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Millencolin ‘Home Sweet Home’ (2002)
Home From Home found Millencolin stretching out and showing just how much range lives inside their high-speed, melodic punk DNA. While rooted in the band’s Swedish skate punk core, this album isn’t afraid to take detours across a wide variety of punk genres. There’s a garage rock looseness to tracks like “Man or Mouse,” a…
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Barry White ‘Can’t Get Enough’ (1974)
With that deep velvety baritone, sweeping string arrangements, and grooves slow enough to make time stretch, Barry White became the undisputed voice of late-night candle-lit seduction. Songs like “You’re the First, the Last, My Everything” and the title track were soundtracks for romance in all its silky sweaty glory. What made it work wasn’t just…
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Joe Cocker ‘With a Little Help from My Friends’ (1969)
Joe Cocker’s With a Little Help From My Friends is one of those rare debut albums that feels both familiar and totally fresh, built almost entirely on covers but delivered with so much soul and grit you forget these songs weren’t his to begin with. Released in 1969, it finds Cocker reimagining some of the…
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Archers of Loaf ‘Icky Mettle’ (1993)
Archers of Loaf’s Icky Mettle is the kind of rag-tag early 90’s debut that feels like it’s about to fall apart at any second. But that’s exactly where its magic lives. It planted the band squarely in the center of indie rock’s messy glorious heart during the midst of the grunge wave, all jagged guitars,…
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Sam Fender ‘Hypersonic Missiles’ (2019)
I’ve been a massive fan of Sam Fender ever since I heard his sophomore album Seventeen Going Under, an auto-biographical collection of short stories masquerading as songs from his childhood. Fender has earned comparisons to my all-time GOAT Bruce Springsteen over the years due to the profound level of personalization in his music as well…
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Foreigner ‘4’ (1981)
Foreigner’s magnum opus 4 is the kind of album that doesn’t pick a lane. Instead it swerves across the whole damn highway like someone who’s maybe had a few too many bourbons. It’s packed with arena-sized rockers like “Juke Box Hero” (a personal favorite of mine as a kid) and “Urgent”, all big massive riffs…
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Wheatus ‘Wheatus’ (2000)
Wheatus’ self-titled debut was an album I never listened to in full until about two weeks ago. And while it’s a solid offering front to back, the album was really a delivery system for their single “Teenage Dirtbag” which still to this day remains an iconic late 90’s/early aughts alternative rock song. This the kind…
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State Champs ‘The Finer Things’ (2013)
The Finer Things, State Champs’ 2013 debut, is a sugar-rush of pop punk energy—tight, fast, and full of heart. It’s the sound of youth at full sprint what with its crashing drums, soaring hooks, and massive guitar hooks. There’s very much a mid-2000’s vibe to State Champs (think in the vein of New Found Glory…
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Emerson, Lake & Palmer ‘Self-Titled’ (1970)
With Keith Emerson’s wild virtuosic organ work, Greg Lake’s soaring vocals and melodic bass, and Carl Palmer’s jazz-informed drumming, the dynamic trio blended classical music, jazz, and hard rock into something ambitious. The album moves from delicate acoustic moments to full-blown symphonic chaos that (at times) feels unapologetically over-the-top. The boys didn’t have any time…
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Modest Mouse ‘Good News For People Who Love Bad News’ (2004)
For a band that had spent the late ‘90s weaving anxious existential crisis songs in near-obscurity Good News For People Who Love Bad News felt like a sharp left turn for Modest Mouse. At the center of it all was “Float On”, a song so relentlessly optimistic it felt almost suspicious (especially coming from the…
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Neutral Milk Hotel ‘In the Aeroplane Over the Sea’ (1998)
Released in 1998 to little mainstream attention, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea grew quietly until it became a sort of sacred text in the history of indie folk music. Lo-fi, cracked open, and bizarre in many ways, it made room for a type of vulnerable artistic expression that would define indie rock for the…
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MGMT ‘Oracular Spectacular’ (2007)
There was a time—somewhere between the collapse of the MySpace Top 8 and the rise of ironic mustaches (guilty)—when my generation went off to college and experienced our first real taste of freedom. You know the moments. BitTorrent running 24/7 on your laptop, skinny jeans that had lived three lifetimes, bedsheets that hadn’t been washed…
