Monday, September 30, 2019

album review: 'SOUND & FURY' by sturgill simpson

I think at this point it doesn't make sense to have expectations for what Sturgill Simpson makes. Sure, I was drawn most initially to his experimentation in country music, where he would stick with that foundational sound before pushing into psychedelia or the Muscle Shoals sound or even alternative or southern rock, but everything he has done in recent years has suggested he'd never stay there, and more to the point was not particularly interested in chasing the easy follow-up. He could have easily remained a stalwart in indie country just by retracing the same paths of Metamodern Sounds In Country Music, but A Sailor's Guide To Earth was not that. And in his writing especially while his primary reference points in composition seem to have roots in country, his time stationed in Asia sparked a fondness for anime, and that's not even touching on his politics, which are generally left of the dial and aren't that far removed from conspiracy theory territory.

And I bring all of this up because while he won a Grammy for A Sailor's Guide to Earth, his contempt and general disinterest in the machinations of the music industry meant that regardless of what his label might want, he was going to make music with little care for marketing or even genre, let alone the possibility of radio play - yes, Nashville was never going to play him anyway, but it seemed like he was going out of his way to give them excuses. So when I heard that SOUND & FURY was less indie country and more a curdled blend of fiery southern rock and 80s synth rock... well, it's not like I haven't seen misfires like this before, but Simpson is a great enough writer and producer to stick the landing, and that's not even getting into that anime film he released along side of it which as per usual I'm not going to cover - the album has to stand alone. So okay, what did we get with SOUND & FURY?

resonators 2019 - episode #021 - 'black on both sides' by mos def

You know, one thing I've struggled with on this series is the question of mystique, especially as it's the sort of thing that's tough to contextualize outside of the explicit moment in which it's felt, and it's a feeling that has persisted with certain acts for far longer than you'd expect. And you can argue there are acts who came and went so quickly with projects that seemed so transcendent that the legacy sticks for years or even decades - hell, Jay Electronica has kept hype alive on the potential of a project for over a decade now!

But if you're removed from the time, if you weren't there... well, it's complicated, because you're trying to contextualize a moment and capture its significance, but also be realistic on how the art's impact has persisted, how much of that luster remains. And I can't think of many living rappers who have captured that sort of mystique to hold it for so long as Yasiin Bey, who twenty years ago was known as Mos Def. Now we've already talked about Mos Def in this series thanks to his landmark breakthrough with Talib Kweli in Black Star, but in the process both artists were building towards solo debuts of their own on Rawkus, Talib's dropping in 2000 under his duo name Reflection Eternal with producer Hi-Tek to critical acclaim. But Mos Def had gotten ahead the year earlier winning the sort of critical acclaim that would allow weaker projects like The New Danger and True Magic to skate by before The Ecstatic would drop in 2009 to win back fans and critics... the last full, commercially released album we would get under his name Mos Def. But you can trace his mystique back to that debut album, how it left such a mark, widely hailed as one of the best hip-hop albums of the late 90s to be released... so let's not waste any more time, this is Black On Both Sides by Mos Def, and this is Resonators!

Friday, September 27, 2019

video review: 'all my heroes are cornballs' by JPEGMAFIA


Hey, at least it's less overdue than last time?

Whatever, it's still really good and worth your time. Next up... see, a lot of projects dropped, but I have no idea what I feel like covering given how underwhelmed I feel about that new Chelsea Wolfe. So it might be Resonators coming soon, or perhaps a review - stay tuned!

Thursday, September 26, 2019

album review: 'all my heroes are cornballs' by JPEGMAFIA

I don't think JPEGMAFIA is interested in making this easy.

See, if he was he probably would have followed his controversial breakthrough Black Ben Carson by leaning into the politically charged, internet-rooted aggression and commentary that shocked so many people, especially given how well it was balanced with some real self-reflection... but that's not really what his 2018 follow-up Veteran was. Oh, the commentary was mostly there but sliced to ribbons along the way, showing an increasingly fragmented, almost stream-of-consciousness approach to his bars and production that was certainly experimental, but didn't quite pack the same impact for me as the more tightly composed moments. Certainly inventive and challenging and any insight I was able to glean did stick in my memory... but even being late to the party by over the year, I found myself wishing that I liked it a lot more than I did.

