Album Reviews

I'm going to admit to never being a Silversun Pickups fan. Simply because I just never sat down and listened to them. Shamefully, the only song I really know is 'Lazy Eye' and that is because I rocked the shit of it on Guitar Hero like 10 years ago.  And while I always try to tune out other reviews of albums because I don't want them to taint my taint-brations, shit comes across my social-media feeds and I can't help but noticing this album is getting shat all over.  Now, I'm not sure how Better Nature found its way on to my playlist a couple of weeks ago, but it wasn't until this morning when I realized that I've been listening to the fuck out it. And I'm not sure I understand all that negative noise.  What started off as me enjoying the first two tracks and letting the album...

I was watching this new Rubble Kings documentary on Netflix. It's almost like a prequel to Crush Groove and Beat Street and Wild Style, taking you into the true story of New York gangs in the 1970s. Such gangs provided the impetus for the fantastical dystopia portrayed in the cult classic street gang flick, The Warriors. Moreso than the violence, which actually seemed tame and quaint when held up against today's lethal children, the most fascinating thing about the movie was the proto-hip hop music and style. I don't want to spoil the documentary, but unless you're some kind of suburban piece of shit Jason Mraz fan (I'm looking at you Tom Bomb xoxoxo), you know by now that out of the blight of the 70s, a city literally at its rock bottom, came...

I'm often the last guy to get around to hopping on a bandwagon. It isn't like I'm Tim, or I'm too cool for cool school, I'm just not very interested in what people I don't know tend to suck off.  If I'm going to put something into one or more of my holes, it's because I say so bro. I'm not tempted by pitchfork reviews, no matter how metrically scored. I'm not wooed by media acclaim, because I am inherently distrustful of the media, especially when it comes to music, which is something we should enjoy for our own reasons. So fuck yours and everyone else's reasons for loving or hating something as arbitrarily hit or miss as music.  One specific band that I've managed to matrix style hype dodge is Chvrches.  Sure it's hard to imagine something as culturally visible as I now realize Chvrches...

The first few times I listened to Rituals from Other Lives was this past Spring. I remember thinking I was listening to a more melodic and melancholy Junip or a Jose Gonzalez fronted Album Leaf, and then I remember thinking I was overthinking it because plain and simple I was just fucking loving the shit out of it. So over the summer I didn't do much Other Lives-ing because I had somehow forgotten how fucking smitten I was with it. And besides I had perky things to listen to. I'm seasonally perky bros.  Then came the first cloudy day of the fall. The sun is peeking out at us behind a thick swath of drab grey clouds, but instead of being overcast, it's almost like a muted slate background that makes everything existing in front of it all the more vivid. Having been stuck wearing...

Tom: Musically, this month has been a haze for me and I've just been sludging in it. It's not that the music I've been linstening to is horrible, it just hasn't grabbed me. And if I'm not enthusiastic about music then I sure as fuck aint going to write about it....or share it.  Quality. Not Quantity.  It's precisely the reason all our album reviews are above 7 stars. When you come to SYFFAL it's not about IF an album is good or bad. It's about HOW GOOD an album is and HOW BAD we want to pleasure ourselves to it.  I'm not sure how Del has been feeling about music this summer, but this Youth Lagoon has lifted me above the smog layer and allowed to take a huge breath of air. It's like a lavender scented fart through a bleached cornhole. So fresh. So crisp. And it cleanly spritzes like...

How things change.  Milo first came to us at Syffal like so many other artists, bundled from the cold, shivering, teeth chattering lyrics, feverishly rapping at our email's back door.   And now, I basically begged him for a chance to review his latest release, So The Flies Don't Come. My turn in the blizzard.  Milo, if you are somehow still unaware, is a rapper from Wisconsin, by way of Chicago and Los Angeles. I picture him growing up next door to Justin Vernon's wilderness breakup hideout before moving into a landlocked houseboat. He made his way to us via college airwaves and shitty dorm room speakers, places where his music still haunts, wafting down cinderblock hallways while children imagine Kant's underwear.  Milo's prose seems unconcerned with what you think. So The...

I chilled. Listening to my kids play Splatoon and Super Mario chess simultaneously with the neighbor kid. I hid in my room. Them occupied. Me occupying the time before I would commandeer the living room. As much as I am nothing like the American man, I am an American man and Sundays are for football.  In this time before the game, I laid on my bed. I surfed the internet. I existed... To a soundtrack.  A while back I had saved a link to emmanuel fade's EP, un-flood. Now, with time to kill and a sober mind, I threw it on as I mindlessly killed time. And it was perfect. An unintrusively pleasant listen, with moments that cut through the din like scissors.  emmanuel fade is an incarnation of Safari Al. The "Journeyman Hip Hopper's" production persona is more pate than pork chops, but...

Today has been surreal. So much happened in one night. Universes colliding. Rubber bands snapping back. Waves crashing only to be sucked back out to sea to gather the momentum to crash all over again in an endless succession of natural forces. Magnets. Gravity.  I'm focusing on breathing today. Having a clear mind unhindered by chemicals or altered by peripheral thoughts, focused.  It's necessary to exercise my nickel-plated resolve, for my entire emotional catalog is about to be tested, the foundation of all my feelings rattled.  I can't go into more detail than that right now, but Lapa's newly released record Meeting of the Waters is its soundtrack.  Lapa is Ilya Goldberg of Emancipator. Meeting of the Waters just dropped on Loci Records, the label curated by...

My daughter is 3 and her hair is always in her fucking eyes. She swipes at it and swipes at it by sliding the back of her palm across her forehead. If you ever get to meet her, it's probably why she has grape jelly in her bangs.  Of course I always suggest: why don't we clip back your bangs in a barrette? Why don't we put your hair in a pony tail? Or....or how about a braid on the side like Elsa? Eh? This is met with overly dramatic 'NO' and then she stares me down. Her stare says: 'Elsa? Really? How dare you partonize me like that? I'm going to leave my hair like this just to spite you. I don't care if it's tickling my eyelids. Knowing that my discomfort is annoying you brings me pleasure. BTW, your ideas SUCK.' And then she taps her fingers together like Mr. Burns and belts out an evil...

As a guy who prides himself in knowing a lot about what's going on in music, while remaining completely and pleasantly aloof, I can't really pinpoint my introduction to the band Foals. I feel like I know them pretty well, but my music collection tells me I only have the one album, although my recent play counts would tell you theirs is the only album I've cared to listen to over the last few weeks. What Went Down might be my favorite album of 2015 that isn't considered electronic, and while I admit to being a newbie in the Foals fold, I can do nothing but toot this albums horn because it's fucking tits from start to finish. Startits to finishtits.  While discussing this album with a few different people who have no experience with Foals and explaining that I too have no previous...