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Wisp ‘Pandora’ (2024)
It’s not often I immediately replay an album I’m hearing for the first time from a new artist. Listening to one album per day across over the last two and a half years will do that to a man, creating an insatiable desire to find the next thing that will delight the ol’ eardrums and…
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Virgin Prunes ‘…If I Die, I Die’ (1982)
If you’re into Bauhaus or have a real hankering to dive into the world of gothic post-punk avant-garde rock, do I ever have a band for you. Weird chants, moody instrumentals, saxophone solos out of nowhere, …If I Die, I Die has it all in spades. Was this album a bit of a struggle to…
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Operation Ivy ‘Energy’ (1989)
Founded by future Rancid members Tim Armstrong and Matt Freeman, the Berkeley-based Operation Ivy had the distinction of being an incredibly influential band in the ska punk scene despite the short-lived nature of their existence. They only released one full length album during the course of their two-year career (Energy) and buoyed by their raucous…
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Hermanos Gutiérrez ‘Hijos Del Sol’ (2020)
Listening to Hermanos Gutiérrez is a semi-religious experience. They craft minimal instrumental guitar music that shimmers with a dreamlike, hallucinogenic energy that immediately transports you to a different world. In songwriting we talk about world-building all the time, and that process with traditional music (aka pop) usually needs lyrics to fully get the point home.…
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Dean Martin ‘Dean Martin Sings’ (1954)
When you think of old school cool it’s hard not to think of a guy like Dean Martin. As a key member of the infamous Rat Pack (which also included Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop), Martin played the role of the laid-back, wisecracking, hard-drinking charmer who helped define the group’s…
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Prince ‘For You’ (1978)
A year and a half ago we covered Prince’s impact on pop music when we wrote about his masterpiece Purple Rain, one of my favorite albums of all-time that captured the magic of Prince when he was at his creative and commercial peak. Today we throw it back to his debut album that was released…
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Cactus ‘Cactus’ (1970)
Along with having a pretty bad ass name for a classic rock band (seriously this is a great one) Cactus was known in the early 70’s for effectively being the American version of Led Zeppelin. Hard rock and blues, an all-time combination, and a raw sound filled with powerful guitar riffs and improvisational jams that…
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Origami Angel ‘Somewhere City’ (2019)
Origami Angel burst onto the modern emo scene with a fastball-down-the-pipe energy which blended rapid-fire math rock with hyperactive skate-punk and added in a dose of unshakable optimism. Somewhere City is a nod to a world where childhood comforts like all-day Danny Phantom marathons and Happy Meals serve as legitimate forms of self-care (shoutout to…
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Raekwon ‘Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…’ (1995)
Like we said when we discussed Ghostface’s 2000 album Supreme Clientele, any member of the Wu Tang Clan had their legacy pretty much cemented due to the sheer epicness of the group’s 1993 album 36 Chambers. But goddamn did their members ever have some bangers for solo albums, with Raekwon being no exception to that…
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Bayside ‘Bayside’ (2005)
Bayside is part of a rare breed of bands from the mid-aughts who despite being really good 20 years ago might be even better today. Their 2024 album There Are Worse Things Than Being Alive is an absolute banger, rivaled in stature only by their second album Bayside which we’ll be covering today. All the…
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Aerosmith ‘Aerosmith’ (1973)
Aerosmith hadn’t yet reached their commercial and creative peak when they released their debut album 1973 (that would come in 1975 when they released the immaculate Toys in the Attic), but they did showcase a bit of what was to come with their muscular and stripped down version of blues rock. Their debut album is…
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Rush ‘Moving Pictures’ (1981)
I have never been the biggest Rush fan but goddamn have I always been a Neil Peart fan. When Peart joined Rush in 1974 the band transformed from a blues rock trio into a progressive rock powerhouse largely due to Peart’s intricate rhythms, polyrhythmic mastery and unmatched precision behind the kit. He was a professor…
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Emmylou Harris ‘At the Ryman’ (1992)
