Album Reviews: September

A little late, but I'm here with a selection of September records.

Album Reviews: Summer

The last time I had such an un-metal summer, I think, must have been at least two years ago. To be fair, I did reach back a lot for releases from 2016, an apparent heat-induced laziness preventing me from searching out new, potentially more interesting music. Summer is always a floatier affair, not really lending itself to the heavy sluggishness of my usual musical diet. Instead, there's some light-hearted prog and in memory of the fun days, a surprising amount of relative-to-doom upbeat punk.

Album Reviews: Spring

Here is my extremely late recap of the spring albums I've listened to - better late than never, I guess. At this point I doubt I'll do a monthly of summer either, especially since there are less releases altogether; so hopefully I'll pick up the regular schedule in September.

Album Reviews: January-February

Many people make New Year's Resolutions - I don't, as I wouldn't be keeping them anyway. Case in point: instead of jumping right into new releases, I'm still listening to my 2016 favourites. It's hard to let go. Partly because of that, partly because of uni hell, the material for January stretched quite thin, and so I lumped these to last miserable winter months together. It's a pity even more so, because there were a few really good new albums, and I'm afraid I didn't give many of them a thorough enough listen.

Top 10 Albums of 2016

I tried to narrow my favourite albums down to 5, but even managing 10 was a bit hard, so I made an extended list this year. I've done reviews of all of these before, so here I'll only shortly comment on why I think these particular albums stand out above the rest that I've listened to in 2016. As always, the list is heavily subjective (almost as much as the soon-to-come Top 40 of 2016).

Album Reviews: November

November is busy and this poor college student has had more breakdowns that she could count on one hand, but nevertheless, here is the next - and last for the year - installment of the monthly album reviews. As such, regrettably, I haven't had the time to check out many new releases, but what I did check out was of really high quality, so they shouldn't disappoint.

Album Reviews: October

October was a good month. Naturally, the autumn months generally fit the mood of the genre better, but the quality of the releases was still superb, even after September, which had many favourites for me. These months see me sitting at home with my laptop working a bit more, so there's always some music in the background, and the memorable ones help me get through those dreaded all-nighters.

Album Reviews: September

September first and foremost means 'back to university', or as we say, sleepless nights and long commutes. Both give to long hauls of listening to music, either to tune out the melody of Budapest's infamous metro 3 line, or to keep me from going crazy as I pull yet another all-nighter. September this time round was a great month for metal, even if I'm still hung up on a few summer albums. (Specifically Be'lakor's Vessels, and Thrawsunblat's Metachthonia.)

Album Reviews: July-August

The combination of a busy summer and the lack of many great or interesting releases makes for this two-month combo. I really didn't have time to discover new music. On the other hand, the defining musical experience of the summer was listening to Be'lakor's new album whilst traveling in Croatia - somehow it's the perfect summer metal record and I doubt it won't end in the top five, with all the memories stuck to it now.

Album Reviews: June

Here I am with the new review! Summer is usually bleaker for releases, but these are the months I have more time to write, so I work with what I have. There were two records I was really looking forward to, but there are some nice finds apart from those as well.

Album Reviews: March-April-May

Honestly, I most missed my monthly reviews of my favourite albums. It's a bit late now, and it's a monster of a post - so mostly just blurbs go with the albums - but here is my favourite 15 from this spring; as per usual, in chronological order.

Album Reviews: February

Hey there. I know that these days - despite my plans - I just don't write here as much. I don't have the time to write the more in-depth posts I'd want to, and I don't have the patience to write a usual one, say, about fashion (I didn't even have time to follow the fashion weeks). The one thing (thing, as in, beside people and necessary activities) in my life I always value enough to spend time on is music. So if nothing else, the album reviews are going to be here for a while.

February was a good month, especially compared to January - good heavier and more technical records, and some of my definite contenders for year-end lists.

Album Reviews: January

No reviews for December - it's pointless among all the year-end lists, and then it's exam period, and then it's already the end of January, so I don't think it'll ever happen. I'm sure I missed many releases in this past month as well, not having spent much time scouring for new music, but at least the banner looks very unified in its colour scheme.

Album Reviews: November

November: the hell month with increasingly less sleeptime. This of course means that I barely had time to listen to new records - so this month only has 3 (well, sort of). At least it's short.

Album Reviews: October

Paragraph one: here's the usual stuff. Paragraph two: it's short, because life. I don't even know why I'd bother writing an introduction after all this time. October was good and gloomy, so if that's your thing, proceed as you want; otherwise, be warned.

Album Reviews: September

I'm here with the newest batch of album releases. It's not really that September had that many more great records - more so that there are loads of releases in September for some reason. Fall fashion? Fall albums? Is it like the summer season and Christmas for movies? Unfortunately, this also means I have no way of properly listening to them all, what with the semester starting and a shitload of university work to be done. I listened to about a dozen new albums, but narrowed it down to these seven - for some reason or other, these were the ones I listened to the most.

Album Reviews: August

It's time for the next album review post. I didn't expect much of the August batch of releases, and it didn't deliver much, but I kind of feel like I'm still disappointed. But I was also in the mood to write negative reviews, so bad ones are happily included as well. On the other hand, September still promises to be awesome, and at least this way I could catch up on a few interesting records I missed.

Album Reviews: July

A little late with it, but here's the July review of albums! Because of my internship, I didn't have that much time to keep up, and because it's summer, I also kind of forgot I was supposed to write it. However, it's been a reasonably good month, though what I'm really excited for is September - as far as new releases go, not about school, of course.

Album Reviews: June

June was kind of weak concerning metal releases, slightly better in other genres - which I just don't really listen to these days. I also had considerably less time to spend on listening to new music due to exams and more exams. I did look through June releases afterwards too, and still nothing really stood out to me even genre-wise; I guess after being spoiled in May it was a slight disappointment. In any case, summer month are always less busy.

Album Reviews: May

 

The May assortment of albums. Seven metal albums and a punk rock... but plenty of catchy and pop-like music. It was a rather good month, even if the end-of-the-semester period is crazy for me, and I haven't got the time to properly listen to new music.