currently listening to the downward spiral

- main @mx-trap-house

- this is a sideblog for reviews of movies, series, books, albums, etc (really the only type of media i can’t do is video games, because i do not have the equipment)

- recommendations welcome! if you give me something you think i’ll like, i will do my best to consume it and give my honest opinion!

- i speak spanish, english, and portuguese (to an extent), and am the no. 1 lover of subtitles, so don’t worry about a language barrier. i will find a way

- it takes me days, if not weeks, of consuming stuff over and over to form coherent opinions, so im gonna make a short post when i start something and then maybe reblog that post with my first impressions, followed by a long post in detail once it’s had time to marinate. the tagging system for this will be

#start (self explanatory)

#first impressions

#album review, #movie review, #book review (you get the idea)

#[x]/10 (for rating)

#[tag for the thing]

stuff i like below the cut (to give you an idea of my tastes and also give some recommendations of my own)

from left to right top to bottom:

strange trails - lord huron

goodnight hypopomp - stomach book

the cosmic selector vol. 1 - lord huron

brokeback mountain soundtrack - various artists

the gods we can touch - aurora

coydog - carter vail

the line - kalandra

the rise and fall of a midwest princess - chappell roan

i saw the tv glow soundtrack - various artists

captain my captain - team dresch

a different kind of human (part ii) - aurora

the interstellar tennis championship vol. ii

to be loved - askjell

blackbrained - the phantom riders

Live at Lafayette

7/10

- My standouts: “The Waiting Game (Live),” “Slow Motion (Live),” “Virkelighetens Etterklang (Live)”

- I’m a pretty casual Kalandra fan, but I will say I liked the versions of these songs

What Happened to The Heart?

7/10

- My standouts: “Your Blood,” “A Soul With No King,” and “The Blade”

- I should preface this review with the fact that AURORA was the first musician I found and listened to of my own accord, and really the only artist I listened to from the ages of 9-13, so this is going to be a pretty biased review

- This album has some of the best individual songs of her career, especially in terms of lyrics and production, which have matured a lot from her first album

- Her vocals really lend themselves to some of the more emotional tracks, while having the flexibility to make the more upbeat pop she’s known for

- However, the album is barely cohesive, which detracts from the experience of listening and was overall pretty annoying, especially after the deluxe version dropped, which felt more like an afterthought than anything else

Strange Trails

8/10

- My standouts: “Hurricane (Johnnie’s Theme),” “The World Ender,” (duh) and “Cursed”

- This album is a real banger, it’s got a pretty wide variety of songs and all of them are solid.

- From a lore perspective, it’s a gold mine. I am a big fan of World Ender stuff, so extra points for that aspect

- The one major critique I have is that because of how dissimilar the tracks are to each other, it can feel disjointed at times

Long Lost

7/10

- My standouts: “Long Lost,” “Not Dead Yet,” “What Do It Mean”

- This album is definitely the weirdest Lord Huron has gotten, with the interstitials and French and the 14-minute-long white noise segment at the end

- I enjoyed it, but the factors listed above do make it impossible to listen to on shuffle, which is mildly annoying. I can appreciate it from an artistic perspective, but it just isn’t very practical

- It was also particularly laden with references to their other music, which I enjoyed as a fan but would be impenetrable to a casual listener

Vide Noir

10/10

- My standouts: “Ancient Names (Part 2),” “Secret of Life,” and “The Balancer’s Eye”

- Objectively the best Lord Huron album in terms of production and cohesion; probably my second favorite after The Cosmic Selector Vol. I

- The vibe on this one was insane, the entire album felt like a nightmare in a good way

- It struck a really good balance between being nerd shit I can theorize about and being full of catchy tunes