Needs more listening, but kinda think the same.
Some observations:
I don’t disagree with any of your points. Although, their self-titled album is still my favorite.
Hopefully Jari can now focus on writing new, more relevant material…and not take 12 years to do it. 
I didn’t know quite where to put this - female vocalists? Electronica?
In any case, it’s quite good, the bouncy side of electronica, nicely recorded, excellent voice. And a bit of retro flavor.
https://open.qobuz.com/track/267294774
MC5: Heavy Lifting
Their first album in 53 years. Time to kick out the jams, “Brothers and Sisters”.
Some classic left and right panning in this,
Quality progressive metal with good melodies and more cleans than growls. Recording quality is meh, but the album is still enjoyable.
I’m going to talk a bit about Woody Guthrie (1912-1967), Folk Music, and the heart and soul of what America was. If you have never listened to an hour or so of Woody (Not his son Arlo) Guthrie, you owe owe owe it to yourselves to do so. The time period was unique, the country was in change, and it’s heartbeat was chronicled by Woody.
I was in the car a lot this weekend. I asked Siri to play Woody Guthrie on Apple Music. Although I knew many of the songs, others I did not, and I was floored by the sheer heart of the music.
Woody came of age as the Great Depression hit America. Millions were out of work. We did not have a social net. People made do. After the election of Roosevelt, the Federal Governement started to help. The CCC or Civilian Conservation Corps was founded, providing jobs for many.
The politics of the era are echoed today. Rachael Maddow - whatever you think of her on TV, is a consummate historian in podcasts. Her Ultra - season 1 documents the pro-facist currents in the US prior to WW2. Season 2 takes up the narrative into the Joe McCarthy anti-communist period. I recommend these also for those interested. Many of Guthrie’s songs in his young adult period reflect what was happening around him, in the context of a deeply patriotic world view.
Lindbergh is one of the songs I hadn’t heard (Link to YouTube of song), and it moved me - the last lyrics - if you know American history. Charles Lindbergh - the aviator hero was also a Nazi sympathizer. Woody says in his closing lines
So I’m gonna tell you people, if Hitler’s gonna be beat
The common working people have got to take the seat
In Washington, WashingtonAnd I’m gonna tell you workers, 'fore you cash in your checks:
They say America First, but they mean America Next
In Washington, Washington
Perhaps Woody’s best known song, This Land is Your Land was written as a protest against the rah rah patriotic songs we usually hear. And today I heard some of the original lyrics that I knew, but aren’t common on your local radio station rendition
As I was walkin’ - I saw a sign there
And that sign said “No trespassin’”
But on the other side … it didn’t say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin’ and some are wonderin’
If this land’s still made for you and me
Sly and slightly subversive. I love the other side of the No trespassin’ sign.
This is music that just doesn’t get played that often these days. I heard it a fair amount in the the 60’s and early 70’s, but also in my Parents’ house as a child. I can’t find the attribution but I recall a commedian explaining radio in the early 60s. FM and AM. FM stands for Folk Music, AM for Awful Music.
I can’t reccomend enough that if you have never heard Woody singing Woody you give it a try.
Hey Siri/Google/Alexa Play Woody Guthrie.
Columbia - The Columbia River, where the Grand Coulee Dam was built between 1933 and 1942. The greatest thing that man had ever done.
Dust Bowl, Dust - reference to a climate event in the 1930s affecting the great plains states and parts of western Canada. A drought. Serious. Farms dried up. People had to move away. People from Oklahoma migrated across the plains to California, and were known as Okies. See Peaches and Wine.
Fascists - Generally Hitler, Mussolini and their regiemes. Less frequently, companies that today would be considered entrepreneurial mid-caps or smaller large caps that tended to put profit over safety or quality of life concerns. This was another age. Quality of life was rarely on the radar.
Migrants - Not to be confused with today’s immigrants. Migrants were often 2nd generation American farm workers. Displaced from family farms in the great plains, they followed the crops, picking peaches in California, lettuce, moving North to Cherries in Michigan, and Apples in the mid-Atlantic. In Guthrie’s music some of these people were deeply patriotic, moved by the sheer beauty of the American countryside a hundred or so years ago.
Peaches and Wine - reference to agricultural production of California in the 30s on. Workers tended grapes and picked peaches. See Migrants.
Red River - the Red River of the South, flowing across the Texas Panhandle. Site of the song Red River Valley,
Relief - Welfare payments. Also know as “the Dole”. Lots of shaming for those who needed help.
And there, there is The Great American Novel, Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Deeply moving, powerful stuff, that opened more than a few eyes. Guthrie said of Steinbeck’s novel: “(The novel) shows the damn bankers, men that broke us and the dust that choked us, and comes right out in plain old English and says what to do about it.”
But I can’t listen to musical 2 to 5 minute bites of Steinbeck while driving. And reading while driving is not only a no-no, but doing it in a self driving mode car might strain the bounds of irony.
Seriously, I wonder how many here have heard this stuff, and if trying to provide some context is helpful.
Matt Berry Heard Noises
This is a very 1960s and Doors-like production. He uses lots of organs, trumpets, and retro overdubbed vocals. I haven’t listened to the Doors in quite a while, so whatever.
The album cover is also a nominee for having a cover that drives you away, unless you enjoy looking at a cross between a cactus and a gnome:
Interesting, I always ignored Matt Berry’s music in the past because I know of him as a TV comedy actor (e.g. What We Do in the Shadows on FX/Hulu) and assumed that he was going for some kind of novelty record, but this is pretty good.
I never heard of Matt Berry before a few weeks ago, and had no idea he was an actor until your comment. I routinely try stuff on the Metacritic new releases list as they come out. This album struck me as a careful and varied homage to late 1960s production methods, and certainly a change of pace. It’s not original per se, but it’s an uncommon style these days.
Interesting - I only knew Matt Berry from “the IT Crowd”.
Anyway - after I missed their latest concert around here, I have Snow Patrol on permanent roatation at the moment.
Yay 
Kiasmos live on KEXP
The new Dream Theater album. It’s their heaviest and best since Train of Thought. Welcome back, Mike Portnoy!
Here’s one that I don’t know how to classify. Heavy metal? Experimental? Noise rock? Concept album? Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) therapy or cause?
The Body The Crying Out of Things
Lots and lots of yelling, screaming, and crying out. But there are no babies crying. They turn the accent screams of metal songs into song-length screams. Hmmm?
https://open.qobuz.com/album/cwzpgcqagtmlb
Raw Muscular Power
Death by Unga Bunga
Sort of like if the Ramones had a really really nice garage.
The sublime Thylacine in concert, there’s soooo much good music appearing so far this year that I feel gluttonous with my consumption
Kelela, an artist who works in the intersection of R&B and electronic music, decided to re-arrange her songs into vocal jazz stylings so they could be played live at Blue Note in New York. This album is the result of recordings produced over 2 nights there. I’ve attempted to time-stamp her cover of “Furry Sings the Blues” by Joni Mitchell on this record for an intro:
I’ve listened to this KEXP session with AURORA a few times today and can see me placing it in my saved folder
