It’s that time of the week, when I write on my blog all about the music releases I enjoyed last week and the ones I look forward to this week. Last week had an upbeat single by Death Cab for Cutie coming from their new album, due out September 16th, as well as another intense Demi Lovato single from her upcoming album on August 19th. Demi is cranking it into high gear with a hard rock, almost metal sound on this album, thoroughly expressing her intense emotions through power chords. David Paich and Don Felder teamed up for a single from Paich’s new album, you probably don’t know him, but you’ve heard his music in your life, he was apparently behind Toto and Motley Crue albums, which explains why Steve Lukather is the other guest guitarist on his upcoming album.
Orianthi, a singer-songwriter guitarist from Australia who was worked with Alice Cooper, Don Felder and Richie Sambora, released a great live album and even thanked me on Twitter for including the album in my favorite music last week. This actually happened twice, I later mentioned I had forgotten the Tegan and Sara single because I hadn’t listened to it until Sunday night and they also gave that post a like. Lizzo also released a killer Pop/R&B album that sounds magnificent and flows through several genres, and last but certainly not least, Carrie Underwood released an Apple Music Sessions that featured her covering Ozzy Osbourne’s “Mama, I’m Coming Home.” And while that may seem strange for a country artist, Carrie Underwood has sung “Sweet Child O Mine” with Guns N Roses, recorded “Can’t Stop Loving You” with Aerosmith and sang a duet of “Alone” with Heart’s Ann Wilson.
Outside of music, it’s been up and down, as I’m finding is the norm of adult life. Julio Rodriguez almost won the Home Run Derby, he and Ty France were in the All-Star Game and Alek Manoah, who started for the Blue Jays when I saw them play the Mariners on the 9th, pitched well again and apparently refers to strikeouts as “punchies.” I also found my go-to team for the fighting game portions of the Demon Slayer video game, Nezuko and Shinobu, due to their voice actresses. Nezuko is voiced by Abby Trott, who plays perky “cinnamon roll of sunshine” Annette in the Fire Emblem series. In fact, I like to joke that Nezuko’s angry attitude comes from someone denying Annette pastries. Shinobu is played by Erika Harlacher, who played Ann in Persona 5 and its spinoffs and Mei in Godzilla Singular Point. While the anime is slow and full of pseudoscience babble, it delivers towards the end when Godzilla destroys Tokyo, doing an homage to Shin Godzilla with Godzilla destroying a large portion of the city with one heat ray blast while the Godzilla theme plays with Bear McCreary-style chanting chorus. Whoever made that scene was clearly paying attention and knew what the fans (or, at least me) liked the most from the more recent films.
On the downside, while I’m enjoying Fire Emblem Warriors; Three Hopes, I got rather devastated by recent developments in the plot. There was a mission that would change how the story would progress and I think I must’ve done it wrong, because I killed Annette and it’s heavily implied I have to kill Byleth. This really sits poorly with me because in Three Houses, one of my favorite things to do was spend time with both Edelgard and Annette. Tara Platt and Abby Trott made me smile, and Annette stating you might be creating a turning point in history with her excitement made me feel good. In both games in the Adrestian route, your opponents criticize you where it hurts; God, your family, “there’s a better way,” “you’re a fool,” just like in real life, and I’m not the kind of person who takes being called “Biblically illiterate” or “satanic” because I want my fellow congregants who are lesbians to have equal rights well. You need happy people to support you if you’re fighting a rough battle. This was so rough, plus I worry Platt, Trott, Yuri Lowenthal and the cast of Critical Role think All Christians are fascists due to the irreparable damage to Jesus’ name Trump and his cronies have done and continue to do and I was already wanting to stop playing video games that I am taking an indefinite, possibly permanent, hiatus from them and Twitter and my mental health will be the only thing that determines if I can ever use them again.
This week has only a few known releases. ODESZA, the OTHER Western Washington University act, is putting out their new album. I’m not as much a fan of them as Death Cab for Cutie, their music’s not my cup of tea, but I’m willing to listen to it for the sake of Bellingham. (Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney also went to Western, but they don’t get as much attention up here from my peer group.) The soundtrack of a movie called Anything’s Possible featuring Kiana Lede and Kim Petras is also getting released, an artist named Mary Fahl is releasing a covers album that will feature versions of “Ruby Tuesday,” “Beware of Darkness” and “Comfortably Numb” and lastly, German-British classic rockers UFO are releasing a new album that might be a studio album and a live release.
Thank you for all the support, and I’ll see you in a week, unless something comes up I can’t fit in a Facebook post.
