Maximum the Hormone - Buiikikaesu!!

not the official cover; it was just too ugly

Genre(s) - Rare poep ouwe
Origin - Japan
Year of release - 2007
Bitrate - 128
Size - 44.70 MB

Okay. For some unimaginable reason someone decided to inject three Japanese menchildren and a womanchild with speed and monkey genes, take away their dictionaries, and lock them up in a room with musical instruments. The session was of course recorded and the result is Buiikikaesu!!. The music is insanely hectic and hectically insane, alternating between impossibly bouncy, happy-go-lucky stuff that will make your face go like ^___________^ and more aggressive parts with harsh vocals at a staggering speed. The lyrics would have been bilingual if the English parts weren't simply references to random everyday objects ("Bikini sport the monkey spanner ponchin!"). I generally hate music as angular and chaotic as this but this is just unforgivably catchy. And my brother asked me to up this. So there you go, sorry that it took about a year!

1. Buikkikaesu!!
2. Zetsubo Billy
3. Kuso breakin no breakin lilly
4. Louisiana Bob
5. Policeman Benz
6. Black power G men spy
7. Akagi
8. Kyokatsu
9. Bikini. Sports. Ponchin.
10. What's up, people?!
11. Chu chu lovely muni muni mura mura purin purin boron nururu rero rero
12. Shimi
13. Koi no mega lover
14. Bonus track
    

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The Smiths - Thank Your Lucky Stars

Genre(s) - Smiths music
Origin - Manchester, North West England, UK
Year of release - Nope.
Bitrate - 160 bkps
Size - 82.22 MB

Sooooo... The Smiths. Well, I like 'em. Here's a bootleg, recorded at 28-08-1986 at Irvine Meadows, Laguna Hills, Ca. This is a very good concert and exceptionally good recording, for an unofficial one. It has some of my favourite tracks from The Queen is Dead including Cemetary Gates, The Boy and - yes! - There Is a Light, and what may or may not be a funky instrumental Cyndi Lauper cover. If you like Rank, well, I think this one just a little better (all opinions I read agree with me), but that is of course personal. Morrissey is not as savage here but the tracklist suits me fine, and occasionally the band puts some over-enthusiastic security personell back in place. Who couldn't excuse the crowd for being a bit tempestuous, I mean, it IS the Moz on that stage. If you find this review a bit understated it is because I am too enthusiastic about The Smiths to properly put into words. Rest assured this comes preposterously, obsessively, unhealthily recommended.

1. Please, please, please let me get what I want
2. Still ill
3. I want the one I can't have
4. There is a light that never goes out
5. How soon is now?
6. Frankly, mr. Shankly
7. Panic
8. Stretch out and wait
9. The boy with the thorn in his side
10. Is is really so strange?
11. Cemetary gates
12. Never had no one ever
13. What she said/Rubber ring
14. That joke isn't funny anymore
15. Heaven knows I'm miserable now
16. The queen is dead
17. Money changes everything
18. I know it's over
    

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Korn - Issues

Genre(s) - Nu-metal, alternative rock
Origin - United States of America
Year of release - 1999
Bitrate - 192 kbps
Size - 66.15 MB

It's not gonna give me any kvlt credits but here is an album that I just so happen to like a great deal. Korn have always been one of the most commercially viable nu-metal bands and Issues tapped into the teen angst to great (financial) effect, but the videoclips for Falling Away from Me and Make Me Bad got me hooked as a boy and I still can't help enjoying those a lot. The rest ain't exactly filler though. The trudging, elephantine guitars let themselves be felt in the gut like a good glass of whiskey and make the singles seem like a rather light affair. All proper tracks (Somebody Someone, Beg for Me and Let's Get this Party Started being the best aside from the aforementioned singles) are very dynamic, partly because of the bass, partly because of the track structures. Opinions about Jonathan Davis differ, of course, but his bellows are commanding and he always manages to make his voice fit the music. I don't like any other album by this band but this one comes recommended.

1. Dead
2. Falling away from me
3. Trash
4. 4 u
5. Beg for me
6. Make me bad
7. It's gonna go away
8. Wake up
9. Am I going crazy?
10. Hey daddy
11. Somebody someone
12. No way
13. Let's get this party started
14. Wish you could be me
15. Dirty
    

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Placebo - Soulmates Never Die (live in Paris)

Genre(s) - Alternative rock
Origin - United Kingdom
Year of release - 2004
Bitrate - 128 kbps
Size - 130 MB

Soulmates Never Die is a concert registration released on DVD but I found an mp3 version of it, which I had to split up into two files because of its length. It's a vibrant liveshow that got me in love with a good deal of the songs even though I'm not familiar with most of their studio works. Placebo's electronica-influenced alternative rock, with its slight melancholic under- and overtones, is right up my alley. It's not the whiny-ass teen angst music you might expect (I know I did). In their concise songs they don't neglect the rock aspect and a lot of 'em, starting simple, gain more and more momentum as they go by. Plentiful guitar, keyboard and vocal hooks, and a strong chorus in most of the tracks, are given an extra shinin' by the live show's energy and especially the tandem of Bitter End and Soulmate gave me goosebumps (not that dopefiend-anthem Special K or the Frenchified version of Protect Me aren't worth the mention). Just great modern rock with a heart.

