The Diary of a Hobbyist

SCORE: 84/100 The dark and loud sound of 'Revolution Girl Style Now' is something truly unexpected - this album has a much more blunt edge than one might expect, and Kathleen Hanna's work as the leading lady for Bikini Kill is a title that has never fit anyone better. Her unique vocal range and tone suit the sound of this album exceptionally well, and the band uses just 20 minutes to make themselves more than known. It may be a bit rough around the edges in terms of sound, but it's an excellent effort that truly shows the full potential that the band has and that they would go on to expand upon before new projects came underway.  There's a clear grit to this album that makes the anger much more potent when it is presented throughout, and the somewhat homemade sound that still clings to the surface of this album makes it an even more interesting feat - something that truly feels like a suitable skill level for a debut while still bending the curve of social commentar...

SCORE: 96/100 Released on October 25, 1999, 'Le Tigre' combined elements of pop, new wave, dance punk, and riot grrrl to create an absolute joyride of feminism through music.  Le Tigre debuted into the Riot Grrrl scene with a delightfully distorted and danceable sound that set  them apart hugely from other bands that took on a similar style - making their self-titled 1999 spectacle feel like a massive landmark and milestone within the entire genre.  The band's highly unique approach to Riot Grrrl individualizes them a massive amount - their sound is wild and highly noisy while still being accessible enough through songs like 'Deceptacon' for it to be an album that almost anyone could get along with; and the end result of this experimentation and impressively unique style is an album that has a sound you won't find from any other artist - no matter how hard they tried to replicate the spark made here.  Not only is this album a massive feat in terms of highly styl...

SCORE: 98/100 'The Divine Conspiracy' continues on with the symphonic metal sound you can come to expect when listening to Epica - and their style was already deliciously fine-tuned by this point in their long-spanning career. Released in August of 2007, 'The Divine Conspiracy' serves as the band's third full-length effort together. It continues the trend they have set for themselves and their style with long, orchestrated songs with metallic elements that make the album feel instantaneously cinematic. This album uses its time and opener to set the stage for a massive spectacle that shimmers and truly shows off exactly what you would want from a symphonic metal project, and the end result of the project is over an hour's worth of sheer power through both string instruments and thumping drums and stellar guitarwork.  This album feels very similar in nature to Evanescence - and any fans of the band will be sure to love this album as well. There's a bit more ed...

SCORE: 30/100 It's never a good sign when the album gives you a headache before it's even over. The more R&B leaning opening sound of Jennie's 'Ruby' is highly expected, but pleasant enough to make this start off as an enjoyable output for fans of K-Pop. It feels incredibly well-suited to the genre which leads to it feeling like a slightly uninspiring body of work from an overall standpoint, but it's much better than some of the competition that Jennie is up against. Her creativity is there, but she's doing too much of it rather than sticking into territories that she suits. When she is leaning the most into R&B this album is good, near great at best - and when she's trying the more trap-orientated sounds that have become increasingly common in the K-Pop sphere, she becomes much less enjoyable. There are areas where she clearly excels as well as ones where she does not, and this album showcases both sides of her.  And if she had stuck with a more...

Hello all! It's been a while since I've done a more personal piece like this - but I'm just wanting to touch base as I have hit a pretty significant milestone! I uploaded my very first "real" article to Hubpages! You can find it here: https://hubpages.com/entertainment/an-experiment-in-industrial-miss-construction-will-make-you-move - it is my review for Kunstprodukt . I hope that this means that this piece can reach more people and hopefully teach them about an incredibly overlooked piece of music that people need to know about despite it being over 16 years old now.  Due to this branching out that I have done I am going to change my formatting for titles from all capitals to traditional capitalization - something that can help for searchability of my articles in the long run. I am hoping to spread my work out more in the next coming weeks/months, and this summer I may work harder to push my output out. This blog doesn't have the most traction; but it is a st...

SCORE: 100/100 Example number 800,000 why German industrial is some of the best you can get - see Miss Construction. Berlin's very own music group set the stage for themselves in early 2008 with this album, with a razor-sharp image that has been radically fine tuned into one deeply, darkly industrial, danceable, harsh, and sexy sound that you won't be able to get enough of. The deeply mechanical and throbbing sound of each beat leads each song into the next with clearly practiced ease, and the end result is one of the most underappreciated gems that the entire industrial scene has to offer.  'Kunstprodukt' often feels like the female image at its most dominant. There's a huge sense of control within this entire album - and even when there are male vocals, the undertones and imagery of the album make it impossible to see this as anything other than an incredible display of female power in a genre largely dominated by men - Miss Construction is in charge now, and we...

SCORE: 69/100 Too many skits, not enough standouts. 'Bang! Pow! Boom!' is a hugely ambitious project that is intimidating due to the massively heavy amount of bloat that it suffers from - something that almost every ICP album unfortunately suffers from, but it makes up for it with strong energy and a sound that suits the duo exceptionally well. The songs on BPB come together incredibly well through their transitions. The way the first two tracks ('Beautiful Doom'/'In Yo Face') lead together very well, with the transition between the two being entirely seamless. This album uses a lot more straight horrorcore/hip-hop elements while experimenting with unique sounds that feel as if they belong to the band - and despite some obviously poor lyrics, there are more potent songs like 'Vera Lee' and some genuinely good social commentary that the duo has stayed loyal to since their roots. Unfortunately this album does fall slightly due to its length. Over an hour o...