And thus when I heard that All My Heroes Are Cornballs was continuing down a similar rabbit hole, with JPEGMAFIA seemingly very much aware that his new album might disappoint fans looking for more the provocation even as the buzz suggested he was looking to embrace more melody and singing... hell, I was at the very least intrigued, so I figured I'd be a little more on the ball with this and dig into the project. So what did JPEGMAFIA pull out here?

video review: 'the owl' by zac brown band


Yeah, this sucked... but to be fair, pretty much all the critics and fans are saying it too, so preaching to the choir, I guess?

Anyway, I think it's about time I get to JPEGMAFIA, so stay tuned!

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

album review: 'the owl' by zac brown band

When you think of the Zac Brown Band, what do you think of?

Mostly likely you think of the band responsible for songs like 'Chicken Fried' or 'Toes' or 'Knee Deep', lightweight, relaxing fodder that has a bit of a jam band vibe but a lot of rich, warm harmonies and colour. If you're more of a fan you probably remember songs like 'Goodbye In Her Eyes' and 'Colder Weather' and how the band has always had an underrated strength for ballads, or even how their 2012 album Uncaged took a willingness to experiment into one of the best mainstream country albums of the decade. 

If you're deeper in the country scene, however, especially recently, you might know the Zac Brown Band a little differently. You might know that frontman Zac Brown has been chafing at what he might view as the arbitrary restrictions of country - seemingly unaware of how the indie scene has been plumbing new depths and sounds every single year, which you'd think he'd know given his collaboration with Dave Cobb in 2016, but that's a different story. You might have heard that the same year he put out a back to basics album Welcome Home produced by Dave Cobb, he also made an EDM-folktronica... thing called Sir Rosevelt near the end of that year... which wound up being universally panned by anyone who knows electronic music as dated, badly produced, and while having catchy moments feeling more than ever like a vanity project. And that's what we were hoping would remain the case for the Zac Brown Band, especially after their dabblings with electronic music on 2015's Jekyll + Hyde, which for the record did see some success, but nowhere near consistent enough to sustain a full project - so if Zac Brown had a side project to shove that sound into, all fine and good.

What nobody was suspecting was The Owl, a project where it appeared that Zac Brown was doubling down on the electronics and pop flourishes to the shock and alienation of all of their country fans - and let me make this clear, the buzz has been horrible for this album. Even mainstream critics are not giving this a pass, so as one of the few guys who can defend pieces of Zac Brown's electronic forays, I wanted to give this a chance... so what did The Owl deliver?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 28, 2019 (VIDEO)


So yeah, this was better - but next up, ugh, it's not good... stay tuned?

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

video review: 'sunshine kitty' by tove lo


Oh boy, this was a pretty sizable disappointment... but trust me when I say I've got something much worse in the wings - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 28, 2019

These are the album bomb weeks I always tend to find a bit perplexing... because the fuse seems "delayed", for lack of better words. Post Malone may have cut a swathe across the Hot 100, but like with other huge album bombs, many of his songs didn't crash out that hard, which meant that many other songs didn't rebound as big as you'd expect. All of this translates to a relatively mild week for me, and while I'm not complaining, I can't help but feel I'm waiting for the next shoe to drop.

album review: 'sunshine kitty' by tove lo

At this point, I'm a little mystified why I'm as eager as I am to look up a new Tove Lo album. 

Seriously, there are other projects that would normally be higher on my list - it's not like I don't have catch-up projects from last week and Tove Lo isn't even the biggest story coming out of this week of releases, be it Blink-182 somehow impressing the longtime fans or the Zac Brown Band delivering an outright catastrophe. And yet my thoughts kept coming back to the fact that of the mainstream and mainstream-adjacent pop acts this decade, she's been among the most ambitious, working to structure narrative-driven concept albums that actually can have some lyrical nuance at their best - I'm not about to forget her closer track 'hey you got drugs?' from her last album Blue Lips that somehow wound up as one of my favourite songs of 2017. But then I remember how damn inconsistent her production is, and how there have been tracts of her albums that feel like they're reaching for more insight than they actually deliver, or how thematically much of her first three albums have been retracing the same burned-out arc, or how she dove so deeply into selling sexuality that it almost has reached parody. I mean, credit to her for owning it as much as she has, but when your albums as of late have been titled Lady Wood, Blue Lips, and Sunshine Kitty, the double entendres are getting played out. But regardless, the reviews seem... well, as inconsistent as ever for her, but I was curious, so what did we get from Sunshine Kitty?

