This week (month) in music - Vol. 8
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May 26, 2026
Well, long time no write. Life is a long slog these days, so writing has fallen to the wayside a bit. But I really do want to keep this blog going, so it’s important to me to return to it, even if I do miss some time.
I finally got the surgeon process started! For those who don’t know, I need a C0-C2 spinal fusion (skull to second vertebrae in my neck) which is an ultra-specialized surgery only done with any frequency by about 6 surgeons worldwide. I started reaching out to surgeons and completing forms a few months when conservative measures failed to improve my situation, but it has taken a long time to actually meet with anyone. Last Monday however, I had my first zoom consult with a surgeon from Barcelona. Without going into too much detail, he confirmed my diagnosis of craniocervical instability and tentatively offered me surgery, pending some more imaging. Of course, that imaging is non-standard and will have many more medical/insurance hoops to jump through to get done, but it’s at least a start. The biggest relief was that my diagnosis was confirmed and surgery was offered. The worst case scenario would have been to find out I had been barking up the wrong tree for the last 2 years. I’m honestly not sure what I would have done then. It would have been pretty bad. Onwards!
I also saw Converge last weekend. They’re a wonderfully abrasive metalcore (portmanteau of heavy metal and hardcore punk) band that has been around for 30 years and still kicks major ass. They surprise released their first true album in 9 years in February (previously-reviewed in week 1), and are slated to follow that up with yet another album in June. They were opening for Poison the Well, so I got to see them at a bigger, 1000-person venue compared to the normal smaller clubs they would play. I took advantage of this to get seats on the upper balcony and out of the pit, which was going batshit crazy for their whole set. It was really intense, but I had a good time. I’m finding that despite the testosterone-fueled machismo that metal is stereotyped for, metalheads are often some of the most sensitive and kind people I find at shows. I was wearing my hard neck collar, and multiple people stopped to make way for me as I was trying to push through crowds to get to the merch line or the bathroom. I’ve been on an aggressive music kick so far this year, and this show was a great way to make that feel more tangible.
I also finished the two original seasons of Twin Peaks and watched the movie. Man. I really missed out not watching non-sports television for the first 22 years of my life. That shit was so good. The TV show was so unsettling, comforting, intriguing, and funny at the same time. However, the movie was the most disturbing thing I’ve seen ever seen, while simultaneously being the best thing I’ve ever seen. Without giving away any spoilers, let’s just say there is graphic rape, incest, pedophilia, psychological torture, child sex trafficking, abuse, murder, and gore. While that is scary in itself, seeing that agony unfold on the same characters I had just spent a month falling in love with on the decidedly-tamer TV show was a trip. I understand now why this movie initially was slammed by critics for being too bleak, but I think it touched on a concept that I’ve come to really value throughout my health journey: your struggles are not only meaningful because they have silver linings or because you overcome some major hero’s journey (though that is undoubtedly an aspect to derive insight from) but instead simply because you have intrinsic worth as a human. Sometimes stories don’t have happy endings, and I think the only way to find solace in that is the value we place on human souls, not on anything external. Sometimes shit sucks and that sucks. I could write a long post about that.
Most disturbing of all however, was that the movie activated trauma responses that gave me intense flashbacks to the traumatic and dire early days of my injury where I genuinely feared for my life. They were memories I didn’t even know I still had, but were undoubtedly simply blocked out for self-preservation. While thankfully they were a different character to types of trauma portrayed in the movie, I hadn’t really connected the dots that what had happened to me was really a form of intense, intense trauma. But by golly it was. So, even though I really enjoyed it, I’m gonna hold off on the 2017 return season for now, since it is supposed to continue the dark themes of the movie. I’ve been watching a shitty comedy-drama, Psych, instead while I figure out my health issues and where my life goes from here. I’ll take on more disturbing media later, but, man, that movie was one of the most profoundly moving things I’ve consumed.
Wee-woo, that’s a lot of updates. Other things: the Giants keep losing, I’m excited for the new Modest Mouse album next week, it’s getting warm again, and I want the Spurs to win the NBA title. OK, now onto the music. I wrote these reviews over the entire course of the month, so they are a bit scattered, but I’m proud of them all.
