The Diary of a Hobbyist

SCORE: 67/100 Did Dr. Giggletouch produce this?  'Dakloos' isn't the best album by any means - but it does feel like a solid start for Joost. The amateur sound of this album is actually quite endearing as it really shows how he was just starting out.  It feels like an amateur version of the already blasé material found on 2019's 'Albino', but the material here is somewhat more palatable (and shorter) than his more recent trap project. This one has a lot less experimentation, but it still feels a lot more entertaining and enjoyable than a lot of other trap albums. Joost using his native tongue for this album makes this much more listenable than English trap as well.  Compared to other trap projects this does have more backbone to it, but a clear new-to-the-scene sound keeps this album from flourishing, but it does manage to be better than 'Albino' in terms of being much more consistently enjoyable. The quality of this album does actually improve after the...

SCORE: 62/100 How he went from this to making gabber music is entirely beyond me. Joost's 'Albino' isn't a bad album by any means, but it lacks the real flair that makes his newer projects much more memorable. There are some high moments here, but it's clear that electronic suits him much more than rap music does - and when those electronic elements shine through somewhat here, they make for the best moments on the album. It's fun, palatable rap; but it isn't what you might be looking for from a Joost album.  There are some very fun moments here and the beats are good. They have enough texture and a good pace that keeps the album fun, and after a slower opener, the album takes form into something with much more energy. It's a fun project that does what it needs to - but it isn't as interesting artistically as what Joost would go on to do in the later, more recent years of his career. It's hard not to compare the present to the past, but this era ...

SCORE: 90/100 She Wants Revenge utilized synths and deep, throbbing gothic beats to make their self titled debut instantly memorable - with this album being one of, if not my first introduction into goth music after I gained interest in it as a child. Some of the band's most memorable material resides on this record, with songs like 'These Things' and 'I Don't Wanna Fall in Love' being highlights within the band's short discography - this album is their most well known as it spawned the most "hits" from its tracklist. The result in the band's sound is something that feels inspired, yet fresh; with clear influences from other bands helping to bring She Wants Revenge into the right direction, their intentions are clear, and they feel very well executed. The ideas are noted as being somewhat repetitive, but they're done uniquely and differently enough from one another to make the album feel like it goes on well. The songs are somewhat slow - b...

SCORE: 19/100 South Park tried to warn us about the Mormons and NONE OF YOU LISTENED. He somehow managed to make a track worse than 'Beautiful Things' (one of my most hated songs of all time) with 'Mr Electric Blue', and the entire album is... well, what you would expect from a Benson Boone album. He has the energy, that's for certain - but his need for speed and desperate attempts for style don't make up for the poor quality that the album ends up having. It seems like he's really trying; and his image is clearly something he's trying to fine-tune, but if he keeps fine-tuning the image he currently has, he may be doomed to a career full of poor-quality albums that will leave him with an even more infamous legacy. It's never a good sign when an artist is only so well known because one of their songs is so abysmally bad it's become a sheer laughing stock, and this album just carries on what seems like tradition through making bad songs, with poor ...

SCORE: 93/100 Queens of the Stone Age's debut is one I've been meaning to get to for a while now - and the fact that they had their sound down this well for their first album is an impressive feat. It may be slightly rough around the edges; but there's no better introduction to their sound than this one. This was an incredible way for them to present themselves during the earliest roots of their career as a band, and the result is a striking debut that leaves the band off with a long-lasting impression. It's clear that they had their sound polished and where they wanted to go down, and they managed to pull it off very well for a debut. It may not be as polished as some of their later, more renowned work - but this is a striking beginning.  There's a sense of sleaze, a sense of indecency that manages to be muddled through memorable guitar riffs and stoner grooves that make this album feel like a much more in-depth result of the stoner rock genre and its many forms. T...

SCORE: 70/100 Unsurprisingly weak lyrically but solid instrumentally, Weezer's 'Make Believe' is a pretty standard issuing for them, with their traditional sound not really leaving any boundaries; it makes for a project that most fans of the band could enjoy, but there are some weak moments that make this album pale in comparison to their other projects. And are the lyrics really a negative aspect if they're enough to make me laugh? Never. 'Make Believe' is highly inconsistent, and it feels more like a compilation of songs than a well-structured album. It's enjoyable enough, but it lacks the depth that their earlier albums have. There's a huge gap in sound between the tracks, which makes it feel like more of a random selection than a project that has actual backbone put into it - none of the songs go together with one another, and the band simply did way too many things at once for this album to make it a feasible project in terms of structure; but the e...

SCORE: 96/100 'Vapor Transmission' is an album that I've been meaning to get to for a while now, with 'Fiction' becoming one of my absolute definitive, all time favorite songs from any artist or any album of all time. The album cover as well as this one song alone help to set the futuristic, stripped yet noisy soundscape and atmosphere held by this album, with Orgy using a sleek industrial/cyber combination to set the stage for this project and its sound. This album has heavier sounds than I expected with a huge usage of synth lines and various, gritty acts of instrumentation that bring the album above other industrial albums by a longshot. The futuristic, cyber metal sound of 'Vapor Transmission' is even more alluring than I could've expected it to be, and Orgy managed to make themselves one of my favorite bands with this album alone. Orgy managed to make a less extreme sound for industrial rock/metal, with more sleek soundscapes and a focus on a highly...