Thursday, September 19, 2019

video review: 'miami memory' by alex cameron


Yeah, can't say I'm not a little underwhelmed, but it is still good.

Next up... yep, it's Peggy - stay tuned!

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

album review: 'miami memory' by alex cameron

It's funny, I saw a tweet a couple days ago by someone who had been watching my past couple reviews, specifically those of the Highwomen and Rapsody, and who remarked that given my current upcoming slate of projects to cover, the discussions of feminism and toxic masculinity were going to surge to the forefront yet again. And to do any of my upcoming reviews properly - given my current docket includes JPEGMAFIA and Chelsea Wolfe and Jenny Hval and eventually I'll get to Tropical Fuck Storm - the political discourse is inevitable.

Now granted, I'm not going to deny it can be dense or draining or frustrating - I've seen the subscriber drop-off after certain, more political reviews, so I get it, especially given that I don't tend to be as funny as your average critic who can lean into the memes and wittiness alongside my analysis. But hey, this could be a good test, given how the artist himself has always embraced some of the parodic side of his work: Alex Cameron! I'll be honest, the fact that his cult following has inflated the way it has is a real treat to see - I was kind of lukewarm on his debut but by the time I got to Forced Witness a few months late, I was astounded how much wit, melodic flair, and dissection of "traditional masculinity" was wedged into his retro 80s pop rock sound. I still that album as an absolute delight and one of the sleeper best of 2017 - and in retrospect, it's only grown on me since. And I'll admit a certain wry fascination with Alex Cameron: his shambling theatricality, his blend of pop sounds and willingness to embrace satire that most guys will never have the balls to seize, all with a real earnest intensity that I have to respect, to the point where it should surprise nobody he's dating Jemima Kirke, who you might recognize as Jessa from HBO's Girls! So for me to say that I was excited for Miami Memory was an understatement, even if he had a tough project to follow - so what did we get?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 21, 2019 (VIDEO)


Yeah, long and tough episode, messy situation.

Anyway, next up is Alex Cameron, so stay tuned!

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 21, 2019

So I'll be honest: when I created my album bomb rules, there inevitably were going to be projects that just skirt around them - it hasn't been a perfect process, and one that I'll probably revisit for the next Billboard year, just taking the data I have into account. Normally it has been the albums that have a full six or seven songs released - just under my eight song cut-off - and in those cases it's normally the full swathe of other releases that leads to a lengthy episode. Of course, the other factor comes when the artist is so big that the vast majority of his new entries hit in the top 40, and given this happened with Post Malone... yeah, album bomb rules are in effect, but I'm still going to wind up covering the majority of the album anyway, so mission accomplished, I guess?

video review: 'charli' by charli xcx


First big album review of the week (in a week stacked with some heavy ones), but next up is a frankly monstrous episode of Billboard BREAKDOWN, so stay tuned!

Monday, September 16, 2019

album review: 'charli' by charli xcx

I saw Charli XCX live less than a month ago. I saw her on the main stage at Reading Festival as she blew through so many of the hits she had either created or cowritten and she was dancing her ass off to ramp up the energy for a tough afternoon set... and yet even as I watching, I had the lingering feeling that something was wrong. This should all be working... and yet it wasn't quite getting there.

And when I reflect upon her career and the constant spurt of hype from critics whenever she pushes out another genre-pushing pop project, I'm left with the niggling feeling that Charli XCX has been torn between a few different worlds for a long time. On the one hand, you have the mainstream push where she could absolutely be huge, with the distinctive voice, the theatricality, the knack for hooks, the surprisingly deep well of connections and guests she can pull upon, where she can build a whole set on those moments! But that's not all she is, and where she's mused publicly where she might be better off writing behind the scenes... because the other side of her art is the PC Music and SOPHIE side with the contorted electronics and sounds dragging pop music forward kicking and screaming, where she's grabbed so many critics, but not really the mainstream in the same way, at least not yet. At the festival I left convinced that for a nightclub or theater show she would be far more effective with her experimental work instead of fighting to hold a listless and scorching festival audience mid-afternoon, and fair enough - atmosphere is often one of the hardest things for any artist to control or manipulate, especially on a massive stage where she didn't seem to have a huge team behind her - but at this point I feel like I've been watching Charli's hype for most of the decade, and while I have to applaud her sustainability, you have to wonder why her balancing act hasn't quite blown her up into a superstar yet, especially if the music is good. Some of that I have to blame on her team and label, but when you are an artist ahead of your time with hype that seems bigger than her audience... well again, it's tough.

