Raise Your Glass, Your Horns, And The Dead

Is this thing on? It exists, so I guess it isn’t off. But it sure seems dead. 

No more! I bid thee RISE! RISE oh poor and neglected blog!

Fisting ourselves back to life! No, wait..

Back in times of yore when I used to be something resembling a productive human being, I blogged. Seriously! Look back and you’ll find older posts. Those weren’t here when I started. And every year and a half or so, I would write up a big blog post covering music I’d personally discovered that year, allowing me a brief glimmer of feeling important. I’m a tastemaker, goddammit! Anyway, welcome to another one of those. Nice to see that my skills in introductory text are as refined as ever.

I honestly don’t know how long ago I started cobbling together this particular list. But this time around I have since gone back through and pruned it, achieving the bare minimum of not completely wasting your time. You’re welcome! And in the interests of changing things up a bit, and because I relish the opportunity to rant and mock, I’ve added something new to the stew pot this time around : BAD SHIT. Please don't start adding shit to any stew pots. It doesn't seem like a good idea.

Now, a few ground rules. Everyone loves rules! I’ll be interspersing the bad entries throughout this post, thus regularly taking the positivity of the good finds and dragging them to Hell. Yay! I’m also avoiding some obvious dreck. For instance, there are some metalcore bands out there who are clearly trying to offend for attention. Fuck that. And some sad little garage band who made the mistake of putting out a single before learning to play their instruments, or the latest Rebecca Black-type mess, also won't appear here. All of these entries have earned their spots the traditional way : by outright failing to deliver. Some are bad albums. Most are bad songs. A few are comebacks that really should not have ever seen the light of day. So, enjoy that. Or don’t. Just read it, fuckers! With no further ado or no ado at all, really

One more little thing : Just like last time, here’s the ‘listen along’ playlist on Spotify if you can’t be bothered to read and hit some links. That shit’s hard, son! Ain't nobody got time for that! And no, the BAD SHIT entries will not be on the playlist. But they're funny and totally worth your time!

Honorable Mentions

Just like last time around, here are a few entries that don’t have enough material to merit a full mention. But because I love my own words and want to shove more of them into your eye holes, I’ll briefly talk about them anyway. Win win?

FKB - I saw these guys open for Pop Evil. They are the oddest assemblage of people that I have ever seen share a stage. The lead guitarist looks like he should be shredding in a metal band. The drummer often had his eyes closed. The bass player just looked uncomfortable with everything and everyone around him. But put it together, and they were actually a pretty decent pop rock group.

Joyous Wolf - I saw them live, opening up for Slash. Think delta blues, but imagine if those old school blues guys were really big fans of power riffs. You've pretty much got it.

LEDGER - If you were to look up ‘Most Unlikely Thing for Cliff to Like’, the solo project of the singer/drummer from Christian rock band Skillet would probably be near the top of the list. Or if you’ve paid attention to my eclectic musical tastes before now, probably not. There’s only one EP, but it’s decent sugary pop rock. 

Vigil of War - It’s yet another female fronted rock band! Their one EP is pretty much what will pop into your head when I say they sound like Warped Tour. I also dig that the lead singer dresses like Generalissimo Mistress Badass.

Okay, that covers the quick hits! On to the longer stuff with more words, you lucky fucks!

Welcome to our main event of the evening!

***BAD SHIT*** - Our first entry in the ‘illustrious’ annals of What the Fuck isn’t actually bad, it’s just weird. It’s a cover album. And I don’t mean a band released an album of cover songs, I mean a band covered an entire album from front to back. The album in question is :

Train Does Led Zeppelin II. 

I’ll give you a minute to wrap your head around this existing.

Your reaction is pretty much expressed by that chubby toddler, right? It’s just fucking weird! Who is the market for this? Who is the audience? Were Zeppelin fans just biding their time until the Drops of Jupiter guys finally did their take on What Is and What Should Never Be? No! Of course not! And soccer moms have Imagine Dragons to listen to while they sip on a Fresca, giving them no time for such weird considerations as Train covering Ramble On.

And yet, it exists. It’s actually pretty shockingly good. It just doesn’t make a lick of fucking sense. It’s so bizarre that it had to make this list. The entire concept sounds like something put up on April 1st by a music site that just forgot to take it down the next day. But it’s real. What the fuck? Where did this come from? And if Train can sound like that, why did they spend their entire fucking career not doing so?!

Amos Lee - Like a lot of stuff that I find myself listening to, Amos doesn’t fit in a box. He crushes a bunch of boxes together into a weird fort and lives in it with his comic books and candy and fuck you if you want in, Carol! No Carols are allowed! I don’t know where I’m going with this. I don't even know any Carols. He’s bluesy. He’s folksy. He's country. He's 'baby, this is the kinda song I'm puttin on cause I wanna piece o' dat ass'. He’s chill as fuck. Pissed off after spending all day dealing with large crowds of people? Just put this guy on and you'll be ready for a nap. Not because it's bad, just because you're relaxed! I need to work on these analogies. He worked as both an elementary school teacher and a bartender before going pro musician, which is a pretty unique and winding career path. I found out about him from a chef on Instagram. You know, how everyone learns about new bands.

Badflower - I heard a bunch from these guys on XM. This list has been under construction for so long that they started as an Honorable Mention, then made the jump to the full list when they released a full album. In 2019. I was busy??? I really like them despite the fact that they’re at times difficult to listen to. In a good way. The song their lead singer wrote when he was depressed and thinking about killing himself is one I often turn away from when it comes on because, despite it being really good, it drags up some shit from my own past that can be a little too heavy. That seems like a pretty impressive thing for a band to pull off. Then there’s this one, which might be about a relationship so unhealthy it’s a drug...or vice versa. It’s also an ear worm. Anyway, check them out! Like you’re probably already doing. Ahem. Moving along.

