Quick Hits, Vol. 171 (Feist, Quicksand, INHEAVEN, Algiers)

If you have 20 minutes, and you liked Stranger Things, watch this now and thank me later.

Feist - Pleasure.  This was on someone's end of year best albums list.  Maybe The Ringer.  I thought enough of it after a listen or two to add it to my new music queue to dive into it some more, but now I'm not feeling it much anymore.  I like when it goes blues rock, like "I'm Not Running Away" more than I like it going torchy, slow-mo indie, like "Young Up."  The title song is the top track on Spotify, "Pleasure," with 4.1 million streams.

This one is more in the vein of the torchy stuff, but it kind of takes off for a bit in the middle with the scronky guitars.  This one isn't doing it for me.

Random aside, go listen to the Decemberists Ben Franklin Song.  This is a Lin-Manuel Miranda-penned song of ballsy swagger written from Ben Franklin's perspective where he brags about how bad ass he is.  "Do you know who the fuck I am?  I am Poor Richard's Almanac-writing Benjamin fucking Franklin."

Pretty funny stuff.

Quicksand - Interiors.  I saw Quicksand open for someone back in the early nineties, Smashing Pumpkins or Red Hot Chili Peppers or Pearl Jam or Soundgarden...  High school shows all run together after a while.  But I know I saw them because I had a concert tee that I wore into college until I sacrificed it for a theme party where someone needed to look metal-ish and so they ripped off the sleeves of that t-shirt for their costume.  We were not very real metal-heads.  Or very good party costume makers either.  WHATEVER.

After a 22 year gap in albums, these dudes are back for another stab at an album, and it sounds very much like they haven't heard anything new since their old tunes.  Very 90's alt rock-ish stuff, some Silverchair, some Soundgarden, some Stone Temple Pilots, very grunge-forward rock stuff.  "Illuminant" with 603k streams, is the top song on Spotify.

Pretty solid.  I've enjoyed a few forays through this album, but I won't hold on to it for good.  Try out "Hyperion," and if you ever used to jam Silverchair like I did, you should hear echos of those tunes in there, big time.

INHEAVEN - INHEAVEN.  Great grungy rock stuff also from the Buzz Bin of the 90's, but with the added bonus of two lead singers, who switch off lead roles on songs, to good effect.  The female vocalist is good, but the male sounds like Michael Hutchence of INXS and therefore I'm very into him.  I used to love INXS.  This is a good album of fun tunes.  As they switch off, it makes for almost two different bands on the first several songs.  You have a punkier tune with the lady singer, then you get a groovier tune with Not-Hutchence.  Which is kind of cool.  I already talked about the album a little bit because of reviewing top ten lists from 2017, and this was on Keith Law's list.  "Regeneration" is still my favorite tune - just a perfect grunge rock nugget, but I'll give you a different tune this time, "Treats," which also slays.

Going for the Smells Like Teen Spirit thing both in the video and in the intro shred that falls back into a feedback time for vocals.  Oh, and the cheerleaders dancing in a dark space in front of the band.  But the crunch of that chorus is like musical manna to me.  Give me that all day.  I am such a sucker for that type of jam.  Some of the other Not-Hutchence tunes have a saxophone and xylophone presence that is reminiscent of Springsteen (like "Stupid Things,").  I don't know man, I've been sucked into this one.  I'm on it.

Algiers - The Underside of Power.  WTF is this?  The opening song, "Walk Like a Panther," is like someone made an industrial song by sticking Billy Ocean in electrified water and recording his wails as he slowly expired.  Zero clue where I found this stuff, but it is not for me.  Also, their Spotify bio says they combine post-punk with "no wave" and now I want to die.  Honestly can't finish the album.  Here is that track, which somehow has 266k streams.

In all honesty, some of the other songs are better, but I can't move past how unpleasant this one is.  And they picked it to open the album?  Nope.