The old five-point scale has been retired in favor of just rating stuff 1-10, which allows me a much more nuanced final rating. Still don't take it that seriously. Most of these come from my own collection, so the grades skew rather high. Your results may vary if you send me stuff to review.

Each album is given three Essential tracks, my personal favorites, regardless of how weird and inconsequential they are. The Quintessential pick is the one I think best represents the album as a whole, so you can try one song instead of a whole album of songs. Non-Essential picks range from merely disappointing to outright unlistenable.

alaska!

[#] Emotions (2003)

Breezes like folk, bruises like rock.

Reviewed July 13, 2026

Shortly before both would back Lou Barlow on The New Folk Implosion, alaska!'s Imaad Wasif and Russell Pollard would churn out this surprisingly rich album of dark, crunchy folks-blues-indie. Wafting between extremes is kinda their whole thing, juxtaposition of moods their greatest asset. "Lost the Gold" is a triumphant rocker that proclaims "I'm lucky to be the one/Who dies young". "Resistance" offers early morning hope before the 3AM chill of "Nightmare" and 4AM thunder of closer "In My Time" quash it. You get the sense these guys could pull off a Black Rebel Motorcycle Club cover and a Meat Puppets cover equally as capably—that's not far from where the one-two punch of "Love (To Be Your Main)" and "Sun Don't Shine" dwell.

Lyrics are especially key to Emotions' appeal. Like Beck, alaska! have a knack for turning the unambiguously decaying ambiguously positive. "Rust and Cyanide" bobs buoyantly over its fingerpicked guitars and slight orchestral backing as Imaad and Russ, in their dual-lead vocals, spin yarns of just the kind of land Alaska is, where the people parade on graves and where there's no holocaust, its refrain able to turn oxidation and poison into something worth fondly remembering. I'm especially taken by Imaad's voice, and they just sound great together. Weighty without being masturbatory and dramatic without being overwrought, Emotions' parasites, coral hands, foxes, candycanes, and modern age woes are worth stewing on.

Essential:	"S.S. Candycane", "Rust and Cyanide", "Nightmare"
Quintessential:	"Sun Don't Shine"
Non-Essential:	Hard to say—"Lost the Gold", maybe?
Rating: