Cordavision Music Reviews

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 mean, if you name your album W, that’s just peak confidence. If you don’t know about the Japanese rock scene, that’s totally okay. Even if they aren’t the most popular group, Boris is one of the huge pillars in modern Japanese music. They’ve been active since 1993 and have had a steady output since then. Their 2005 album, PINK , is widely considered to be one of the best noise-rock albums ever. The first part of this album was released back in 2020, titled NO . With the group’s new album being titled only W , I think I’m sensing a theme here. Anyways, let’s get into it. What’s most striking about this album is that this is a slight shift away from the group’s typical sound. Instead of the stoner metal that they perform so well, W has more of a shoegaze and even a dream pop sound. Because of this shift, it makes this album one of Boris’s least heavy albums yet, maybe even the least heavy music they’ve made so far. There may be some disappointment in that, but there’s still some heavi...

God, the cover’s so dark. I love it. There’s a first time for everything and this marks the first for something. This will be the first live album I cover on the site, and I’m quite excited that this is the one. The Gothenburg-born musician Anna von Hausswolff has been an artist that’s been climbing onto my radar more and more as I dive into the neoclassical darkwave genre. Hausswolff’s fantastic Dead Magic is one of the first I’ve heard in the genre and the follow-up All Thoughts Fly is just as great. Now, her latest release is a 2018 live performance that has been hyped up a lot for the past few years. It’s finally available to the public, so let’s get into Live at Montreux Jazz Festival . You know, I’m one of the people that enjoy a live version of a song, but I do prefer studio versions of tracks more often. This album, though? I think these songs are the definitive recordings of each one. There’s really nothing bad about this. Hausswolff’s vocals are incredible, the instruments ...

Oddly enough, this is the first split album I’ve reviewed. I’ve been getting into shoegaze quite a bit recently, and one of the first and newest artists I’ve been into is South Korean musician Parannoul. Even if I didn’t get the chance to formally review it, his last solo album, To See the Next Part of the Dream , was released back in February and is one of the best albums of the year. Now, for his second release of 2021, he’s done a split album with up-and-coming shoegaze acts, Asian Glow and sonhos tomam conta, titled Downfall of the Neon Youth . Let’s get into it. I can’t say what I’ve heard of Asian Glow and sonhos tomam conta because this is the first I’m hearing of them, but they’ve all at least put out one project on their own this year, and to my knowledge, this is the first time that any of these artists have worked together. This is 10 tracks overall and just under an hour long. Both Parannoul and Asian Glow get three tracks each, but sonhos tomam conta gets four tracks. It’s...

Apparently, Sargent House knows who I am, so hi there! :) For those that don’t know, Deafheaven is a San Francisco post-punk group that have been praised for their work in the black metal genre. Their second album, Sunbather , isn’t only one of the most critically acclaimed black metal albums of the 2010s; it’s also typically revered as a favorite in the genre as a whole. They did that for a couple other albums, but like most bands, they gotta do something to keep themselves in the conversations, right? Well, they certainly did that. For their newest album, Infinite Granite , they mostly avoid black metal and move into a more shoegaze and dream-pop genre. It’s quite interesting and it’s been dividing their fanbase in a way that hasn’t happened in a while. So, where do I land on this? Let’s find out. So, let me get out of the way that Deafheaven is a divisive band in general. They really don’t fit in either the black metal or the shoegaze genre, and whatever you want from them is what y...

Don’t laugh at pee. Don’t laugh at pee. Don’t laugh at pee. This is new territory for me. I’ve never reviewed a post-rock album before, let alone a field recording album. I have listened to them before, though, and most of them have just come and gone for me. Not this band, though. Godspeed You! Black Emperor has been a band that have consistently put out some of the most harrowing music I’ve heard in my life since the late 90s, with some of their early works being some of the most beloved post-rock albums ever. After a four-year break, we have G_d's Pee AT STATE'S END! , another addition to arguably one of the best discographies in all of music. Let’s not waste any more time on the intro and get into the music. Even though it clocks in at 53 minutes, this feels like an absolute epic. I liken it to the hellish year of 2020. It starts out hopeful with “Military Alphabet” and slowly becomes more defeated when it hits “Fire at Static Valley,” almost like the start of the coronavir...