Album Reviews
IAN SWEET Finds Her Breath on the Revealing Show Me How You Disappear: Review
The Lowdown: How do you turn introspection into propulsive pop? How can deep reflection push a person into new patterns? These questions weave the eclectic tapestry of Show Me How You Disappear, the third album from IAN SWEET, the now-solo indie-rock project from singer-songwriter Jilian Medford. The collection sparked during the time Medford, 27, spent in an outpatient therapy program for anxiety just before the pandemic, and the songs’ inventive, textured pop marks her best release to date. [embedded content] The Good: The album opens with a momentary squall, the first track, “My Favorite Cloud”, expanding into a Flaming Lips-esque garble that sounds like a sentient modem drowning, before it’s pierced by Medford’s high, filtered voice: “My psychic told me I’d die/ ’Cause I’d forget to br...
Nick Cave & Warren Ellis Offer a Tender Glimpse of Hope on the Beautiful Carnage: Review
The Lowdown: In 1997, Nick Cave sang about a “Kingdom” whose light was so bright that “All the world’s darkness can’t swallow up/ A single spark.” On The Boatman’s Call, Cave yearned for this kingdom through a mist of tears born from what he’d later call “a convergence of events that felt so calamitous at the time that I could not find a way to write about anything else.” In the midst of a similarly calamitous convergence of events in 2020 — when it felt impossible to think on anything but widespread sickness, white supremacy, and the fractured state of our society — Cave found himself drawn yet again to the pursuit of this kingdom of light. Carnage, Cave’s new record alongside longtime Bad Seed and soundtrack collaborator Warren Ellis, beautifully and devastatingly documents their pursuit...
Melvins Celebrate 1983 Lineup on Noisy Riff Fest Working with God: Review
The Lowdown: At this point in their lengthy career, the Melvins are out to entertain themselves as much as their audience. This has included fruitful solo projects from founding members Buzz Osborne and drummer Dale Crover, as well as alternate versions of the band itself such as Melvins Lite and Melvins 1983 — the latter being a modern take on an early Melvins lineup. The “Melvins 1983” lineup is featured on the new album Working with God, with Osborne on vocals and guitar, Crover on bass, and original drummer Mike Dillard back in the fold. The LP is the trio’s second album in this format, and like the first, it sees the Melvins reveling in copious riffage and lowbrow humor. After all, they were teenagers when they formed the band. The Good: Technically, the band’s 1983 lineup includ...
Hayley Williams Lays It Bare on Intimate Sophomore Record FLOWERS for VASES / descansos: Review
The Lowdown: Hayley Williams has never been afraid to use her voice. Since exploding onto the pop-punk scene in 2004 as the frontwoman of Paramore, her name has been synonymous with expansive, acrobatic vocals. She’s also not afraid to use her voice in another sense, though — ask anyone in Nashville and you hear some variation of it: “Hayley Williams is a real one.” Since being discovered at just 14 and spending the majority of her life in the spotlight, she’s become a confident voice in music, present in conversations around mental health and aligning herself with groups like Teens4Equality. On her sophomore solo effort, FLOWERS for VASES / descansos, that growth is reflected more personally and intimately than ever before. She strips it all down: every part of the record was written and ...
John Carpenter’s Lost Themes III Haunts With Urgency: Review
The Lowdown: Six years after returning to the synthesizer for 2015’s Lost Themes, the Master of Horror is back for more with its second sequel: Lost Themes III: Alive After Death. Once again, John Carpenter is working alongside his son Cody Carpenter and his godson Daniel Davies, a collaboration that’s only grown stronger with time. “We understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses, how to communicate without words, and the process is easier now than it was in the beginning,” Carpenter has stated in press releases leading up to its release, adding: “We’ve matured.” That growth is evident in all 10 tracks of his latest opus, and the tagline is thus: John Carpenter is back, and this time we’re ready. The Good: Synths and piano have forever been the easiest flexes for Carpenter. He didn’t ...
Viagra Boys Churn Out More Scuzzy Salvos on Sophomore Welfare Jazz: Review
The Lowdown: If you find a political message in the music of Sweden’s Viagra Boys, it wasn’t necessarily put there on purpose. At least, that’s the party line from singer and lyricist Sebastian Murphy, whose deadpan baritone and satirical send-up of hyper-macho posturing made the post-punk band’s debut, Street Worms, essential listening in 2018. In a 2019 interview with Australia’s Happy Mag, Murphy laid out his thoughts in full: “In a way, making music in itself is a political statement,” the singer said. “If the right-wing had their way, we wouldn’t be making music at all. They hate all this stuff, and they hate this kind of culture. We’re being political just by being ourselves – and in my opinion, that’s enough. You don’t need to dive any deeper than that.” Of course, plenty of people ...
