OccultHawk

Just post a bunch of Nazi memes.

__________________

2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

Member of the Year & Journal of the Year Champion

Behold the Writing of THE LEGEND:

https://www.musicbanter.com/members-...p-lighter.html

The Batlord

__________________

Trollheart

Sure you can. You'll have to join right at the end of the queue though. Let me know what album you want to suggest and I'll put it in the queue.
This is true.
You can also do this. I'm thinking of making it compulsory.
One meme does not a bunch make. Please follow the rules, which have only now been updated with this one. Danke schon.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

__________________

Trollheart

Much better. Hitler would approve, I'm sure.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

MicShazam

I'm fine with being at the end of the queue, even if it will probably take a year before it's my turn.
Album suggestion: Islaja - Ulual Yyy

------------------

Hiatus Kaiyote - Choose Your Weapon (2015)

Listened to it twice, front to back.

This album was a weird experience. Not the music itself, as it is mostly fairly straight forwardly bound to its genre of choice. What makes it weird is my experience of liking the album at first when I start listening to it, then alternating between "ooh that's nice" and "ugh... move on already"... only to feel downright annoyed with the album by the time I'm somewhere in the second half.

Like other posters have noted, this album is too long. Sitting through over an hour of constant warbling and no small amount of discardable musical ideas, will eventually start feeling like a punishment.

While some tracks are sort of interesting musically, a rare time maybe even vocally, there's a lot of fairly bland noodling about that doesn't really have any solid base in a good melody or anything else memorable. The track 'Fingerprints' is a good example of this. A couple years ago, I spent a good amount of time checking out a lot of modern R&B and this song buys into every melodic and musical cliche of that kind of music. Blandly laid back, lots of vocal melismas (frequently to the point of overkill) and some extremely boring, cookie-cutter R&B beats.

The vocals really became a turnoff for me over time. This singer doesn't not appreciate the concept of vocal restraint. Or melody.

Sure, she can sing, but this is art, not the olympics. Expressiveness and beauty takes a back seat to attempts at cramming as many pitch bends into every line and syllable possible, effectively killing off any real attempts at melodic themes. I love a good melody, in case that wasn't clear, and this sort of show-off silliness offends me

I realize I got more negative as I was writing this, since I felt more and more negative the further into the album I got.

Honestly, there are individual songs on this album that are pretty good, but rating it as an album experience... Ugh... It really does shoot itself in the foot.

3/10 - Never coming back to this one again AND you can do much, much, MUCH better within this style of music.
Check out the newest album by Esperanza Spalding and anything by Erykah Badu, for example.

Blank.

Hiatus Kaiyote - Choose your Weapon

I started off kind of enjoying this, but after the second song I was already sick of the singer and the instrumentals. And nothing really made me enjoy it more as it went along. By the end of the album I was practically begging it to end.

☆☆

Anteater

Hiatus Kaiyote - Choose Your Weapon

My complaints about this album are pretty much in line with previous reviews (too long, too much repetition, etc.), with a few caveats.

First of all, there ARE some strong tracks here. The drum n' bass / chiptune tinged 'Atari', for example, is a lot of fun and probably the one song where all their "cliche" neo-soul hallmarks really come together into something compelling from start to finish that also stands out from the crowd.

That being said, I'm more of a 70's jazz-fusion head than some people 'round MB, so I can appreciate (or perhaps tolerate) some of their lengthier strides more than someone else might Because when they don't go too overboard and stick to some consistent melodic elements, like on the synthy 'By Fire', you hear the massive potential they have. There's lot of individual sequences that work really well, but not always as full length songs.

As R&B acts like King demonstrated with their self-titled back in 2016, you can have a consistent aesthetic without a crazy amount of variation and pull of a beautiful album experience. But those girls have fantastic vocal melodies to make up for the occasional weakness...whereas these guys haven't quite figured it out here.

Trim down the overall album length a bit, vary the songwriting more (get a few other writers in maybe?) and you'd have a modern day classic on your hands. Or at least something pretty close.

6 out of 10

__________________
Anteater's 21 Fav Albums Of 2020

Anteater's Daily Tune Roulette

TechnicLePanther

Been listening to this album a ton. Makes me look forward to my vacation because we always tune to the RnB station as we drive past the city. Sounds like it would be good road trip music too.

__________________
Many have tried to destroy it... but... true evil never dies. It is only... REBORN

SUGGEST ME AN ALBUM - I'm probably not going to listen to it but I will if you bother me enough.

OccultHawk

Hiatus Kaiyote - Choose Your Weapon

This record is eclectic. They do a lot of things and they do them well. It's hard to find fault with it but I'm not inclined to take it all in in one chunk. Even though it flows the smoothness and safety of it bores me. Taken in short three song bursts as I flip through my day this has more potential. As a standing block two stars as a "mix tape" filler three stars.

__________________

2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

Member of the Year & Journal of the Year Champion

Behold the Writing of THE LEGEND:

https://www.musicbanter.com/members-...p-lighter.html