February 11, 2021 by Remi VL

Another music nerd sharing his obsession with the rest of the world? Sure! My name is Remi, and I run a comic book/board game shop in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. Music is at the center of all I do. Record collecting, and previously, CDs and mp3s when those were a thing, just constantly trying to find a new, great band!

Not being able to play an instrument, I’ve always been a fan of live shows. I’ve had a few radio shows over the years, one focusing on our local music scene, the other closer to what I do today, focusing on new releases. Moncton has a decent little scene, but few larger bands make their way through here, being located 10 hours from Boston and Montreal., so travelling for shows is a treat that, in the before times, I gave myself a few times per year. The rest of the time is work, and family life. When everyone goes to bed, I spend the evening trying to find more and more new music!

I might be giving myself too much credit, but for those of you who may have seen my name pop up, whether on the Doom Charts, as a contributor on the Heavy Blog is Heavy release day roundup, or on my Facebook group “Remi Posts Too Many Links“, you might have some idea how I operate. Like our esteemed Mr. Bulbous, I liked lists.

I have, for the last few years especially, kept meticulous track of what I listen to and what I like/dislike every year, filtered down to the month, filtered again down to what I like the most each month. I’ve upgraded from notepad to excel to google sheets over the years, but at the end of the day, it’s me and my lists.

The goal now is to share this all with you and hopefully help you discover something new! My tastes lie in the slightly heavier, slightlier proggier side of things, but I dabble in most things rock, from americana/folk to extreme metal. There’s a pattern that I’m sure may emerge as we go along, but I’ll hopefully pepper in enough that anyone interested in music with analog stringed and percussive instruments will find something to listen to. Not to take away from any other music, as the work and talent that goes into it is as undeniable as anything I like, it’s just not where my comfort level is. I also much rather talk about what I enjoy than what I don’t and my blood pressure can’t handle the “debate”.

Alright, onto the lists! To give you an idea of what you’ll see, every month I scour every source I can find for new albums. Keeping track of some bands, or just hoping to land on something cool! I plug all of these into a sheet and once I’ve listened to it, I gave it a ranking out of 5. My top albums of the year end up in the 4.5 range. My top 100 will be down to 4.0-4.2, and 3.5 or better tends to be the “I like this” range. I end up with a fair bit of albums in the 3.0-3.5, stuff that just didn’t click as much as I’d hoped at the end of the day.

Not every album gets multiple playthroughs, but chances are if it’s 4.0 or better, they’ll see regular play.

This list will be my 3.5s or better. I won’t review every single album but will try to give you a little idea on some of my favourites and maybe some notes along the way! I’m not much of a writer and finding 100 different ways to review “band sounds like Black Sabbath” is currently beyond my skill set, so I’ll just try to strip it back to a few notes that may repeat, and then share their bandcamp/spotify/ways for you to check them out yourselves!

It’s been an interesting month for releases. January tends to be the odd duck in the year. A lot of independent bands seem to choose it to get ahead of the bigger releases, who may be waiting for the spring season to release their album ahead of their touring schedules. Obviously, this year is a little different on that front, but there certainly is not a lack of great stuff!

Stoner rock is off to a strong start. Here Lies Man, the kings of the Sabbath meets Afrobeat sound. Pseudo Mind Hive, heavy psych progressive stoner rockers have a new EP in Volume III, a followup to the excellent Of Seers and Sirens in 2019. Miss Lava are “straightforward” stoner hard rock, but the hooks per minute are impressive. Two Suns are a new band from Toronto, who show a ton of potential as songwriters in their slightly sloppy sophomore EP.

A ton of post-punk/noise-rock. The post (womp womp) IDLES craze is on! I know they’re not the first, but they’ve certainly been one of the biggest lately. Lice, Zeahorse & Shame have put out extremely strong albums, with Lice’s certainly in the running for a Top 25 of the year, based on last year’s list.

A few surprises for me personally have been Aaron Frazer and Arlo Parks. More pop-oriented, Aaron falls into total 50s/60s soul/R&B, and Arlo Parks mixes indie rock, soul, and trip-hop pretty originally, and her song “Caroline” is near the top of my plays for 2020 to date.

