Tips Zum Selbstmord

5xLP box from these Swedish psych/prog titans. Compiles the absolutely legendary Sov Gott Rose-Marie, the less interesting Hemat (released as Harvester) and then three LPs of rarities which are the real prize. I won't waste more bytes on Sov Gott but drop everything and seek it out now. The rarities are awesome, especially LPs 3 and 4 which contain three tracks apiece, all six long droning stomps a la "I Mourn You" from Sov Gott. Some of these must have ended up as Trad Gras Och Stenar tunes (the band after Harvester), one is a longer variant of the Sov Gott main theme and another appeared in much shorter form on Hemat but they all sound great and absolutely essential. The last rarities LP contains mostly shorter tracks, the band sounding a little more in Can form. These are rougher, jammier, more demo-sounding tunes but check out "Dada Babble Boogie" an absolute stomper. Great collection overall.

Thou is a little bit like The Body, although I like them a little more - but I never really loved them. 2018 seems like a big year for Thou with a bunch of EPs leading up to a full-length called Magus so I'll check em out and this one is not totally atypical Thou - slow but not glacial doom metal tracks although here they've woven the "songs" into instrumental segues every other track so the album feels like a suite so to speak. It's okay, didn't resonate with me too much but didn't offend.

I have never really LOVED The Body. I have a few albums by them, listened to a bunch, but nothing has really clicked. I couldn't hum a song of theirs with a gun to my head. I think I like the idea of them more than I like them. I'm not a fan of this record though. There's an interesting enough combination of metal and I guess sort of dark synthy pop almost...but I can't deal with the vocals, repetitive screeching courtesy Uniform's Michael Berdan. It makes every song sound the same and completely grates. I listened it a few times and it never got easier. No thanks.

I love Villalobos, but I am sad to report his 4 takes on house classic "We Are Phuture" are a dud. Well not really a dud - they're just boring. And not in that lame-o complaino "nothing happens in a Villalobos track" way. Like I said, I love the guy. But the original track, a version of it which opens up this 2xLP, is so much better than the four RV variations here it's enough to make you wonder why he even bothered. Maybe he just did it for the paycheque. It's not the worst thing I've ever heard, certainly, but a titanic DJ colliding with a titanic track should have produced something better, at least in one of the four attempts. I found myself distracted before the record even finished.

With Earth seemingly on hiatus, Dylan Carlson has gone the solo route. A couple albums released under the Drcarlsonalbion moniker and then this, his first under his given name. It's a scant 32 minutes, and described by Carlson as the soundtrack to an imaginary Western. This is a little odd, because if you recall Earth's mighty comeback album Hex; or Printing in the Infernal Method was kind of a soundtrack to a Western that didn't exist - specifically, Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Western themes have been a staple of current-era Earth so if this sounds like well-trod ground to you, well, it is. It's a mostly solo electric guitar effort with tracks ranging from droning and methodical like you saw on Hex to more noise-oriented, ragged, harsher explorations. Which is to say it's all well and good but no doubt a minor entry in the ever-expanding discography of Mr. Carlson.

Migos' follow up to Culture isn't so much an album (or a double album) as much as it's a collection of songs. In the streaming era though, this is what passes for an album. Which isn't to speak negatively of it - there's a lot of good here, although it could have been hacked down into one really tight album realistically. Migos are almost like shapeshifters though. Any song can be a Migos track. Or, Migos can make any song a Migos track. Does that make sense? It's impressive at how quickly they churn these out and there's some quality here for sure - "Walk It Talk It" is already drilled into our brains not to mention "Stir Fry", "MotorSport", "Notice Me", "White Sand" - even the intro ("Higher We Go") is radio ready. Migos are a well oiled machine at this point and they do what they do well.