Every week for the past several years I have listened to a new album. To me ‘new’ means an album which was released within 7 days of me listening to it. I have learned about a lot of stuff that I really like by doing this. I assure you that the practice started in a very grass-roots fashion. Over time, it became a challenge to myself to see how long I could keep it going on, and now it’s just something that I do. Things like this have no right to get boring, though. So I’m going to try and take some time to document some of my experiences this year.
Zwierzakom by Cisnienie is an epic post rock experience. These extra long textured minimalist songs are very long. The tracks often build from a pulse and crescendo in the way that post rock does. The first tune is 20 minutes, and at the end the apparent crowd noise informs us that this is also a bunch of individual live takes. It’s impressive, but I was gasping for air by the fourth tune…which is 55 minutes in. Released 30 Dec 2023. Listened 3 Jan 2024
Letter to Self by SPRINTS gets the replay award for this post. This album has something that I can’t put my finger on. The singer is super emotive and seems to push hard on all the lyrics in that typical aggressive Irish way that seems to be very endearing to us Yanks. It’s like if Lemmy came back from the dead and the first thing he said was “I wanna hear something with guitars to make everyone forget Sleigh Bells ever existed” and SPRINTS was right there like “We’re doing it.” Released 5 Jan 2024, listened 8 Jan 2024.