We Reviewed Literally Whatever You Sent Us, Volume Nine

The world is full of music. It is literally impossible to listen to all of it. But here at Noisey, we believe in operating against all logic and, every once in a while, trying to do just that. To that end, once a month we open up our Twitter mentions to the masses and take submissions for half an hour of pure chaos. Then we review whatever you send us (just to be clear, while we review anything, we don't review everything; submissions are randomized) and generally question our life decisions. Here is this month's installment:

Pierre Solo - “Lemme Know”

Kyle: This is kind of cool. The beat sounds like Clams Casino, and lyrically we’re kind of in a Drake vein about lasting relationships and Instagram thirst. There are probably a million other songs out there that sound like it, but, hey, that doesn’t mean you can’t listen to it.
Kayla: All I hear is "NOBODYWASABODYNOSOMEBODY" … I don't know what’s going on here, but there's a half naked chick on the album art with her boobs out. Like, full on nipples.
Fred: Someone, anyone, please let this guy know.

Beach Heart - “Hold On, Let Go”

Kyle: This is tagged as chillwave. It is not chill.
Kayla: BEACH HEART! CHILL WAVE! TRIANGLES!
Fred: Oh good, another Beach band! The instrumental reminds me of Washed Out, until it gets to a weird Mtume “Juicy Fruit” part in the middle. But by then you’re already gone.

Simpson Ahuevo - “Mextasis”

Kyle: As far as I’m concerned, this is pretty much what hanging out in Mexico is all about. Una buena noche en Mextasis. This is basically the Mexican Chromeo.
Kayla: I stopped listening after the name of the song was whispered before the first verse.
Fred: Virtually the entire song is the same single measure beat repeated over. And over. And over. And over. And over. That works very very very rarely, and definitely not here.

Frank Leone - “Across the Earth”

Kyle: This is tagged “Chance the Rapper” and “World Cup,” which I assume is because it takes the melody from Chance’s “Paranoia” and kind of makes it sound like a K’Naan song. Fortunately, I like Chance and K’Naan, and the last verse is kind of dope. And I support music made in solidarity with Ferguson. Not amazing, but not bad.
Kayla: This song sounds political therefore I am not down.
Fred: The other night I saw a man duct tape a chain link to his ball sack and have 100 girls run up and give it a tug. Maybe it’s time to revisit the hashtag “#shit you can't handle.”

Fiendish Hype - “Old Restraints”

Kyle: It’s like Maroon 5, I guess? This sounds like music someone who is really into healing crystals and also rap would make.
Kayla: Any one song that is on Soundcloud containing the tags Yeezus, Chance The Rapper, Bruce Springsteen, and James Brown is sus.
Fred: The song has Tarzan’s yelp on the hook. Good idea guys!

Devereaux - “Party Pooper”

Kyle: Oh shit, this just came out Tuesday. Fresh hype! I’m going to fuck with any dumb garage rock song called “Party Pooper,” so, while this is unremarkable, I would probably enjoy pounding like six Miller High Lifes and watching these guys play this in a basement. This sausages and dick joke sample sucks, though.
Kayla: This kind of sounds like a shitty Vapors song, but it’s not that bad at all.
Fred: Hits that sweet spot between completely fun and utterly mind-numbing. I kind of love this actually.

“The Sausage Song”

Kyle: What is with you people and the sausages today? Anyway, I’ve never seen this, but I support all dumb YouTube memes from 2006. Keep the internet dumb and weird.
Kayla: Turn up for sausage.
Fred: I like it better than Mac Demarco.
Kayla: Fred, does that mean you like The Sausage Song more than Brooklyn?
Fred: Kayla, Did you know they built a J.Crew in Williamsburg?
Kyle: Mac DeMarco is from Canada, and Brooklyn is over.

PTO - “Wants to Be Wanted”

Kyle: Look, you guys are the ones who named your album Pointless, not I.
Kayla: This band sounds like they really want to be a band.
Fred: There are some things I really like about this, like the rhythm section and the bass tone, but overall the vocals are too low in the mix to really get anything out of the melody.

