’s latest release Smile with.

This isn’t one of those situations where feelings about an artist permeate to all of their works. With Katy, I’ve enjoyed several tracks off of a wide range of her albums: from the early days of “Hot N Cold”, “The One That Got Away” and “E.T.”, to the later hits in “Roar” and “Dark Horse”. But Smile is just… it’s just bad, y’all!

Most of Katy’s work on Smile is lifeless, listless, and phoned in, like a generic “My First Pop Album” kit that I’m surprised Walmart doesn’t already sell. This album has everything: shoehorned electronic bits and Auto-Tuning (“Teary Eyes”), awful lyrics (“Never Really Over”: “Just because it’s over doesn’t mean it’s really over/And if I think it over, maybe you’ll be coming over again/And I’ll have to get over you all over again”), shitty hooks (“Smile”), and whatever the golden fuck “Champagne Problems” is.

Now, Momma taught me to say something nice if I’m saying anything, so here’s my nice thing: island-y romance bop “Harleys In Hawaii” is a very solid, catchy track, and love letter to love “Only Love” is decent. Listen to those tracks, and spin some of Katy’s earlier albums if you gotta get your fix… but you can leave the rest of Smile on the shelf.

FFO: Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato

-Z.

August 21, 2020

August 28, 2020October 16, 2020 monkeyhammer81Leave a comment

The Killers – Imploding The Mirage (Island)

Spotify currently has them listed as the 214th most popular act in the world. So, if you’ve never heard them, I doubt that anything you’ve read on this website is of any use to you. Even the rock you’ve been living under has “Mr. Brightside” on its iPod Nano.

Full disclosure: I’ve never really been a fan of The Killers. Sure, the hits have merit. The songs are fun, full of emotion, technically and artistically beautiful, and the lyrics are wonderfully poetic…but that voice. There’s just something about it that is a complete turnoff for me. It’s like he’s trying really hard to sound like he’s not trying hard.

Until Imploding The Mirage.

This feels like an extreme melodic shift for the band. Instead of bellowing borderline-atonal anthems in Springsteen fashion, the new method is to keep the vocals chill and let the music set the tone and energy in the style of The Pretenders, Tom Petty, or…well, Bruce Springsteen. That is most notable on the perfectly crafted, “Dying Breed”, and the surprising range shown off in “Caution”. Their Talking Heads influence comes out strong in “Fire and Bone”, making it one of the most instantly likeable tracks on the record. The two guest spots on the album, Weyes Blood and k.d. Lang (really?), are highlighted with the most dramatic moments, “My God” and “Lightning Fields”.

Musically, there’s little more to say about the band. They add New Wave keyboards and heavily-triggered drums to classic rock-and-roll sensibilities. It’s what they have been doing since Hot Fuss came out in 2004 and it’s what they will continue to do until somebody stops them. For the first time, I am willing to say that I want them to continue. They’re maturing, and the songs are maturing with them. So, while I’m not ready to say that I like them (I mean, it took them 6 albums for me to say positive things instead of a noncommittal shrug), I am willing to look forward to the next thing.

“My Own Soul’s Warning”, “When The Dreams Run Dry”, and “Imploding The Mirage” are the tracks that sound the most like something that would fall on previous Killers releases, making them my least favorite tracks on the record. Do what you will with that information.

FFO: Franz Ferdinand, Snow Patrol, Talking Heads

-JR

The Podcast: The Eleventh – August 2020 In Review

August 28, 2020September 11, 2020 ProducerLunchboxLeave a comment

The FKA crew covers their favorite new albums of the month, discuss the best new arrivals in the top 40 and play a new game to help determine the filthiest song of all time.

Zack’s Top 3 Albums of the Month:
1. Biffy Clyro – A Celebration of Endings
2. Mach-Hommy – Mach’s Hard Lemonade
3. Alex the Astronaut – The Theory of Absolutely Nothing

Jeremy’s Top 3 Albums of the Month:
1. Blues Pills – Holy Moley
2. Biffy Clyro – A Celebration of Endings
3. King Buzzo with Trevor Dunn – Gift of Sacrifice

Dan’s Top 3 Hit Singles of the Month:
1. Taylor Swift ft. Bon Iver – exile
2. Taylor Swift – cardigan
3. Miley Cyrus – Midnight Sky

Top Hit Singles of August 2020

August 27, 2020October 16, 2020 ProducerLunchboxLeave a comment

Another month that was surprisingly middling. I don’t feel like anything that reached the top 40 this month will blow your mind, but there were plenty of solid tracks. Here’s everything that made its debut in the top 40 during the last month.

