Review: Kill Lincoln - No Normal

This year I continued to get new ska music from Bad Time Records, including this album by Kill Lincoln whose frontman is the head of Bad Time Records. Modern ska has gone off in many directions. Some bands, like Calamatrix, have gone back to their reggae roots. Half Past Two, who has an album I’ll be writing about soon, has a third wave ska 1990s sound. Kill Lincoln is squarely in the ska-punk realm. It’s fast, it’s hard, and it’s loud. It took me a while to get into the sound, having discovered ska via the 1990s Christian ska bands The Orange County Supertones and Five Iron Frenzy and the secular band No Doubt. (Interestingly, FIF have gone the rock with horns route while No Doubt has gone a more reggae route)

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Last.fm Listening Habits 2011 Q1

I wanted to take a look at my music listening habits quarterly to see how each quarter’s stats stack up against the final numbers at the end of the year. I started off the year listening to some of the new artists I’d bought, then just switched to random listens for the rest of the quarter.

1. Girl Talk (294 plays) - I discovered Girl Talk at the end of 2010. I really enjoyed the latest album. Quickly acquired the rest of his albums. I enjoy all of them other than the first one. Listened to each of the albums a few times. Then when I put my playlist on random, of course a few of them kept coming up because of how many tracks there were. 2. Doctor Octoroc (279 plays) - I got into chip tunes at the end of 2010/beginning 2011 via I Fight Dragons. That caused me to check out Anamanaguchi, who Dan had been recommending for a while. Then I came across Doctor Octoroc. Got his chiptunes version of the Dr Horrible soundtrack and his chiptunes album “After These Messages”. Enjoyed it for a while. Quickly tired of it. I don’t think I’ve listened to it once since the initial push. 3. The Beatles (132 plays) - I went through my Beatles rush in 2010 when I first got all the songs. The Beatles are in third place solely on the basis of having SO MANY songs that they’re bound to come up often why I’m listening to my entire collection on random. 4. I Fight Dragons (109 plays) - I have all three of their EPs. One was available for joining the mailing list - the other two I bought. I really enjoy this group. They’re a regular rock band that embellishes their sound with chiptunes. The topics are not as nerdy as you’d expect from a chiptunes band. They have a good sound, the singer has a good voice, and the songs are good. I wouldn’t say they’re awesome, but they’re enjoyable enough that I always get happy when their CDs come up in my rotation of CD-Rs are work. 5. Anberlin (89 plays) - I own all their CDs so I’m surprised they didn’t come up more often. I like all their albums to varying degrees. I’m partial to their earlier work, although their latest CD had me falling for them again. 6. Relient K (54 plays) - I also own all of their CDs. Although the first two CDs are awful compared to their later albums, there are still a few songs I enjoy on the first two. I’m not a big fan of their absolute latest album, it forays a bit more into a country type of sound. I’ll probably have to listen to previews of their next CD rather than blindly buying it. 7. “Weird Al” Yankovic (49 plays) - I have a ton of his songs, but I often had to skip them to keep from annoying Danielle. Perhaps now that I’m mostly listening with headphones there’ll be more listens. 8. Billy Joel (43 plays) - nearly all of these plays come from a greatest hits album of his that I bought. Around this time, I stopped listening at random in order to listen to my newly bought music. 9. Five Iron Frenzy (40 plays) - I’m a huge fan of Five Iron Frenzy, but they’ve fallen to the wayside as I’ve explored other non-ska music recently 10. MxPx (33 plays) - I hadn’t heard any MxPx music in a long time. They were one of my favorite bands from middle school through high school. But I hadn’t listened to any of the three of four albums I own in a long time. Listening to my collection on random brought them back into my radar. 11. GRITS (33 plays) - all their plays came from listening to my collection on random. After their second album, I only like selected songs from their further albums. 12. The Hangovers (29 plays) - all from their latest album Three Sails to the Wind. I really enjoy this album a lot. 13. Anamanaguchi (28 plays) - I really enjoy listening to this group. It’s weird having groups producing music without vocals nowadays. But I wonder if this is the future evolution of symphonic music. 14. Tom Lehrer (27 plays) - A great musician who rivals “Weird Al” for making me laugh. 14. ???? (Nobuo Uematsu) (27 plays) - I don’t have any of his solo work. All these are from Final Fantasy soundtracks. He is a great composer. I think some of his songs rival movie soundtracks.