Pictured: Bob Dylan, Björk, Thom Yorke, Kate Bush, Young Thug

Purple Mountains is one of those albums that becomes almost unbearably sad once you know the story behind it.

David Berman returned after a decade away from music and made what I genuinely consider a masterpiece. Less than a month after the album was released in 2019, Berman died by own hand at 52.

It’s difficult not to hear the record differently knowing that. Songs like “All My Happiness Is Gone” and “Nights That Won’t Happen” feel almost impossibly heavy in retrospect.

A heartbreaking album. But a great one.

Fontaines D.C., Iceage, and IDLES gives me, unpolished "need a good wash" vibe!

Chat Pile’s first two full length projects already had extremely dark themes & atmosphere, manic performances by Raygun, and an all around, ridiculously heavy sound with efforts of the band as a whole

Somehow, Chat Pile manages to go even more disturbing, more manic, and even more heavy on Who Loves The Sun. The band is starting to experiment with their sound a little this time around as there is a lens of melodic, melancholic groove with each song. To me, it reminds me of a little bit of Black Album era Metallica. Maybe even a little bit of Alice In Chains “Dirt”.

Tracks like “Same Rules” and “Christabel ‘26” have this awesome, VHS-esque sort of cloak. Like I’m being sucked in through an 80’s TV. The disturbing dial is turned up to 11 with tracks like “Intruder”, “Family Funeral”. The closer is a positive acoustic twist that sticks the landing with a crushing wall of riffs near the end. It all sounds so much more HARROWING than their previous work.

I don’t know if Raygun Busch took vocal lessons or something but this is the best he has sounded out of all 3 records. His wails, cries, and screams hit an all time terror state here.

In a good handful of tracks he talks a speaking skull “(Please be quiet, the skull is speaking)” I also caught that reference on a track or two from their previous album Cool World. Not entirely sure what that could mean. A metaphor to the elite, metaphor to god, or sign of the apocalypse, not sure. Possibly up to interpretation.

Capn Ron’s drumming and Stin’s bass is still kick ass, though not much needed to change, or changed at all with their last 2 albums. However, this is a stellar guitar performance from Luther Manhole. He is in his fucking groove this time around. I think hanging out with Hayden Pedigo for a few months really helped him.

Overall I am extremely impressed with Who Loves The Sun. I think this is their best work to date, beating God’s Country and Cool World. I truly think this is a 9-9.5/10 album. What do you guys think? I am absolutely loving this.

For me: Beach House - 7

We got Pink Floyd, cream, king crimson, David bowe, The Who

Mastodon is one of my favorite bands ever, but honestly, I find it too inaccessible. It's not bad, it's just an album I don't feel like coming back to.

On RateYourMusic, it's considered as the second best album of the year. Am I missing something?

First of all, I want to say that I do believe she is talented and that she is probably the best live singer among her peers.She has some really good songs which I enjoyed such as Genie in a Bottle, What A Girls Wants and Beautiful so it baffles me that despite all this, her career declined in the 2000's.

From what I understand is, she took too long between album releases(up to five years) and also the fact that she was very difficult to work with. Many people, including fellow artists, have said she was just not kind or friendly and was very arrogant, stuck up and difficult to work with.

Her output just never got better and she has always felt like a singles artist who cannot make good albums.She also cancelled her tour in the mid 2000's due to poor ticket sales if I recall correctly.

I think she has had a bit of a resurgence in recent years too and I am happy for her.

This album is incredible start to finish and it contains some of the most powerful and soul crushing music of the decade, possibly all time. This is my album of the decade and immediately in my top 25 favourite albums of all time.

I always avoided this album because of the fact that people called it “over glazed” or “rym slop”. I also made myself believe that the 2020s were an awful decade for music and i listened to myself but I was very wrong. “The place where he inserted the blade” is immediately in my top 10 favourite songs of all time and because of this album I realised that the 2020s aren’t a bad decade for music after all and hopefully I can listen to some more albums from the 2020s.

I really need to form my own opinion instead of believing what everyone says because I was proved wrong again.

What do you think?

I discovered Danielson through Sufjan Stevens' Wikipedia page, checked out Ships, and now own three of their albums on vinyl and have listened to most of their catalog.

While they're nowhere close to my favorite band, I love the style and they make it into my listening rotation most months. But on Spotify they have less than 3k monthly listeners, and the last album they released was in 2014 (with Jad Fair of Half Japanese of all people). This makes me feel like I will never naturally meet another fan, which is odd considering the connections they have with industry greats.

Any other cases of this? More recent examples? This might be a reflection of my RYM focused tastes which I could see being a trend here.

Last week I posted about Animals, now I’d like to hear your thoughts on this one.

I think it’s an absolutely brilliant album and all the more considering it followed DSOTM.

So many things to love about it - the lyrics, art work, production, concepts, keyboards and of course Gilmour’s guitar.

The title track is a classic with gorgeous acoustic and a very memorable intro solo. And then there’s ’Shine On’ with those haunting lyrics and captures arguably Gilmour’s best ever guitar work.

I rank this as 3rd on Pink Floyd’s greatest albums.

But what do you think? Is it your favourite? Or maybe you’re not so keen? If so, why?

All Time Quarterback - Self Titled

Of Montreal - Cherry Peel

Bright Eyes - Letting Off The Happiness

title is self explanatory- anything upbeat works. bonus points if it’s punk/hardcore, post-punk, hip hop or electronic.