Alcoholic Faith Mission - 421 Wythe Avenue

Aritst: Alcoholic Faith Mission 
Album: 421 Wythe Avenue 
Reccomender: SolidBlack 


When I first read the genre under which this album fell, a wide smile spread across my face because I consider myself a fan of experimental avant-garde style of music. And this album delivered exactly that. It put me in a very mellow state of mind every time I heard it. Though the album moves rather slowly at times, the music clearly makes up for it. Songs like "Nut in your eye" and "Painting animals in watercolors" will see repeated plays in my library for a long time. The closest I could get to the sound created by Alcoholic Faith Mission is a combination of M83, Explosions in the sky, and Iron & Wine and even then there are elements throw together that which don't match either of the artists.

Yoon Do Hyun Band - Why be?

Artist: Yoon Do Hyun Band (YB 윤도현밴드)
Album: Why Be?

A double album from one of North Korea's most popular bands.

Well, when I saw this, I had a lot of apprehension towards it since it's a double album (92 minutes) and very few bands can pull them off. I was half right and half wrong. 

The band's sound itself is straightforward rock, with a nice pallet of pop songs. This makes the album surprising easily to digest, but the lack of ambition keeps it from achieving true greatness...but also strips it of those self-indulgent moments of over-experimentation commonly found on double albums. There's nothing really special about their sound. I can't really say that I'd recommend it, go for one of their shorter albums instead.

2.5/5