All my music last week came from reading music blogs. Among the best were Wooden Shjips, Amarok, Echo Ladies, Vanhelga, and Yuno.
Wooden Shjips
I know I’ve heard Wooden Shjips before on KEXP. But often the radio is just on in the background and unless a song is truly mindblowing or super annoying, I don’t necessarily notice what I’m listening to. So it took a bandcamp blog post about their new album V. to get me to pay attention to this well-established Portland band. I’m glad something finally did it, because I really like these guys.
Amarok
Angry Metal Guy rated Amarok’s Devoured “very good.” I agree. Actually, from it’s gorgeous album cover to its lengthy blackened doom tracks, I think I like Amarok even more than they do.
Echo Ladies
I was alternating between reading music blog posts and cleaning up links on my own blog when I discovered Malmö, Sweden based pop band Echo Ladies. I read bandcamp’s blog post about the album Pink Noise then listened to the embed while I switched over to review the next old post in line for cleanup on my own blog. It was about my first trip to Europe, when I spent a summer with my best friend’s family in Malmö, Sweden. The serendipitous blend of first-time nostalgia and distorted synth-pop made my day.
Vanhelga
Also from Sweden, but sounding very different, is Vanhelga. AMG gave their release Fredagsmys a 4.0. That’s an unusually high score on that site, but well deserved in this case. I listen to a lot of music, and generally enjoy it all while forgetting to ever listen to any of it again. Every now and then I hear something that gives me pause. I hear it and think, “No wait, this is what I like! I could listen to this nonstop for days.” I could listen to Fredagsmys all summer without ever getting bored. I don’t know enough music theory to tell what makes one black metal band better than another (and the style is so rigid that I usually can’t tell them apart). But this one just tastes better.
Yuno
And now for something completely different. Yuno is a shut-in basement dwelling one-man music project that suddenly started getting attention after a decade of obscure bandcamp releases. But no really, it is different. It’s not even metal. It’s sparkly, shiny pink pop and I love it. Seriously, it may be called Moodie but you cannot maintain a bad mood when you hear this.
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