SemiConscious Dot Org

After an excruciatingly slow start, 2006 is shaping up as a pretty damn fine year for new music. Unlike 2005, I haven’t yet heard a no-brainer candidate for Album of the Year, but top to bottom, I think there’s more overall quality. Everything I was digging back in June has held up nicely, and a brand new batch of releases are currently making my skull vibrate with glee.

The Drones, Gala Mill
The bastard sons of Nick Cave and Neil Young. It’s raw and sloppy and slow and boozy and poetic and fucking brilliant. Listening to this makes me want to drink whiskey, and I normally hate whiskey. This is the current clubhouse leader for my favorite album of 2006.

But, it could easily be supplanted by

Mastodon, Blood Mountain
With each successive release, Mastodon has gradually inched down their ear-splitting guitar sound in favor of ever more complex arrangements, complex lyrics, and actual singing (as opposed to mere growling and yelling.) But when you’re as brutally heavy as these guys, you can get away with mixing in some prog without sounding like you’ve gone soft. This is a worthy followup to 2004’s mighty Leviathan, and it’s growing on me like a tumor.

Other new stuff in heavy rotation:

Comets on Fire, Avatar
Another left turn. The MC5-meets-Hawkwind roar of Blue Cathedral is still there, but they’ve mellowed things out significantly, at times skirting dangerously close to jam band territory. That oughta scare off the Pitchfork Medias of the world for good, thank god.

Hank Williams III, Straight to Hell
I don’t listen to country very often, but when I do, I want the pure shit. Hank 3 is pure as all fuck. Thank Jeebus he sounds like his grandaddy and nothing at all like his Monday-Night-Football-and-light-beer-shilling buffoon of a father.

The Melvins, A Senile Animal
How Buzz Osbourne continues to come up with all these killer riffs after 20 years is beyond me, but he does. And they’ve dispensed with the deliberate weirdness of their past few albums to release their most straightforward rock album since 1994’s Stoner Witch.

Thom Yorke, The Eraser
Oh joy, 40 minutes of Thom Yorke noodling on a laptop. If I wanted that, I’d brush the multiple layers of dust off my copy of Kid A. Surprisingly, though, I actually like this. Maybe because, this time, he actually bothered to embed some songs amidst all the electronic beeps n’ burps.

Pink Mountaintops, Axis of Evol
Stephen McBean is a weird, weird guy who makes weird, weird music. That’s all I have to say on the topic. Just read the review.

Once I have slowly and fully digested these albums, I will begin the solemn task of listening to the upcoming new release from Isis. Such an endeavor should only be undertaken with the proper diligence and respect, so I must cleanse my musical palette thoroughly before even attempting it.