Battle Tapes - I have absolutely no recollection of how I ended up hearing this band, which usually means that I started diving into one of those ‘If you like these guys, check out this band’ lists. They’re electronic rock. They’ve apparently had songs on the soundtracks for 7 gajillion video games and TV shows. They aren't making any sort of statement that's particularly important or anything, but it’s high tempo candy. And who the fuck doesn’t like candy? Boring people. Boring shitty people. Do you know who likes candy? Winners. And possibly closers. Or was that coffee?

Black Light Burns - Remember Limp Bizkit? Whoa, calm down! Okay, you’re right, I’m sorry. Nobody should be reminded about the greatest affront to civilization that my generation foisted upon the planet. They were awful, But some of the non red-hatted members of the group have actually done some decent shit on their own. One of those people is guitarist Wes Borland (who you'd best remember as the guy in all the face paint), who has done a bunch of solo stuff under this band name. I am disappointed that he didn't go with original band name Big Dumb Face. Imagine hearing an announcer yell out that name! Amazing. Not all of it is good, but most of it is actually pretty solid and frequently very different from what I was expecting. I listened to this under the assumption that of course it would suck. Not so much.

Boston Manor - They’re a band from Blackpool. I don’t know why that’s important, but apparently I decided that it is and I won’t remove my precious words now. The city of Blackpool also sounds like some mysterious cursed locale in a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. There really isn’t a huge amount to say. They’re good. I like them. They're like Britpop and punk hooked up and this band was their bastard love child. Note to self : Bastard Lovechild is a great band name. I like my juicy power chords, catchy hooks and yobbish nonsense. And if all of those things come riding in on a musical unicorn that spits a little fire and tramples my enemies, so much the better. Seriously, who wouldn’t enjoy that? And no, I’m not high as I type these words! I’m pretty sure that this was another XM find.

***BAD SHIT*** - Seeing as the last one was more of a weird entry than a bad one, consider this the true inauguration of this category. From here on in, Bad Shit truly lives down to the name. 

Even people who don’t follow football like a religion have by this point in time heard of Antonio Brown. In a year and a half he’s gone from best wide receiver in the game and future Hall of Famer to insane maniac with an ego so overly inflated that it has blown his career apart. Part of his insanity is music. AB fancies himself a rapper. He’s hardly the first athlete to do so. Shit, Shaq managed to get a major movie studio to make a flick centering around him as a genie basically to try to intro a hip hop side gig. But this makes Kazaam seem like the 1996 version of Citizen fucking Kane.

Here’s AB talentlessly breathing the track title over and over again for 2 minutes! There are so many effects layers going on here that he sounds like a sentient Pro Tool bent on career destruction. Speaking of that, here’s another one where he chronicles his tryout with the New Orleans Saints. He promises not to be a weird distraction, then shows up WITH A FUCKING CAMERA GUY. Shockingly, he didn’t get a deal from the team. Or here he is blathering on incomprehensibly about Andrew Luck. Here's another where he’s hanging out with a bunch of little kids. I get it dude, it’s nice to interact with someone on your own emotional level. Fuck is this bad. The only good thing about this clownshoes jackass deciding that he's a rap star is that he has so little attention span that these train wrecks are mercifully fucking short.

My skull's full of pudding!

BROCKHAMPTON - Okay, we’ve covered previously how much I love weird band member names. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you group members Matt Champion, Kevin Abstract, and Bearface. Motherfuckin’ BEARFACE up in this bitch! How can you not want to listen to a group featuring a man going by BEARFACE?! Mr. Face is part of an alternative hip hop group that looks like a goddamn boy band but doesn’t sound like overly saccharine shit. They also don’t wave their cars, success and jewelry in your face every 3 seconds like a dick slap from a pimp. So that’s nice. I saw them described somewhere as 'Adult Swim for music fans', and that seems like an apt description. A music reviewer who I follow on Youtube mentioned them, and the rest is history. 

Brutus - Hold on, that’s Liam Johnstone’s entrance music! Liam Johnstone’s influence is live here tonight and making his way down to the list! I don’t think that this would actually be Liam’s entrance music I’m imagining something more Queensryche for that, but he is the one who told me that this band existed. I’m pretty sure it’s the first Belgian band that I’ve listened to, which means nothing but allows for this sentence to exist. Nifty! They’re a post hardcore progressive math rock band, which is a giant prattling mouthful of bullshit that means tempo changes and FAST. I’m always delighted for some reason when the drummer is also the singer, so they have that going for them as well.

Caro Emerald - Huh. By weird coincidence and the alphabet we’ve arrived at the other mention from Liam. You couldn’t get much different from the previous entry than a Dutch pop/jazz singer. But jazz means upright bass, so let’s keep that trend going from the last time I did one of these posts! There isn’t a lot to say about her sound. It’s jazzy. That pretty much tells you what you’re getting into here. She’s got a pleasant voice. Her albums are soundtracks to movies/plays/whatever that don't actually exist. About covers it. By the way, her first album was #1 in the Netherlands for 30 weeks, beating out the previous record held by Thriller. Dutch people are weird, yo.

WARNING : TURN YOUR VOLUME BACK DOWN

Code Orange - Assuming you’re following this in order, shit’s about to get a lot louder. I mean, this is the sort of stylistic shift that could make you shit your pants. Not ME, you know, but YOU, so you should probably check and stuff. I, um, need to go for a minute. Unrelated reasons.
 

Sweet dreams, fuckers!

So, I first heard these guys on a remix they did for a pro wrestler’s entrance theme. I don’t even watch wrestling except for the occasional thing that boils up and gets attention for being weird. Like Broken Matt Hardy. Or, in this case, Bray Wyatt. His character is basically Hell’s version of Mr. Rogers. It’s insane and wildly entertaining. This is the entrance for his Fiend persona, a monster who walks to the ring carrying a lantern that is his previous character’s head with a light shoved in the mouth. Yeah. It’s something. As for the band, they’re loud and crunchy and will kick you in the teeth. Probably not literally. If you looked at a picture of this group, you likely wouldn’t expect this much metal vocals. You’d be wrong. They’re also delightfully all over the map. From the stuff I’ve already linked to, to something that sounds like it came out around 1993. It all works.

