Best Of 2023

Nerve Salad Best Of 2022

Regarding Hiatus

I know we're quiet right now. If I could tell a story about the past year, it would take forever. There are still submissions being focused on, and some stuff still being planned, but the world of the internet has become like a full time job, one that I find I've been missing out on more important things while doing. Many bands have sent some really awesome submissions for review, but when it came to a few of these bands completely bugging me over and over in emails, and/or simply being rude about not getting into the list that month... I just decided to take it back for myself. I want to listen, review, and introduce people to cool new stuff, regardless of genre. I don't want to be hassled into reviewing something. It happened so much, that I took a break, let the music find me as it normally does. Nerve Salad is not dead. I'm just taking back the love for the music so I can actually find the words to express what I love about it.

Woodcreeper News

 Wanna know why I've been so quiet? Check out the brand new single by Woodcreeper, and that will be a slight indication as to what I've been up to for the past couple of months....

 

 

 https://woodcreeper.bandcamp.com/track/orchid-gore

Bandcamp Blitz February/March, 2021

I want to jump in here really quick, Just to make sure I don't completely disappear into the ether. The music really hasn't stopped, and I just really haven't found a way to keep up. So I am going to start this year off slowly and hope that I can get things back to normal again. The music is still coming in and I have so many reviews that I am being asked to write or I want to write. But I'm going to start off with a handful of reviews, hopefully once a week, until I can get a rhythm going again and start getting all wordy and stuff.

Jason Bieler and the Baron Von Bielski Orchestra - Songs For The Apocalypse 

(Songs that get stuck in my head for days and days... all gluey and sticky-like. I love and hate Jason Bieler for making such an impressive album full of oh-so-Jason-ness. Every tune is a binding contract, signed by your brain for the next week as they constantly bombard your senses and map out your walking pace. Dirty, dirty mad wizard!! As a fan since the first SK LP, this is simply Jason being Jason at his finest, doing poppy, criminally catchy prog pop rock that'll alter your brain forever. Having this on Spotify and only a private link on Bandcamp makes me sad, but whatever.)

 

 

 

 Zippo Man - i

(Don't even mess around. Just listen to this now. We're talking one minute you're being serenaded by poppy hooks and mellow grooves, and the next minute you're swept away into this jammy, trippy psychy atmosphere. HUGE vocals, blistering guitar leads, fantastic unique riffs (without being noob-y). This is alt-stoner/alt-pop at its absolute finest, and there will be no qualms about adding this to the best of the year list.)

 

       

 The Boxcar Suite - Every Side Of The Abyss

 (Tim Pritchard and company are back with a whole new slew of madcap anthems. Americana/alt-rock, heavy on the songcraft, x-tra light on the cheese. Some of these tunes are so clever, you'll wonder where they even come up with this stuff. Jangly Paisley Underground-y numbers, uncluttered and to the point. The guitar tones once again rip it up on this LP, and the vocal harmonies are spot on (I'll say it again: This band shines when they get those HUGE vocal harmonies snaking around the riffs), and the arena-shakers are once again slapping you around. Highly recommended if you want a shakedown.)

 

 Gloria - Sabbat Matters 

(In a year of madness, we were treated to a few nuggets of Gloria tunes, all snugly tucked into a couple of singles peppered around. This new full length takes everything they were already good at, and makes it even better. Lovely, female-fronted psych rock, with tunes all decked out in vintage go-go dancer vibes, Austin Powers-esque naughtiness, and reverb-y tales of love and espionage, and crackly, candy-like harmonies, scented with strawberry flavored incense. Honestly, it was my lucky day when this album dropped. I love this band bunches.)

 

 

Starified - Fat Hits

(Quite easily one of the best things 2021 has given us yet. This is one of those albums I toss around with the pals and make them listen to it. Gives me the early 90s vibes. Accessible, yet still blatantly snarly enough to make the grade with the grimier stoner rock brethren. If you don't give this a try, you might be stonophobic.)