Kamaiyah Opens Up on Her Own Terms with No Explanations: Review
The Lowdown: Since 2016’s A Good Night in the Ghetto and her inclusion in the coveted 2017 XXL Freshman Class, Kamaiyah has been one of rap’s most consistent and exciting players. The Oakland-born and -raised rapper has hyphy written all over her music as part of the Bay Area’s highly influential scene, one that has birthed some of the most iconic gangster rap and party anthems. Kamaiyah exists in between the “hard” and the hyphy, taking the infectious, cocky grooves of Mac Dre and Too $hort into a new age for a wider audience without yielding to current trends. After departing from Interscope Records due to release disputes, the Bay Area star used 2020 to release multiple projects, No Explanations being the third. Despite a quiet release, due in part to the end of the year lull, Kamaiyah ...
Taylor Swift’s evermore Continues the Personal Fable Begun on folklore: Review
The Lowdown: Once again, Taylor Swift was lying when she told us there was “not a lot going on at the moment.” Once again, she’s dropped a carefully curated collection of songs unraveling both her extremely public exterior and deeply personal interior life. And once again, it’s an album that acts as a remarkable exercise in lyricism. It’s not just a worthy follow-up to July’s folklore; it’s a mirror, a companion, and a bookend. Taylor had a few more things to say. The fable wasn’t finished yet. Like folklore, evermore was announced hours before release, framed as a “sister” project to the summer album that gave us the latest reinvention of Taylor Swift and successfully cemented her, even in many previously unconvinced eyes, as one of the strongest songwriters working today. evermore picks ...
The Avalanches Transport the Listener on We Will Always Love You: Review
The Lowdown: In a recent interview with the BBC, founding member of The Avalanches, Robbie Chater, said of We Will Always Love You, “We were thinking a lot about signal transmission and how every radio broadcast from the last hundred years is still floating out there in space … It’s a beautiful thought to me that all these broadcasts are still out there, surrounding us.” It’s easy to feel this focus in the album, an expansive cosmic compendium that finds its tracks crackling and churning into one another. The context of the album’s production — how the band was inspired by the idea that sampling old records is like summoning old spirits and by the recording of Ann Druyan’s heartbeat for the Golden Record just after Carl Sagan proposed to her — helps, but it isn’t strictly necessary. This a...
Rico Nasty Expands Her Repertoire on Debut Nightmare Vacation: Review
The Lowdown: Rico Nasty has always been a powerhouse, existing on the edge of Soundcloud rap in the mid-2010s while still finishing high school. Her infectious, aggressive-yet-bubbly style made waves on the Internet early on, attracting the attention of Lil Yachty in 2016 to remix her song “Hey Arnold” and being featured in the hit HBO series insecure in 2017. Combining her eclectic fashion sense with spitfire raps that effortlessly bounce between sex and violence makes her one of the biggest pieces in the growing mosaic of this new era of female rappers. Her long-awaited debut album, Nightmare Vacation, takes a fine-tooth comb through the style that has made her one of the most influential rappers of the past few years. With seven mixtapes under her belt, Rico sounds like a seasoned veter...
Miley Cyrus’ Plastic Hearts Lovingly Mashes Up Rawk Influences: Review
The Lowdown: For her post-divorce album, Plastic Hearts, Miley Cyrus deploys big synth energy in full ’80s-rawk drag. Over six uneven albums, Cyrus has dabbled across pop genres, but she’s always held a penchant for the era and attitude of mainstream glam, new wave, and hair rock, dropping covers of Joan Jett and Blondie in live sets and covering Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” as early as 2010’s Can’t Be Tamed. Now 28 years old, Cyrus leans fully into these influences, enlisting heroes like Stevie Nicks to have a blast with her while ripping themselves off. Even without her current incarnation’s spunky sneer and platinum shag, Cyrus still has teeth, though this algorithmic “rock” can filter out her bite at times. Still, this might be Cyrus’ most successful pastiche yet. [embedded...
The Smashing Pumpkins’ CYR Treads Water in a Sea of Excess: Review
The Lowdown: Twenty-five years ago this fall, The Smashing Pumpkins released the most essential double album of the 1990s. Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness used every second of its 120-plus minutes to redefine the artistic possibilities of Billy Corgan and his band, moving away from the grunge comparisons that always chafed the mercurial frontman and towards something more expansive, stately, and baroque. That was 1995. One break-up, seven albums, and a Diamond certification later, The Smashing Pumpkins are once again presenting a double album for consideration. In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Corgan described the new record (named for early Christian child-martyr St. Cyricus) as a reflection of the “spiritual dystopia” that haunts 2020. Sonically, that translates t...