Soen are back with an always strong album. They’ve moved away from their “we really like Tool“roots to being a distinct and strong heavy progressive band. With Anathema gone, and Katatonia and Steven Wilson shifting gears away from what I enjoy, they may not be at the top, but they’re certainly near it!

That covers most of my top 10. There’s a ton of fun stuff out on the rest of the list. Find them on Bandcamp or check out my Spotify playlist for easy listening!

Also find me on Facebook and let me know what you think! Join in the conversation over at my group!

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Here Lies Man – Ritual Divination
LICE – Wasteland: What Ails Our People Is Clear (avant-garde, post industrial)
Glass Kites – Glass Kites II (prog rock)
Shame – Drunk Tank Pink (post-punk)
Pseudo Mind Hive – Volume III (progressive stoner rock)
Zeahorse – Let’s Not (And Say We Did) (noise-rock, post-punk)
Dive – Dive (heavy psych, stoner rock)
Miss Lava – Doom Machine (stoner rock, heavy rock)
Aaron Frazer – Introducing… (soul, r&B)
Two Suns – Isolated Incidents (heavy psych, garage rock)
Soen – Imperial (progressive metal)
Wedge – Like No Tomorrow (stoner, psych)
Fox Face – End of Man (garage punk)
Rostro Del Sol – Rostro Del Sol (jazz rock, heavy psych)
Needlepoint – Waking Up That Valley (jazz rock, prog rock)
FRACK! – Accelerant (noise rock, punk rock)
The Ginger Faye Bakers – Camaro (punk rock, stoner rock)
Arlo Parks – Collapsed in Sunbeams (soft indie, soul)
Pom Poko – Cheater (indie-pop, punk)
Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio – I Told You So (soul-jazz)
Wall – Wall (instrumental sludge)
Wallet Sized Wildfire – Wallet Sized Wildfire (post-rock, experimental rock)
Magogaio – Memorial (blackgaze, post-metal)
Triciclo – Abya (progressive stoner, heavy psych)
Terminal Bliss – BRUTE ERR/ATA (hardcore punk, grindcore)
Nokti – Cockschmerzen (noise-rock, art rock)
Echoplain – Polaroid Malibu (post-punk, noise-rock)
Evert Snyman – Hot Mess (desert rock, psych-rock)
No Year – So Long (post-hardcore, shoegaze)
Torso – Home Wrecked (hardcore punk)
Nopes – Djork (noise-rock)
Powder! Go Away – jól (heavy post-rock)
Weird Tales – Y’all Motherfuckers Forgot ‘Bout Good Ol’ Son of a Bitchin’ Blues (stoner, doom)
Comatose – A Way Back (heavy shoegaze, grunge)
Lucero – When You Found Me (alt-country, country-punk)
Mekong Airlines – Gran Telescopio (heavy post-rock)
Samsara Blues Experiment – End of Forever (progressive stoner, heavy psych)
Kultika – Capricorn Wolves (post-metal, death metal)
Okapi Busdriver – Road To New Existence (math-metal, sludge)
Flood Peak – Fixed Ritual (blackened sludge, post-metal)
Terry Gross – Soft Opening (psych, krautrock)
Juan Bond – Womb (progressive mathcore)
For Giants – There, There (prog metal, djent)
Lammping – New Jaws (psych rock, heavy indie)
Thought Trials – The Hiding Gene (instrumental heavy post-rock)
CB3 – Aeons Live Session (instrumental heavy psych)
Dale Crover – Rat-A-Tat-Tat! (heavy alternative rock, experimental)
Kabbalah – The Omen (occult rock, classic hard rock)
Black Magic Tree – Through The Grapevine (hard rock, heavy blues rock)
Tigers on Opium – 503.420.6669.Vol.1 (stoner rock, grunge)
Paralyzed – Paralyzed (stoner rock, blues rock)
Starcrazy – Played For Suckers (glam rock, alternative rock)