Bantha Rider - Binary Sunset Massacre

(Whoa. Within a half parsec, I was done in by the flattening Force. Fine instrumental stoner doom! Some dry, desert-y Tatooine mixed in with the cold, doomed Hoth & raised by Felucian flora and fauna...) 

 

 

Charlie Whitten - I'm Waiting

(I'm not sure what is happening here with this particular album. So smooth. Most often, I've associated this particular songwriter with Americana, but even in amongst the older material, there shined a little light of soul and groove. In a sense, we can look at this artist like a modern Yacht Rock ambassador & aficionado. Charlie Whitten comes through in this album with a real look into spaciousness and what to do with it. Sparse, lonely little sticky buns with playful additives that react well with your body.)

 

Assertion - Intermission

(I have not even heard this whole album yet, and I don't even care. It's going to be good. We got a little taste over the years on Bandcamp with their sneaky singles they would put out. I mentioned it before... it was as if they were grooming us for a full-length. Finally, we got something like this, and it turns out that it's a hot seller, and a fantastic way to start the year for such a cool band. Bombastic alt-rock, just the way we like it. Featuring the drumming skills of William Goldsmith [of SDRE, Foo Fighters, Fire Theft], and some jagged guitar playing crafty melodies on top of driving rhythms... it's one I was hoping for, and watching the swarms over their LP has been fun. Let's do this.)

Clouds Taste Satanic - Cloud Covered

(No big surprise here... CTS ends up on a Nerve Salad list... Listen, I support these dudes and their dark quest for glory. This album makes up all of the Satanic Singles Series into one giant blaster. It's funny.. I was just chatting about this last year: "I'll bet they put out all of these singles into one album." And they did. This one has a few more tracks added to the list, and like any good fan, I swooped in and grabbed a chunk of wax. Stoked, as always.)

 

Hailey Whitters - The Dream

(Iowa native makes music. I rarely hear such good lyrics, or such perfect pitch without techy messy. This country singer is the real deal, and her songs will make you weep uncontrollably... the water flows under the bridge, but all you can do is try to fill your cup with it...)

 Thanks! I'll be back around soon-ly!

- Andy

Best Of 2020...

 HA! I fell asleep for a while. I still feel like slacking off...

 This is my Best Of The Year list for the crapload that was 2020. It's nowhere near complete and never will be, nor is this in any order of importance! Few descriptions, just the list and some links. 2020 was a year where music just kept coming out. People were super bored and frustrated. 

I, myself, was one of those people...

 Best Of 2020 list: 

• Murcielago - Casualties 

 (Well... all it took was two-and-a-half songs to seal the deal on this one. Easily going to be a contender for the Best Of The Year List. Not one single bit of nonsense going here. This WILL rock you. Little chunks of Soundgarden, Kyuss, some peppered-in Foo-ness. HIGHLY blast-worthy stoner rock, spicy little melodic interludes, caustic axe-wielding, incendiary vocals, a dibble dabble of tasty keys, yes, brothers and sisters, this WILL surely rock you all.)  

• Kampusch Klub - EP-02

 ( If you liked the first EP as much as I did, then this one will blow your mind. Dark alt-psych with a touch of something that smells like the '80s. New singer = new sound = best stuff yet.)

 

• Various Artists - Dirt Redux

• Cloudkicker - Solitude

 (Everything Cloudkicker is an insta-buy. Ben's back in full force. This is easily some of the best Cloudkicker stuff yet. Busy and heavy, just the way we've come to expect it. This album will plow you into the soil and offer no apologies.)

 

• The White Swan - Nocturnal Transmission

 

• Botanist - Photosynthesis

 (Insta-buy. Anything Botanist releases goes right into my record collection. I doubt I have as much of a connection with a band's concept as I do with Botanist. Avant garde black metal-ish with a totally unique sound, and lyrical content I can get behind. Dark elemental metal, showing signs of growth. This sprout is becoming a massive tree.) 

 

• The Texas Gentlemen - Floor It!!!