Jesu - Jesu
(Doomgaze, Drone Metal - Hydra Head Records - 2004)
I stumbled upon Jesu early on in my journey of seeking out bone-rattling shoegaze, but have recently looped back around to this project after finding Jesu was a major influence on Neurosis, Isis, and post-metal as a whole. Jesu sees Justin Broadrick (of previously-reviewed seminal industrial metal outfit Godflesh) applying his trademark misanthropic brushstrokes to a canvas of shoegaze and drone metal.
While the genre has been bastardized and mellowed out over time, this early example is my preferred style of doomgaze: punishing, slow, grinding, lonely, and nihilistic. I think of war crimes, nuclear disasters, and puppies being smashed with hammers. Every song settles into a thick, heavily textured droning riff which takes the listener on a long journey to nowhere, replete with unintelligible chanting and maniacally monotonous drums. Whatever life you had in you before listening to this will be wiped away by the end. It’s probably no surprise then that Justin grew up in the grimy industrial slums of 1980s Birmingham to parents that played in a punk band known for performing with bloody fecal matter and once offered €15,000 to anyone who would partake in an onstage execution by guillotine. Unfortunately, they never got any takers. Fortunately, Justin’s music comes across as far more honest and less gimmicky, though no less nihilistic.
And while less “pure” than the titans of drone metal like like Sunn O))) and Earth, I think I prefer Jesu’s style. The original drone metal “trick” was that if you played a Black Sabbath riff at about a quarter speed for ten minutes, it sounded pretty damn cool. However, instead of simply riding the coattails of this discovery, Jesu builds on the trick by adding in more typical elements of music: drums, vocals, and, sometimes, even a bit of melody. The end result is one of the heaviest things I’ve ever heard. It soundtracks pretty well to the harshness of chronic illness and to someone that can’t really dance currently. I just sit here and melt in a sea of ethereal TV static. Play this one loud!
4/5 - best song: friends are evil
Brat - Charli XCX
(Electropop - Atlantic Records - 2024)
Brat. Iconic. If you were alive during the 2024th year of our lord, you are familiar with Brat. While ostensibly an album, Brat became a cultural movement that formed around a messy, hedonistic, and supremely self-confident attitude that Charli summarized by saying it’s “just, like, a pack of cigs, and, like, a Bic lighter, and, like, a strappy white top. With no bra.” Let’s see: I’ve smoked probably 5 cigs in my life, so maybe I get 0.1 points there. I don’t own a Bic lighter or a strappy white top. But I also don’t wear bras, so there’s another point. 1.1/4 in total. I don’t think I qualify as Brat :(
Jokes aside, it’s unfortunate that Brat summer was in 2024, since that was the summer my life fell apart. Ironically, the prior summer, my only “normal” summer as a college student, may have been my most brat. I split my time between climbing in the Eastern Sierra, getting my ass kicked on a failed ultra-endurance event in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains, camping on beaches in Baja California, getting caught in Hurricane Hillary while kayaking on the Colorado River, guiding 2 week-long backpacking trips for incoming UCSD freshman, doing DMT in a shitty apartment in Mammoth Lakes, and not sleeping in a bed for 54 days straight at one point. In keeping with the brat spirit, much of that time was spent listening to how i’m feeling now and Vroom Vroom by Charli XCX after my roommate had shown me she made experimental music beyond the boring radio pop I knew her for in 2014. Soundtracked to a steady diet of Charli XCX, Kero Kero Bonito, and 100 gecs, we had our own little proto-Brat summer.
Oh right, this is about reviewing music. I’m clearly not the target audience for Brat, so I have to temper my opinions, but I do enjoy this album. Having become familiar with the hyperpop scene before this was released, it was cool to see many of those ideas that had been bubbling in the underground become packaged in a genuinely good product that has mass appeal. That being said, I really do prefer her 2020 album how i’m feeling now. The aesthetics of Brat feel very much curated for a young “it-girls” in big cities, whereas how i’m feeling now is weirder, and thus more relatable to what I listen to. Still, for all it’s irreverence, there is a surprising amount of vulnerability packed into Brat. And you can’t deny how catchy it is. “I’m a Brat when I’m bumpin that.”
