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   To continue with the lists of December, here's something a little different to what is normally on this blog. For those who don't know I'm also a massive movie nerd, so please let me know if you like what you're reading here and if you'd like to see more of this on this blog. 10) A Cure For Wellness (Dir. Gore Verbinski, MA15+)    A wonderfully weird return to horror from Gore Verbinski that certainly has its flaws, but if you're willing to suspend your disbelief A Cure For Wellness will surprise, disturb and thrill. Jason Isaacs goes full villain in the way only Jason Isaacs does, and Dane DeHaan (who hasn't blown me away in the past) really surprised me with his solid performance of a morally reprehensible but deeply scarred investment banker. Not only that, but it's absolutely gorgeous to look at, making the scenes of horror stick with you even longer. 9) Manchester By The Sea (Dir. Kenneth Lonergan, MA15+)    Huge fan of both Casey Affle...

   Can someone please tell me where the hell December went? Like, seriously, what happened? But here we are, and so to wrap up the year I've put together a few more lists for you to enjoy, tear apart, disagree with or have your vulnerable opinions validated by, including my 15 least favourite albums of the year. If any of your favourites happen to appear on this list and you are sadly offended or annoyed, please remember that you are still a unique snowflake and your opinion matters more than mine. Seriously, if you really like any of these records, I care as little as you should because that's the great thing about music - it's subjective! And, you know, it is still possible to survive with others having differing opinions. Just clench your teeth and get through it, you'll be alright. 15) Ed Sheeran -  ÷     If you cast your mind back to when I reviewed the newest Ed Sheeran album, you'll remember that while I didn't particularly care for it there were a n...

   2017 has been a year that his delivered in spades, and with that comes a number of albums that were incredibly disappointing - and for a number of reasons. Whatever those reasons were, each of these albums fell spectacularly short of my expectations, and I'm here to drop them into the limelight for you. Being As An Ocean - Waiting For Morning To Come    I've waited and waited for this album to click with me, for me to finally  get  what is going on with this fourth album from Being As An Ocean, and unfortunately I'm still just as baffled and disappointed now as I was when it finally dropped after a couple of months in the ether. If you do understand what I was meant to get out of this record please comment below because I'd love to figure it out. The band that I fell in love with on  Dear G-d...  is almost entirely eradicated on  Waiting For Morning To Come , replaced with pretentious piano interludes and songs played in reverse. Ther...

These are all killer tracks, if you haven't hear any of them definitely give them a shot! 30) "Who Dat Boy" by Tyler, The Creator (from Flower Boy ) 29) "Price of Living" by Ecca Vandal (from Ecca Vandal ) 28) "Out Of Mana" by Brand New (from Science Fiction ) 27) "It Will Always Be My Fault" by Justice For The Damned (from Dragged Through The Dirt ) 26) "Between White Space" by Perspectives (from Stay For Those Who Care ) 25) "Colourwave" by Northlane (from Mesmer ) 24) "I Should See Memphis" by Fleet Foxes (from Crack-Up ) 23) "Doomsday" by Architects (single) 22) "Caution" by Tiny Moving Parts (single) 21) "Hard Times" by Paramore (from After Laughter ) 20) "HUMBLE." by Kendrick Lamar (from DAMN. ) 19) "Off the Cuff" by The Ongoing Concept (from Places ) 18) "Forever" by Code Orange (from Forever ) 17) "In Bloom"...

To kick off the list-mania that is December I have compiled ten of my favourite album covers we've been graced with this year. No words, just album covers. 10) The Ongoing Concept - Places 9) Zola Jesus - Okovi 8) Romancer - Honeybee 7) Being As An Ocean - Waiting For Morning To Come 6) Have Mercy - Make The Best Of It 5) Lorde - Melodrama 4) Thundercat - Drunk 3) Feist - Pleasure 2) Kendrick Lamar - DAMN. 1) Brand New - Science Fiction Are there any that I missed? What were your favourite album covers of the year? Let me know in the comments! #theongoingconcept #places #zolajesus #okovi #romancer #honeybee #beingasanocean #waitingformorningtocome #havemercy #makethebestofit #lorde #melodrama #thundercat #drunk #feist #pleasure #kendricklamar #damn #brandnew #sciencefiction

   Here we are at the end of November, and as promised we have another album from Australian psych-rockers King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, with one more on the way of their claims are to be believed. The band's 2017 output has been interesting, to say the least; Flying Microtonal Banana was an exciting and thoroughly enjoyable foray into microtonal tunings, Murder of the Universe saw the band experiment with spoken word driven narrative rock to slightly less successful effect, and their collaboration album with Mild High Club titled Sketches of Brunswick East (an homage to Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain ) was fairly docile flop consisting mainly of tame elevator jazz. Thankfully the band have pulled it back dramatically with the fantastically absurd  Polygondwanaland, the best King Giz album since the throttling Nonagon Infinity. There is less focus on any sort of gimmick as their recent albums have done, and a much sharper focus on songwriting. I really do wish the...

   I really like Ne Obliviscaris. Portal of I and Citadel are two of my favourite extreme metal albums of the last 10 years, and both get regular play time. Given this, it's no surprise that I like Urn. Do I love it? Not really. At this stage Ne Obliviscaris have written such a volume of their winding, gothic sounding compositions that these songs unfortunately have the wow factor that their previous material had when I first heard it. I never thought I would say this, but Urn sounds exactly how I thought it would, and for Ne Obliviscaris this is opposite to the desired effect. I've talked about the three album rule before, and while pumping out three of the exact same album renders albums like In Hearts Wake's Ark and The Amity Affliction's This Could Be Heartbreak near unlistenable, the sheer talent and passion on show throughout Urn allows it to well and truly dodge that mire. It's just not as exciting and mysterious as I found their previous work. Having said th...

