🎙️ Songs That Don’t Suck — Episode 66
Two album reviews, two live shows, and three heavy new tracks to rattle your speakers (plus one vintage gem from the vault).
📌 Meta Description
🪩 Swifties and Grungeheads, Unite (Briefly)
Mark opens with rapid-fire takes on two major album drops:
🕰️ Taylor Swift – The Tortured Poets Department
- Surprise double album drop: 31 tracks total
- Best of the batch:
- “Florida” (ft. Florence + The Machine)
- “I Can Fix Him (No, Really, I Can)”
- “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart”
*“Lyrically solid, but sonically feels a little one-note. I’m still team *Folklore* and Evermore.”*
🌌 Pearl Jam – Dark Matter
- Classic Vedder vocals, standout guitar work
- High-energy highlights:
- “React, Respond”
- “Dark Matter”
- “Waiting for Stevie”
- Mark says:
“Pearl Jam is at their best when they crank the tempo. This album gave me hope.”
🎤 Why My Voice is Shot: Two Nights, Two Killer Shows
🎻 Carbon Leaf @ Kent Stage
- First time seeing them in 20+ years
- Opened with “Life Less Ordinary” (his wife’s fave 💖)
- Played deep cuts & crowd pleasers
- Standout rediscovery: “The War Was in Color”
- Barry’s whistles & flutes + live bootlegs available = 💯
“Criminally underrated. A joyous mix of alt-country, Celtic rock, and rootsy fun.”
🎟️ Pro tip: Bring your kids to small club shows. It beats the nosebleeds at Taylor Swift.
🤘 Spanish Love Songs @ Mahall’s Roxy
- Co-headlining with Oso Oso
- Opener discovery: Sydney Sprague — pop-rock gold
- Tight performance, killer vocals
- High energy from downbeat to close
- 10/10 venue experience and merch haul ✅
🎧 This Week’s Songs That Don’t Suck
1. “Going Numb” – Unpeople
⚡ Heavy, raw, dynamic vocals
- Controlled screams + upper register mastery
- Aggressive guitar tones + melody
- Metal-adjacent banger for fans of Deftones, Karnivool, or early Tool
💀 “This one had me humming while headbanging. Turn it up.”
2. “Why Is Everyone a DJ” – Laundry Day
🎛️ Groove meets grit
- Jane’s Addiction-style vocals
- Drum machine may be due to missing drummer—but it works
- Tasteful auto-tune adds character, not cringe
- Add this to your indie-meets-funk alt playlist
🌀 “Unexpected but fun. Great production and a nice left turn.”
3. “You Don’t Care” – Low Lives
🎸 Crunchy, sludgy, unapologetically aggressive
- Thundering drums + low-end riffage
- Described as “Muse meets heavier Alice in Chains”
- Catchy, heavy, and surprisingly addictive
“My daughter called it aggressive—and she wasn’t wrong.”
🔁 Vault Track: “The Great Defector” – Bell X1
🧠 Talking Heads DNA meets Irish indie brilliance
- Released in 2009, still sounds fresh
- Quirky vocals + rhythmic bounce
- Band’s sound evolves with each album
🎧 “This song hits like a lost Talking Heads track—highly recommended.”
🖼️ …and I quote…
“You show up for the openers… because sometimes, you find a diamond.”
—Mark Bradbourne, Ep. 66
👋 Want to support the pod?
Tell a friend, share an episode, or check out the full playlists from this year and last at SongsThatDontSuck.net.
🎶 And always—support the artists. Buy the vinyl. Go to the shows.
Until next week… keep searching for and listening to songs that don’t suck. 🎸
