Random albums I listened to in January 2025

Tears For Fears - Songs From A Nervous Planet

I listened to the new songs from the album, I skipped the live versions of old songs.

I liked The Girl That I Call Home, I thought it was beautiful and melancholic in tone. The rest were a bit too cheerful for my taste.

Tribulation - Sub Rosa In Æternum

Sounds alright. Goth rock, with occasional metal screams. I don't remember where I'm supposed to know this band. This album was in my Spotify library, so obviously somewhere... I did add some albums from intriguing bands the other day (Loudwire's list of new releases, Metal Archive's description of the genre and lyrical themes), but I think they were mainly releases coming out later this year... This may have been listed as some of the Loudwire staff's favorites from last year...

I especially liked Murder In Red and Time & the Vivid One, I put them on my playlist. Reaping Song was beautiful as well.

I prefer this latter half of the album. It's more metal, less goth rock. They kinda dance between them, overall. In their profile picture, they have corpse paint on, I think they're going for metal. But the singer's voice has a rockabilly / The 69 Eyes-esque goth rock sound to it, which makes them more rock than metal to me. Def in the camp of "if Ghost is metal, then this is metal!". (Neither are metal, both just look metal.)

Sara - Hallava

I've heard one of their albums before, Veden äärelle, in 2008 when it came out. I'm adding the rest from between then and now to my library as well, this is 🔥! Very melancolic and melodic metal music.

I will be translating all these songs on my other blog at some point, when I have the time, assuming the lyrics are available online.

VOLA - Friend of a Phantom

Great album! I had heard most of these songs before, and didn't expect to find them on the same album. Frankly, I have definitely noticed what kinda style VOLA has in their music, and I love it, but I don't think I've ever before listened to more than 2-3 songs of theirs in a row. I feel like I have a much more cohesive understanding of their art now.

It's very heavy on the instrumentation. And I don't mean heavy as in heavy metal - they are that, tho, as well - I mean in the sense that if the instrumentation was different, it wouldn't be VOLA anymore. Most of the music I listen to, especially metal music, is more focused on vocals and lyrics, the instrumentation just compliments that, but I think with this band, it's the opposite. Their approach to making music is similar to EDM producers. Like, just before I listened to this album, I was listening to The Vibe and I heard a song from Unlike Pluto, then a song from Witchz and then a song from VOLA (and then was like: "didn't they have a new album that came out somewhat recently, that I've been meaning to get to") and there's something similar about how they make music. With the instrumentation first, and then adding vocals and lyrics that compliment the vibe and the narrative of the instrumentation.

They're not a completely EDM group, though, either. They're metal. They have heavy instrumentation among the EDM production, and even scream vocals at times. And their music is very prog. Unorthodox time signatures and evolvement throughout the song.

I love this. Imma keep following them and add them to my Deep Dive list, if they're not there already. I haven't been in the mood for Deep Dives lately, I've been more focused on reading and sorting through my thoughts and my worldview and such things, I feel like I'm on an intellectual journey into somewhere "higher" than where I've been. Emotionally and mentally. Shifting and broadening my world view through feeding my mind the right things, avoiding the wrong things, and giving myself room to breathe and think (=the mental journey) which I already feel like is healing some parts of my depression and anxiety (=the emotional journey/improvement). But anyway, I digress. VOLA is going on the list, if they're not there already, and I'll get to their older music sometime later in this lifetime. Rn I'm busy Deep Diving into my own mind and worldview, haha.

cupcakKe - Dauntless Manifesto

And then I go and listen to something like this on the same night as I felt so deep 😅 I think I needed some humor in my life to counteract the deep thoughts. And also, I used to be a sheep and look down on female rappers with explicit lyrics just because many male hiphop fans do that. But I think there's different kinds of music like that, I think the men either have very strong double standards when it comes to sexual humor or they truly don't see the nuances. They just hate Cardi B so much that they hate everyone who reminds them of Cardi B. Even if the women were self-aware and camp about making music like this, like cupcakKe is. Not everyone gets camp humor, though. I do, it's very prevalent in the queer community.

I'll get more into this topic some other time. The different kinds of female rappers with explicit lyrics discourse. But for now, I can see why I was drawn to it momentarily. I'm in the process of ditching "programmed" thoughts, thoughts other people have planted in my head, and finding my own thoughts and opinions and voice. Including this particular topic.