D.A.R.K. - And now back to syrupy syntherrific pop weirdness! This group consisted of Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries, the bass player from The Smiths and another guy named Ole. What else do you need, really? Since Dolores drowned in 2018, it's probably safe to say that this is it for them. I have no idea how the fuck I heard this, but I would guess it was linked to in the wake of her death.

***BAD SHIT*** - Oof. I heard A LOT of bad cover songs. Really bad cover songs. And this entry also classifies as part of the “They’re still around? REALLY? People are buying...that? Still?” category. 

Little side rant here : how in the world of fuck is Theory of a Deadman still around? They’re awful! The music sucks, the vocals suck, the lyrics are terrible. And yet they still exist, and with their heads so far up their own ass that they just go by Theory now. Fuck that and fuck them. No, don’t actually fuck them. Let their line die. Not anything new to me this past couple years, I just needed to get that off my chest. Moving on.

Remember Buckcherry? No, I won’t apologize for bringing back the horrible memories of that song they wrote in 2006 that seemed designed to be the backing track as Kandi Kane danced the pole. We're all worse off for that memory, but it’s for a reason, dammit! And that reason is shared pain and mockery. We’ll get through this together! Great, now this entry is a movie on the W network. 

Anyway, Buckcherry. They're not dead! They continue to exist, most likely as the epicenter of a mobile outbreak of gonorrhea. They released an album in 2019, and had the cojones to call it ‘long awaited’. That album included a cover of Nine Inch Nails’ Head Like a Hole. This is what it would look like if your dad and his friends stepped on stage at a bar to ‘show the kids what real rock is’. The soundtrack to aging has-beens going through the motions, it’s like a weird lounge cover of an industrial song. Only it’s not as fun and entertaining as an actual lounge cover of the same industrial song. No, this sad cover just exists for reasons that absolutely nobody can explain.

The lack of passion is frankly depressing. Forget mailing it in, a mail service would be far too efficient to describe what’s happening here. This is like replying to an email with smoke signals and a messenger rider. This made sense when I wrote it, I think. All so that this wrinkled collective of wheezing retirees can haul themselves around in a broken down van to tour roadside biker bars and third-rate casino lounges. Wait, turns out it’s just singer Josh Todd and a bunch of road musicians while the rest of the band moved on with their lives. Just him and some fill-ins playing to rooms of seventeen people, most of whom are probably wondering “Who is this, and why does the vocalist look like Willem Dafoe? Is it Willem Dafoe?” No, it isn’t. That would be awesome.

You know, I'm something of a vocalist myself

Dead Boys - It’s weird to be listing a 70s punk band among the stuff I hadn’t really listened to before now, but here we are. I had certainly heard of them a lot over the years. I was aware of frontman Stiv Bators, due more to the infamy of his stage performances than anything else. Besides at times intentionally cutting his stomach with his mic stand, he regularly appeared with slices of bologna stapled to his shirt or vest. During the show, he’d take one off, blow his nose into it, then get his snack on. Oh, 70s punk. They had a brief run of just aggressively smashing you in the mouth, occasionally only metaphorically with their music! They also took a hiatus in 1978 when their drummer, Johnny Blitz, was stabbed 17 times. Suck on that, 50 Cent. I have no explanation for why it took me so long to actually give them a listen. That’s very much not like me.

Fever 333 - If you’ve been wondering how to fill that Rage Against the Machine void in your ears without just listening to some Rage stuff, here you go! They apparently got noticed by playing an impromptu show out of the back of a U-Haul in the parking lot of Randy’s Donuts in Inglewood. I didn’t initially like the first single that I heard from them and just sort of pushed them aside, but it grew on me. Then they came back for more. Mother of fuck did they ever. They’re pissed off. They’re political. They’re in your face. If Jason Butler doesn’t remind you of Zack de la Rocha, I think you might be deaf. They also guested on a track on that weird metal album Poppy released last year. Spoiler alert : she might be appearing again later. This was another one from XM.

Forever Still - It's a Danish alternative hard gothic metal band! I love how band bios just slap sixteen different style labels together as though that will mean sweet fuck-all to anybody. Very helpful! No idea whatsoever where I heard this group. Maybe XM? Maybe random people talking on the LRT? Who knows? What I do know is that I'm pretty much addicted to European bands with frontwomen who can let it fucking rip. And power ballads. I need both like Christopher Walken needs cowbell. Why are 90% of these groups from Europe? Is there some sort of secret grove where these bands blossom on mystical trees? Also, how am I coming up with this scenario while completely sober? Mysteries. If you like stuff like Within Temptation, you’ll probably dig this as well.

Gary Clark Jr. - I first heard him perform on SNL. And once I started listening, I couldn’t stop. I was pulled into a musical vortex that wouldn’t let me listen to anything else for a couple of weeks. Frankly, this may be the highest peak on this entire list. The guy was playing on stage with Jimmie Vaughan and other blues legends as a teenager, for chrissakes. He’s doing rock, he’s doing blues, he's stripping it down, he’s tossing in a little hip hop from time to time. He’s not afraid to speak his mind, he’s not afraid to get political, and holy goddamn is it all great. Seriously, I hate to admit it, but this truly is the peak of this list so far as I’m concerned. But there’s lots of good stuff to come! PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME!

