BLACKLISTERS: BLKLSTRS

SCORE: 86/100

This album is one of a few that my friend has given me to listen to (she doesn't have an AOTY account), and it's refreshing to find yet another niche punk band to listen to. Songs like 'Clubfoot by Kasabian' and 'Swords' showcase the rough, explosive nature of 'BLKLSTRS', a quality of the album that drags you in and keeps your attention as full as it can be through each rough riff of a guitar, beat of a drum, and jolt of vocal performances - each element coming together into one album that's enough to make a head spin.

It's loud, it's unapologetic, and it's wonderfully unique. The album has qualities that others do not, it's wildly potent and energetic from the moment it kicks off, and there's something so raw and murky about the album; making it something you won't want to put down once you've picked it up. It's a hard album to resist, each track bringing something new to the table while showcasing the electrifyingly dark style of the band - it's a striking introduction to a more niche band, and it manages to be everything that a punk album needs to be at its core.

'BLKLSTRS' has a beautiful amount of chaos to it - it's an album that will only work if you let it, but it's hard to not let an album as infectious as this one work its charms on you. There's something inescapable about this album once you hear the very first note, and it's only up from there. The general shifts in tone and slight energy shifts from time to time keep the album lively and fresh, adding a very coherent sense of variety to the tracklisting that helps to keep the album more than just interesting.

It's more than just your average punk album, and Blacklisters managed to do things that most bands could only dream of being able to execute this way. It's a delightfully enjoyable package that knows not to overstay its welcome - with an ideal track formatting for the genre making the album come across exactly as it should.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

DEFTONES: GORE

Image
DEFTONES: GORE SCORE: 89/100 A shorter and less favored album for many, Deftones' 2016 albums hits the right spots and returns to the form found throughout their 2006 opus 'Saturday Night Wrist'.  For many, 'Gore' manages to be the weakest effort in the deeply complex and delightful discography of the band. It is a less praised album overall - which I was immediately confused by upon playing the first track. The album has the same complexity as their other projects - having a more modern sound and using different soundscapes to make the album unique from their other projects while still keeping the cohesion of their albums up to par.  It's a striking comeback that engulfs their discography with more heavy & scenic tracks, with each song having a different sound than the last and the album coming together quite well. There are some weaker moments on this album and it feels less polished than their previous works, but it is an incredibly solid and great projec...
Read more

HIM: SLIPPERY WHEN DEAD

Image
SCORE: 98/100 It's always interesting to see the early forms of songs by various bands, demos for huge tracks like 'Razorblade Kiss' and 'Join Me In Death' reside on the 'Slippery When Dead' demo collection, and HIM manages to make even the earliest, choppiest stages of their songs sound like pure, otherworldly bliss. The demo versions of the songs are drastically different from the album versions - making this an absolute must for any fans of HIM/fans of the main album ('Razorblade Romance). Each demo is just as gorgeously crafted as the main, polished tracks, and despite some poor audio quality due to the tracks being demos - 'Slippery When Dead' is just as good as their finished efforts in the end. 'Slippery When Dead' is both highly interesting and deeply entertaining. There's something truly captivating about the demo versions of what would become 'Razorblade Romance', and some of the instrumental choices on these unfinis...
Read more

HIM: RAZORBLADE ROMANCE

Image
SCORE: 100/100 HIM's second and most well known album manages to be both loving and melancholic all at the same time - with almost otherworldly qualities that you simply will not find from any other band, 'Razorblade Romance' is a passionate album that is full of feelings and heart within every track, it's a clearly fleshed out and worked on project that was polished until absolute perfection, and Ville Valo makes himself even more known as a stunning vocalist throughout the 42 minute runtime of the album. Each track is just as stunning as the last - with gorgeous compositions and a masterful chemistry behind the members of the band, HIM made themselves even more known with 'Razorblade Romance'; an album that contains some of what may be considered their "signature" material and their sound being shown off to the max. It's not often that a band can create a new subgenre due to how striking their music is - but with HIM came love metal. The album is...
Read more