Bands and artists from round 3, part b:
Superior (UMH)
Well, I liked the song you sent during the roulette but wasn’t really wowed by it, seemed maybe a little straightforward. However, after giving their first two albums a couple of listens, I really dig them! Yeah, fairly straightforward prog metal, but there’s a reasonable amount of variety in their music, and they have a really good sense of melody. And there’s definitely enough in their music that is unique enough to stop them sounding like a DT-clone. Shame they’re not around anymore, but at least I still have their one other album to check out as well!
Behind [1996] – 7/10
Younique [1998] – 7/10
Modest Mouse (sonata)
I really like these guys! They didn’t have the album with Trucker’s Atlas on it on Spotify (where I do a lot of my listening) but I managed to get a listen on Grooveshark – it’s a pretty good album, some nice stuff on it. But since you first submitted the song during the roulette, I’ve been using Spotify to check out some of their more recent albums, and I love Good News for People Who Love Bad News in particular. Some of the songs have that same indie-ish feel that is very prominent in the earlier stuff I heard, but there’s also a nice bit of variety, and some quite unexpected and brilliant songs, like Bukowski which I just love! Top-notch stuff, and I’m fairly sure there’s still a couple more albums of theirs that I need to check out as well.
The Lonesome Crowded West [1997] – 7/10
Good News for People Who Love Bad News [2004] – 8/10
We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank [2007] – 7/10
Can (Portrucci)
This is really my introduction the Krautrock, and so far my reactions are a little mixed. I quite like the music, and I really love how experimental some of their stuff is, pretty ahead of its time in some ways. But in tone and sound, I do find it gets a little samey after a while, even though there’s actually a ton of diversity in the music itself. I think it’s probably the way it’s recorded and produced, and so I actually wonder if I might prefer their later (less popular but probably slicker sounding) albums. Interesting stuff anyway, and I think I’ll try and check out other albums of theirs, but I’ll keep it spread out as I feel like this is a band I couldn’t listen to too much in one go.
Tago Mago [1971] – 6/10
Landed [1975] – 6/10
Power of Omens (DTVT)
Unfortunately I haven’t been able to check them out, as they’re not on Spotify, Grooveshark only has the song you sent (which was fairly good but didn’t really wow me), and I can’t find anywhere to buy either of their albums cheaply. I will admit I even scoped around for any digital downloads, but couldn’t find any! So, this has to go down as a N/A I’m afraid.