Hiss Golden Messenger - Yes, that second s belongs there. It is Hiss. Yes, it is weird. This is another band that I first encountered on Instagram. See? Social media isn’t completely useless! I don’t know if there are any overall themes to this list like there were the last time with a lot of upright bass though that certainly is popping up on this edition as well or bands with fluctuating lineups, but I have been listening to a lot more folky rootsy country-type stuff. What a marble-mouthed mess of a description that was. And this fits right into groove. Weirdly, several guys in the band were in a hardcore band before this. It’s actually confusing as to who is in the group full time beyond the singer. I have no idea where the name came from, and it bothers me because I feel like there has to be a story there. They’re good, and rootsy folk stuff is apparently something that I no longer automatically ignore as hippie bullshit. Progress?

Hyro the Hero - Hey kids, were you looking for someone to remind you of Rage Against the Machine? You know, again? Well, here you go! The vocals are straight up rap this time, but it’s really good. Weirdly, there was a seven year gap between his first album and the second one (and da Hero evolved to the Hero), but whatever. They can’t all be Tech N9ne! Three albums in three years. That guy is an animal. UPDATE : He has released a fourth while I was editing this post. Oh, and he’s been doing little remix uploads during the current shut-in situation we’re all living in. That’s right, future kids! This post is a relic of the great Covid quarantine of 2020! I AM WRITING HISTORY! More good is gooder! Another XM find.

Fuck your shirt oppression!

***BAD SHIT*** - Let’s talk comebacks! Under normal circumstances, someone returning from years of substance abuse problems and legal issues would be something to be celebrated. But sometimes that person is Wes Scantlin, and he’s dragging the desiccated husk of best-forgotten Puddle of Mudd along behind him. 

I never thought that I would find myself yearning for the ‘complexity’ of Blurry. Then I heard the appropriately titled Uh Oh. Sweet fucking Hell on a stick. This sounds like something written in a half hour by a stoned 16 year old who first picked up a guitar a year ago alongside his slow friend who can kinda sorta hit drums a bit. The accompanying video seems to have had a budget of perhaps as many as one hundred tacos. If you’d work for street food, you were handed a camera or a boom mic. I only hope that his constant nasal whining about fucking it up again is a reference to writing this pool of vomit.

But that isn’t even the lowest of the low! Oh no, Wes wasn’t done with us yet. He and the boys decided to do an acoustic set at Sirius XM. During that set, they did a take on Nirvana’s About a Girl. As he strums the opening riff, Wes seems to be considering whether this really is something that he wants to go ahead with. Maybe he’s better off just cutting his losses here and doing a different song? Unfortunately, he barrels ahead. I can best describe the vocals as the sorts of shrieking a man might make while birthing a full sized yacht out of his ass. The visuals are horrifying, as his skull attempts to escape from his face and take what’s left of his brain with it. I defy you to actually sit through all 3 fucking minutes of this war crime without several shots of hard liquor.

J. Cole - There’s not a lot of straight up hip hop on the ol’ list this year, but here’s a heaping helping for ya. He also goes by Therapist and Kill Edward, because rap is weird. He produces all of his own stuff, plus a lot of Kendrick Lamar’s music (which was my link to him in the first place). He graduated from St. John’s magna cum laude, so he’s not dumb and doesn’t really play at it, either. Sure, he does the bitches and bling stuff that we’ve heard 7 gazillion times before, and he at least does it well, but he tends towards a lot of stuff beyond those cliches, too.

Jonathan Davis - I have a bit of a love/hate thing with Korn. Either I really like their stuff, or I really don’t. Either I’m in the mood to listen to them, or I’m REALLY not. But Jonathan Davis is an interesting guy. He can play piano, bagpipes, upright bass YES!, drums, clarinet and guitar. He worked in funeral homes. Legit question : why is it called a funeral home? Nobody’s living there. Oho! He finally released this solo album in 2018 It has been THAT LONG since I last did one of these! after starting to mess with it in 2007. So he’s like Axl Rose, but likable. And the songs here are generally interesting. I mean, he could probably toss in a sitar interlude and shit, but manage to not have it be a pompous load of crap. Kudos! That's impressive.

Kaleo - When one thinks about blues-splattered indie guitar rock bands, you probably immediately think of the fjords and glaciers of Iceland, right? Indeed, a collective of five pasty and frozen Northerners seem like the ultimate grouping to deliver some pulsing riffs. It’s probably how they avoid freezing to death. They can either kick ass or just keel over and fucking die. That’s life in Iceland! Well, that’s the assumption that I’m going by, because these guys are fantastic and seem to be alive. On re-reading here, I cannot explain why I went in this direction with this entry. And yet, it remains. I think this was one of those ‘If you like A, you’ll love B!’ list situations. Sometimes, lists don’t lie. 

Khruangbin - Cliff, do you like any bands with normal names? Pretty much no. Fuck you. A psychedelic funk trio, the founding members bonded over shared appreciation for Afghan music and Middle Eastern architecture. And the three of them record everything in a barn. An actual barn. Warning! Crazy hipster bullshit, Batman! They worked on some songs with previous list alumnus Leon Bridges, which is how I came across them. If you’re looking for something that sounds like what John Shaft would play after a long day of shooting bad guys and being a sex machine to all the chicks, check it out. If you don’t understand that reference, you need to be somewhere else.

Avast! The stunner of this year's list is upon us!

Lindsey Stirling - Wait, what? Is this right? A violinist/dancer who apparently first jumped to fame on America’s Got Talent and who mixes in little bits of dubstep and EDM? Is this my list? What is happening here?! Turns out, it’s actually pretty good. Also, come on, a fucking riff battle at high noon in the Old West? How had nobody done that before?! I am disappointed, entire rock genre! Before that video, nobody had defeated bad guys with music/dance since Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker on the Genesis! Seriously, how did that get made? It was fun, but it’s patently insane. She did a song many years back with Lzzy Hale, which is how I first heard of her.

Mark Morton - Also known as ‘Lamb of God’s guitar player does his own thing with a series of guest vocalists’. I’m not a fan of Lamb of God, but holy fuck do I like this. He sticks with the guitar and songwriting and doesn’t pretend to be a vocalist. We’ll be coming back to why this is good a bit later. Sure, a lot of collaborations are done with people you’d expect, like Jacoby Shaddix and Randy Blythe, but there are also surprising little mostly acoustic numbers and a song with experimental blues-ish musician Naeemah Z Maddox Oh look, another hint for the near future. The song with Chester Bennington was inescapable and led me to his solo album and the follow-up EP.

