Still with us? Good. In part two of our Muse exploration, our guests Fran and Babs from the excellent Over/underrated music podcast make a case for why Origin of Symmetry is an Unsung classic. We ponder what a “birth squeeze” is and what a llama’s toenail looks like…. We also talk about the band’s entire discography and friends, let me tell you, it was a journey . There are definitely highs - some ridiculously overblown highs at that - but there are also some crushing lows. Matt Bellamy once sta...
Oct 25, 2021•1 hr 44 min•Ep. 193
EVEN MORE GUESTS?! WHY! Well, because it’s fun and across these next two episodes you’ll really begin to see why because our guests Fran and Babs from the excellent Over/underrated music podcast have chosen Origin of Symmetry by Muse. This turned into the most EPIC of two parters, so you better strap the fuck in for this one because we had so much to talk about that we didn’t even get to the band’s discography in part one. That’s right, there was just so goddamn much to talk about with Muse that...
Oct 18, 2021•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 192
Our good pal Anna Goldthorp joins us this week and takes us into a genre of music we have not yet covered with Shannon and the Clams’ third album, Dreams in the Rat House. Hailing from Oakland, Shannon and the Clams are part of a rather deep, and popular, retro garage rock revival scene. They’ve been going since 2009 and have six albums in that time to critical acclaim. The band themselves are very well respected in this scene, and the boys had really great fun immersing themselves in an entire ...
Oct 11, 2021•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 191
This week we’re joined by the multi-talented troubadour, promoter and friend, Kapil Seshasayee as he picks the debut album by little known Scottish post rockers Long Fin Killie. Post rock is perhaps only one way of defining this band., but it’s probably the most accurate label to affix to them when it comes to Houdini. Incorporating a myriad of American post rock influences that were floating around this tiny scene at the time, the band, fronted by writer Luke Sutherland, made extensive use thei...
Oct 04, 2021•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 190
IT’S A PODCAST CROSSOVER, BABY! This week we’ve asked Ryan Schaff from The Broken Record Player Podcast to come chat to us about an album he thinks is an unsung classic. His choice? Tinderbox by Siouxsie and the Banshees. We always knew that we’d need to address these guys at some point, so it was great to have a fan come on and do the job with us. Ryan’s a super lovely dude and Siouxsie and the Banshees are a super interesting band so we couldn’t be happier to have him on hand to lend his exper...
Sep 27, 2021•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 189
Dave is MIA this week so we’ve drafted in our pal Vicki and asked her to pick an album. Her choices is Stubborn Persistent Illusions by Canadian post-rock troupe Do Make Say Think. Hailing from Toronto and part of Constellation Records, it would be fair to consider Do Make Say Think’s jazzy, dual drummer, almost joyful approach to post-rock the yin to Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s doomy, melancholic yang. That’s not to say there aren’t moments of darkness in Do Make Say Think’s music, just that ...
Sep 20, 2021•1 hr 34 min•Ep. 188
It’s incredibly difficult to categorise Arthur Russell. His music ranged from the purely experimental, to disco, warped 80s synth pop and so much more. It’s the latter that makes Calling out of Context, the first posthumous complication released by his estate such an intriguing listen. Arthur rose to prominence as the musical director of Manhattan’s avant-garde musical playground The Kitchen. He rubbed shoulders with people from all walks of life - from Allen Ginsburg to the Talking Heads and ma...
Sep 13, 2021•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 187
Alright, so in the grand scheme of things, Humbug by the Arctic Monkeys isn’t exactly bereft of plays on the ol’ streaming platforms. Hell, it still sold a lot of physical copies too. However, in comparison to the rest of their discography? It’s certainly one of the albums that has shown the least love. It did have some big-ish singles of course, but nothing on the scale of some of the others. The closest to Humbug is their 2018 album (and latest release at time of recording) Tranquillity Base H...
Sep 06, 2021•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 186
The cat is truly among the pigeons this week, as Chris puts the Arctic Monkeys’ third album Humbug forth for our consideration. Is this the biggest band we’ve ever covered?! Probably not, no - we did cover Metallica after all - but they are the first band we’ve ever covered with a song on Spotify that is has over 1 billion plays (It’s Do I Wanna Know? incidentally) so I suppose you could argue that they are the biggest band we’ve yet covered. On this episode we talk about the band’s history, as ...
Aug 30, 2021•59 min•Ep. 185
Screamo is still a dirty word to those of a certain generation. It conjures up images of The Used and Hawthorne Heights and Silverstein. Well we’re here to tell you that before those bands became a thing, screamo was something entirely different. The best example of this is, of course, As the Roots Undo by Circle Takes the Square. Won’t harp on about screamo too long in this post (you’ll need to listen to get the full rundown) but the OG version of it (or “skramz” as it is often called, partly a...