Now for me, I've never quite been truly 'wowed' by a Charli XCX project all the way through - more of my lingering tonal issues with the PC Music camp which don't always connect - but hey, I do find her a fascinating artist and I did have real hopes for Charli, so did it click this all the way this time?

Saturday, September 14, 2019

video review: 'great hits' by SHREDDERS


So, guess who got demonetized for talking about (and not so implicitly endorsing) antifa (and then lost a bunch of subs as a result)?

Eh, whatever, I'll keep chugging along - if you know, you know. Enjoy!

Friday, September 13, 2019

album review: 'great hits' by SHREDDERS

You know, I've talked a fair bit recently about 'expectations', where as a critic I've gotten used to tempering them and praying for the surprise, which is a hell of a lot better than setting them high and falling short. And that's absolutely the case that I had when I was going through my schedule and came up on SHREDDERS. Don't get me wrong, I like these guys - P.O.S and Sims can spit their asses off and Paper Tiger and Lazerbeak would give them all the warping, abrasive production that they would need... but I remembered being a little underwhelmed by their debut Dangerous Jumps, and I just left with the feeling that for as single-minded and thorny as the project was, outside of scattered moments it never quite hit as much as I was hoping. 

And going into Great Hits, I'll admit my expectations were even lower: seven songs, just over twenty minutes of material, the buzz hadn't really coalesced, and they were following a Sims collaboration project from last year that was a little underwhelming and an album from fellow Doomtree crew member Dessa that is damn near a classic in my books. So I figured if we were just going to get more of Dangerous Jumps, it might be the sort of project that'd fit well on the Trailing Edge and I'd just move on, but I still wanted to give it a shot... so what did we get?

video review: 'eve' by rapsody


So yeah, this was a little disappointing - really wished it connected more strongly, but it happens.

But I did manage to find some hip-hop where again, I'm late to the party, but I'm excited as hell to talk about it - stay tuned!

Thursday, September 12, 2019

album review: 'eve' by rapsody

Yes, I'm late again - not as late as last time, but still late, and that's on me.

And yet that got me thinking: Rapsody is one of those rappers who should be discussed among terrific rappers right now, a lyricist who can bend flows with cutting bars and who has the significant production talents of 9th Wonder behind her, along with the pedigree to command respect of spitters past and present... and yet for as much as I praised Laila's Wisdom late in 2017, it wasn't a project I often felt inclined to revisit in the same way. And I can't just say it's rooted in the rush of the year-end, because Ruston Kelly dropped at the end of last year and I still play that album, so what the hell is it?

Well, after a quick relisten to Laila's Wisdom which served as a welcome reminder of its quality, I did get something of an answer: density. Rapsody stacks her bars deep, and placed against textured production and heavy subject matter, but light on melodic hooks or straightforward bangers, it means I place her in a category with other heavy-hitting lyricists from the underground that I need to be in a specific mood to hear. And let me stress that's not to denigrate her - that's an elite group, for sure, and it's also one that as I get older I revisit more, but I do feel that the next big step for Rapsody would be finding a way to transcend that barrier and group, which may come more through composition and song structure than outright bars, or a thematic core that resonated more deeply. And given the mountains of critical acclaim given to Eve - similar to what was given to Laila's Wisdom but also a little more muted than I expected - I did have high hopes for this, so what did Rapsody deliver?

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

video review: 'the highwomen' by the highwomen


Well, this was well-worth the review... let's see if the trolls decide to come down on this one...

Anyway, I'm on a kick for this sort of thing, so Rapsody is up next - stay tuned!

album review: 'the highwomen' by the highwomen

This is the sort of album where it would be too easy to set impossible expectations... providing, of course, you could contextualize a release like this anyway. That's the funny thing with a lot of supergroups, because given the individual members even a little more thought, you might see where it makes sense, until it just doesn't.