Marty Ray Project - It’s yet another social media discovery! He does music! No shit. Yeah, I know that's obvious, but I have no idea how to describe it beyond that. It's like there’s a bunch of country travelling down a road and then ZOINKS, an avalanche of folk rock slammed right into it! The bus is now careening out of control through some rock riffs! There’s a little bit of fucking everything thrown into a blender and pureed into sweet, sweet nectar of awesome. He did a cover of Ice Ice Baby that actually manages to make that song sound like a well written masterpiece, for fuck’s sake! And he’s done a loooooooot of other pretty amazing covers, which is basically the key to my heart. He’s 100% independent. He has an impressive beard. What the Hell else do you want?

***BAD SHIT*** - Okay, this one is actually hilariously bad shit. This is like the cheezy movie equivalent of a horrible song. In this case, a horribly misguided cover song. I cannot for the life of me figure out what anyone involved was thinking with this. Who thought that this ever seeing the light of day was a good idea? It’s inexplicable.

In 2014, a compilation album called Punk Goes 90’s was released. On it, a bunch of punk and metalcore bands put out covers of popular 90’s songs. One of the bands was Falling in Reverse. Their chosen song WAIT!!!! BEFORE YOU LISTEN!!! See if you can get past the 0:35 mark without bursting out laughing : Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise.

Did you succeed in not laughing? I fucking doubt it. Hooooooooly shit. I have listened to this at least fifteen times, and by the end of of it I am still laughing so goddamn hard that there are tears in my eyes. The pitiful attempts to mean mug and look all tough n’ shit. The fact that I’m supposed to buy this guy as menacing while he keeps insisting on hitting those absurd high notes that make him sound like a Muppet. These ‘I couldn’t be whiter if I tried’ fucks blasting lyrics about being down with the hood. It’s just a perfectly wrapped package of hilarity. Goddamn. How on Earth did their label not get one look at this and immediately demand that every copy be burned with fire?! A gigantic image of these guys in this video should reside permanently next to the definition of wigger. This poor song. First it shows up in that ridiculous 90’s movie where Michelle Pfeiffer of all people is some supposed ex-Marine badass who relates to the hood kids, now this. Ya hate to see it.

Monster Truck - It’s a rock band named Monster Truck. They sound exactly like you’d expect a rock band named Monster Truck to sound. Giant beefy guitar riffage that could kill a weak man. Songs about trucks and trains. You’re seeing them live and your fist is in the air and you don’t remember when that happened and someone just spilled beer all over the place and they’re Monster Truck and you bought a ticket and they gave you a full seat but you’ll only need the edge.

And now the presentation of a weird trophy for music I can't describe at all

Naeemah Z Maddox - Hey, I’ve heard of her! It’s like we just saw this name somewhere. Hmmm...let’s hop in the ol’ wayback machine and see if we can remember where : oh yeah! That foreshadowing from a few entries before! The Cliff version of the wayback machine just mocks you and makes you feel worse about yourself. Here’s the thing : I honestly don’t know how to describe her. I really don’t. She has a bluesy sound, but then it goes kinda wild like someone threw a whole bunch of acid jazz into the mix. Or maybe I’m on acid. Maybe we’re all on acid? Maybe this is The Matrix? I don’t fucking know. I just really like it. I heard her on the aforementioned Mark Morton song and went from there.

NF - A white dude who spits rhymes about things like self doubt and emotional issues and not really knowing what the fuck he’s supposed to be doing? But what about the bitches? The bling? Aren’t those given to anyone who receives their hip hop license? Apparently not. He at least wears a bulletproof vest and talks about being a badass, right? Not so far as I’m aware. Are you sure this guy isn’t actually a folksy lute player? Nope. He definitely does ‘the hippity hop’. Well, shit. I know, right? You can tell the guy kinda modeled his cadence after Eminem and actually sounds a lot like Logic. The fact that he can hold up to comparisons like those is pretty sweet, though. Yep, pretty cool. Why are we persisting with this schtick? Like I fucking know? You’re writing this! Wait, I thought you were writing this?

Pimps of Joytime - I don’t remember how I first heard about this group, but I do recall how my line of thinking went. "Their name is WHAT? Seriously?! I need to listen to that now." A name like that demands ear time. And I’m glad that I gave them a shot, because they’re pretty fantastic. They’re a soul/funk band, so we’re talking horn sections and bass lines that will have you dropping smooth Barry White pickup lines on yourself. Or maybe that’s a me thing. If that doesn’t sound like something you’re down with, I have no idea why you read anything that I have to say at all. To be fair, I tend to wonder that in general.

Poppy - Strap in kids, it’s about to get a little weird. She went from bubblegum pop star to...whatever one would call a mix of sludge metal riffs and upbeat pop vocals and hard rock power drums. The whole package is a contrived sort of fucking weird, but it turns out I’m very cool with a contrived sort of fucking weird. Especially when it generally works pretty well. It’s not all great, but a lot of it clicks like a motherfucker. The thing is, I started off with this ‘new normal’ version and then went backwards and actually kind of like the sugary pop bullshit. It isn’t pretending to be some sort of profound statement about anything. It’s just un-apologetically upbeat stuff that makes for decent background music.

POWERWOLF - Apparently one of my themes for this year's list is groups with their name in all caps? Look at that ridiculous album art! Just look at it! They’re a German power metal band with songs about Romanian horror legends and Transylvanian vampires. Oh, and their whole persona is that they are werewolves. It’s all over-dramatic European symphonic metal, complete with gang vocals and organs ringing out in the background. And the videos...oh the glorious videos! Such drama, such goth, such...stripping nuns. If you’re down with ridiculousness, you’ll dig it. I really like this kind of metal, so this was a ‘look, you might like these guys’ suggestion. The suggestion was correct. I do. More werewolf!

