Garbage Albums Review Page Some albums are so bad, I hate to go to the trouble of making a whole page for them (especially considering I probably won't waste my time on any other albums by that particular artist). All of these albums are bad, at least 4/8 or less, and they are worth reviewing shortly. These will be mostly new albums, and it will be an ongoing page. I believe in spreading the word on bad music, especially over-hyped garbage. Enjoy the shit! P.S.: I tried a really annoying background color for this page. Hope you like it, I call it "Dumpster Color"!
	7/07 - New to the dumpster are Twightlight Sad, Dungen, The Brakes, Long Blondes, John Vanderslice, and Voxtrot Ryan Adams 2005 Jacksonville City Nights -  4/8   Ryan Adams honestly plans these "prolific" outings. Look at the discography, an album a year for three years, not too odd really. Then two releases in 2003, Rock 'n Roll and Love is Hell, released at the same time! Well, ok, that is a little prolific (but he still should have combined the albums to make them consistent). Then he took a year off of making albums, and came out with three in 2005. Gee, when did he have time to write three? Anyways, this is the second of those three, and it is a planned, themed, all out country album. HHhhhmmmmrrrrgggg. Adams singing gets on my nerves on this. All country singers add that twang to their voice, I know, but Adams' country voice here does not feel natural, and you need that "whine" trying to emote. It feels forced, kind of like making a country album just to make one, and not bothering writing decent songs. Listen to "The End" and "Peaceful Valley", and I mean LISTEN to them. The songs are mediocre, but that is some of the worst singing I have ever heard in my life. Agh! It's on right now, make it stop! It almost sounds like he is echoing Devandra Banhart, but failing!   There are some good songs on here, and the best songs seem to be the shortest ones, and I don't mean that just because they are short. "Hard Way to Fall", "Games" and the great "A Kiss Before I Go" (coincidentally the first song on the album, hmmm) are all cool. "Trains", despite the bad singing/yodeling, is a good song. But the majority of this is just lame songwriting. Not filler, but badness. Songs like "September" and "Silver Bullets" have mood, and have nice pedal steel parts, but no melodies. Yes, "The Hardest Part" has a verse and a chorus, but that is about all that makes it a song. "Pa" just trudges along for what seems like a very long time, despite the 'sha la' part in the middle that would make a good song. The amazing thing about a Ryan Adams album is that you could here your least favorite song ever, preceding one of your favorite songs ever. He has a great talent, and some great songs under his belt. There is no filter though; he is for lack of a better word, too prolific. And it's not like you can wait for a greatest hits; what, you trust his taste in picking his best music? So you have to buy the albums to hear the songs. Or you could have a friend who has all the albums, and get he/she to burn them for you...its cheaper that way...well, he/she might stop burning them for me if she sees this review. - Trevor e.y. Architecture in Helsinki 2005 In Case we Die -   2/8   This band is like New Pornographers lite: they write "poppy as hell" songs, and are "overly joyous", but the difference is that The New Pornographers are a collective that can actually write songs and have some very outstanding people in them, while Architecture in Helsinki are a collective that are just lucky sometimes. Sure, songs like "Do the Whirlwind" and "Need to Shout" are bouncy as hell, but the album is nothing special. The fact that this band tries to be epic does not help either, parts of these songs that branch out into instrumentals and changing structures just sound contrived. "Wishbone"  for example is a good song for one and a half minutes, then they ruin it. It must be a hard thing to make pop music boring, but I'll gladly stick with people that know what they are doing and can actually write memorable melodies. I would talk more, but it is amazing how boring it is to write about boring music. Electro pop! Uhhhhh, see? I just go into little fits. Listen for yourself if you must, but it ain't gonna change your life or anything. - Trevor e.y. Asobi Seksu 2006 Citrus -  3/8    These My Bloody Valentine rip off bands are getting old. There are a couple of keepers: "New Years", "Thursday", "Lions and Tigers", the rest is pretty bad. The band is at their best when they are melodic and carefree, not insane and "noise rock distortion artists". That is about all there is to say. - Trevor e.y. Brakesbrakesbreakes 2007 Beautific Visions - 1/8            You know it's a bad sign when the biggest thing surrounding a new act is that they had to change their name to avoid a lawsuit. So "The Brakes" became "brakesbrakesbrakes"? It just made me had to sound like an idiot saying that name over and over again. This band has pretty hyped up for what it tried to be: a bad, Scottish version of the Pixies. And I mean unlistenable, do not get this at any cost! Danielson 2006 Ships -  1/8   This is a confounding mess of an album, with no reward in sight. Out of tune skweeling where the guy can't decide if he wants to be Sufjan Stevens, Dan Bejar, or Issac Brock. Yeah, there are a bunch of "indie rock guests". Yeah, it is multi layered and studio effects run rampant. But the songs really are horrible, BEYOND mere