Aug 23, 2021•1 hr 32 min•Ep. 184
And so we’re back to talk some more about Skunk Anansie and this time, THIS TIME, to actually chat about the album we said we would talk about, Paranoid and Sunburnt. But before we get there of course, we also chat about Skin because her influence and mere presence in the music both back in the 90s and now, are huge. She’s a very interesting character in her own right, so it would be remiss of us not to talk about her. After that, we then dig into the album proper. This weird hard rock/funk rock...
Aug 16, 2021•51 min•Ep. 183
Skunk Anansie have sold millions of albums. Paranoid and Sunburnt, their debut, was released to wide acclaim and arrived in the post-grunge period where the UK was in the thrall of Britpop, but what is the band’s legacy? Many of the bands that came out around about this time that didn’t fall into the Britpop category were loosely termed Britrock, and Skunk Anansie were one of the biggest, and most interesting of the lot. Sonically, they had more in common with bands like RATM and Faith No More t...
Aug 09, 2021•57 min•Ep. 182
Two episodes in a week?! Yes, this week herald’s the return of our Sound is a Pound feature! In it, we each go to the pound shop, by two albums each and then gift them to one another. And boy we have some real doozies for you. NOTE: This is actually BONUS CONTENT - y’know the kind of thing we give to our subscribers on a regular basis. if you like this and want to hear more, consider signing up to our Patreon. So what albums are we covering this week? Well, we’re going to take you on a whistle s...
Aug 04, 2021•40 min
We were on holiday this week so we’ve gone deep into our catalogue of bonus content and unearthed the very first in a series that we’re calling Unsong. If you like what you hear, consider subscribing here . It’s basically THE UNSUNG SINGLES CLUB. In it, we breakdown a single song to talk about why it works so well. On this episode, Weaver has chosen Blessings Upon the Throne of Tyranny by Dimmu Borgir. TRVE KVLT BLACK METAL. Taken from the Norwegian black metallers’ fifth album Puritanical Eupho...
Aug 02, 2021•20 min
Whilst any meaningful distinction between what is “high” and what is “low” are is surely a conversation born out of complete nonsense (who gets to decide this things? Why do such individuals fall into these categories? etc), what we can say is that we are very much out of our wheelhouse on this episode. That’s right. We’re going classical. We’re going Erik Satie. Look, classical musical analysis is really not our forte but we give it a damn good go on this episode (with proper credit applied whe...
Jul 26, 2021•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 181
In case you missed it, last week we discussed the history of the double album. We spoke about how the double album was born, how it paved the way for more conceptual records, some of the big hitters, some of the worst ones, triple albums, quadruple albums…just any and all things related to the very concept of the double album. We also created three loose categories that we think all double albums fall into. If you missed it, you can find the episode here. This week, we’ve each picked what we thi...
Jul 19, 2021•1 hr 43 min•Ep. 180
The dreaded double album. In the eyes of some, it’s an aberration. A sure sign of a band with too much ego/money/time and not enough tunes to make it really work. Well, join us this week as we talk all things double album. The double album dates back to the last 50s, with Ella Fitzgerald first releasing a double LP set with her 1956 album Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook. Yet many will claim that Blonde on Blonde by Bob Dylan is the first true example of a double album in popular c...
Jul 12, 2021•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 179
Before we dive into Demanufacture properly, this week we take some time talking about Fear Factor’s albums from Archetype until this year’s Aggression Continuum up and friends, to say it’s a mixed bag would be an understatement. If you missed last week’s episode, listen here . Largely this is down to interpersonal issues between the band, with Digimortal being the last time the “classic” lineup of Fear Factory would ever spend time in the studio together. There’s some good stuff lying around the...
Jul 05, 2021•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 178
A mainstay of 90s and early 00s metal, Fear Factory are a band whose influence has been felt keenly on both nu metal and industrial metal alike. Their second album, Demanufacture is, Weaver argues, a hugely important record on metal music in general, so this week we take a tour of the band’s history and more. Despite having been a band for over 30 years at this point, Fear Factory have only released ten albums. In fact, their latest one came out only a week ago (at the time of writing). We didn’...
Jun 28, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 177
If you’ve any interest in underground hip hop then this album is probably familiar to you. Widely hailed as one of the most important hip hop albums of all time, The Cold Vein by Cannibal Ox a real lightening in a bottle moment for Vast Aire and Vordul Mega. And now, having just celebrated its 20th anniversary, it seems a good a time as any to explore why. Having formed simply by dint of knowing each other through the New York battle rap scene and hanging out at El-P’s flat/studio, Cannibal Ox c...