***BAD SHIT*** - Let’s go with some new stuff this time around. It’s also the song that stood out the most on my bad list for making me angrier than any other. Every now and again, the entire music industry and radio seem to conspire to try to make some band hit through sheer brute force. And the example of that here is Blood // Water by grandson. He’s Canadian. I like the idea behind the video. So end my positive comments. 

I hate this fucking thing. And it was inescapable for MONTHS. I cannot imagine what anyone hears in this except some variation on how fucking annoying it is. None of the music is in any way memorable. I cannot remember a single riff. I’m not entirely certain that there are even drums in there, but there might be? I just forget, but not enough that it’s completely out of my mind and I can rest in peace. No, a little fragment of it has sunk talons into my cerebral cortex and won't let go. His singing voice is that sort of whining nasal bullshit that makes me want to repeatedly punch him in the face. And then they drop in some electronic noise which is the only memorable part of the song because it’s as pleasant as a dentist’s drill being driven into my goddamn eardrums. The rest of his work could be the greatest thing ever, but this song is so horribly awful that I could not give less of a fuck. Fuck this song. Fuck this guy. Fuck his label. Fuck every single station that wouldn’t let this shit go. Fuck.

Silvertomb - For the most part. We’ll get to that. I was listening to some Type O Negative, and one of the band suggestions that popped up was these guys. I had never heard of them, did some Google research, and now I believe that vaccines are allowing the inevitable one world government to track our movements. Errr...whoops I meant to say that I learned that two of their members are ex-Type O guys. That was enough for me. And if you like trudging doom metal, it’ll probably work for you as well. EXCEPT : Remember earlier when I mentioned that Mark Morton plays guitar and brings in singers? Unfortunately here, Kenny Hickey is playing guitar and is the lead vocalist. He shouldn’t be. The vocals are...rough. I legitimately cannot make it through an entire album in one shot because of his voice.

Sons of Texas - They’re apparently Southern groove metal. That might be my favorite musical categorization of all time. Definitely a Pantera vibe, though obviously it isn’t going to be a true replica without Dimebag, and it isn't to that level of CRUSH THE SKULLS. This is what would be blasting out the windows of the General Lee if Luke and Bo were fans of power chords. I refuse to recognize the existence of Coy and Vance. If beer, Harleys, a shot of Jack and BBQ could somehow pick up instruments and form a band, this is what they would sound like.

Now taking the stage, Sons of Texas!

Ooo, we’ve entered the the’s. As in previous entries, I’m just stacking them up in alphabetical order for what follows up the first the.

The Damned Things - It’s our first (only?) supergroup of the year, and it’s a bit of an interesting mix. Scott Ian is here, along with two guys from Fall out Boy, one from Alkaline Trio and the last from Every Time I Die. They’re the kind of hard rock band you’d probably expect, with videos ranging from the previously linked ‘watch the whole band die’ to ‘is animated demon Scott Ian firing lasers from his tits at some sort of flying testicle monster?’. Believe it or not, that is disturbingly accurate. The answer is yes. They all seem to just be having fun, and Scott Ian is a treasure.

The Dogs - Do you like Iggy Pop? Do you especially like Iggy & the Stooges? Then you’ll like these guys, because they sound a lot like them. Seriously, if you closed the eyes of a casual Stooges fan is that even a thing?? and started playing this, they probably wouldn’t know that it’s a different band. They’ve got more bang and their vocalist sounds a bit meaner, but their style is the same. Who knew that fancy-dressed punk bands came from Norway? They also paid for the recording of their latest album by selling heavy cast cowls that weighed 50 kilos each. That wins for weirdest and most impressive funding effort of the year. 

***BAD SHIT*** - Let’s go back to the well of cover songs. You know what’s worse than a bad cover? An uninteresting one. Welcome to Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson’s take on Helter Skelter. 

First off, this is a shitty song. It has always been a shitty song. It’s just infamous, so people insist that it’s ‘cool’, but it’s just a kludgy slog of super repetitive riffs and a whole lot of high hat. But Charles Manson killed someone while listening to it, so it’s just a GREAT TRACK, yo! Second, Rob & Marilyn were a much more interesting tandem when they reportedly wanted to beat the piss out of each other a few years ago. Sadly, now they’re ‘friends’ or something. If this song is a testament to that bond, I question its legitimacy.

This is just dull and boring. It’s like the sound techs could hear the complete disinterest both of these guys had, so they layered on so much digital bullshit that the two of them sound like robots barely able to stifle a yawn as they mail it the fuck in. It’s utterly monotonous. Three and a half minutes has never dragged on for as long as this puddle of crap does. It’s like it opens some sort of a rift in space-time and just exists for far longer than it was ever intended to. The half life of plutonium isotopes is shorter than this. It goes on and on and on and on like a death march, only the sweet release of death never actually comes and you’re still listening to this listless bullshit meander until the end of existence itself. Was this the best take, or did they just do one, say “Good enough” and peace out? This is what shit sounds like.

The Hu - It’s not The Who, it’s The Hu! Oh, but it's pronounced the same way. This won’t be confusing at all! This version of those two soundalike band names is a Mongolian rock band. I now sound like the King of All Hipsters. So that means a lot of regional throat singing, a guitar-like instrument called a Morin Khuur and a sort of flute-y thing called a Tsuur. Yes, fit me for my Hipster throne, like that would be cool. Anyway, being Mongolian (and having received the Order of Genghis Khan, which I’d never heard of before but now want), they play on their heritage with a lot of videos replacing horsemen with bikers. They hit big on satellite radio and it went from there, leading to remakes of several of their songs with more electric guitar and some Western vocals that we of the pale face might actually understand. Shit, they might just be calling me a moron in their native tongue, but I still love it.

