Music I Liked – Unreqvited, Eneferens, Clouds, Henry Derek Elis, 4 Non Blondes

I’m way behind in sharing music that I liked, and this new WordPress editor is not my friend. I will never get back the time I spent uselessly trying to get this post’s featured image to appear in the right place. But recently I have listened to and liked Unreqvited, Eneferens, Clouds, Henry Derek Elis, and 4 Non Blondes.

Unreqvited

I’m not usually a fan of cvlt spellings, but I guess Unrequited would connote sad boy indie rock and Unreqvited‘s album Mosaic I: l’amour et l’ardeur is so much bigger than that. Gorgeous and atmospheric, the album walks a line connecting black metal to neoclassical. Listening to it feels like remembering a book that broke your heart with details you can’t quite recall. Their Bandcamp page claims music that is depressive and uplifting – an oxymoron to be sure, but it’s true.

Eneferens

Clearly I’m in need of some beauty these days. Eneferens‘ Bleakness of Our Constant is, as promised, beautiful metal from the north. Perhaps a bit warmer and more personal feeling than Unreqvited’s album, Eneferens also offers order amidst chaos – something we all greatly need these days.

Clouds

Clouds‘ Dor eschews both majesty and warmth and just sticks with depressive. Described by one Bandcamp user as “pure, unfiltered misery,” Dor you might wonder why anyone would listen to it. The answer? Well, it’s really pretty. Be warned: there are gothy clean vocals on some tracks but even if that’s usually a deal-breaker for you, the rumbling growls in other places will make up for it. And did I mention how pretty it is?

Henry Derek Elis

Anytime I see an artist covered on multiple music sites that focus on different genres, I make a point of checking it out. In this case, I discovered the dark folk of Henry Derek Elis on both Brooklyn Vegan and Angry Metal Guy. It’s no wonder that The Devil is My Friend caught attention across the musical spectrum. While the sound is more Tom Waits than Tom Warrior, the dark atmosphere would be equally at home in the pits of hell or the outer reaches of the Cowboy Bebop universe. (Bonus points for a very good dog on the album cover.)

4 Non Blondes

I have a running argument with my daughter over whether a meme is automatically funny or true just because you recognize the reference. A while back, she was digging a meme when she didn’t recognize either the original song or the cartoon it was mashed with. Both the song and the cartoon were once important to me.

After hearing her sing this “funny song” for a few days I got fed up and decided to introduce her to the original. That’s when I discovered “What’s Up?” was not an Annie Lennox song. It was, of course, 4 Non Blondes. I had to rethink my entire life. And listen to the entire Bigger, Better, Faster, More! for the first time. Please remember that in 1992 when you heard a song you liked, you had to stay close to the radio till the set was over to hear the name of the band. Then, if none of your friends had the album and would let you borrow it, you had to go to the store and find the CD. If it was a new song, they would probably not have the disc used, so you’d have to pay something like $12.99 or more (so, up to 2 hours wages from a 15 hour/week work-study job) to buy the disc before you could hear the rest of the album. But this album was really good and I’m super sad that I missed it back in the day.