Quick Hits, Vol. 143 (Cornershop, Jain, Mastodon, Incubus)

As an aside that might be interesting only to me, the final click results of this year's ACL previews are in, and the big one that caught a lot of interest was Friday, with over 1,100 views of that schedule matrix.  I think, for next year, I'm going to try to include band genre in the matrix as well, so that people really get a good idea of what the music is (instead of my snarky comment One Liner).  Now we are back to the old Quick Hits.  Enjoy this one, full of four albums I don't want to hear again.  Catch the fever!

Cornershop - When I Was Born for the 7th Time.  Huh, these are the guys who do that weird song played on alt-rock radio a ton back in the mid-90's that sounds like it says "a brim full of ashes on the 45" and "everybody needs a bosom for a pillow."

I reviewed one of their newer albums recently and was surprised to find out they had one that was a big success back in the day, well that is this album.  Although that song is pretty straight-forward indie rock, the album as a whole is an odd mish-mash of sounds, like Brit pop meets traditional Indian music meets dance rock, but I like it.  "Butter the Soul" is a good instrumental jam.  I was kind of excited for the Beatles cover "Norwegian Wood," until I realized it was all in a non-English dialect.  Still kind of interesting.  Overall, a weird album, with the pastiche of different sounds and grooves based in traditional Indian music, but still pretty good.  I don't think I'll keep it around any longer, but I'm actually glad to have heard the whole album a few times.

Jain - Zanaka.  French gal who I saw at SXSW this last March (can you tell I'm finally cleaning out all the stuff in my new music queue that I've been avoiding while listening to new ACL music?).  Her live show was actually really high energy and pretty fun, but as I recall she did the majority of it in French.  Most of this is English, although honestly sometimes the accent is so strong that I can't tell.  However, although this is pretty snappy dance rock, I can do without this album.  Top track is the opening song, "Come," with 46.8 million streams (which, damn, that is a lot of streams).

Another 69 million YouTube views.  That is pretty damn popular.  Pretty catchy, I can't lie, but it doesn't mean I'd keep the whole album around.  Although sometimes it sounds like MIA, who I like, I'm good.

Mastodon - Emperor of Sand.  I always want to like a Mastodon album more than I actually do.  If you don't know these guys, this is hard rock/metal/sludge rock stuff that always has some weird, complex lyrics, but just never seems to get into a groove with me.  According to something I just read, those complex lyrics in this one involve an album concept of a curse placed on a nomad by the ruler of a desert, which is apparently supposed to correlate to cancer.  Here is the top track, with 5.4 million streams, called "Show Yourself."

Now that is a really weird video.  I don't know why it doesn't click for me, as normally I'd like me some sludgy rock and roll stuff, but I think it might be the lack of a good heavy back end.  The bass and kick drums don't seem to do as much work as the guitar and the vocals, and I want more thump and groove.  Although, here and there, stuff like the groove in the middle of "Jaguar God" makes me stop what I'm doing to listen and see what is up.  I'll still let this one go though.

Incubus - 8.  I don't fault bands for trying to stay in the spotlight and keep making music, but there are some bands where I just want to remember their best days and not hear constant dilution of their memory.  Make Yourself and Morning View were very good albums, they soundtracked a certain post-college period in my life where the world was very into this brand of alt-metal/ rap-metal.  But this one is just tired sounding.  No songs from this album crack their top ten most popular tracks on Spotify (which is not a good sign), but the most listened to track is "Glitterbomb."

VIC-TAAAM.  It feels like they are riiiight there, just about to launch into something, and then it fizzles out and its just more plain chugga-chugga and a slightly larger voice for the chorus.  Doesn't quite get there for me.  I think my favorite is the slinky "Love in a Time of Surveillance."  Not a bad album, I'd just rather hear Morning View right now.  I'll let this one go.