Read Poets Society

   Hey everyone,    As well as reviews and lists, I thought I would do some periodical posts simply recommending albums that I really enjoy and talking about why I enjoy them. Hopefully this can help you uncover music you might not have heard before, and might turn you on to some of my favourites. They won't be in any particular order, just quick posts about some albums I really enjoy. I hope you enjoy reading and discovering too!    Happy listening,    Jonty

    Mark Kozelek's 2014 Sun Kil Moon album   Benji   is one of the most raw and vulnerable albums you will ever hear, an album that sits in your stomach and follows you around relentlessly. The Sun Kil Moon moniker has always been a place in which Kozelek has vented about intensely personal problems and issues, and   Benji   presented these in almost uncomfortable realism. Unfortunately the albums since then haven't quite reached the depths of   Benji .   Common As Light...   bucks that trend with an album that expands on everything Kozelek forged in   Benji . Kozelek's music has always been fiercely intimate, but he has tended to hide behind this a lot in his music, but he managed to peer past the facade on   Benji   and manages to do so again on   Common As Light... , and it is this that raises the album to the heights of   Benji .    It is an entirely different animal to  Benji ,...

   Hi!    In this post I'm going to talk about some albums that are good starting points for anyone who is interested in getting into some heavier music. These aren't necessarily my favourites by any means, but I will be suggesting gateway albums to a number of the different genres that can be found in "heavy music". Hopefully these help to open up a different landscape of music.    1) Symbolic - Death    Death are one of the most famous early originators of the death metal genre, and their 1995 album Symbolic is definitely my favourite album of theirs, as well as being representative of both the band and the genre at it's highest functioning form. The band's earlier albums are also great, but like I said this album is just as good as it gets in terms of sussing out exactly what death metal is all about and what it sounds like at it's best. The Possessed album Seven Churches from 10 years earlier is also great for getting an insight in...

   Having never listened to any of Michigan rapper Big Sean's previous material, for me his fourth studio album I Decided wasn't the huge departure it seemed to be to a lot of people. In fact, I had a tough job in identifying things that separated this project from others in the genre. This isn't necessarily a bad thing - you don't have to be smashing boundaries and expectations to make an enjoyable album - and Big Sean has his own lyrical voice that marks his music as recognisably his own, while staying comfortably within what has been proven as a working formula.    There is a definite rage and bitterness to Big Sean's lyrics, but there is a sense of underlying melancholy that provides the album with a sense of maturity and jadedness. There are lots of clever lines and good songs, but it never quite feels like these songs quite come together as something passably singular and cohesive. The best moments are the pop songs, though, "Bounce Back" being in...

    Stay For Those Who Care is a remarkably fully realised debut full length from Perspectives, a Sydney based melodic hardcore group. There is an earnestness typical of the genre, as well as a number of other relatively worn tropes, but that never really seems to be a problem; it is a melodic hardcore record, after all. An extended wait for a full length has resulted in a project that is completely confident in what it wants to be and cohesive in a way rarely seen at this stage in any band's career. The statement "no representation is better than misrepresentation" rings true for the band in this case; they waited for a long time until they had something they really believed in, and it is something tangible that you can hear on the album. The most recent example of this could be Matt Corby's Telluric , coming after a long wait and an entire LP being scratched. There is a satisfaction to be had in listening to an album that you know has been poured over by the artis...

   I found this to be the equivalent of getting more drunk than you planned with people you don't really like; it was kind of fun at the time, but you don't really want to do it again. I was frustratingly torn in so many ways - on one hand you have a collection of annoyingly catchy songs with great hooks, a care-free party vibe and occasionally fist-pumpingly good singalongs; on the other you have abrasively bad production, juvenile and frankly terrible lyricism and a distinct lack of musical skill to be found on the majority of the songs.    Before you say that I've missed the point completely, I should say that for a lot of this album, it works completely. It kind of plays out like a satirical B-movie that knows exactly what it is and doesn't try to hide it's obvious shortcomings - yes, we know it's a "horror movie" about killer sharks being thrown around by tornadoes, but what the hell, it's fun! Much like Sharknado, there are parts of The Ki...

   It’s been a while since I’ve been as intrigued about a new album as I was for The Rhapsody Tapes, Melbourne-based hardcore outfit Ocean Grove’s debut full length. The band’s sound has warped and shifted hugely over their brief career; from their sharp, snappy – and a little generic – metalcore sound heard on their early material, something new and fresh has been gradually emerging. This mix of nineties nostalgia, weird imagery, a goofy stage presence and wildly unpredictable musical directions was first visible towards the end of their Black Label EP, and more so with the stand-alone single “Lights On Kind of Lover”.    The thing that had me so closely waiting for this release was that despite this obvious gradual shift towards something new, I was completely in the dark about exactly what this something new would look like when realised fully in a debut full length. The two singles released in the lead up confirmed my thoughts that The Rhapsody Tapes would be ...

   There’s a feeling that you get sometimes, very rarely, when you put on an album for the first time and immediately feel warm and comfortable; like you’ve listened to it before on a holiday somewhere, or a loved one gave it to you as a gift years ago. This feeling of nostalgia for something you haven’t heard before rarely extends for the duration of the album, either; so it is special when an entire album becomes an immediate classic for the listener in their own, personal way. Forget & Not Slow Down is one of those rare albums for me, and continues to be one of my all time favourites, maintaining the same immediacy and intimacy it held for me the first time I sat down with the lyric booklet and heard it.    It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what it is about Forget that makes it so captivating for me – it always is in these cases – but one thing that has remained the same is an immediately identifiable atmosphere of joy. And while Relient K’s discography up unti...