Quick Hits, Vol. 148 (King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Cub Sport, Jeff Tweedy, Birdtalker)

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Murder of the Universe.  I thought I might have turned into a King Gizzard fan boy, as I'm digging their old stuff, but this is super weird shit.  This is more psych rock freakout stuff, but what makes it even more weird is that there is a bunch of spoken word stuff over the top, like scary narration to move the storyline along during the jams.  There is also a song called "Vomit Coffin," which should be super rad, but is only OK.  And the album is split into three parts.  Why can't we just rock out, bros?  None of these songs make the top ten most popular tracks for the band, and no song appears to be more popular than the rest by any appreciable measure.  So I guess I'll just give you the first of the rock freakouts called "Altered Beast."  The first section of the album boasts 4 consecutively numbered songs called "Altered Beast" and then 3 songs called "Alter Me," shifting back and forth.

Hear that lady voice at like 1:10?  She is the voiceover for this portion of the album.  Shit is weird.  I enjoyed some of these tunes, but I'm gonna let this one go.

Cub Sport - This is Our Vice.  This album is terrible.  I don't know where it came from, but this is like watered down The 1975 or something (to the extent The 1975 could even get more watered down).  Synth-y pop mediocrity.  You don't want to hear this one.  Just in case you REALLY do, here is the top track, "Come On Mess Me Up."

I always feel like an asshole when I really crap on something, but I want nothing further to do with this album.  I almost deleted it and just moved on, but I need to acknowledge the bad along with the good.

Jeff Tweedy - Together at Last.  This is the lead singer of Wilco, in case you somehow have been living under a rock and didn't know.  That sounds more rude than I meant it to, but you know whaimsayin, right?  This album is damn pretty.  I clown on Wilco, but I am having a hard time finding anything to fault on this disc - sounds like old school Neil Young took a shot at remaking a bunch of old Wilco and Uncle Tupelo tracks.  Very simple, just guitar and voice, but it works nicely.  The most listened to track is an old Wilco tune called "Laminated Cat," and has just under half a million streams.  Doing OK, but not great.

I mean, that is lovely guitar work right there, and Tweedy sounds great over the top of it.  I just want to take a bath in there while driving deep into the hills above Breckenridge while the Aspen leaves go gold.  So, like I guess the truck I'm in has a bathtub, but someone else is gonna have to drive, but the sides of the tub will need to be high to keep the water from sloshing out.  Anyway, logistics aside, we're doing this.  While playing this single.  "Candy left over from Halloween, a unified theory of everything, love left over from lovers leavin', books they all know they're not worth readin', it's not for the season."  That, with "weedin' out your weekends," this is the good stuff.  The start of "Lost Love" really makes me think this is about to be a Neil Young track, singing about Pocahontas.  Fun album, very chill stuff, but I like it.

Birdtalker - Just This.  More stuff that I don't recall even finding in the first place, but I apparently stuck it into my new music queue on July 27, 2017.  Makes me think of that Civil Wars group that came about a few years ago (and killed it at their ACL big stage performance).  Light touch on the music and nice harmonies.  The hit from the album is "Heavy," with 14.8 million streams.

Nice stuff.  Curious to see what they would do with a full album and not just a 6 song EP.  I like it though.