Lil B - “Rent Due”

Kyle: Never been mad, so I smile for the history.
Kayla: How long is Lil B going to be #trending? I’m not mad about it, I am just genuinely curious.
Fred: I’d love to see a legion of rappers in shitty Vans and using two-ways because of this song. LIL B IS SETTING NEW TRENDS BE READY.
Kyle: Fred, that has already happened. Kayla, the answer is forever.

Death to Slater - “Drunk Driving Lisa's Mom's Car”

Kyle: Punk rock is all about making stupid songs about one-note concepts, so this is obviously awesome. I don’t know what sitcom (movie?) Slater is from, but I now endorse his death.
Kayla: Honestly, this is the best band name ever because I fucking love Saved By The Bell. Whoever cut this video is great too. Thank you for this. Thank you. Also Kyle, I question the type of childhood you had without SBTB.
Kyle: In my house, we watched Wishbone. That is a good TV show. Was Saved By The Bell even made for children? What kind of childhood did you have? Also, Kayla, were you even alive when Saved By The Bell was on TV?
Kayla: RE: you watching Wishbone… that explains a lot. Saved By The Bell was made for children and teens, and I watched it before I should have to learn about how sketch caffeine pills are.
Fred: I’M SO EXCITED. Actually, I'm just mildly and passively intrigued, and it's mostly because of that video.

OG Swaggerdick - “N—a on the Bus”

Kyle: Reviving old school soul, this heartfelt tune explores the innate struggle of the human condition: Where are we going? Who are we bringing along for the ride? What if someone throws up along the way? 10/10. Here is an article we ran about OG Swaggerdick.
Kayla: Once I saw a dude take a shit in the middle of a MUNI bus in San Francisco.
Fred: THIS IS SO GREAT. Seriously amazing.

Original Kadeem - “Bankshot”

Kyle: I support any rap about helping your sister improve her grades. This is a cool video and this guy is kind of a clever rapper, but it’s not really a song. Lots of potential, though!
Kayla: This is a very well-shot music video. I think this is one of our strongest submissions because the song doesn’t suck either. Good job.
Fred: Sounds like it should have come from a Stretch Armstrong mix from 1996, which I wholly support.

Vox Disco - “Kid Born in Space”

Kyle: This sounds like a song that characters in a sitcom would write in the episode where they form a band, and then everyone would kind of start wondering what the one guy in the group’s backstory was that caused him to write this song. There would be pathos, hilarity would ensue, and it would be way better than an episode of Saved By The Bell, which I have still never watched.
Kayla: It sounds like one dude in this band wanted to sound like King Tuff, and another dude was like "nah let’s make it kind of funky," and then they invited their dumb friend to randomly play some other instruments laying on the floor.
Fred: No.

Filth Fuxers - “Take Me to Jail”

Kyle: Great concept here, but it probably could be about two minutes and 30 seconds shorter.
Kayla: This song made me realize that there is a lot of garage rock out there that repeats the same thing over and over again that I actually listen to (which is depressing). In this case, the only lyric in this song is "take me to jail." And this band is probably full of a bunch of art school kids who wanted to start a band- so they did- and this is their only song.
Fred: The title reminds me of this scene in Goodfellas, which reminds me that I should take a fistful of poppers before I do these. It’s a little too blown out for it’s own good.

Mawrong 5 - “Chuffed and Gutted”

Kyle: This might be the most unlistenable collection of sounds ever submitted to this feature, so congratulations for that, I guess?
Kayla: Is the joke here that Mawrong 5 sounds like Maroon 5, but it’s not? I agree with Kyle on this one. This isn’t even a song.
Fred: The greatest pseudo-Ween weirdo horseshit to ever be released in Bahrain.

Bessie Turner - “Tide”

Kyle: More like Joanna NOsome.
Kayla: MEOW-WAVE. MAKE IT STOP.
Fred: That voice sounds familiar. Ah, yes… it’s nearly every cutesy indie singer songwriter to ever pick up a guitar in the past 15 years.

Specs'spectacle - “I Aint Done Getting Better”

Kyle: All grime music sounds like someone rapping with a mouth full of ribs to me, so I have no frame of reference for this. I think it is roughly equivalent to, like, The Streets.
Kayla: Mmmmm, ribs.
Fred: Never takes off. Just hovers.

