My Top 250 Albums (221-230)

221. GREEN DAY – DOOKIE
(1994 – T14 G7 B3 UB2)

Is this controversially low? It’s seen as an important album, as it was one of the albums that broke punk (or rather punk pop) into the mainstream after the cock-rock into grunge years of the late 80s, early 90s; but important doesn’t always equate to good overall. Green Day have 2 better albums than this in my opinion in the 2 that directly followed this. Obviously it has its great songs in terms of “Basket Case”, “When I Come Around” and “Longview”, the latter two driven by great and iconic bass lines, but there’s also a fair chunk of filler which has not made it onto my good list, such as “Chunk” and “Sassafras Roots”. So Green Day’s “Dookie” remains in the Good not Great region of my list, but does still bring back memories of the tape player in the 6th form room belting it out. I also enjoy the mushroom cloud on the cover, but who doesn’t enjoy a good mushroom cloud of doom?!

222. BRING ME THE HORIZON – THAT’S THE SPIRIT
(2015 – T11 G7 B2 UB1)

I will caveat this review by first stating I’m not a hardcore Bring Me The Horizon fan, as in I am not into their early more Metal-core albums. I like the odd song like “Visions” and “The Sadness Will Never End” but as you may have picked up by now thats not really my jazz. I got into them on the album prior to this “Sempiternal” and “Shadow Moses” is an immense song, but “That’s The Spirit” is the only BMTH album that makes my list. (PS, the new album “amo” is basically a Justin Bieber album, so that’s not touching the top 500, let alone 250. It’s a very extreme and odd career path. How do you fit both styles in at a gig and keep everyone happy, in particular the guitarists and drummers, who won’t have much to do!?). Anyway as for this album, on some songs you can see the future change in style beginning but done better, for example the ballad “Follow You” is my favourite on the album and also has an awesome video combining a tonne of gore filled apocalyptic events. “Drown” is also a belter and “Happy Song” has a cheerleader chant throughout most of the song which gets stuck in you’re head. I tried to like “True Friends” but the lyric “True friends stab you in the front” is pure cheese, but then lyrics have never really been their forte. 

223. AUDIO KARATE – LADY MELODY
(2004 – T11 G7 B2 UB1)

Audio Karate are a Californian punk band of Mexican decent (probably Donald Trumps favourite kind). They did 2 albums in their career and both are coming up in a similar area of my chart. They have suddenly re-appeared with 2 songs so I guess there is an album 14 years after on the way. In most of their songs I have no idea what the singer is saying but his voice makes their sound fairly unique and add an urgency to them. “Gypsy Queen” is my favourite on the album with its noodly guitar bridge (see commets). The only video from the album is below and is also a banger and further emphasises the Mexican heritage in cliche style.

224. BIFFY CLYRO – INFINITY LAND
(2004 – T12 G7 B4 UB0)

Mon the Biff as they say. This is the 1st of 5 biffy albums to make the list (the most recent 2 being the absentees) and represents the end of the first (and far superior) part of their career. This album though on some songs took the oddity to its extreme, so a couple of the newer albums do appear above it in the chart. I never got on with first single and opener “glitter and trauma” for example, and it took me a long time to appreciate a lot of this album. The album takes the odd time changes and harmonies to the max in songs like “there’s no such thing as a jaggy snake” and “the kids from kibble and the fist of light” which features a calming horn section before the mental heavy end. This wasnt always done successfully, but it’s the sorta stuff that now seems forced into their newer songs if it’s there at all. The song that best represents their eventual transition to more straight forward stuff is “only one word that comes to mind” but it still has that classic biffy 1min 40sec breakdown ending from 3 mins in. (This was cut short in the single version though). That, “Strung to Your Ribcage” and “My Recovery Injection” are my faves on the album, which as a whole grows on you as you get to know to what to expect round the next corner.

