Album Reviews
Nova Twins Fight the Good Fight with the Genre-Bending Supernova: Review
Sometimes, the best art is born out of adversity, struggle and strife. Look at some of the greatest creative movements in history, for example. The protest songs of the ‘60s, the Harlem Renaissance — they come from times when pain, oppression and destruction were to no longer be tolerated by the masses. For UK’s Nova Twins, that adversity, struggle and strife was large scale — an intersectional pile on of racism, sexism, environmental decline, and the loss of rights. Their sophomore album, Supernova, tackles some of these issues from the opposite perspective, focusing on the reclamation of what’s been taken rather than the agonizing over what’s been lost. Instead of forlorn lyrics directly reflecting our many tragedies, the duo, Amy Love and Georgia South to be specific, create agency in t...
Angel Olsen Delivers Country-Sized Emotions on Big Time
Angel Olsen has never repeated herself. Her debut Half Way Home introduced Olsen as a psych-folk songwriter with a powerhouse voice, before the lo-fi indie of Burn Your Fire For No Witness reframed her within the context of a band. Two years later, My Woman upped the production value and saw Olsen at her most intense and confrontational. All Mirrors wiped clean any pre-conceptions of Olsen, and even when she literally repeated herself with Whole New Mess, it felt like an entirely new statement. Since the one-two punch of All Mirrors and Whole New Mess, Olsen has kept fans guessing on which direction she might be headed next. In 2021, she released her Sharon Van Etten collaboration “Like I Used To,” a victory lap of an indie rock song for two of the genre’s most accomplished singer-songwrit...
Not Even Post Malone Can Save Post Malone on Twelve Carat Toothache
Twelve Carat Toothache (out today, June 3rd) is Post Malone‘s shortest album to date. And according to Posty, this is a deliberate play to resist the overloaded track lists that dominate streaming platforms; “I’ve made a lot of compromises, especially musically, but now I don’t feel like I want to anymore,” he said in a Billboard cover story back in January, “I don’t need a No. 1; that doesn’t matter to me no more, and at a point, it did.” This points to a few different potential outcomes for his fourth studio album — now that Post Malone has indeed scored his multiple No. 1s, ascended to true headliner status, and became a “sensitive bad boy” icon, taking some of that pressure off to make hit after hit could absolutely work in his favor. If he has nothing to lose at this point in his some...
With Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers, Kendrick Lamar Chooses Himself and Makes a Masterpiece
“I choose me, I’m sorry.” The last five words on Kendrick Lamar‘s Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers hit the hardest for anyone who “did the work,” as trained and untrained therapists like to say. Kendrick’s fifth album, out today (May 13th), is a lot of things: part political analysis, part social critique, with a dash of familial observations. But from start to finish, it’s all therapy. Kendrick’s latest effort is the Compton emcee putting himself on the couch and asking, “Why?” Why is he addicted to women and cheating? Why is he overwrought with guilt when he can’t help old friends? Why does he bathe in toxic relationships? Or even why he’s so damn competitive when it comes to rap? Advertisement Kendrick created a double LP sure to inspire tons of ink spillage from the pop culture indust...
Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti Is Summer’s Swaggering, Flavorful Soundtrack: Review
After making history with his last album, Bad Bunny is taking a lawn chair to the beach and basking in his success with his new LP, Un Verano Sin Ti (“A Summer Without You”). Across a whopping 23 tracks, the Puerto Rican superstar celebrates the music of the Caribbean with his signature emo flow. In addition to the usual suspects of reggaeton and Latin trap, he explores influences that include merengue, bomba, and dembow music. He continues to push reggaeton forward with alternative acts like The Marías and Bomba Estéreo, adding touches of Afrobeat and house music in mix. With his most fun and colorful album yet, Bad Bunny is ready for the summer season. The rapper released a trio of albums in 2020, culminating in El Último Tour Del Mundo making history as the first all-Spanish language al...
On WE, Arcade Fire Raise the Stakes Higher Than Ever, But to Mixed Results: Review
“It’s an age of doubt/ and I doubt we’ll figure it out,” sings Win Butler on the first line of “Age of Anxiety I,” the opening track of Arcade Fire’s sixth studio album, WE (out Friday, May 6th). From the very start, things are bleak and contradictory; the song essentially describes a full-on panic attack, even though the music beneath it is synth-covered, electrifying dance-rock, and as the track comes to a close, Butler trades repetitions of the phrases “It’s all about you” and “It’s not about you.” The latter contradiction is a crucial one in the context of WE: There is a deep consideration from the band about the all-or-nothing cultural mentality that we find ourselves in in 2022, and the separation of “I” and “We” is what makes up the core of the album. The first half o...
