Trollheart

Album title: Checkered Past
Artist: Save Ferris
Genre: Ska Punk
Nationality: American
Release date: February 10
Position in Discography: Fourth overall; second EP
Fear Factor: High
Familiar with this artist? No
Familiar with the genre or subgenre? No
Average RYM Score: 3.09
When I was younger, ska was one of the genres I really did not care for: the Specials, The Beat, The Selecter, all those guys. Not interested. Combine that with Punk and you're asking for me to hate this. Nevertheless, it's only an EP with five tracks so how bad can it be? It's also, apparently, this band's first release in eighteen years following the reformation of the band. To be fair, it's quite catchy and cheerful, using reggae beats and horns to evoke the old ska feeling, and punk to speed and “fun” it up. She's a decent singer, and I don't hate this. The slow sax break on “Golden Silence” is unexpected and really nice. Have to be honest: this is fun all the way. Good stuff.

Check out more from this artist? I might
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? Yes


Expectation Index: 10

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Trollheart

Album title: Look Both Ways
Artist: Steamchicken
Genre: Jazz/Roots/Ceilidh/Dance (huh?)
Nationality: English
Release date: February 10
Position in Discography: Fifth
Fear Factor: Moderate
Familiar with this artist? No
Familiar with the genre or subgenre? No
Average RYM Score: N/A
Ceilidh (pronounced “Kay-lee”) mixed with jazz? Weird. Good title though, given their band name. Almost sounds like I'm still listening to the ska punk album for a moment, then it settles down. Don't hear no ceilidh yet though. “Gypsy” is a beautiful haunting ballad and I've definitely heard “Oh Mary” before: I think most/some of these may be trad songs? Not sure. Good though. But nowhere near ceilidh. At all. Okay, finally “Big Tin Horn” kicks out a reel or jig (I never know/care about the difference) and it Irishes up things, but still, it's like one song. Your woman is a great vocalist though. “Foot Falling” is a little annoying, but the album ends well.

Check out more from this artist? Yes
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? Yes


Expectation Index: 9

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Trollheart

Album title: The Temple of I & I
Artist: Thievery Corporation
Genre: Electronic/Reggae
Nationality: American
Release date: February 10
Position in Discography: Tenth
Fear Factor: Moderate
Familiar with this artist? No
Familiar with the genre or subgenre? No
Average RYM Score: 2.99
Certainly very cool and laidback as it starts though the second track is more a mixture of reggae and hip-hop. Still good though. I kind of like how this jumps from hip-hop/reggae to plain reggae to kind of almost trip-hop (do I have a clue what I'm talking about? Answers on a fifty-Euro note to...) but it's kind of odd how two albums released one after the other (or at least, on the same day of the month and in sequence on this list) both end up being basically reggae ones, when up to now I've had about two or three in two months. Time for that old joke about buses? Thought not.

Check out more from this artist? Meh, maybe
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? Probably


Expectation Index: 7

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Trollheart

Album title: Rip It Up
Artist: Thunder
Genre: Hard Rock
Nationality: English
Release date: February 10
Position in Discography: Eleventh
Fear Factor: Low
Familiar with this artist? Certainly have heard of them
Familiar with the genre or subgenre? Yes
Average RYM Score: 3.37
Meh, it's all right but so far I haven't heard anything to excite me. Pretty standard hard rock, which nearly always sounds like it belongs in the tail end of the seventies. I mean, “She Likes the Cocaine”?? How edgy. Not. “Right From the Start” is a nice but pretty generic ballad, and it's not till we get to “Heartbreak Hurricane” (holds special meaning for me today!) that I start to think there might be something here for me. This has power and passion, and doesn't sound as cheesy and generic as everything else I've heard on this album up to this point. Whether it will end up being the high watermark or a shift in the direction of the entire album, we'll have to see. Definitely the standout so far by a country mile. Okay, the next one's a great blues burner, so maybe this album is hitting its stride at last. Yeah, feels like it: consistently good now. Hmm. Kind of levels off at little there at the end. Not a bad album, but nothing that's going to convince me to check out their other ten.

Check out more from this artist? Probably not
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? Yes


Expectation Index: 2

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Trollheart

Album title: Everyone We Know
Artist: Thundamentals
Genre: Hip-Hop
Nationality: Australian
Release date: February 10
Position in Discography: Fourth
Fear Factor: Very High
Familiar with this artist? No
Familiar with the genre or subgenre? No
Average RYM Score: 2.25
Well, well. I've heard American hip-hop of course, and English, and even Italian, but this is my first encounter with the Australian brand of the genre! Could be interesting, could be excruciating. Sounds like it might be the former. Good music, not exclusively rap, good bit of singing, and generally quite upbeat with not much (if anything) in the way of the f-bomb and other curses and expletives which seem to form the fodder of many a hip-hop artist. “Think About It” is a particularly good track; really more a rock/pop song with some rap thrown in. Nice. Like “Ignorance is Bliss” too. Good stuff this. Yeah but I could do without “Wyle Out Year” (what the **** is that?) but then “Blue Balloons” is great. Yeah, overall pretty ****ing cool. Better than ****ing Kylie and Jason, I mean, Jess and whatsisname? Brett? No, Bruce. No, Matt. That's the one. Go Aussies!