 225. ASH – 1977
(1996 – T12 G7 B4 UB0)

10% of the way through the list and this time we are going back 23 years to the height of Brit-pop. Ash became associated with this movement but really they make more sense when not thought of in that way. They are much more american sounding really bar tracks like “goldfinger” (with lyric thats sounds like “when I was waiting for a poo”) and “oh yeah”. The highlights on the album for me are the faster ones, like “lose control” and “girl from mars”, the slower more 90s indie tracks don’t fit as well. Ash probably wouldnt have appeared on this list if it hadn’t been for their new album “Islands” which is good stuff, and made me re-visit them, as was some of their mid to late term back catalog which was largely off the radar. “1977” is named as 2 of the band were born that year making then 18ish when they recorded it, they are also obsessed with Star Wars which came out that year, also shown in the opening sound of the album being a Tie Fighter (awaits Star Wars nerds correction if wrong, just “live long and prosper” as they say”) The track below “Angel Interceptor” is nothing to do with Star Wars (though until this second I had assumed it was), its to do with Captain Scarlet.

226. SENSES FAIL – RENACER
(2013 – T12 G9 B2 UB0)

Senses Fail have knocked around for a surprisingly long time. They’re debut ep in 2002 kicked off on the bright note of a song about a dead friend called Steven. They are now up to 7 full albums and their sound has not really changed at all despite changing the band entirely over time apart from front man Buddy Nielsen. Renacer is by far their heaviest album though and 2nd best in my list. The opener and title track sets the tone and the single below has scream vocals in Spanish for some reason and a video with some voodoo using a panda bear toy.

227. THE DANGEROUS SUMMER – THE DANGEROUS SUMMER
(2018 – T10 G7 B2 UB0)

This is another band I only got into in the past year, thanks to the release radar on spotify. All the new bands I was hearing and loving is what had partly lead me to do this list. It was a way of comparing the new music to what I had listened to for years and got a bit stale with. The Dangerous Summer are one I have now listened to their who back catalog and liked most of what they have done. This is their most recent and 4th album, another 2 appear on the list. This would be the slowest pace wise of their albums, and has plenty of room to grow on me with more listens. For now though it is at #227. Love the dudes gruffly voice and also how he doesn’t look like the traditional “emo” band singer. ie. he’s a bit porky with shit hair he doesn’t stare in the mirror at trying to make it “elegantly disheveled”. I usually hate tour videos too, but this is actually a really good one. below is “This Is Life”.

228. FAR – AT NIGHT WE LIVE
(2010 – T11 G7 B3 UB0)

This is another Jonah Matranga band and probably his most famous or influential, particularly with another Far album we are yet to see in the chart. This album though I only heard about existing just over a year ago. Thanks Spotify! Turns out it has several belters on it, not the classics their 1998 album had though and it has a much more accessible sound in general. It even has a bonus track which is a cover of Genuwine (or someone) and their song “Pony”. PS. bonus tracks and instrumentals or short filler tracks get ignored in the album ratings, unless they really add something on their own.

229. THE STORY SO FAR – WHAT YOU DON’T SEE
(2013 – T11 G10 B1 UB0)

This is the 2nd Story So Far album, they are now up to 4. Though I enjoy their stuff in the main, its all very samey, which leads to a score as above. I like all the album, but only one makes banger grade, which happens to be the well chosen single. They are basically pop-punk but with kinda strained shouty vocals. There isn’t much range in the vocals though which doesn’t help for variability, hence the 200+ ranking. I like it, I like it a lot, but could be better. The single “Empty Space” is below as a sample.

230. MICROWAVE – MUCH LOVE
(2016 – T10 G7 B2 UB0)

The oddly named Microwave are a band I got into last year, their debut album will be appearing in the list in a few months. This is their second which isn’t quite as cracking but still good. Their style broadly speaking would come under the emo umbrella, but they do a wide range of that as demonstrated in the song “Vomit” which goes from Eels sounding alternative indie to full screaming noise. Below is favourite track “Homebody” (which is a more straight forward affair)