Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa - Domingo (1967)
8.5/10
Peter Buck of R.E.M recommended this album. It's Brazilian but it's an amazing album. Probably only accessible on Spotify and vinyl (as I couldn't find a CD of this album) But has this easy-listening and folk infusion. The vocals are clean. The instrumentals are also pretty clean and easy to listen to. I think this could be an essential record for people into world music. And what I consider world music as an American is foreign for starters, and has an ethnic vibe to whatever region the artists belong to. On a personal base, I wanted to give this album at least two listen throughs before making a rating. This is the first Folk and World infused album I've given a chance to, and will listen to it again.
Esprit 空想 - 200% Electronica (2017)
7/10
A chillwave/vaporwave type of album. Definitely a must for avid vaporwave fans. People think of Vaporwave and only think of Macintosh Plus/Vektroid. Esprit 空想 has this chillwave vibe to their work; well with this album anyways. Generally I can't give vaporwave more than an 8 out of 10, because of how it does sometimes blend into each song, and that can be overwhelming for my sensory issues sometimes; and could make me very tired easily. Not to say that this album is bad by any means, personally I have to be in the mood for this type of music anyways. It's definitely not something I'd play on repeat every day.
Florence + The Machine - High As Hope (2018)
8.5/10
I've heard mixed reviews about this album. From the first lesson, it definitely is a hit with me. I think people didn't like the polarizing of the tracks. Honestly, this is Florence at her finest, with her vocal range. Yes, this album might not appeal to the mainstream media (people who are fanatics of mumble rap or trending music) Objectively my favorite tracks are: Sky Full of Song, Hunger, and Grace. Indie for sure, through and through. I wanted to give this somewhere between an eight and nine for ratings, so I decided 8.5 would be appropriate (just from my personal tastes).
Earth - The Bees Made Honey in The Lion's Skull (2009)
7.5/10
Introductory to Drone Metal/Rock. If you want to get into that genre, I suggest you all listen to anything by Earth really. This album in particular, I found via podcasts on iTunes circa 2009ish when I was a 10th grader in high school. For me personally, it does get to be a little boring after the first 2 tracks, because of how lengthy these tracks are (one being nearly 10 minutes long) with droning instrumentals, and no vocals; which is essentially the point of drone metal anyways. The album cover is interesting, I actually like it. There's like 9 or 10 tracks on this album averaging around 6 to 8 minutes of a track. So around a 45 minute album.
Evanescence - Synthesis (2017)
4/10
Objectively, this has to be Evanescence's worst album. The concept was okay. But the execution was highly poor. There were two newish songs on there Hi-Lo which was a demo from the previous albums, and Imperfection which was the lone new single that has been written for this album. Other than that, Amy was trying to copy what Epica, Within Temptation, and all the other symphonic metal bands have done in the past. And it was poorly executed in my opinion. There was 12 tracks on this album 2 newish songs, and at least 1 instrumental. Then the remaining tracks were rehashes of older songs/hits. The only good songs that I care for My Heart is Broken, Lacrymosa, Lithium and Hi-Lo. They butchered Bring Me to Life and Imaginary for sure. I try to dodge this album if I can when on Spotify unless it's the remakes of songs I enjoy.