    The Mortal Coil is a damn fine debut album from Sydneysiders Polaris, who have been doing the rounds for almost five years now. Most independent EPs fly under almost everyone's radars, but 2016's The Guilt & The Grief EP threw them right into the limelight of the music scene, giving them an ARIA charts berth and a whole lot of attention. I was actually lucky enough to see them supporting Stories (R.I.P.) back in February of 2016 at the Red Rattler in Sydney during that EP cycle, and boy oh boy do they know their way around a stage.    So naturally I was excited for their debut full length The Mortal Coil . And it's just fine. If you liked the riffs on The Guilt & The Grief , their better on The Mortal Coil. Jamie Hails' voice is better, Jake Steinhauser's singing soars and sits nicely in the mix, the breakdowns are bigger and the production is slicker. If you like your metalcore bouncy, fun and a little bit technical (but not too beard-strokey) then thi...

   Trivium have been consistently hit and miss for me over he years; for every album I dig there is at least one album I can't get into. In fact, more often than not their material as a whole fails to leave an impact on me. I can appreciate  Ascendancy and Shogun for what they were at the time and the ripples they sent through the metal scene, and while incredibly bloated and overlong In Waves has some killer tracks nestled in there. Apart from that, there isn't much to be had in terms of enjoyment for me in the band's music. It was a surprise for me, then, when I found myself enjoying The Sin And The Sentence a lot more than I had anticipated. Whether or not this was because of the incredibly biased expectations I had coming in is anyone's guess, but for the most part I had fun with this new album from Trivium. It's not rewriting the metal history books, and it's not going to blow everyone away, but it was a reminder of just why they were such a massive hype ba...

   Read the full review over at  Killyourstereo.com!

   You can read my full review for Movements' masterful debut full length over  here  at Killyourstereo.com, where I will be doing some of my reviews from now. In short, it's great and you should go listen to it while you deliberate about texting that ex-girlfriend or guiltily eating your way through an entire packet of Mint Slice. Or not, it's up to you.    In the meantime, let me know what you thought about this record, or any others that you want to see reviewed. For those who keep asking me about that Chainsmokers record, it'll definitely be in an end of year list - you'll just have to wait and see which one.

    Caustic is the most brutal, unpleasant, abusive, oppressive and masochistic album I have heard in a long time, certainly this year. Every thing about this album in comparison to the band's previous, slightly more one-note releases is bigger, heavier, dirtier and more punishing. For one thing, it's over an hour long, but definitely is closer to epic than overlong. The guitar tone is absurdly disgusting, the vocal delivery is like the devil himself tying you down and yelling at you through a mouthful of broken glass and teeth, and the songwriting draws on slow, punishing, doom-influenced grooves that simply don't let up. It's not super diverse and the playing isn't the most mind-meltingly skilled shredding you'll ever hear, but something this overwhelmingly crushing deserves more than a casual listen for anyone who enjoys a little pain in their pleasure.    Rating: 7.5/10

   P!nk's seventh album Beautiful Trauma gets the job done, no more, no less. Expect to hear pretty much any of these songs in General Pants Co. at some stage, but if you're looking for a game changing pop album then you're going to be disappointed. But really, is anyone going to be looking for that in a P!nk album? Eminem's verse on "Revenge" is a great addition, adding some sharp sarcasm to a track already dripping in it, and P!nk's signature brutal honesty is all over this album giving it a raw authenticity that is immediately easy to grab a hold of. For me there is this weird dichotomy all across Beautiful Trauma that I find really distracting, in a very similar way to the most recent Ed Sheeran album. The songs work best when they are firmly settled within whatever style it wants to be; when there are these country/EDM crossovers I struggle. Her voice is great, though, and doesn't falter once, and for that it's worth a brief listen to hear a...

   Stick To Your Guns have been dealing in frenetic, anthemic hardcore punk for almost 15 years now, and their sixth studio album  True View follows the same well-tread path that they (and so many other similar bands) know so well. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; they certainly know how to put together a banger or two, but it really depends on where you sit on the fence with hardcore punk. For me there was just enough of interest to keep my attention for the whole album and keep me relatively entertained, but on second and third listens there really isn't much there for me and I suspect that this will be the case for most. I mean, you can only hear the same build up and breakdown formula so many times before it becomes exhausting. The strongest element of True View is the lyricism, which has always been the biggest stake I've held in Stick To Your Guns' music, but even in this corner the band has lost some of the vitality and impact they once had. I don't know i...

   I have no experience with Poppy's internet presence, where I understand she is an eccentric and popular YouTuber, and will talking about this album from a purely musical point of view. With no context as to her personality and online content, I thought  Poppy.Computer was a generally catchy and  surprisingly complete pop album. There are more than a few earworm melodies that will burrow into your head, which is a testament to Poppy's affinity to penning catchy melodies. Her voice sits nicely above the almost entirely electronic instrumentation and carries these melodies well, and while there isn't a whole lot of extravagant personality behind her lyrics, there is enough interest in the glitchy, sometimes 8-bit instrumentation for that to not be a particularly prominent problem. In fact, the production beneath the melodies and hooks is the real hero here, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a pop record with instrumentation that was really interesting and fun ...