1. Intro
2. Bulletproof cupid
3. Allergic (to thoughts of Morther Earth)
4. Every you every me
5. Bionic
6. Protège moi
7. Plasticine
8. Bitter end
9. Soulmates
10. Black-eyed
11. I'll be yours
12. Special needs
13. English summer rain
14. Without you I'm nothing
15. This picture
16. Special K
17. Taste in men
18. Slave to the wage
19. Peeping Tom
20. Pure morning
21. Centerfolds
22. Where is my mind? (Pixies cover; with Francis Black)
    

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Built to Spill - Perfect from Now on

Genre(s) - Bit grungy alternative rock
Origin - United States of America
Year of release - 1997
Bitrate - 128 kbps
Size - 48.88 MB

This is not a band I know and love since ages, or connect with on a spiritual level, or any of that shit. But at the best moments the singer sounds like he has just been beaten to a pulp in a dead-end alley, ruptured a few organs, can't get back on his feet, and is crying miserably out for help to the rain-soaked streets, but nobody hears him, and even if they do they'd avert their eyes and hurry on anyway, not so much because of the rain or because they got stuff to do but because it's just some dude in an alley, right, what business is that of mine and probably the next fellow will help him. And there's a cello too. I like it.

1. Randy described eternity
2. I would hurt a fly
3. Stop the show
4. Made up dreams
5. Velvet waltz
6. Out of site
7. Kicked it in the sun
8. Untrustable part 2 (about someone else)
   

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Gym Class Heroes - As Cruel as Schoolchildren

Genre(s) - Hip hop/indie rock
Origin - United States of America
Year of release - 2006
Bitrate - 128 kbps
Size - 41.88 MB

So Gym Class Heroes are essentially a hiphop group, yeah, but with some footnotes. For one, they use live instrumentation - No DJ, an actual band. Bass, guitar, acoustic drums, the lot - something to be admired in a scene controlled by turntables and drum computers. And with such an approach, bright melodicism and fresh sounds run about in this remarkable musical hodgepodge. The presence of an emo/indie-ish drummer also involved in the songwriting is most noticable in some segments of Shoot Down the Stars, with its strong positive message, and the beautiful sung refrain of 7 Weeks. You're probably aware by now this is totally incomparable to the dark and ultra-serious modus operandi of most political hiphop or gangsta rap. With the album structured like a day at high school, one question rises in my mind: do you really have such long school days in the USA?

My upload does not contain the hit single and partial Supertramp-cover Cupid's Chokehold that was included on the rerelease, but I uploaded it separately. Get it here.

1. 1st period - the queen and I
   
2. 2nd period - shoot down the stars
3. 3rd period - new friend request
4. 4th period - clothes off!
   
5. Lunch - sloppy love jingle (pt. 1)
   
6. 6th period - viva la white girl
   
7. 7th period - 7 weeks
   
8. 8th period - it's ok, but just this once
   
9. Study hall - sloppy love jingle (pt. 2)
   
10. 10th period - biters' block (speech)
    
11. Yearbook club - boys in bands (interlude)
    
12. 12th period - scandalous scholastics
13. 13th period - on my own time (write on)
14. Detention - sloppy love jingle (pt.3)

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Crash Test Dummies - God Shuffled His Feet

Genre(s) - Alternative rock
Origin - Canada
Year of release - 1993
Bitrate - 192 kbps
Size - 58.92 MB

Life as a crash test dummy is insecure, nasty and short, and it's no wonder the music they make is hardly uplifting. The folkish, world-weary grace that they exhibit, on the other hand, is something you wouldn't expect from a bunch of anthropomorphic test devices, but it seems like they have had their joints oiled up real well. The mood and the voice of lead dummy Brad Roberts are instantly recognisable and my incentive for putting this up was hearing them on the the supermarket radio. It's a real shame that many people regard this band as a one-hit wonder, based on the song Mmm, Mmm, Mmm, Mmm. The album that the song with this highly inspired title(?) is a part of harbours eleven other songs that can all proudly stand up to the big hit.

1. God shuffled his feet
2. Afternoons and coffeespoons
3. Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm
4. In the days of the caveman
5. Swimming in your ocean
6. Here I stand before me
7. I think I'll disappear now
8. How does a duck know?
9. When I go out with artists
10. The psychic
11. Two knights and maidens
12. Untitled track
    

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Pixies - Surfer Rosa

Band/artist - Pixies
Genre(s) - Alternative rock (back then that term meant something)
Origin - United States of America
Album - Surfer Rosa
Year of release - 1988

Before trying this album out I really only knew the Pixies' track Where Is My Mind?, which I've always found very depressing, so when I tried out this album for the very first time it turned out a bit different than I had in mind. I had always assumed them to be more post-punkish, and still have trouble labelling the band as alternative rock because the term is thrown around rather indiscriminately and "alternative" doesn't mean much anymore since the late nineties. Pixies sound like a gathering of damaged souls and deranged minds and the term rock just doesn't seem to do the results of this gathering justice. In any case, rock or otherwise, Surfer Rosa is a rusty, rickety rollercoaster of emotions - from soaring highs through sharp turns to extreme lows - taking full advantage of its uncompromisingly barren, skeletal production. Favourite songs of mine: the adrenaline-fueled Oh My Golly, spookily endearing Break My Body and of course still the haunting, manic-depressive Where Is My Mind? Which are yours?

1. Bone machine
2. Break my body
3. Something against you
4. Broken face
5. Gigantic
6. River Euphrates
7. Where is my mind?
8. Cactus
9. Tony's theme
10. Oh my golly!
11. Vamos
12. I'm amazed
13. Brick is red
    

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