This week in music - Vol. 3

Sean

Yeah, I’ve done this 3 weeks in a row. No biggie. I’m so healthy I can word vomit nonsense for a few minutes each week. Chump change for a fella like me. Just hot guy shit. Whatever.

I’m really trying to think about what happened this week, but there hasn’t been a whole lot. In the world of Sean, that’s mostly a good thing these days. Perhaps the most notable thing is that we got the huge tree in out front yard removed on Thursday. The arborist said it was quite dead and only a matter of time before it fell over in a storm, so we decided to just have it taken down. It was pretty entertaining to watch them methodically chop off all the branches. One person would climb the tree and set an anchor up high, then run the rope down to the limb they were cutting and tie it off. The team on the ground would maneuver the remaining rope so that when the limb was cut, it swung out into the street, as opposed to into our house. It really reminded me of rock climbing, but I can’t think about that too much or my fragile view of everything being OK starts to crumble.

Nothing major happened health wise either. I continue to break through all of the tight fascia and muscle guarding my body developed over December/January to hold my head on. It’s a bit sad how far I can get set back over such a short period of time, but I’m grateful that I know how to dig myself out of the hole, even if it takes months. Neurosurgery consults are on the horizon….

I didn’t listen to or resonate with a ton of music this week. I’m not exactly sure why that was the case. Maybe it’s because I tend to build a relationship with music when it accompanies a high or a low, but not so much when I’m just chugging along. Either way, time to review some stuff. Words are not coming to me smoothly this afternoon, so have patience with me, dear reader :)

Hours Were the Birds - Adrianne Lenker (Singer-Songwriter, Folk - Self-Released - 2013)

I often used to joke that Adrianne Lenker was my therapist. I don’t know if that’s true anymore, but her music seems to calibrated at just the right wavelength to seep right across my blood-brain barrier. And out of her entire body of work, Big Thief and all, this album has always resonated with me the most. I don’t know if there is any more that you could ever want out of a folk album. Adrianne manages to capture the atmosphere and emotion of a large orchestra while still maintaining the intimacy and simplicity of an album made with just a guitar and her voice. Folk isn’t folk without beautiful lyrics, and that is perhaps her biggest strength. I really think she will go down as the Bob Dylan of our generation. She seems to have an endless supply of witty, dreamy, and poignant lyrics that flow beautifully with her voice. One day, I’m gonna be a motherfucking steamboat, baby. 4/5 - best song: steamboat

Die in Love - Greet Death (Shoegaze - Deathwish - 2025)

I surprisingly found this at a record store on Friday, so I thought I’d write about it. I didn’t hear Die in Love until near the end of 2025, but it quickly stood out in the endless, muted sea of modern shoegaze. While most gaze bands are getting heavier and sounding more like the Deftones, Greet Death turned to a much softer, Slowdive/Mojave 3-influenced sound. They absolutely nailed it. My favorite moments on this record are when the songs hauntingly trudge along and threaten to erupt into a wall-of-sound, but never do. However, what sets this apart from other similar music are the lyrics. They have a really unique blend of hope, nihilism, melancholy, and monotony come off as sincere and work well with the dreamy atmosphere. While the highs are really high (“Country Girl”, “Emptiness is Everywhere”, “Love Me When You Leave”), the lows (“Red Rocket” and “August Underground”) feel like generic filler that stray too far from the honesty so prevalent in the rest of the record. All in all though, this is one I’m stoked to have on vinyl. 3.5/5 - best song: emptiness is everywhere

Nebraska - Bruce Springsteen (Folk, Americana - Columbia 1982)

A couple months ago I never thought I’d be listening to anything by Bruce Springsteen, much less enjoying it. I only knew him as the guy who wrote “Born in the U.S.A.” which I in turn only knew as the song that brainless nationalist politicians used to pander to ugly tribalism of American “patriots.” However, while poking around on Wikipedia to trace back the influences of Jason Molina and Will Oldham, I came across Nebraska. It was pretty hard to imagine anything by Bruce Springsteen could ever influence a man as sincere as Jason Molina, but by the time I finished Nebraska , I understood how. Originally written for a full band, the full-band recordings were deemed unsatisfactory and Bruce instead released the demo versions that were recorded on a four-track recorder. Contrary to the primal groupthink I thought he stood for, each song is a bleak lo-fi vignette about blue-collar workers and outcasts who commit unspeakable acts out of desperation and alienation. I particularly liked “Atlantic City” about a young man who is forced to join the mob after failing to make an honest living in a gambling-ridden town. Especially these days, I’m interested in the soft white underbelly 1 of society, and this record has gut punch after gut punch of hard-hitting ugly humanity. The closing track, too, hits pretty close to home. “Reason to Believe” details people who maintain faith despite there being no reason to, because that’s all you can do. As inane as it sounds, that’s what we all have to do sometimes and, damn, does it resonate. Oh, and in case you were wondering, “Born in the U.S.A” is actually a Vietnam protest song. Bruce is based. 4.5/5 - best song: reason to believe

Streetcleaner - Godflesh (Industrial Metal, Noise Rock - Combat Records - 1989)

Sometimes, my interest in the underbelly of society comes out in listening to introspective folk music, and sometimes it manifests itself as Godflesh. Godflesh is grimy, misanthropic, apocalyptic, mechanical, heavy, disturbing, and downright disgusting. I love it. I’m more familiar with Justin Broadrick’s work under the doomgaze moniker Jesu, but his time in Godflesh is definitely more influential. They took the maniacal vocals and pummeling drum machine of Steve Albini’s Big Black and infused it with drop-tuned guitars and overblown bass to create a record so filthy you need to take a shower after listening to it. I have no idea what Justin is howling about in the lyrics, but I can tell beneath it all, there’s a beating human heart crying out at the world. This record is particularly meaningful this week as Justin announced he underwent a traumatic surgery to remove a large groin hernia, and, on doctor’s orders, will be retiring Godflesh in a couple years. Probably pretty hard to yell at the world when you’re worried you’re literally going to blow your balls out. Maybe that fits the Godflesh ethos though. 3.5/5 - best song: locust furnace

Yeesh, that took some time to get out. My brain is not running at full capacity today. We’ll see how long I can keep this gig up. Stay safe folks.

I lifted this phrase, one of my favorites, from this great youtube channel . It’s entirely long form interviews of people often invisible to society: the homeless, the drug-addicted, the sex workers, the poor, and the societal outcasts. It’s all about the human side of the ugly side of society.