Cordavision Music Reviews

Luckily, this didn’t sound like hell was engulfing my eardrums. There was a little phase last year where there were a bunch of post-punk albums that really clicked for me. One of my more controversial takes is that I thought that black midi’s Cavalcade , which is considered by many to be one of the best albums of last year, was just a little bit overrated. I understand the raw talent from each member, but I thought that it didn’t gel as well as their first album, Schlagenheim . However, this might be a different story. I haven’t heard any of the singles ahead of Hellfire , so I’m going into this completely blind. This is getting even higher praise than Cavalcade , not that that matters to me, but it’s worth pointing that out. Let’s not waste any more time and get into Hellfire . Since I never went into detail about it, I prefer Schlagenheim over Cavalcade because the more chaotic sound suits the group much more. I think that was sacrificed with more complex tracks on the latter, whic...

Sometimes all you have to do is smile, you know? The idea behind The Smile is actually pretty good. You have two legends in the music business, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, teaming up with jazz band Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner to form a new band. They’ve spent the past year teasing some tracks live and even released some studio versions of them, but I’ve avoided them because I’ve been pretty excited about how this album would turn out. It ended up being a while, but we now have the first album from the group, A Light for Attracting Attention . Let’s get into how I felt about it. It should be known that most of the Radiohead members’ side projects and even solo careers haven’t truly taken the world by storm like Radiohead has. Sure, Thom Yorke has his solo career and Jonny Greenwood’s film scores have been great, but they’ve never gotten the public eye gripped. I feel like The Smile is going to be the first side project that does this, mainly because this is as good...

No, let the plane out of the bag, they’re gonna suffocate in there!! At the time of writing this, today is the first anniversary of British post-punk outfit Black Country, New Road’s magnificent debut album, For the first time . For context, that was one of the first albums I officially gave a perfect score, and honestly, it’s stayed that way ever since. I’ve avoided the singles for this album successfully and I haven’t even heard the leaked live performances because I’m simply that excited for this. I did get a little scared about this just before its release. The frontman of the group, Isaac Wood, left the group due to mental health reasons and cancelled the international tour they were set to embark on. Obviously, mental health is a huge issue and I respect the choice Wood made with his group. However, Wood is the vocalist of the group and a very dynamic performer. It wouldn’t affect this album, but what about their future? Either way, Ants From Up There is finally here. Let’s get ...

I’ll be totally honest, I really dig the cover art here. Brooklyn post-punk outfit Parquet Courts is a band I actually haven’t listened to a good amount of. I really don’t know a lot about them either, mainly since I only discovered them a month ago. Either way, I understand why they’re so beloved. To get into them, I decided to listen to their last album, 2018’s Wide Awake! , and I really loved it. I felt bad for not finding out about them sooner, honestly. Now, after hearing that album, we have their newest album out for the masses, Sympathy for Life . This is highly anticipated in the post-punk community, so let’s just get right into it. It might just be me, but this album as a whole just seemed quiet. Liked, mixed quietly. It’s not something I generally notice when I listen to albums, but I caught that on the first listen. Outside of the quietness, this was just surprisingly boring. There really wasn’t any energy put into the instrumentals here, and even if I’ve heard one album fro...

How does Gene Simmons say that rock music is dead but we have bands like this working? I’ve been telling you that I’ve been moving into post-punk music, right? If you haven’t seen my high praises for the new Squid and Black Country, New Road albums, I’m a new fan to the genre. I’ve also been listening to a lot of Iceage, a band that most fans of the genre consider to be one of the more consistent groups of the bunch. Their latest project, Seek Shelter , is set to be another entry into their discography that will please longtime fans, along with bringing in some new ones. I’m in the latter of this crowd, although I’ve heard most of their albums beforehand. How is Seek Shelter ? Let’s find out. To new fans, this is just a new album to check out, but for someone who’s listened and relatively enjoyed a bulk of Iceage’s music, this is a pretty big switch in sound for them. Yes, it still has a dark and gothic vibe, but now there are elements of country, Americana, and even some mainstream al...

There are sadly no sea creatures involved in this album :( Call me crazy, but this post-punk craze in 2021 has been a tiny bit underwhelming. Bands like Idles and Shame have had decent records in the past few months, but what really picked up the scene for me was Black Country, New Road’s debut record For the first time . That album is one of my favorites of the year so far and has really inspired me to dive into the post-punk scene. When I had entered this scene, I had heard rumbles of a relatively new band, Squid. They had dropped a few singles from this album, Bright Green Field , and I decided to intentionally avoid them, just like I did with For the first time . Simply put, I had to give this a few extra listens before I sat down and wrote this out. Is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? Let me tell you. Going in without listening or even knowing the singles from this album was a pretty great decision. God, this album is catchy as fuck. My favorite track off this was “Narrator...