How to make 2021 actually good

by Tarbeaux on Sun, Jan 9, 2022

2021 albums sucks, so I had to find good ones in the past

The past year I have intelligently and purposefully avoided 2021 and her wagons of mediocre albums to focus on listening to older albums, finishing discog runs and taking time to discover new genres. Ultimately, I ended up listening to 249 albums, with 31% of them managing to be a 7 or above; compared to the meager 6% of good albums released in 2021, it was bliss. Some discog runs were rewarding, like The Doors, SepticFlesh or Immolation, others were… let’s say, mixed (Josh Homme and Ihsahn).

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Why 2021 was actually a great year

by Snyde on Wed, Jan 5, 2022

As long as you avoided music released in 2021

The State of the Vortex 2021 wrap-up post made things look pretty dire. All but heralding the death of music, we whined and complained about the state of current music and how it’s been going downhill for a while. This, however, presents us, dedicated listeners, with a choice: shall we continue to trudge through the seemingly endless mire of current releases or should we pause and reflect on whether this is a truly useful and rewarding way to spend our listening time.

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Independent Release Showcase: Bloody Cumshot - Nymphomania

by Aker, ferday, Tarbeaux on Sat, Dec 18, 2021

A review gangbang on this short melodic death metal release

First review by Tarbeaux With a name like this I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t give a serious shot at this release. You would expect some dumb slam, slimmy vox, D-tune guitars, a large load of chugs and a drums sounding like a tin can. But you couldn’t be more wrong, because instead we got a melodeath banger, full of pummeling riffs, furious drums and technical leads. The use of two distinctive voices, one for the screams and one for the growls reminds their Japanese comparse Intestine Baalism, but with a bit more grindcore focus.

Melodeath Japanese Independent

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business casual: 2021 in Review

by Planex on Tue, Dec 14, 2021

Planex rides the vapor waves from his favorite label

business casual is a vaporwave / future funk / electronic label that releases a new album each Friday. Some have claimed that my label run of all business casual releases in 2020 gave me irreparable brain damage. Now that I have listened to everything they’ve released for the second consecutive year, it’s getting difficult to refute their point. Bizcas seems to have raised their quality standards since 2020, as there have been fewer abject garbage albums this year.

vaporwave outrun bizcas

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