Music is amazing. Music is powerful, beautiful, myriad, a marvel, my favourite thing, and, genuinely, life-saving. And there’s so much of it, so much music to fall in love with, especially new music, especially now, that it can move you in a million ways- feel so important- and still you couldn’t possibly hear it all. So ranking music, assigning marks […]
Read moreIf you’re anything like me, then you’re not even reading this. You saw the headline or whatever janky way I’ve combined 11 front covers into one image this year, and are now scrolling past this paragraph to skip to the list below. And, listen (or not, I guess), that’s fine. It’s ok. I do the exact same thing. Sometimes if […]
Read moreIt’s all about time, right? Moderate Rock is a small site, the smallest of sites, and will never have the time to listen to every new release of any year. Not ever. So I make space and I make time for some records, some music that I’m pretty sure I know I will love, and often that turns out to […]
Read moreI feel like I say it every year, but this year it feels worth saying louder than ever. THESE ARE NOT THE BEST ALBUMS OF THE YEAR! There’s no way I (or I believe anyone) could write a list that could claim to be correct about that kind of personal, indefinable, impossible thing. There’s been too much music, and not enough […]
Read moreIt’s been a tough year… No, that feels like an understatement. Worst year ever? Maybe. It’s somehow felt like the longest and the shortest 12 months in human history, a hurry-up-and-wait of terror and tension and “what the fuck is going on”. A calendar of unprecedented chaos. Like every shitty year before this one though, 2020 was somewhat saved by some superb […]
Read moreModerate Rock’s 2019 was, apparently, a mood. This year’s Album of the Year list sits under a storm cloud. Oh sure, there are glimmers of light, but there is also doom, gloom, big riffs, nasty noise, and a record that sounds like it wants to pull you through a portal into a nightmare dimension. Downer jams galore. The list does […]
Read moreHere we are again. Another December’s end, another Album of the Year list, and another note to say that there’s no way this particular list is definitive. But then, with so much music released in 2018 and so many different ways to hear it, I’m not sure that any list, even those that stretch to a top 100 releases, can […]
Read moreThings can only get better, right? Wrong. Things, it turns out, can get so, so much worse. I know we mostly share the same tyrants and everybody has their shit to deal with but my 2017 was fucking horrible. It ain’t over either- little weight is going to be lifted because the calendar has ticked over to another day. While […]
Read moreAlbums of the year lists usually come easy around here. Oh sure, there’s some always some debate, ‘hmm, should that be at 7 or 8’, but by the time December rolls around, it’s normally become pretty clear exactly who will make the cut. Not so in 2016. This year there could have been a Top 50. So please, seek out […]
Read moreIt’s that time of year again. Again? Man, I can hardly keep up. Below are Moderate Rock’s albums of 2015. 11 because Spinal Tap: 11. SABREPULSE- ‘Paragon’ 10. FAILURE- ‘The Heart Is a Monster’ 9. NO DEVOTION- ‘Permanence’ 8. BARONESS- ‘Purple’ 7. FOALS- ‘What Went Down’ 6. ROLO TOMASSI- ‘Grievances’ 5. CASPIAN- ‘Dust and Disquiet’ 4. DISASTERPEACE- ‘It Follows’ 3. VESSELS- […]
Read more