Jun 21, 2021•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 176
One of the ultimate aims of this podcast is to introduce lesser known bands to a new audience, which is why we’re all pretty chuffed to be doing This is the Third Album of a Band Called Adebisi Shank by Adebisi Shank. Hailing from Wexford in Ireland, Adebisi Shank were a band for about 8 years, and in that time released three albums and one EP. Throughout their life, they were able to release music on some cool labels (Big Scary Monsters, Richter Collective, Sargent House) and tour a whole bunch...
Jun 14, 2021•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 175
Our good friend Ferruccio Quercetti returns this week, nominating Brainiac’s third and final album, Hissing Prigs in Static Couture. Over the course of their five year career, Brainiac recorded three albums and two EPs as well as a bunch of singles. They’re widely recognised as being one of the most influential post punk/noise rock/experimental rock bands of all time. So much so in fact that a documentary about them was released in 2019. Titled Transmissions After Zero it’s a pretty candid look ...
Jun 07, 2021•1 hr 32 min•Ep. 174
Interview time part 2! In case you missed it, here is part one, where we discuss Andy’s career in mclusky and Future of the Left. In this episode we asked Andy to pick three albums he thinks are unsung classics: Jarcrew - Breakdance Euphoria Kids (which you will find version of on Spotify simply titled Jarcrew) The God Machine - Scenes from the Second Storey New Kingdom - Paradise Don’t Come Cheap Three very different albums that Andy picked for different reasons, as we go into at length on the ...
May 31, 2021•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 198
Interview time! It’s been a wee while since we did one of those so we got one of our favourite musicians, and general lovely bloke, Andy Falkous from mclusky, Future of the Left and Christian Fitness on to have a good ol’ yammer. In part one we chat about IKEA furniture, tiny cans of Diet Coke, why you shouldn’t put beer in the fridge and many other things. Including his musical career thus far. Which we talk about at length and it’s bloody lovely. We touch on just about every part of his career...
May 24, 2021•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 197
In case you missed it, we discussed The Walker Brothers’ career, and some of Scott Walker’s, in part one, which you can listen to here. This week we dive into the period where Scott gets weird. From 1984’s Climate of Hunter onwards, Scott begins his transformation from 60s pop poster boy to avant-garde legends. He only followed Nite Flights with another 4 albums, but the impact of his work from this period until the end of his life is absolutely massive. We go into this in quite a lot of detail,...
May 17, 2021•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 173
You know how it goes by now folks: artists with big catalogues get two parters, and Scott Walker is no exception here. Weaver has chosen Nite Flights by The Walker Brothers this week, but with a particular focus on the Scott Walker songs on the album, which necessities a deep dive into his catalogue. And what a catalogue it is. It’s so large in fact, that we only get as far as the 1980s. Indeed, this week sees us mostly talk about The Walker Brothers themselves and some of Scott’s early solo stu...
May 10, 2021•48 min•Ep. 172
Last week we chatted about a bunch of different supergroups and devised 5 categories that we felt all neatly fell into. If you missed it, catch up by listening here. It occurred to us soon after recording this episode (well, it occurred to Chris, really) that perhaps there should be a 6th category for supergroups that are side projects. Ones that are not ongoing, regular projects for their members. All three of the album’s we’ve chosen could probably fall into this category too. We’ll leave that...
May 03, 2021•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 171
170 goddamn episodes. Jeez. Y’know, we’ve actually had a chat about supergroups on this podcast before. Twice, in fact. But we’ve had to cut it out of the episode because the discussion just went on for far too long. Which surely meant that we’d need to do an episode on supergroups just to do the topic justice. Or two episodes, as it happens. In part one Chris lays out his five supergroup categories, and we place some of our favourite supergroups in those buckets. It ranges from “Just a band” to...
Apr 26, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 170
Friend of the pod and very nice chap Benjamin John Power used to make music as part of a duo under the name of Fuck Buttons. However, since 2010 he’s been banging out some solo stuff under the moniker Blanck Mass and boy howdy is it some goooooood shit. In order to dismiss accusations of nepotism, and with Dave away moving house this week, we asked our other good friend of the pod Vicki to pick an album. This was her choice. Naturally we could not decline. Our second ever interview was with Ben,...
Apr 19, 2021•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 169
Slightly, eh, dodgy name aside, there are few bands as relentlessly heavy as All Pigs Must Die. Their second album Nothing Violates This Nature really encapsulates all of the things this band do best - combining every single kind of metal subgenre you can image with layers of d-beats and hardcore breakdowns in one massive, intense, screamy cocktail. If you’re unfamiliar with the band, they’re basically a supergroup made up of members from various well known Boston/Massachusetts bands. Chief amon...
Apr 12, 2021•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 168