 (Almost embarrassingly good. Laughably good? Southern-tinged rock, light years better than their previous album, and that's saying a lot. Heavier on the instrumentals this time around, jazzier, yacht-rockier, groovier, smoother, tighter, & more vivid. THIS album is a modern classic of mixed soundscapes and brilliant soulful rock with Southern feelies, made just for you. And me.)

 

• Jumbee - The Smell Of Red Sunset Air

 (Gave this a good run-through a number of times. It gets better with each listen. Djent-y stoner doom with some true grunge influences. Rare with the aggressive vocals, the Staley-esque delivery makes itself the most apparent in this mish-mash of brilliance. I have a strange feeling these guys will make a few fans. Up and running for the Best Of The Year list.
You'd best grab onto something before you hit play.)

 

• The Lees Of Memory - Moon Shot

 (Everything I had hoped for. The last album made it into my All Time Best list. This album comes back full force with some of the niftiest power pop you're likely to hear. Everything these guys touch turns into pure, unadulterated gems. If you miss this album, you're just weird.)

 

• Howling Giant / Sergeant Thunderhoof - Turned To Stone, Chapter 2: Masamune & Muramasa

 

• Kryptograf - Kryptograf 

 

• Old Moons - Nothing Grows Here

 (Holy ballsnuts! A nice little slap in the face for me. I LOVE THIS! Tunes that rarely dare to break the 3-minute mark, hitting you square in the jaw with slaughtering bass tone, thrashy alt-stoner riffage, sneering punk/noise rock attitude, and a genre-defying sound. I checked this out with the Mohs Hardness Scale, and nothing could scratch this rock.) 

 

• Hogne Galåen - Hogne Galåens Topptur

• Øyvind Holm ‎– After The Bees 

• Big Scenic Nowhere - Vision Beyond Horizon

 

• Bart Graft - For The Record...

 

 

• mcbaise - Raviolo 

 (Smoothed out Yacht-y Sunday Jazz Vapor-Rock. A sensitive, juicy little EP, dangling in the cool Summer air, ripe & just waiting to be plucked. Really worth a listen if you want to hear some fine songwriting and a few oddball twists and turns to keep you silky until the end.) 

• Joe Pernice - Richard

 

• Psychic Temple - Houses Of The Holy

• Half Stack - Wings Of Love

 (Quite easily the MOST destroyed LP I own. Arrived in such bad shape, I've never really gotten over it. I get LPs from all over the world, they show up pristine... this one comes from one state away, and it's total garbage, remnants of a tattered and beaten cover spreading cardboard dust and shavings everywhere... great album, though.)

• Vinyl Williams - Azure

 - Andy

Fear Not...

 Fear not, bands and friends.

I won't be gone much longer. 

Things are quiet on the Nerve Salad front. I'm taking this year to reassess it all and get a fresh start. I have been pretty busy with starting a new venture in life, playing with plants, creating a more positive future for myself and Nerve Salad in general. What better way to get past the suckass year but to simply work at improving one's life from both the inside out AND the outside in. I'm still doing reviews, just more slowly until the year wears itself out. Thanks for sticking with me. I'm still listening...

I've taken on another responsibility, along with being an educator and Naturalist for the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium. I now am the co-manager, maintenance, and education coordinator at Crystal Lake Cave (in Iowa). I spend my days 100 feet below ground, playing around with crystals, getting dripped on by carbonic acid, calcium carbonate, & hydro-silica. All good stuff. Now, this does NOT mean I am out of the review game. Not by a long shot.

I'm merely making merry with rocks and cave crickets until the year decides to quit being this year. I was due for a change.

My band Woodcreeper is currently working on our last few touches of the tunes before we hit the studio.

Nerve Salad Records has a few things in store for next year. But as always, we only do one or two things a year. No big hullabaloo here.

Beyond that.. I do wish everyone a great rest of the 2020 year. I will likely do a couple more posts before the year is up, but next year we're back as usual.

Thanks, again!