ALBUM RECOMMENDATIONS |

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The old five-point scale has been retired in favor of just rating stuff 1-10, which allows me a much more nuanced final rating. Still don't take it that seriously. Most of these come from my own collection, so the grades skew rather high. Your results may vary if you send me stuff to review.

Each album is given three Essential tracks, my personal favorites, regardless of how weird and inconsequential they are. The Quintessential pick is the one I think best represents the album as a whole, so you can try one song instead of a whole album of songs. Non-Essential picks range from merely disappointing to outright unlistenable.

Remy Zero

[#] Villa Elaine (1998)

Reviewed January 23, 2025

Near permanent bliss.

There's this specific kind of very dramatic, emotive Y2K pop rock I've alternatively called "UPNcore" or "WBcore", named for these bands frequently featuring in teen dramas like Buffy, Charmed, Roswell, and of course Smallville. (None of that is pejorative, so you know.) Remy Zero is one of the premiere WBcore bands, and Villa Elaine was where they started gaining some notice for it. As much as I've grown attached to the ethereal, overly patient Remy Zero, Elaine just has a much finer point on it--stronger, catchier songs, and grander in all the right ways with still plenty of atmosphere to spare. I've heard it called "glammy" before, and that's not a bad way to put it either.

Between "Hermes Bird"'s fittingly soaring strings and bass vamps, the T-Rex riffs that power "Prophecy", "Hollow"'s haunting harmonies, and the dramatic urgency and layered lyrics about chains, flames, teeth, and chalklines that play out "Gramarye" like a seance, Elaine covers a lot of ground. It really never flags either--the penultimate chilly, jaded acoustic ballad "Fair" ("So what if you catch me?/Where would we land?") is as moving as anything they've ever come up with. There just ain't much to complain about here! I could do without some of the sillier vocals, maybe, like on "Goodbye Little World", but that's it. Nearly flawless, Villa Elaine is the sound of Remy Zero capitalizing on so much of their debut's potential, and you absolutely need to listen to it.

Essential:	Quintessential:	Non-Essential:	Rating:
"Prophecy", "Gramarye", "Fair"	"Hollow"	"Goodbye Little World"

[#] Remy Zero (1996)

Reviewed June 10, 2024

Patiently hearing out the voices in your head.

Sometimes, the albums I love the most are the ones I loved the least on first listen. Magnified is my go-to example, an album once so associated with me to people I knew that my characters have been drawn in its cover art, and an album I once fell asleep during in third period study hall in high school. Remy Zero's self-titled debut shares much the same position in my library, and I don't think I'm alone in that feeling. Better associated with their late-era song "Save Me" being the theme to a little show called Smallville, Remy Zero did not shift units, fans could barely buy the record because Geffen dragged their feet on distribution, and retrospective reviews have been middling. Hell, I almost wrote one of those myself--until I thought better and gave it time.

This is mid-90s noisy indie as sound exploration, an album of ether tornadoes through dusty attics, tossing family photos against the exposed insulation. The mood is low throughout, occasionally hushed ("Gold Star Speaker"), occasionally disoriented ("Chloroform Days"), and just as often exploding into pounding drums and dissonant chords ("Temenos", "Shadowcasting"). Cinjun Tate's vocals on tracks like "Twister" are truly achingly beautiful, but without hooks, the songs take a bit of effort on the listener's part to sink in, and there are no singles here to help them. This is one of my favorites this year no doubt, but despite that and some high profile fans (most notably Radiohead and Counting Crows), most people sadly won't have the patience to see Remy Zero for everything it truly is.

Essential:	Quintessential:	Non-Essential:	Rating:
"Descent", "Twister", "Shadowcasting"	"Chloroform Days"	"Chromosome"

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