Flush It Friday: Three Favorite Albums
Let’s play a game, dorks.
A surprise kobold invasion has left this Friday’s flushing without a guardian, meaning that your favorite member of the Ghoulson lineage had to be the mother that stepped up. Lacking ideas to go with, I settled on something that might be fun—without thinking for terribly long about it, I want you to post your three favorite albums in the comments: you can share stories about them, talk about why you love them, or anything else tangentially related to the topic. I thought this may be a fun exercise in yapping that could take your mind off of whatever has got you down (there’s plenty of things that could have you down right now).
Anyways, here’s mine in no particular order:
The Cure – Disintegration
Despite always adoring records like Disintegration and Pornography, it was only relatively recently that I realized The Cure are my favorite non-metal band. I always loved their approach to music and the sheer depth and variety of their discography (Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, Head on the Door, and Seventeen Seconds all being made by the same band is fucked up), but only after 2024’s stellar Songs of a Lost World did that revelation dawn upon me. After all, Disintegration has always been a beautiful work of art in my eyes, one that evokes such strong feelings of wistful longing and desolate loneliness and heartache. Robert Smith’s magnum opus takes everything you could have loved from the various preceding records and strengthens them even further: the pop sensibilities, the crushing sadness, the deep and rich atmospheres, and the intimately personal songwriting. Despite the Cure being a distinctly ’80s proposition in many minds, Disintegration is just as timeless as the boundless feelings that inspired it.
Gorguts – Obscura
When first hearing Gorguts’ magnum opus, I was still relatively new to any metal heavier than Slayer. Yet it was this album (as well as Suffocation‘s Effigy of the Forgotten) that made me truthfully see the creative potential in death metal. A beloved classic in the death metal canon, there’s probably not much that needs to be said for Obscura, yet I still to this day find myself in awe of the end result. The band eschewed genre conventions and found influences in avant-garde composition, melding disparate elements of jazz, experimental, classical, and metal into a record unlike any other at the time. Nowadays? Plenty of bands attempt to sound like this (Hell, there’s a pretty direct line from this album to the entire wave of dissonant death metal), but not even other jazz-flavored death metal groups at the time were able to come close to how dense, layered, complex, and expertly crafted Obscura came out. Even today, nothing comes close to the spontaneity and tightly controlled chaos of this 1998 masterpiece and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works II
Truthfully, I think Aphex Twin is one of the most singular and unique artists of modern times. Sure, his work has been instrumental to the furthering of electronic music and plenty of people have attempted to at least partially reverse engineer his approach to IDM and electronica, but let’s not kid ourselves here. There is only one Richard D. James, he’s a true Irish bloke who’s been innovating since he started making music with archaic technology (think Amiga consoles hooked up to physical samplers, this video from Benn Jordan is essential watching for anyone interested in left-field music production). Realistically, picking an album here is practically pointless; depending on the day I could say either Selected Ambient Works, drukqs, or Syro, among his various other classic full lengths and EPs. Today? Today, I think it’s Selected Ambient Works Volume II. I often harp on about any given record’s atmosphere, as it’s oftentimes one of the first things I grab onto. Volume II has what is hands down some of the most otherworldly and enveloping atmospheres of all time, regardless of medium. It’s immense and all encompassing—what’s more to say.
Alright, alright, alright—let’s jump into this week at the big ol’ bowl.
You already know what the fuck it is: TMP, TTT
Reliquary Tower and Weald & Woe‘s JY (Jeff Young) talk castle black metal metal and (trigger warning) deodorant in this new interview.
Hans gave us the two for one special: buy one Necrosexual review, get one Karloff review free!
Podcasting has never been this geriatric on Toilet Radio.
RT brings us the Resludgening:
The Megadolts of Megadeth Megadropped a Megashit album reviewed by Megaghoulson:
RT is out of his goldurn gourd this week. Sure, review the latest from Blackwater Holylight too, king.
Spear, Hans, and Sean Ghoulson’s Big List of YA FvKkED UP (late ’25 releases wot u might’ve missed on account of slavering over LISTMANIA like a good piggy. -Roldy):
Cool Shit That Came Out When Everyone Was Doing Their Top 10 Lists (2025 Edition)
Enough summarizing, I hope we find you well and safe this Friday. Drop some GBUs if you’d like but I want to hear about those favorite albums!!!
Keep the faith, check in on your community/loved ones, and remember: it’s up to us to keep us safe.
