Currently Listening

[capstasher]

Electric Light Orchestra's first concept album, Eldorado. Tells the story of a bank worker escaping his boring job in the city through his fantasy dreamworld. Much inspiration for my creative works comes from this album (and Time, of course).

Dare I say, he's literally me.

[DrSchnautz]

While a lot of black metal is supposed to be grim, this isn't really "happy" but it is quite uplifting. Some of the best compositional work in metal at large. Beautiful counterpoint melodies and harmonization, periodic electronic interludes, layered synthesizers, both clean and harsh vocals, Windir spawned an entire other kind of black metal. no, metal, to me. Naturally taking from bands like Dissection, later Bathory and Dawn, but it doesn't feel as melancholic. It just feels like living in a beautiful but isolated place, the joy of solitude and its sting all the while. Which Valfar did, living in Sogndal, surrounded by sea and mountains. Relatable to my current position.

Valfar's clean vocals on track 1 ("Todeswalzer") raise the hairs on my back.

"Wenn ich tot bin, werde ich weitergehen,
weiter als irgendjemand.
Um Kraft und Weisheit zu erreichen,
wie einem Gott vom anderen Ende."

"Journey to the End" as well, that electronic part at the end closing the album is legit some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard.

[alix]

Over these last two months I have completely fallen in love with this one recent group from Venezuela called weed420. They got a small jump in popularity thanks to appearing on the 2025 yearly RateYourMusic charts for a bit before dropping in score. They're really hit or miss with no exceptions (got called a piece of shit by a friend after recommending it to him) and probably hard to "get" if you're not from a Spanish-speaking country.


The closest genre I could group their music in is Latin Electronic and Epic Collage (pretty similar to Elysia Crampton in that regard) but they have a much bigger share of sounds and influences beyond that. Reggaeton, noise, salsa, industrial, vaporwave, shoegaze, psychedelia, trap, chopped and screwed rap, drone, post-rock... This is both the reason for why it's much better if you're from a Hispanic country (sampling, plus reggaeton being unavoidable here), why it's so divisive (refer to my previous point) and why I love it even more. Aside from all of the other reasons (musical ability, experimentation, the masterful sampling, etc.) there's something really impressive and hitting, almost cathartic, in seeing the club music that's (still) played everywhere get turned into a live 14 minute piercing post-rock piece. Just listen to these two back-to-back to see.

[Blond]

This is both the reason for why it's much better if you're from a Hispanic country (sampling, plus reggaeton being unavoidable here), why it's so divisive (refer to my previous point) and why I love it even more. Aside from all of the other reasons (musical ability, experimentation, the masterful sampling, etc.) there's something really impressive and hitting, almost cathartic, in seeing the club music that's (still) played everywhere get turned into a live 14 minute piercing post-rock piece. Just listen to these two back-to-back to see.

Obligatory post:

[Parzival]

[alix]

Alt-country and country as a whole are genres I still need to delve deeper into, but I decided to finally check out The Magnolia Electric Co. after seeing it on hundreds of /mu/ charts (and Maypews's too). Turns out it's really fucking good, and also rockier than I expected (I was expecting something more in the vein of groups like Red House Painters or Carissa's Weird. Farewell Transmission is one of the best songs of all time and I'm also pretty sure that I'm going to like all of the album even more after various listens.

[Maypews]

Alt-country and country as a whole are genres I still need to delve deeper into, but I decided to finally check out The Magnolia Electric Co. after seeing it on hundreds of /mu/ charts (and @Maypews's too). Turns out it's really fucking good, and also rockier than I expected (I was expecting something more in the vein of groups like Red House Painters or Carissa's Weird. Farewell Transmission is one of the best songs of all time and I'm also pretty sure that I'm going to like all of the album even more after various listens.

Yeah, when I first listened to it it was Farewell Transmission that immediately stood out but the other tracks grow on you and become just as good. This album, and Molina's music in general, means a lot to me. I'm not usually a sucker for songwriting, but his lyrics resonate with me in a way that no other musicians do.

[Maypews]

Haven't listened to Strait's debut album yet, but might have to after the YT algo served this song to me. Really nice little tune.

[Amlux]

I still can't get over how miraculous this 2017 remaster of A Night at the Opera by Blind Guardian is! I generally am not a huge audiophile with stuff like this and am not the kind of guy who wants everything to be FLAC and the like, but it's no secret that the original mix of this album was murky as hell. And power metal is one of those genres that just doesn't work if the audio isn't clean. And it as all the more tragic as A Night at the Opera had what was unquestionably some of Blind Guardian's strongest work. An now we can enjoy it in all its glory...

[Maypews]

I largely stopped listening to hip hop a few years back when I got more into music, but I decided to change things up today and give Illmatic a listen. Lovely flow and beats all over this one, impressive album that very much lives up to it's reputation. NY State of Mind is an absolute classic. Additionally that fuzzy sound that 90s rap has to it is so nice, the newer stuff just doesn't hit the same man...