The Hunna - An English rock band who are apparently named after a French saint of some sort, though they also claim it has something to do with hip hop. This is the level of barely started research you’ve come to expect and respect from my work!. They’re kind of like if Kings of Leon didn’t get really annoying after a while. Although a lot poppier, with a pretty consistent driving bass line between songs. I am just the fucking master of comparisons, right? They’re like this other thing, but really different. I first heard of this band from a Youtube music reviewer who I follow. Uh, there’s a guy in the band named Junate. I have nothing else, really. They’re just a solid band.

The Raven Age - These guys opened for Iron Maiden last year, which makes sense since one of the guitarists in the group is the son of Maiden bass player Steve Harris. They’re a metalcore band, but with more of the flare for the dramatic normally found in European power metal. Apparently that’s called melodic metalcore, but those seem like two words that should not be associated with one another at any time. If 'sounds kinda like Trivium' was a genre, that would be the best fit. The tandem guitar parts and songs about historical figures lead me to believe that George Harris spent a looooooot of time around his dad’s band growing up, and we’re all the better for it.

Thundermother - Here’s the thunderous all-female band with the classier name! We’ll be getting back to this very, VERY soon. Apparently they’ve already swept through an entire lineup around the front woman and rebuilt again like some sort of rock band version of The Bionic Woman. What’s not explained anywhere is how this group of Swedes developed a time machine and traveled forward from about 1977 with a bunch of blues-tinged rock riffs. Or maybe AC/DC drunkenly stumbled through a time rift and ended up in the here-and-now with rather substantial physical changes. I have zero clue how I first heard them.

Thunderpussy - When I said very, VERY soon I was not exaggerating. For once. Take almost everything that I said about the last band and repeat it, only this time they’re American and Mike McCready really pushed them after first hearing their stuff. I remember seeing this name pop up somewhere and immediately commenced listening because THUNDERPUSSY. I can only assume that they shared a time transport vessel with the previous entry, only with less AC/DC and a little bit more glam. All of this wanton disregard for the rules surrounding time travel may require the services of Jean Claude Van Damme, unless he's too busy doing the splits on his kitchen counter.

We must put an end to these guitar-laced time incursions! The future can't take it!

***BAD SHIT*** - Oh, comebacks. We all root for them. Here we have a singer who completely fell apart under roughly an ocean’s quantity of booze, but now he’s back. “Wait, Cliff. You already covered the disastrous return of Wes Scantlin to assault our eardrums.” Yes, yes I did. This isn’t him again. No, this is Scott Stapp.

Remember when Creed announced they were splitting up, only for every other member of the band to form Alter Bridge with Myles Kennedy? That had to sting. It’s irrelevant to this mess, but still. Yikes! Scott ‘returned’ in 2016 as the replacement for Scott Weiland fronting some band nobody ever heard of called Art of Anarchy. They later sued him for refusing to promote their album or tour. So it seems that his band mate relation skills haven’t improved much.

Now he’s apparently sober, which is great. What isn’t so great is this. Oh boy. The music would fit right in as a backing track for when the streetwise ‘doesn’t play by the rules’ cop decides to lower the boom on a dealer who he catches slinging dope outside of a school. The other thing that quickly becomes apparent is that dude has absolutely no power left in his voice. It’s just really thin and kinda there. Lucky for us he continues waving his hands around in slow motion histrionics befitting a third rate illusionist. 

Other songs aren’t any better. And good grief are these some cringe-worthy lyrics. It’s like someone dropped a copy of ‘500 Rock & Roll Cliches’ into a pot and stirred until it cooked down into a thin gruel which you’re now listening to. This sounds like something that was written to be a pro wrestler entrance theme, only they rejected it because it was a bit too crap. Though it’s still better than the time he altered the lyrics to one of his own songs to promote the then-Florida Marlins. Whoring yourself out to commercial interests is fine, but THE MARLINS? Have some dignity! It’s just a depressingly pointless comeback with nothing going for it at all. 

To be fair, it’s better than Five Finger Death Punch popping up every two years to vomit out some more warmed-over cover songs and tracks featuring Ivan Moody whining about being famous. Of course, that isn’t much of a statement. Sorry. Another one I had to get off my chest.

Tremonti - I swear this order was not pre-determined. It was blog destiny! Mark Tremonti gets tired of just playing lead guitar for Creed and Alter Bridge and forms his own band where he also does vocals. And he isn’t bad at it! Actually, you can hear his voice get better and stronger as time goes along, and he’s actually got some chops. As opposed to other former Creed members recently mentioned. Ahem. I wouldn’t call it thrash, but it sure as fuck tends towards fast. Also, he and guitar/bass player Eric Friedman managed to do a solid acoustic cover of Metallica’s Sanitarium on toy Hello Kitty guitars, which is a pretty impressive feat.

Valient Thorr - What are you imagining when you hear the band name Valient Thorr? Big, meaty guitar hooks? The endless crash of drums threatening to cave in your face? A band consisting entirely of guys with the last name Thorr, with the exception of frontman Valient? Well then, you really don’t need me to write this at all and fine, I don’t need you either! I’m not kidding about the Thorr thing. Including the current lineup and past members, 12 out of 14 were all (first name here) Thorr. The only exceptions have been : Valient Himself (that's actually the full name he goes by) and Dr. Professor Nitewolf Strangees. Yes, really. The band story is that they arrived on Earth in 1957 from their home planet of Venus, then their craft was stolen by Walt Disney. I love this band. North Carolina is crazy, motherfuckers! How did I hear about them? Possibly their name was whispered to me on the wind from the mouth of a vengeful god.

