HYLI Vol. XLVIII - MJ Lenderman and Toadeater
The fellas send each other their favorite albums from each other's respective AOTY 2k22 lists
Welcome back to Season 2 of Hope You Like It.
I had a blast doing this with my good bud Patrick last year and already have some fun ideas for 2023. Hope everyone enjoyed what little holiday break the system allowed you to have. Really wish our country placed more value on time away from “work” and with the people you care about (friends, family, cats, World of Warcraft characters, I don’t care) but it doesn’t and that’s not great imo.
You know what is great though? Music. Music heckin’ rules man. Just fantastic stuff. Riffs? love ‘em. Who doesn’t? I’m assuming if you’re reading this you like music also. Nice. We thought it would be fun and full of synergy if we started off 2023 with the album that most interested us from the others’ End of the Year list. We Hope You Like It.
MJ Lenderman - Boat Songs
Patrick: Do you Love Rock Music (Andy: I’ve been known to enjoy it)? Why are you reading volume 48 of this newsletter if you do not? I do. I also love basketball (Andy: same). I also love football (Andy: same). I also love pro wrestling (kind of) (Andy: I’m okay). I also love Jackass The Film Franchise (Andy: same).
This album contains all of these things and more things, such as absolutely Sick guitar solos and riffs, incredible lyrics, and fun Neil Young-meets-Jason Molina-type vocals. People started freaking the fuck out when someone tweeted that this dude is 23 years old but, to me, that is not surprising in the slightest. It seems like an album made by a dude who was 2 years old when Michael Jordan came out of retirement to play for the Wizards, let alone being alive for his infamous Hangover Flu Game. It feels like an album made by a kid who Uses the Internet and has a world of references at their fingers via Wikipedia.org and can throw them in a blender well enough to make a, respectfully, fucking sick album. I feel like musicians older than I (at a decade older than MJ lmao I want to die) usually get bogged down by conventions of genre or the need to fit into one sound/set of references or another. The Kids don’t give a shit about that, brother. Shoegaze? Add a splash of that. Country? Throw it in. The Motion Picture Franchise Jackass? Primary influence. None of it matters. All that matters is a) having fun, b) playing sick riffs, and c) putting a lil twang on it. I love it. It was my #3 album of the year last year but literally any other year of the last handful could have had this at #1. Long Live Lenderman. Also shoutout to Asheville, North Carolina, this state rocks.
Andy: MJ Lenderman seems like a cool dude. Very much an “I’m gonna make these songs and I don’t really give a shit about rules or conventions or whatever else, who cares” type vibe, which I think is the best vibe. What genere is this (Patrick: dirt emo, idk who cares “alt-country”)? Genre of “good” is really the only thing that matters. It goes hard, man. Why don’t more people make more good Alt-Country (lol) like this (Patrick: *laces on my boots* they do)? More people need to simply not give a shit and just do it. Do something fun. Something different. When it hits well, it hits really hits.
Obviously, I love MJ's “Hangover Game” song. I love “Dan Marino” (the song, I am indifferent to the football player) just a lo-fi, chill, goofy, catchy song with a heckin’ ass solo (Patrick: imploring you to stop trying to make ‘heckin’ happen). I’ve already added it to my 2023 playlist. He should try his hand at 90s black metal imo (Patrick: christ). “Six Flags” and “Toontown” really stuck with me. Lenderman has it man. He’s got it.
I’m positive if Pat had done his job (Patrick: ?) and given me this in 2022 it would have just cracked my End of Year list. I vibe with it that much. I texted him and told him I loved this and it somehow evolved into him yelling at me for something, I don’t get it (Patrick: Andy said something like “this is good even though country sucks” so, yes, I got mad, it’s fine). I Loved It.
Toadeater - Bexadde
Andy: I know nothing about Toadeater except 1) Their album Bexadde is amazing and 2) they have badass album art (Patrick: I agree on both accounts). That is a really effective way to get me to press play on your band camp. Despite the decade-long running argument between Patrick and I, album art matters (Patrick: what is happening, when have we ever argued about this lol).
Here is where I would write a few sentences about the atmosphere the album builds but, if you’ve read this newsletter more than once, you get it. I don’t need to say it again in different words (Patrick: I’m really glad we’re coming into year 2 of this newsletter with you having the energy of ‘I don’t need to write things’). Like all good black metal, it leans into a bit of excessive repetition, absorbing you into it. Bits of Post-Metal and Punk scattered about. Just Grade A good shit.
“Let The Darkness Swallow You” is, potentially, a 10/10 song for me. “Molten Gold (Down Your Throat)” is a fantastic closer. Actually, that is probably a 10/10 song also. This album was #5 on my End of Year list but is basically interchangeable with anything in the top 5. It’s that good. I kinda know Pat will like it due to how we chose this week’s albums but I Hope All Of You Like It Also.
Patrick: I kinda lost my marbles for a second (Andy: did you find them) hearing Toadeater for the first time while going through Andy’s AOTY list a month or so ago. The album opens with a blast of feedback from the guitars that is so insanely cool to me. A lot of metal guitars feel either a) fairly dry with just distortion or b) dripping in reverb. The guitars here feel more like the former than the latter but also seem to have some sort of weird chorus or phaser effect on them that comes across as super unique and just makes the feel of the record a total earworm for me.
They do it again at the beginning of the closing track, “Molten Gold,” which is my favorite track here. At the risk of not sounding like too much of a Guitar Dork, though, I’ll stop talking about that stuff. The drums sound so REAL and alive on this track, as well as the rest of the album. I’ve had my gripes many times during the course of 2022 with some of Andy’s picks due to drums that sound fake as fuck (Andy: find a new slant I beg of you). That is not the case here! Proof that you can play super hard and still make it sound like it wasn’t conducted by robots! The vocalist’s voice is cool too. For most of the album, he’s doing a kinda same-y scream-type thing, but towards the end of “Molten Gold,” he sinks into a vocal tone that almost reminds me of Behemoth, one of my favorite discoveries from the newsletter last year. It’s a kind of talk-scream-type thing that I feel should be done by more bands but isn’t done well super often. This guy nails it. Also, because I can’t help myself, the riff that the guitars fall into around 10 minutes into “Molten Gold” - catch me going full smooth-brained and enjoying that shit (Andy: great riff). Hell yeah. I Loved It.