Check out more from this artist? Might
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? Yes


Expectation Index: 9

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Trollheart

Album title: The Waiting Game
Artist: Una Healy
Genre: Country/Folk/Pop
Nationality: Irish
Release date: February 10
Position in Discography: Debut
Fear Factor: Cautiously Moderate
Familiar with this artist? No
Familiar with the genre or subgenre? Not that much
Average RYM Score: 2.60
No I won't give her a free ride just because she happens to be Irish, and indeed the first Irish artist on this list; country and pop often don't go together well as I've said before, and throw folk into the mix, well, you could be asking for disaster. Right: so she's one of the Saturdays. So not exactly new to the biz then. In that case, I'm going to expect big things here. The allowances I would normally make for a debut album are suspended here. This had better be good. Well the first two tracks are good, if slightly Shania-lite. I'm not crazy about the ballad, which is a duet with Sam Palladio, whom I do not know. She has a nice voice, that's for sure, but is there more to her than that? Well, kind of no. I mean, it's an okay record but I'm not that impressed. Sort of dime a dozen when it comes to country/pop, and I don't see too much of the folk to be honest. Yeah, just bog standard pop with the odd country trope thrown in. Pass.

Check out more from this artist? No
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? Yes


Expectation Index: 9

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Trollheart

Album title: Origins (2011-2016)
Artist: Uppermost
Genre: EDM/Electronic
Nationality: French
Release date: February 10
Position in Discography: Seventh
Fear Factor: High
Familiar with this artist? No
Familiar with the genre or subgenre? No
Average RYM Score: 4.00
I know I said no compilations, best of or collections, and I did think about not doing this one. But when I read about it, though it is a best of, a lot of the music has never been published before (so it says): it's not as if these are all tracks off other albums. So technically, much of it is new. I would have had good reason to err on the side of excluding it, as it's twenty-three tracks I could have avoided and got on to the next album, but I thought it was only right to give it a fair shot, given the criteria I had set out, if not in words, then at least in my own head. So off we go. It's pretty decent stuff, as it goes, some of it kind of wallpaper music but some of it infectiously catchy. Not totally mad about the ones with vocals; kind of breaks the flow really. Overall nowhere near as bad as I had expected though.

Yeah, the more I think about this, the more I think I should not have really included this, as it is a compilation, but hell, we're a third of the way in now so we may as well keep going. Plus it is quite good stuff. “Hope” and “Left Unsaid” are two great tracks. But is this EDM? I don't hear too much that could be called dance music, though now “Alive” proves me wrong. However I stand by my contention that the vocal tracks are far inferior to the purely instrumental ones. Overall though I like this a whole lot more than I don't, if you understand. Do you know what I am saying?

Check out more from this artist? Yes
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? Yes


Expectation Index: 10

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Trollheart

Album title: Fifty Shades Darker: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Artist: Various
Genre: Soundtrack
Nationality: Various
Release date: February 10
Position in Discography: N/A
Fear Factor: Moderate
Familiar with this artist? N/A
Familiar with the genre or subgenre? I've heard a few soundtracks; some good, some bad
Average RYM Score: 2.66
And so we come to the first soundtrack on the list. I'm in two minds about soundtracks. Scores I prefer, as the music is usually either classical or some original composition, but soundtracks? Not so sure. Some movies can have great soundtracks, and some can have terrible ones. This is a terrible movie so is it a terrible soundtrack? Guess there's only one way to find out. Honestly, starting off with Taylor Swift is not the best way to win me over, though the idea of her not living forever is certainly palatable. Weak opening. Weak album? Let's wait and see. Meh, more power and dark passion to the Halsey track, and “Pray” has a nice gospelly feel but man is most of this depressing. At least it kicks up a little with “No Running From Me”, and the blues smoker of “One Woman Man” is enjoyable, but we're soon back to the moaning recriminations and accusations and basically feeling sorry for yourself, and this appears to be something of a negative theme that runs through the album, and presumably the movie too.

Yeah, hell with this. This is too depressing and not at all engaging. I knew there was a reason I didn't want to include soundtracks.


Check out more from this artist? N/A
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? Not sure; this has not encouraged me to, that's for sure

Expectation Index: 3

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Trollheart

Album title: Livin'
Artist: Young Bleed
Genre: Hip-Hop
Nationality: American
Release date: February 10
Position in Discography: Seventh
Fear Factor: High
Familiar with this artist? No
Familiar with the genre or subgenre? No
Average RYM Score: N/A
Yeah I don't know: this is good and all but it's not until “Fall'n Off” that my interest gets piqued with a pretty clever horror-style keyboard line. Yeah but then I lose interest again. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm just not feeling it with this. It's not a bad album, I just ... don't care about it. At all.

Check out more from this artist? No
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? Yes

Expectation Index: 0

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Trollheart

Album title: Skull and Bones: The Final Chapter
Artist: Bohemia
Genre: Hip-Hop
Nationality: Pakistani
Release date: February 12
Position in Discography: Fifth
Fear Factor: High
Familiar with this artist? No
Familiar with the genre or subgenre? No
Average RYM Score: N/A
I had a hell of a time tracking this album down. Although it's shown on Wiki, none of the usual sources seem to have it, which is weird until you realise it's from Pakistan, so maybe not that widely known? So this is then my first (maybe only) encounter with Pakistani Hip-Hop (they seem to call it Desi Hip-Hop?) and of course I can't comment on the lyrics – not that I tend to with hip-hop in general anyway, but here I definitely can't – but that shouldn't be a problem as I've experienced Italian hip-hop so, you know, the language shouldn't be the only criterion for review here. So then, what's it like? First track is good enough, seems a little repetitive, but I guess I can't really comment on that can I? It's slower than expected, certainly a little catchy, second one has more power and, I guess, anger?

Generally speaking, it's decent music and the guy seems able both to rap and sing, assuming it's the same guy doing both, which is not unheard of but not by any means that common, so fair play to him for that. A decent album, well put together. You know, I think he's doing the K-Pop thing, as in, throwing in some English among his own language from time to time: I definitely caught a few words or even sentences. Not bad, but I'm not excited about it.

Check out more from this artist? No
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? Yes


Expectation Index: 3

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