The Benja-man Is Verbose

I've mentioned that I'm already quite familiar with  Life'll Kill Ya , but it's been long enough that I can hear it with fresh ears, and now in context of the whole career. Track One:  "I Was In The House When The House Burned Down" Until this relisten, I always thought it was kinda of a shame to me that this one is sorta Kill Ya's ambassador to the world, the lead single at the time and today probably the one that the casual Zevon listener knows.  Not because I didn't like it, but because there are others on the record that're less repetitious and speak to me more.  I can't deny the appeal, though.  A simple strummed guitar part and a simple insistent drum pattern set the stage for what  the listened can expect from this collection - direct to the point of being painful.  And hey, harmonica fits in great.  Lyrically we get Zevon's scope of debaunchery and poetry, naturally making "I had the shit 'til it all got smoked...

Previous exposure to this artist/album:   Just a few listens to a few songs in the background.  They sounded pretty cool.  Note:  Just to avoid eyesore, LOVEBITES shall hereafter be known as Lovebites, and other bands that I mention in posts about them will have their names written normally rather than in ALL CAPS. I've mentioned a few times my approach to diving into the well of new music by deciding on a listen by listen basis whether or not to listen to each record three times, and then to decide from there whether it gets thrown into my running list of candidates to consider further for the year-end top-fifteen.  Minus the annual list, my approach to listening to older music is pretty similar.  It's a moot point when I'm reviewing something to write about, because of course I'm going to be listening to it a lot.  But if I were just checking out this band in my free time, would  Awakening From Abyss  get a listen #3 based on how I felt aft...

I can't be the only one who waits until the actual end of the year to finalize the year-end list (and then needs a little time to write it up), right? As previously discussed, 2024 was a great musical year.  So much so that I didn't get to everything.  Here are a few more 2024 records that could have made at least my long-list, had I discovered them in time: ( + = woulda been a top ten candidate) Body Count - Merciless Cemetery Skyline - Nordic Gothic Dawnwalker - The Unknowing + Kalandra - A Frame Of Mind + Kingcrow - Hopium St. Vincent -  All Born Screaming As far as 2025, it was okay.  Even within the admittedly limited sphere of music through which I move, I found a bunch of things that I liked.  Compared to any other year since I started actually writing these things in either 2020 or 2021, * there were a lot of returning candidates this time around.  A few former top-fifteeners and  two  former number-ones released music this y...