Quick Hits, Vol. 118 (Paerish, a bunch of singles, The Outfit, Tx)

Paerish - Semi-Finalists.  This album is freaking great.  Straight up, no qualifiers, I just want you to know right now that it is awesome.  One single from the album had somehow made it into my new music list last year, and it ended up being the most listened to song for me on Spotify for 2016.  Pretty much every time I saw it in my new music list I played it three times.  That tune is "Undone," and it is a perfect slice of 120 Minutes-era alternative rock.  I could keep listening to it another 50 times right now.

The track has maybe 20 total words used in the 8 lines of lyrics, but its the feel of the song, the nostalgia of that classic alt-rock sound and guitar crunch.  Still love it.  The rest of the album is also good, if not quite as note perfect as that one track.  The sound of this band reminds me of the way that some modern alt-rock bands use other classic bands as their touchstone and then make their own way. While rotating this album for hours last week on flights to California, I was able to mentally connect how I think this one fits into the alt-rock world.  The tunes kind of remind me of Silversun Pickups, in the way that they took off from Smashing Pumpkins. Nirvana took off from the Pixies.  And then the way that Queens of the Stone Age and the Foo Fighters took off from Zeppelin.  These guys picked up leads from all of those generators and plugged them in.  For the other song I want you to hear, here is the one that chugs like the Foos and Queens, called "Then People Forget."

The breakdown at 0:23 that bulks up and jams the pedal down at 0:33 (and even better at 1:40 to 1:51) is all I want to use when I blow out the speakers in my car before lighting it on fire with a flame-throwing Fender and driving it off the Grand Canyon's south rim.  I just got goosebumps hearing it again.  I want to see these dudes play live so damn badly.  I feel like I'd pogo and thrash into 3 torn Achilles before this song was over.

The band is actually French, which is interesting to me since, well, they sound like American dudes. Their highly informative (note, sarcasm font used there) website provides a great bio, that reads, in its entirety, "We're a four piece indie rock band from Paris, France." Here's a weird fact, the odd name that they decided on?  Somehow they claim that it comes from the last name of the Robin Williams character in Jumanji (which was just Parrish), because they love Robin Williams and that character was just a kid trapped in an adult's body.  Which is weird.  But whatever, dude.  Jam the tunes and don't worry about the oddly spelled moniker.

Gonna fire out some truly quick hits here on some single songs that have been floating around my new music list for a while:

• The Cuckoos - "Stranger in Your Eyes."  Holy pure and honest Doors cover band, Batman!  Pretty good, although the Doors get on my nerves after a while.  I think I found these guys because they followed me on Twitter.
• Desert Sparrow - "Joker."  Kind of torchy in the Cowboy Junkies way.  I'd try out a full album.  I think I also found this one because they followed me on Twitter.  This song has less than a thousand listens, so I guess they're just trying to find anyone to check it out.  Worked on me!
• Stellify - "Shun."  Pretty groovy but shady little rocker.  I'd definitely go listen to a full album is there was one around.
• Macklemore - "Drug Dealer."  I know people clown on Macklemore, but screw that, the guy actually tries to do something with his soapbox.  This is a diatribe about BIG PHARMA getting us hooked and paying Congress to keep the scam going, with a hook of "My drug dealer was a doctor, had the plug from big pharma, he said that it would heal me, but it only gave me problems."  This is valuable rap.  If the beat was stronger, this could have been more effective though...
• Pusha T, Ty Dolla $ign, Desiigner - "Circles."  I'll pretty well follow Pusha T anywhere, but Desiigner is so idiotic its hard to stay true.  Even the Pusha bits here are pretty low key.  Throw away track.
• E-40 & AD - "On One."  I've never been able to get on board with E-40.  I know people who think he's great, but I'd rather have Too Short if I'm picking a bay area rapper.  Nothing here.
• BLACKPINK - "BOOMBAYAH."  Where the shit did I find this thing?  Half English, Half (unknown Asian dialect), kind of EDM, kind of middle eastern, kind of rap, but even when these ladies are rapping in Asian dialect, they still use word like "Lambo" to rhyme with "Rambo."  This is terrible.
• Don Mega & Young MA - "Levels."  If you don't love Ice Cube the way I love Ice Cube, then seeing the name Don Mega doesn't immediately take you back to 1998 and gravely intoning the name in a deep voice DON MEGA!  DON MEGA!!! <electricity arcing sound effect>  My guess is that Mega is just the beatmaker here, because its all just Young MA rapping.  I'd like to hear more of what she does.
• Eminem - "Campaign Speech."  Holy shit, man.  When Eminem does his thing, he's seriously pretty amazing.  He takes any and all phonetic sounds and then lays out any and every use he can think of for each one.  This is almost 8 minutes, with no real music in the background, of him just spitting messed up thoughts salted with rhyming words.  Truly something to behold. Again, if you put this to a real beat, could be magic.
• The Lox - "What Else You Need to Know."  I don't know the Lox other than remembering them on a B.I.G. song from back in the day.  Remember in "Last Day" when he says something about "you know how the Lox get."  But I don't think I'd ever actually heard their raps before. This one is fine, nothing that exciting.

The Outfit, Tx - Down by the Trinity.  Zero bio on Spotify on these dudes, but their "Where people listen" thing says 53 listeners in Dallas, 34 in Houston, and 27 in Austin.  And with that album title, I'm guessing they are from Dallas.  And boom, 5 seconds of internet sleuthing and here is an article by Mel from this group talking about how awesome the Dallas rap scene is. I mean, the people he brings up as the old school masters of the Dallas scene aren't even on my radar, much less the new people he's talking about.  Who knew? 

The beats and mood on this is dark and dank and tough. Feels kind of like the guys in Bone Thugs who didn't do the tongue tripping moves got together, did some terrible things, hid from the cops for a few years in a foul sewer easement, and then decided to rap again.  The beats are woozy Houston-ish Clams Casino-ish bangers.  I found them because Shae Serrano said something about them on Twitter being "a perfect rap group."  I don't know about all of that, but I'll easily say that the opener to this album ("Burn$"), which starts with these spooky tubular bells, then a searing guitar lick and some menacing high hats, while they just keep saying "Let it Burn" over and over, is a good intro.
They have four videos from this album, and they aren't for my favorite tracks from the album, so I'll just have to go with the best of the quartet.

I'm TIYAH!  Can't get no LOWAH!  Its fine, but I don't think that they really sound like perfection.  I enjoyed a few listens, and I think I'll try their new album sometime, but I don't think I'll keep this one around.