Skip to main content

Deal Me Peace

 Asian Man Records delivers heater after heater. Halfway through 2023 they put out the debut LP from Sweet Gloom, Reverie, which is a fantastic album. Sweet gloom deliver indie poppy rock with punk swagger, croonish vocals and sprinkles of doo-wop. The vocals croon in an Alkaline Trio way, and I don't mean like one of the vocalists, Jaake's voice and delivery is almost a mash of Skiba and Andriano. The bass player Chis sings on a couple songs where he has that midwestern gravely pop punk delivery which is a fantastic juxtaposition against Jaake. Predominantly introspective lyrics. Sweet is the vocals, melodies; Gloom is the lyrics. I guess one might say that Sweet Gloom play sweet gloom music. I strongly recommend that you listen then purchase Reverie.

In Canada...in Manitoba at least there are two primary chip dips. Philadelphia (cream cheese based) and Heluva Good! (sour cream based). I'm not here to tell you which type is better...I am however here today to give you my two cents on Heluva Good!'s Caramelized Onion dip. The chip that I dipped into this tub was Old Dutch Rip-L (from the 2x110g box [you know, the box that has two separate 110g silver bags {if you don't know what I'm talking about here's a quick description..medium sized ridges..think Wavy Lays..decent crunch and pretty salty. No flavour, just salted.}]). Heluva Good! dips are a bit more dense than straight up sour cream...or they're a relatively high fat sour cream..I don't know. It's thick but not quite cream cheese thick. The dip is creamy. Is the caramelized onion flavour very strong, no. There's onion flavour there but I wish it was about 33% more present. It's a decent dip, but not quite sweet enough to earn the caramelized onion name to me. It tastes close to homemade, but it's almost that it tastes close enough that it leaves me wanting the real thing. Honestly, I'd recommend that you just caramelize your own onions and make a dip from 'em but if you're in a time pinch and don't want a super oniony dip it ain't bad.

Stay hydrated,

Marc

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Stairway to heaven 2

Dear Diary, I was in Dollarama last week picking up some last minute..well it doesn't really matter why I was there. Anyway, as I was in the line for the checkout and out of the corner of my eye I noticed a blue bag that I'd seen a million times before. For some reason this time, it's unassuming blue on blue top with stock photo potato chip bottom intrigued me (that in addition to it being 280g for $2). I thought, to myself, 'hey, they carry Covered Bridge..maybe these Made in Canada "D Gourmet" potato chips are some other high end chip that just happens to be carried in dollar stores.'. I proceeded to take the $2 leap and threw them in my basket. Within an hour of getting home I had cracked the bag and was happily consuming. These D Gourmet Salt & Vinegar potato chips were for lack of better term, pretty run-of-the-mill. The chips are somewhat sterile, no well done chips and no skins, and fairly lightweight. The seasoning is faint but fairly well di...
Post a Comment
Read more

Antoinette

 At the end of 2023 I saw Quit It! play in Winnipeg at the Handsome Daughter. I typically try to catch the opening bands, because I like being introduced to new music. One of the opening bands was Leon's Getting Larger, LGL (not sure if they ever abbreviate their band name like that [it reminds me of LWL, the Jersey pop punk band from the late 90s early 2000s, I'll Always Remember the 6th is such a banger {LGL doesn't really sound much like LWL, other than a bit of off center pop sounding...where was I going with this}]) were really fun to watch and they produce a sound that I don't hear very often coming out of Manitoba (maybe I just typically run in a different musical circle?). Anyway, Leon's Getting Larger put out their first album late last year, You Be Good Now ...which saw a vinyl release earlier this month (February 2025). I ordered a copy and it came to my door late last week. This album's great. Leon's Getting Larger has a couple singin' voices...
Post a Comment
Read more

And Nothing Is Forever

It happened. I started wondering if it ever would. It's been 16 years. People who were born after 4:13 Dream became teenagers and started driving between 4:13 and Songs Of A Lost World. Am I complaining that The Cure took 16 years to put out another album? No. They don't owe me anything. If Lost World never came out that would have been perfectly fine. Mr. Smith and his cohorts provided the world with hours and hours of fantastic music. In 2024 they added 49 minutes and 16 seconds into their absolutely amazing catalogue. A lot of the lead-up to Lost World spoke of the darkness of the album, the very few reviews that I've glanced at have mentioned the darkness as well. Like, I sort of see it, but to me, it's more of a heavy album (not like metal heavy, more so that there's some serious weight to this piece of art) and sonically epic soundscapes. There's a lot of brightness in the music and vocal melodies. Don't get me wrong, the lyrics are super bleak and if ...
Post a Comment
Read more