Houdan the Mystic - “The Men Who Own Evil Laughs”

Kyle: Somehow I feel like LARPing is responsible for this. Shouts out to whoever’s playing the wood block.
Kayla: These dudes look like they decided to start a band after watching Where The Wild Things Are. I guess the right word for this would be, “experimental,” which I personally view as a cover-up for really saying “our music may suck but it’s kind of, like, supposed to because #art.”
Fred: That cover… so terrible. That said, this is perfectly serviceable psych/math.

Knucklewagon - “West Side Glory Hole”

Kyle: If you ever had to punch someone and had exactly 26 seconds to psych yourself up, this could be a good song to listen to. Hopefully you’d be punching the guys who made it and saying something like “I’ll show YOU a knucklewagon!”
Kayla: Kyle, that was a great joke. Personally, this is kind of exactly what I needed to hear since my day has been pretty shitty so far. If you’re into hearing straight-up screaming with random trumpet playing, then this is your thing. Also, these guys are playing a show at The Gutter in a few weeks, and that just so happens to be right around the corner from the Vice office, so maybe I’ll check it out.
Fred: If The Locust was a ska band. That’s all I’ll say so you can clean the vomit off the floor.

So Called Someone - “Walkin’”

Kyle: Sure, there are probably enough blues songs in the world about walking and feeling lonely and drinking, but that doesn’t make this bad. It’s pretty good! It’s just also completely unnecessary.
Kayla: Basic Bitches Guide To The Blues.
Fred: Shitty bar blues.

Charnia - “Daknam”

Kyle: I skipped the first three minutes because none of us have time to meditate on the profound nature of existence as channeled by a single guitar note. It turns out none of us really have that final minute to meditate on the profound nature of existence as channeled by a single guitar note either.
Kayla: Hey Charnia: It really sucks that you sent us your full album expecting us to listen past the first track, which is literally the sound of nothing. You really misrepresented yourselves here because the rest of your album sounds like the same metal track over and over. Since all metal sounds the same to me, I’m gonna let Fred take the lead on this one.
Fred: Not the most interesting of dark ambient/post-rock, but on Kayla’s urging I checked out some of the other tracks on the record. It reminds me of Belgium’s Amenra. That’s high praise. I love that band.

Nick Nicely - “The Change in Charmaine”

Kyle: If you’re making a movie and there’s a character in it who goes to art school and loves Radiohead and is in a band, this would be perfect music for that character’s band to play in the establishing shots right before a dramatic scene at a rock club.
Kayla: This sounds like five different songs that are meshed into one and that could be played as the backing track inside of a not scary haunted house.
Fred: Basically the crossroads of The Moody Blues and a flanger pedal.

Super Helpful Kwame - “TUNA”

Kyle: This guy submitted the last time I did this, and I wasn’t too into it. But I like this more—he sounds a little like a higher-pitched A$AP Ferg, and this beat is simple and straightforward. “Ain’t gotta do shit but be translucent” is kind of a cool line.
Kayla: This bro sounds like Kevin G from Mean Girls. Anyone? Anyone?
Fred: This guy reminds me of Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler, he of Shabazz Palaces/Digable Planets fame. I like this, not insane for it, but there is some potential there for sure.

Sweetz P. - “Life Behind Barrrs”

Kyle: I feel like this series of open submissions has the most diverse set of genres of any we’ve done so far, and this weird sort-of drill song is a good addition to the lineup. There’s nothing particularly interesting about it, but I’d definitely be cool with driving around and yelling out the window along with the “we don’t fuck around / we don’t fuck around” hook.
Kayla: This sounds like something that Kyle, Eric, and Drew would blast at the end of the day on a Friday inside of the office. I still haven’t decided personally if that means that this is necessarily a “good song.” No shots fired.
Fred: Serious question: Can someone name a rap song in 2014 that doesn’t have 808 drums and 64th note hi-hats?

ASO 305 - “Tim Howard”

Kyle: #thingstimhowardcouldntstop This song.
Kayla: I skipped forward five times and the song still hasn’t changed.
Fred: Completely inoffensive and uninteresting.