Black Star’s No Fear of Time Proves Even 24 Years Is Just a Number for Hip-Hop Greats
Time is crazy, right? It’s the one thing we never have enough of and, sometimes, can’t wait to have in the rearview mirror. Time is on the mind of Black Star, the duo who surprised hip-hip 24 years ago with a debut album still spoken about in hushed tones today. Talib Kweli and Yasiin Bey (f.k.a. Mos Def) capitalized on that success with their own solo careers. Still, fans kept asking — sometimes incessantly — where’s the next Black Star album? After two decades, the day finally arrived as the Brooklyn group released their sophomore album, No Fear of Time (currently only available on Luminary). While mere mortals might quake in their boots simply thinking about the prospect of releasing a new record so many years after a landmark debut and finding a way to match those lofty expectations, K...
Metallica’s Kirk Hammett Indulges Classical and Prog Tendencies on His Excellent Debut Solo EP Portals: Review
For a band with a such a storied career as Metallica, it is rather surprising that the longtime active members haven’t ventured off into various solo projects. That said, if we were to have wagered which member was most likely to go it alone, our best bet would’ve been Kirk Hammett. For years we’ve been hearing about the guitarist stockpiling hundreds, if not thousands of riffs on his phone. Considering Metallica’s deliberate workflow, only so many of these riffs and melodies, if any, will actually make it onto one of their records. Kirk needed an outlet, and he found it with his debut solo EP, Portals. No, this isn’t Kirk’s foray into becoming a singer-songwriter. Rather, the four-song release is entirely instrumental and contains minimal traces of heavy metal. Hammett said he took a “Aud...
The Diverse Appeal of King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard’s Omnium Gatherum
Australia’s King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard are easily among the most prolific and versatile acts of the last couple of decades. They’ve put out nearly two dozen collections since 2012, with several years spawning multiple releases each. Plus, their highly adventurous blends of psychedelic rock, hip-hop, garage rock, metal, ambient, dream pop, and electronic evoke artists as wide-ranging as Pink Floyd, Motörhead, Childish Gambino, Japanese Breakfast, Black Midi, and Tame Impala. Considering their talent and tenacity, it was only a matter of time before they pushed themselves further than ever by creating a double album. Indeed, Omnium Gatherum — which has more in common with 2021’s welcomingly exploratory Butterfly 3000 than it does last month’s avant-garde Made in Timeland — is essen...
On It’s Almost Dry, The Game Pulls Pusha T Back In
Almost every gangster movie or its sequel features a character going legit. Or trying as hard as they can. Scene after scene in The Godfather and The Godfather Part II show Michael Corleone telling anyone who will listen that the Corleone family is walking on the side of the angels after one, two, or a dozen more scores. For Pusha T, his 2018 opus Daytona was his massive score. Push distilled everything about his dope brand of hardcore hip-hop into an almost perfect seven-track piece of work. It’s Almost Dry, due out this Friday (April 22nd), feels like the reflections of a former gangster doing his best to live a regular life. But, to paraphrase the head of the Corleone family, just when Push thinks he’s out, the game pulls him back in. While not as strong as Daytona, It’s Almost Dry is m...
Father John Misty’s Chloë and the Next 20th Century: Doomed Love Songs For the Pseudo-Nostalgic
“What’s ‘deeply funny’ mean anyhow?” Father John Misty asks on “Q4,” a single from Chloë and the Next 20th Century. The song is the album’s clearest, most cutting satire, but this question feels earnest, the stakes intimate to the singer — as a performer and person seeking connection in a modern wasteland. Over five albums, singer-songwriter Josh Tillman has been a craftsman of story-songs delivered via absurdist personae, scaffolding ironic provocation with heartfelt croons and soaring folk-inspired instrumentation. On Chloë, singer-songwriter Josh Tillman returns with his first new material since 2018’s taciturn God’s Favorite Customer. Written and recorded in fall/winter 2020, the album sees Tillman continuing to collaborate with multi-instrumentatlist/producer Jonathan Wilson and engin...
Soul Glo Turn In a Landmark Hardcore Album with the Political and Personal Diaspora Problems: Review + Stream
In the roiling summer heat of 2021, Philadelphia hardcore act Soul Glo took to their practice space to record the 12 songs that would form Diaspora Problems. The material was conceptualized over a five-year period and harnessed in true punk fashion, under tumultuous and budget-conscious conditions. In many ways, Soul Glo have followed the tried-and-true punk trajectory, gradually building a fanbase via touring, DIY releases, and EPs. It’s culminated with the band inking a deal with storied punk label Epitaph Records, home to legends such as Bad Religion, Rancid, Social Distortion, and many more. But Soul Glo are far from your average hardcore band. With predominantly Black band members, the band is inherently distinguished among a scene long dominated by whiteness — a topic Pierce Jordan d...
