Mediocre Music In Brief

Listed in ascending order of shittiness.

Lamb of God – Ashes of the Wake

Ashes of the Wake is Lamb of God's most recent album before the mainstream breakthrough Sacrament. It's a perfectly decent record but I have absolutely nothing to say about it. The riffs are rhythmically complex and very catchy (and are a lot more metal than Sacrament) and it's delivered with respectable technical precision by all members of the band, but after I'm finished listening to it I'm just left with an underwhelming feeling of 'Meh. It was OK'.

Burzum – Hvis Lyset Tar Oss

My Burzum listening schedule is still fairly haywire. I've skipped one of the older ones, meaning that this is the third album, and therefore one of the mid-period classics. However I'm still not that impressed. For the first half an hour it's a total bore, retreading the same old stripped down riffs, ghastly vocals (his voice cracks like a school boy at one point during 'Inn i slottet fra drømmen') and grungy production that I found endearing but ultimately lacking substance on the first Burzum album.

Having said that I do really like the fifteen minute ambient closing track 'Tomhet' (Emptiness), which makes me hold off a little before judging this guy to be the most overrated musician this side of The Edge.

Fats Domino – This is Fats
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die Number 5

Like the last album in this series, Louis Prima's The Wildest, this is a soft jazz album, but while I found a lot about The Wildest to enjoy, This is Fats was just a total bore. It's completely gutless with no swing or bite. Some of the later songs perked up my ears a little but by and large this is a dull affair.

Next up, Duke Ellington. My expectations are high.

The Blinding Light – The Glass Bullet EP

This came into my collection along with Converge's Jane Doe and Old Man Gloom's Christmas so I was half expecting yet another major musical revelation. These guys play fast, intense hardcore very much in the vein of Converge, and with a hint of Dillinger Escape Plan's rhythmic insanity. But despite being so similar to bands that I love, for some reason this EP does absolutely nothing for me. I'm at a loss to explain why, since it contains so many elements that have been proven to light my aesthetic fire in a big way, but even with a mere twenty minute running time I found the whole disc to be a serious chore to sit through.