The Whiskey Predicament - “Saturday Comes”

Kyle: I assume the whiskey predicament here is that when you hear this song you’ll want to start drinking to drown out your surroundings, but it’s possible the whiskey predicament is the terrifying prospect of waking up with a hangover and having to listen to reedy folk music.
Kayla: *sigh*
Fred: The kind of thing that Zach Braff would play in his big scene where he and the super quirky girl fall in love. Fuck you, Zach Braff.

Jay Pryor - “Deeper Love”

Kyle: It’s so crazy that this guy is friends with Aretha Franklin. Just kidding! This is a pretty paint-by-numbers house track that uses the Aretha Franklin song “A Deeper Love” as source material. That source material is awesome and also the hit single from the Sister Act 2 soundtrack, which is one of the greatest movies of all time, though, so this is a dope song by extension.
Kayla: This is what an Absolut bottle sounds like.
Fred: I feel like I should be on tons of molly listening to this song, dancing up a storm. Its kind of a jam.

Old Man Wizard - “Highwayman”

Kyle: If you had told 12-year-old me that this kind of music existed—that there was a recording on which dudes named Old Man Wizard shredded on guitars and sang about banditry on dark and stormy nights—he would have gone nuts and maybe lent you one of his Dragonlance books while he borrowed the CD. I am still basically 12, so I still am into this.
Kayla: Wow, this open submissions thing has taught me so much about Kyle’s interests: Wishbone, Sister Act 2, and wizards and dragons.
Fred: Doesn't work.

Brothers - “Like A Flower/I’ve Been the Ghost”

Kyle: Harmonies are dope. It’s ballsy to make a song called “Like A Flower,” but, hey, it’s not irreparably corny.
Kayla: I would have loved this when I was 15 years old, reading The Perks of Being A Wallflower, shoulder deep in my Rocky Votolato phase, thinking about getting bangs.
Kyle: Let the record show that Kayla currently has bangs.
Fred: I feel like I should fucking hate this with every inch of my soul, but I dont. In fact it’s shockingly compelling and heartfelt. Wow, some actual jams in this go around.

Because I Graduated - “Favorite Condoms”

Kyle: This fucking rules. I hope I never hear it again. The future is terrifying.
Kayla: The sole lyric in this song is, “I can’t wear my favorite condoms anymore / they remind me of you.” This leaves me with many questions. What kind of condoms were these? Do dudes really have brands of condoms that they love? Discuss.
Fred: Kayla, clearly every guy on team Noisey loves their Magnums.
Kyle: I'd really prefer not to know what kind of condoms my colleagues use.

Bateman - “Red Wine Blues”

Kyle: These guys seem like they’re having a lot of fun.
Kayla: These dudes know that there’s nothing more metal than having your lead singer get a tattoo while singing/filming a music video, except he totally ruined the whole thing by wearing one of those Britney Spears headset mics.
Fred: Hmmm, someone likes Red Fang.

Lonely Kobe - “Weakness”

Kyle: I’m picturing Kobe Bryant sitting in front of a drum machine feeling very lonely and tentatively testing out each button one at a time, which I think makes this the greatest conceptual art project of all time.
Kayla: I feel like this could have been used as a song in the new Gatsby movie with Leonardo DiCaprio—which I should note was not very good and used horrible music.
Fred: I tried. I swear I did.

Besatree - “The Dissolve”

Kyle: This is some pretty, ambient shit with a sample from Forgetting Sarah Marshall playing over it. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is such a great movie! This is like being in a room near where someone is watching it. Good acting, in both cases.
Kayla: Is this art?
Fred: Sure, OK. Why not. Actually, nevermind.

The Unicorn Princess - “Hanging On”

Kyle: What if video game characters always wear the same clothes because they never shopping, and they never go shopping because this is the music that plays at the mall in video game world?
Kayla: Once I missed my stop on the train because I was playing Robot Unicorn Attack on my phone which loops that Erasure song called, “Always.” That song is way better than this song.
Fred: The only time I liked 8-bit music was when I was playing Nintendo or the first few times I saw Crystal Castles. And literally never again.

Follow Fred Pessaro, Kayla Monetta, and Kyle Kramer on Twitter here, here, and here.