19. Ily (i love you baby) – Surf Mesa ft. Emilee

It’s the chorus of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You” with an airy boring electronic beat. The vocals sound like Surf Mesa had Emilee record the six lines of the original song they used, then ran her vocals through the soma filter. This supposedly falls into the “chillwave” genre, but to me it proves we should be putting Soundcloud on ice.

August 14, 2020

August 22, 2020October 16, 2020 monkeyhammer81Leave a comment

Kiesza – Crave (Zebra Spirit Tribe)

Some folks were just destined to be interesting, to be unique, to be awesome. From what I can tell, Kiesza is one of those people.

She was born Kiesa Rae Ellestad in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, with a Norwegian grandfather. She has been a sailing instructor, as well as a member of the reserves of the Royal Canadian Navy. She suffered from a traumatic brain injury in 2017, from a car accident, and her recovery had her stay in a dark room for six months. Seriously, go check out her Wikipedia page, as there were several other details that I did not add here.

As a musician, Crave represents her second studio album, with the first one (Sound of a Woman) coming in 2014 – a pretty healthy gap. It doesn’t seem like she’s missed a beat, however. This is reminiscent to what “dance music” would have consisted of in the 80s or early 90s. The title track, as well as “Love Me With Your Life” illustrate the sound the best, but damn near every track has the signature synth and electronic drum beats to some extent. “Love Never Dies” is another solid track, using a sample that could be “When the Levee Breaks” or something close to it – but it works well regardless.

Kiesza’s smooth vocals help to make this a more enjoyable experience. There is a heavy level of production and auto-tune at play, but it sounds good – both as a corrective measure and an artistic one. Lyrically, it’s pretty simplistic, but as I’ve mentioned before, some albums truly need that. Crave with more complex lyrics would cause there to be a bit too much going on, and the lyrics would get lost in the shuffle.

Overall, Crave was a very good, very unique listen. Toes were tapped, and fingers were rapped, all throughout the album, thanks to Kiesza’s interesting style. Hopefully it won’t be another six years for album #3 to drop.

FFO: Robyn, La Roux

-Z.

Special Edition

August 17, 2020October 16, 2020 monkeyhammer81Leave a comment

August 14, 2020

We don’t often do this. This is an album review, but unlike our normal review posts, this one took on a life of its own. For that reason, we felt it needed to be removed from the herd. It’s for safety reasons. You understand.

Sexbat – Diurnal Curse (Sid Records)

Sexbat proved a difficult artist to track down on streaming services. I found Sexton, Sexweather, G. Sexate, and The Sexbots, but I could only track this release down by searching for the album title, Diurnal Curse. Just a word to the wise when you look this one up. And you’ll want to look it up, because it is outstanding – which you will see below.

Every track on this album refers to a week, one through seven. I originally wanted to review each song for a week, making this a seven week long review, but that seemed ill-advised. So instead, every week will be condensed into a few paragraphs, based on what a week as each track would consist of. That may not make sense right now, but never fret: it will become clearer as we go.

Or it won’t.

Onward!

Podcast the Tenth: The Best 3 Song Runs Ever. Of All Time.

August 14, 2020September 14, 2020 ProducerLunchboxLeave a comment

Find the best three consecutive songs on an album. That was our task this week as we dive into our top five (and next ten) best three song runs.

Jeremy’s Best 3 Song Runs

1. Huey Lewis and the News – Sports (1983) – Heart of Rock n Roll – Heart & Soul – Bad is Bad	2. Incubus – S.C.I.E.N.C.E. (1997) – A Certain Shade of Green – My Favorite Things – Summer Romance	3.Foo Fighters – Foo Fighters (1995) – This is a Call – I’ll Stick Around – Big Me
4. Aerosmith – Toys In the Attic (1975) -Walk This Way – Big Ten Inch Record – Sweet Emotion	5. Michael Jackson – Thriller (1983) – Thriller – Beat It – Human Nature	HM. ZZ Top – Eliminator (1983) – Gimme All Your Lovin’ – Got Me Under Pressure – Sharp Dressed Man
HM. Alice In Chains – Dirt (1992) – Dam That River – Rain When I Die – Down In A Hole	HM. Stone Temple Pilots – Purple (1994) – Vaseline – Lounge Fly – Interstate Love Song	HM. Our Lady Peace – Naveed (1994) – Naveed – Dirty Walls – Denied
HM. Rage Against the Machine – Rage Against the Machine (1995) – Bombtrack – Killing in the Name – Take The Power Back	HM. Blackalicious – The Craft (2005) – World of Vibrations – Supreme People – Rhythm Sticks	HM. Pantera – Vulgar Display of Power (1992) – Walk – Fucking Hostile – This Love
HM. Throttlerod – Hell & High Water (2003) – Tomorrow & A Loaded Gun – No Damn Fool – Been Wrong