3/5 - best song: von dutch
…To the Beat of a Dead Horse - Touché Amoré
(Screamo - 6131 Records - 2009)
I never would have predicted that Touché Amoré would be the first band to receive a second review, but here I am going through a Touché phase. Contrary to their previously-reviewed magnum opus Stage Four, their debut, …To the Beat of a Dead Horse, is much rawer picture of a band still finding their own sound amidst the sea of obvious influences. However, while the intensity and anger of classic Screamo bands like Saetia, pageninetynine, and Orchid can be seen all over this record, you can start to see some of the unique magic that would eventually crystallize on Stage Four.
Foremost among that magic for me are the intelligible vocals and meaningful lyrics. While I’ve come to appreciate the indecipherable wailing of many screamo and hardcore bands, frontman Jeremy Bolm has a lot to say, so it’s a delight that he can be understood. Though he still screams almost everything, there is a melody and depth that earlier screamo bands missed, bringing the wonderful lyrics to the forefront. I love the refrain at the end of Honest Sleep:
“I’m losing sleep / I’m losing friends / I’ve got a love hate love for the city I’m in”
as well as the opening to the following song Cadence:
“I’ve got my own braaaaaand of patriotism / It comes with nights of emptiness where I show my true colors / The real meaning of independence”
but perhaps the best part is the ending to Adieux and the album as a whole:
“I was not born with a strong voice / It’s never been one to boom / But I’ll be damned to go out quiet if it’s the only thing I’ll lose”
Jeremy lives with mutational falsetto stemming from deep insecurities relating to going through puberty later than his peers, so his voice has a soft, raspy, and near-crying quality to it that he has admitted to being extremely self-conscious of. It’s somewhat ironic then, that his job is to scream for a living, but it warms my heart to hear him owning his insecurities and saying a big fuck you to his detractors.
Accompanying the cathartic vocals are surprisingly melodic and catchy instrumentals. While this album is definitely rough, I think that is Touché’s secret sauce: they remain true to their abrasive screamo roots, but somehow imbue their songs with the catchiness of radio-friendly punk. They push right up against the line of being a gimmicky screaming band, but then are reeled in by their authenticity and Jeremy’s honesty and compassion about his own struggles. Though they have reached greater heights later in their career, this debut is still wonderful in it’s own right. It’s a therapy session smushed into 18 minutes.
4/5 - best song: honest sleep
Girl with Fish - Feeble Little Horse
(Noise Pop, Twee Pop, Shoegaze - Saddle Creek - 2023)
In honor of the new Feeble album tonight,[1] I figured I’d review this modern classic. While most shoegaze is getting heavier, Feeble Little Horse got nauseatingly light and sugary. This album makes me feel like shitposting on r/okbuddyretard[2] in 2018 while eating overly-frosted cupcakes and watching OG Minecraft let’s plays in the background. Is that a good thing? I’m not sure. But, in all it’s ironic glory, this 26-minute eargasm entered my brain and has stuck around for the last few years.
At one point on Steamroller, the lead singer, Lydia, has the gall to ask
“Do I make you cringe?”
after telling the listener earlier on Pocket that you
“Fuck like you’re eating”
To answer your question, yes Lydia, you make me cringe. But somehow, I’m not mad about it. Every song is sneaky cute and the guitar work is amazing. This is largely carried by the clever production which turns all the grainy, crunchy, and distorted lofi instruments into something really crisp and tasty.
My main critique is that the short songs don’t do any favors to dispel the juvenile nature of the album, but that appears to be the aesthetic they were going for. I thought their one-off single, This is Real, from last year did a great job at developing into something even more mature and glitchy, but I think the new album will be a return to short earworms. While that may be sacrificing some greatness, I can’t complain since new Feeble is new Feeble. After all, how can you be satisfied? She’s five-foot-one and you’re six-foot-five.
3.5/5 - best song: tin man
Is this the first time I’ve haven’t reviewed an album from the 90s? I think so. Look at me being all modern and hip. Ok bye.
Now it was last night, but I wrote this yesterday, so bear with me. ↩︎
Credit to Owen for posting this legendary meme that got onto Know Your Meme. Regrettably, Kow Anal wasn’t quite on the same caliber. ↩︎
Comments
Let me know what you thought about this post, especially if you have criticism or want to discuss something further. Sharing ideas is the whole reason I write!
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