We Came As Romans - An American metalcore band with the typical genre tandem of screamo/clean vocalists (at least until clean vocalist Kyle Pavone died. Now it's one dude doing double duty), I first heard about their stuff through a discussion about music in a fitness group. Everyone talks about music, dammit! You just have to be willing to listen to everything. Of course, that also leads to hearing a lot of shit. Take it as you will. Unlike a lot of other metalcore bands, who tend towards corruption and evil and everything bad going on around you, they tend to be somewhat more positive. Even while screaming, which is something of a feat.

Welshly Arms - This is what you get when a bunch of guys from Cleveland form a rock band after spending their formative years listening to Motown and soul music. And who like to mix in background vocals from gospel choirs. They met at a barbecue, for fuck’s sake. Their band is named after an SNL skit. I am clearly out of things to say, but don’t hold that against the band. This is the final entry. I’ve written a lot of words. They’re really good, though. The band, I mean. Also the words.

All Hail the King of Shit! May he best this rival to his throne!

***BADDEST SHIT OF ALL TIME*** - The previous entries in this category weren’t in any particular order, but this is absolutely the worst. I have saved the shittiest for last. From the vocals to the songwriting to the music to everything else associated with this wannabe music star, this is shit of the absolutely purest form. Nothing here is good. How bad can it be? For our first clue, let's take a gander at this atrocity of a fucking album cover :

There we have it. Evidence proving that God does not exist.

Yes, that’s Corey Feldman. You might already think that you understand the Hell that you're in for, but you don't have the slightest shred of a clue. That is the cover for his DOUBLE ALBUM Angelic 2 the Core. One half is apparently rock and the other one is dance. I’ll take his word for it because I am not subjecting myself to 94 MINUTES of the 'musical stylings' of Corey fucking Feldman. Even I apparently have my limits.

But let’s just go back to that cover. Look upon it! The various images so badly spliced together that the left angel’s feet just flat out don’t exist! The fire looks like something from the original SimCity when disaster strikes! So many shitty effects layers slap dashed all over everything that the three figures pictured look like digitized versions those creepy wax statues of people! A ribbon effect that looks like it was copy-pasted from a Sierra game circa 1994! An elderly person who has never before used a computer in their 93 years of life could be parked in front of MS Paint and come up with something better than that in about an hour. Hell, they could empty the contents of their adult diaper on the screen and still end up with something more artistically pleasing than this dreck. 

Mother of fuck is that a spectacle of abject failure. This is what happens when someone tries to crowdfund $105,000 to make an album and only raises $14,982. Note that I'm seeing those numbers in Canadian currency, so they might look different from readers not residing in our land of maple wonder. And who the fuck donated to this?! Who read THAT PITCH and decided to dip into their savings?! The guy couldn’t even be bothered to actually fill in the page sections, he just left the fucking suggestion text sitting there after his never-ending sprawl of leetspeak!!! Find some meaning in your lives, people! Or, for just $56 Canadian, Corey would be your friend on Facebook, and that's practically the same. Welcome to the worst cover of all time, attached to probably the worst album ever recorded (at least based on the bite sized portions of it that I've managed to make myself consume).

Let's get to the song. And no, it isn’t the one inexplicably featuring Snoop. Or his cover of Working Class Hero (yep, this motherfucker had the audacity to do a Lennon cover) that sounds like someone decided to do the vocals in the style of a cartoon cat as it was dragged through a meat grinder. No, this post is primarily for a little ditty called Seamless.

Why choose one musical style when you can try to shove all of them through the speakers at once? There are so many samples layered on one another in an orgy of shit that they all kick the fuck out of each other and become a mass of ceaseless noise. And there’s Corey singing in not one ridiculous voice, but two slathered all over each other like rancid mayonnaise spread on mouldy bread. This isn’t a song. This is a crime against humanity set to a really bad horn section. And Corey is incapable of giving us even a slight reprieve. He can’t go longer than about three seconds without making some weird noise or his own sad little interpretation of the sort of “Woohoo!” stuff that Michael Jackson would drop on the end of a chorus. His appetite for needing to be heard is unquenchable. Somebody stuff a few bottles of Ritalin down his throat, please. I don’t care what the results are, it’ll be better than this. 

Oh, but we’re not done. Because this is a duet. And the guitars just came in. And he just passed it on to Fred.

He can’t...no, he can’t mean...not THAT Fred, right? RIGHT?

Of course he's involved in this dreck

Yep. It’s Fred Durst. Here in his red hat to make us all feel even worse about ourselves as he drops such lyrics as, and I quote :

Mr. Bojangle, talkin bout that sweet poontangle

Drink that in. Actually, don't. It will probably give you chlamydia. Poontangle. POONTANGLE. Nobody would ever cobble together the word poontangle unless they were certifiably insane and/or clinically obsessed with MAKING SHIT RHYME no matter the cost. And the song just continues from there, because of course it does. And now two tracks of each of them are belting shit out at once, joining together like a bad vocals version of Voltron that I keep hoping will be defeated and just fucking explode. And it keeps going on and on and on. Shitty horn sample. Crappy guitar sample. Three different drum tracks pummeling what’s left of my mind. Even Fred sounds bored. 

I am actually about to say something that I never in my life imagined that I would utter under any circumstances : Fred Durst deserves better than this. His being chewed on for hours by fire ants would be fine by me, but featuring in this song is just too cruel a fate for anyone. I might feel a bit bad for Pol Pot if he was doing guest vocals here.

Oh good, now we get the drums AND the horns AND the guitars AND the bass track AND about 63 vocal tracks at once. Wonderful. PLEASE FUCKING KILL ME NOW.

WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK IS THIS? HOW IS THIS REAL? Does this delusional bastard think that this sounds GOOD? There is no good here! This is an endless trudge across the ashy black of what used to be my soul. Not only is this the worst song that I have heard in the past few years, but I find it very hard to believe that this will ever be topped by any song ever made by human beings. If an army of robots could be programmed to craft the shittiest take on music ever created they might have a chance, but I would still bet on this. Well done, Corey. You’re a fucking monster.

Welp, time to roll around in shit and hope that makes everything better