I had the distinct pleasure of spending some time in Nashville a month ago on a dual work and personal trip. The city is literally made for me (for all the reasons you can imagine) and one of the highlights was two days spent at the Ryman Theatre. I went on a tour of the…
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Kaffetorsk ‘Coffee Breaks’ (2018)
Kaffetorsk’s album Coffee Breaks is a mellow fusion of lofi, hip-hop, and electronic influences, enriched by old folk music, Japanese styles, and the warmth of vinyl. His mix of modern production and nostalgic throwback makes for easy listening. Think Pretty Lights’ A Color Map of the Sun without all the EDM flash. Standout Songs: “Dreams”,…
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Magdalena Bay ‘Imaginal Disk’ (2024)
Magdalena’s Bay Imaginal Disk is a synth-driven exploration of dance-pop, electronic rock, and psychedelia, juiced to the gills in a maximalist production style. Put another way there’s about a million candy-coated hooks tucked in every nook and cranny of this bad boy. It’s like the layered density of shoegaze albums of old with a splash…
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Paul McCartney and Wings ‘Band on the Run’ (1973)
Band on the Run was Paul McCartney and Wings’ third album and followed a pretty underwhelming beginning of his solo career that began when The Beatles broke up in the spring of 1970. It marked his final album for Apple Records and followed the two commercial duds that were 1971’s Wild Life and 1973’s Red…
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Buster Poindexter ‘Buster Poindexter’ (1987)
The story behind Buster Pointdexter is incredible– David Johansen was the snarling frontman of the seminal proto-punk band New York Dolls during the early days of his career. And while the smoke-filled clubs of New York City had long been home to Johansen, by the mid-’80s he was ready for a transformation. Trading in his…
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The Unband ‘Retarder’ (2000)
Known for their wild live shows that featured on-stage antics like vomiting, lighting fires, and stripping on stage, The Unband are certainly a chip off the ol’ block when it comes to good ol’ fashioned rock and roll. Their music embraces the same reckless hedonism that their live shows celebrated, taking a page out of…
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D Generation ‘No Lunch’ (1996)
Imagine if Ramones and The New York Dolls got together to form a supergroup that was fronted by a garage rock version of Billy Corgan and you have a good understanding of what D Generation sounds like. With a mix of glam, punk, and garage rock, it’s pretty clear from the jump that No Lunch‘s…
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Jackie Wilson ‘Higher and Higher’ (1967)
I was introduced to Jackie Wilson via Van Morrison’s song “Jackie Wilson Said (I’m in Heaven When You Smile)”. When an artist like Van Morrison is writing and dedicating a song to you, safe to say that you’ve made a pretty big impact in the music industry. And it’s easy to understand why after just…
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Fink ‘Hard Believer’ (2014)
Hard Believer is an album that has stuck with me since the first time I heard it. There’s a real pain underneath the surface of each and every song, a long forgotten wound that has been covered by scar tissue and hardened with the passage of time. Delicate acoustic guitar lines weave through shadowy atmospheric…
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Led Zeppelin ‘III’ (1970)
Led Zeppelin’s third album marked a sharp departure from the band’s first two records, blending their signature hard rock with a newfound acoustic sensibility. All this makes sense considering the historical context here– III was Zep’s third album in only a year and a half, an incredibly prolific run over such a short period of…
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Whitehchapel ‘Hymns in Dissonance’ (2025)
Ed. Note: This is the first guest post in the history of this site (a new milestone!). Today’s album review will feature the writing of my brother Mitchell Plank, whose affinity for thoughtful prose is only supplanted by his love for heavy metal and photography. You can check out his photography Instagram by clicking here.…
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The Exploited ‘Punks Not Dead’ (1981)
The Exploited are one of the definitive Oi! punk rock bands, a movement that emerged in the UK during the early 1980s as a raw, working-class response to the more art-school direction punk had taken. Punks Not Dead by The Exploited is largely considered one of the defining albums of the sub-genre. By combining aggressive,…
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About the Author
Jason Matthew Plank listens to copious amounts of music and writes about one album each day. He is currently active in the bands Related to Strangers (post-hardcore) and Kindergarten Cartel (punk covers of children’s nursery rhymes).
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