annoyance. The biggest offender is "Did I Step on Your Trumpet", the most blatant Modest Mouse rip off I have ever heard. I mean, this sounds exactly like Modest Mouse, it is damn ridiculous that they don't sue for "style" stealing. The song isn't even GOOD, it's actively bad, and I hate it. I hate this album, this is one of the worst albums I have ever heard. I realize most music released is pretty horrible, it has to be, or the good wouldn't be as appreciated as it is. But this album has a good reputation, and will probably be heralded as one of the greatest albums of the year. Do yourself a favor and don't listen to it. Indie rock at its very worst, hell, MUSIC and PRETENSION at its worst. Maybe that's why the final song on here is called "5 Stars and Two Thumbs Up", this guy knows he sucks, so he begs the critics to like him. No Dice. - Trevor e.y. Death from Above 1979 2004 You're a Woman, I'm a Machine -  3/8     The garage band phenomena of the early 00's was an interesting trend, but it only had so many interesting bands. The Strokes, Spoon, Black Keys, White Stripes, you know, these bands have some good stuff. By 2003 it seemed, when new bands tried to emulate others, they got worse and worse. The Hives, The Vines, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Jet, and then the absolute nadir of Death from Above 1979. This band was only "popular" because they didn't do anything original, just held on to a trend. Yeah, there is one great song, "Pull Out", but for the most part these are not "sexy results" at all; more like boring and trite, and a revival turned into a fashion craze. Too many two person "yellers and screamers" bands, and who cares about that if it is not good music? Dungen 2004 Ta Det Lugnt - 2/8      Is it really that hard to see through retro crap? Band's like Dungen get popular for 2 reasons: 1) the whole retro thing. It is cool to be, and look, and act, like you are "psychedelic" to get into people's hearts, 2) it's "jam" sounding. If something sounds like you can't comprehend it in a million years, people tend to jump on it like it's fresh meat at the dog meat factory. All of these songs sound the same to me, useless garbage your mom could come up with. Oh, I forgot one thing - they sing in a different language. It's "ok" to like band's like that, right? The Long Blondes 2007 Someone to Drive You Home -  3/8      Hey a band with songs about drinking and parties! Guess who they try to sound like? Blondie!!! It's in their name, get it???? In reality they sound more like a moronic Sleater Kinney. I miss that band but not enough to sit though a bad parody of their music just to hear some girl squeal like Corin Tucker for 16 songs. 16?!? That is long for a debut anyway, I don't know what they were thinking. One reviewer said they were like Pulp, because they came from the same town? Who cares? Serena Maneesh 2006 Serena Maneesh -  4/8   Oh boy, noise-guitar-feedback-rock! This band has two obvious things about them: They are foreign & they love My Bloody Valentine. It is impossible not to notice these two things, and to some people that is enough to warrant them as "a cool band". But this album is more Isn't Anything era MBV instead of Loveless - that is to say it is a band finding its sound. Rarely before has a band so closely emulated another band's sound like this one does here to MBV, and it is pretty annoying. They don't change too much, they just sound like an updated version of an already "done sound". The musicianship is definitely good, but the songs are not up to par with most great band's material. There are a couple of outstanding moments: the seven minute bliss of "Don't come Down Here"; most of "Sapphire Eyes" and "Drain Cosmetics". Unfortunately though, most songs range from pretty good to kinda good, but its really all just a waste of time. See what over hyping can do, Pitchfork.com?!?!?!?? Even Isn't Anything had some great songs on it; this is just boring. - Trevor e.y. Sunset Rubdown 2006 Shut Up I am Dreaming - 2/8        Just because Spencer Krug is from Wolf Parade doesn't mean everything he does will be good, and this is the proof. Horrible album, side project or whatever. Nothing of interest at all here, I can't believe it gets any sort of good reviews. Most of it sounds like a really bad version of Wolf Parade, devoid of tune and melody. Why would anyone like this? Well, it is trendy...... - Trevor e.y. Twighlight Sad 2007 Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters - 4/8      Irish accented shoegaze. At times, the emotion works like on song #4 (which is the only song that sounds like that) but this is mainly a blur of bad music. It's not really annoying (except when it comes across as bad emo), just boring. John Vanderslice 2005 Pixel Revolt - 3/8      I bought this cd because I heard one sample song in Paste magazine and loved it. That song, "Exodus Damage", is great but the rest is lame as crap. This ever happened to you? I also heard this guy worked with Mountain Goats, if he did he should take some lessons on how to make a consistent record. He can produce fine, he just can't write songs yet. Voxtrot 2007 Voxtrot - 3/8       This is the kind of record where you wait for that good melody to come, and it never does. Voxtrot had a great reputation looking up from early EP's but when it came to the debut album, much like the Yeah Yeah Yeah's, they pooped out. Belle and Sebastian, fill-in-the-blankes, pop for the sake of pop, file-it-under-nothanks.