Now for me, go through three of the artists and it made complete sense. Brandi Carlile was coming off a Grammy-nominated year and probably had enough clout off her back catalog to land exactly what she wanted. Amanda Shires might have less immediate acclaim, as some have just pigeonholed her as the wife of Jason Isbell - which does a massive disservice to her fantastic violin work and an increasingly eclectic discography, including an album last year that didn't quite win me over but was certainly weird enough to attract attention. Then there's Natalie Hemby, the name that might not get the most immediate recognition unless you've been reading the liner notes of A Star Is Born, but I knew her most from her 2017 debut Puxico, an excellent album that I still can't find on vinyl to this day - seriously, if anyone would send me a lead, I'd be incredibly grateful here! But all three of these women made sense working together - not quite firebrands in the same way as the Pistol Annies, but maybe closer to case/lang/veirs or Trio, the legendary team-up between Dolly Parton, Linda Rondstadt, and Emmylou Harris, and when you see cowriting credits from Isbell, Miranda Lambert, Sheryl Crow, and Lori McKenna, plus production from Dave Cobb... shit, is there such a thing as stacking the deck?

And then there's Maren Morris - ironically the most "popular" artist on this list in terms of hits, but the name that stuck out like a sore thumb when I saw the supergroup lineup in terms of her sound and critical acclaim. Hell, you could make the argument that with her last album she was content to mine country for credibility as she continued her pop pivot... which is why her inclusion here is so damn fascinating. I mean, her best music has always been country so if her pop work was just a means to an end to get the industry pull to get here, all the power to her, especially if she could leverage her fanbase to bring a bigger audience to some fantastic talent. In other words, expectations were high: what did we get from The Highwomen?

Tuesday, September 10, 2019

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 14, 2019 (VIDEO)


Yeah, rough episode... it happens.

Next up, I'm finally going to talk about The Highwomen, then probably Lower Dens - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 14, 2019

This week does not matter. Now the natural expansion of that is saying, 'look, the Billboard Hot 100 is a badly constructed fugazi of contradictions and payola, none of it really matters', but let's focus on this week here, because next week Post Malone is going to bulldoze through here with a full Hollywood's Bleeding album bomb, and most of what showed up here will be gone: you've been warned.

Monday, September 9, 2019

video review: 'hollywood's bleeding' by post malone


Okay, this was... actually surprisingly easy to assemble, Post Malone is like that for me.

Next up is a big one and the most pleasant of surprises... stay tuned!

album review: 'hollywood's bleeding' by post malone

It's weird thinking about how my opinions have evolved on Post Malone over the past four years. Through 2015 and 2016 I couldn't stand him on the back of a badly produced, slapdash debut called Stoney that to this day features some of my least favourite songs of the decade. Then 2017 happened and despite some of the asinine public remarks from him on hip-hop culture, we got 'Candy Paint', which when included onto his sophomore album beerbongs & bentleys wound up being one of my favourite songs of the following year. Then I wound up seeing him live at a festival in 2018... and then seeing him live again in 2019. 

And the strange thing is that many of my lingering issues hadn't faded - I still couldn't stand his warble, his lyrics could stray into ugly or outright stupid territory, his choice in guest stars was questionable - and it was always a crapshoot if they bothered to care - and it was hard to shake the feeling he was leveraging hip-hop culture for crossover success while never quite fitting as well as he should. And yet as the production brought thicker atmosphere to cushion his vocals, as he picked rougher and more organic grooves behind him to lean into a pop-trap sound that increasingly flattered him, and worked to crank up his live presence with surprisingly raw intensity, he stuck around and picked up more fame and hype with every release. And while I'm not going to say he won me over at any point... I was genuinely curious how Hollywood's Bleeding would turn out. The guest stars certainly seemed intriguing and lead-off singles like 'Wow.' and 'Goodbyes' had promise - as well including 'Sunflower' on the project, a song that I've never loved but also have never gotten tired of the entire year - so fine, how is Hollywood's Bleeding?

Friday, September 6, 2019

video review: 'forevher' by shura


And yes, this is way too late, but I'm happy I got a chance to cover it all the same, even if I didn't quite love it as much as I liked.

Next up... hmm, could be all over the place, but stay tuned!

album review: 'forevher' by shura

This has been long overdue.

In fact, I think some of you might be surprised it's taken me this long to get to this album, especially given how much Shura won me over three years ago with Nothing's Real, a debut that came right the hell out of nowhere as one of the most promising slices of tight and immensely rewarding synthpop I've covered this decade. It was one of those rare cases where I had no idea what I was expecting, but given her tasteful update of retro-80s tones and a healthy amount of Janet Jackson worship, fused with terrific melodies, great subtle hooks, and truly remarkable writing delving into romantic intricacies, it's only grown more potent with every passing year.

And thus I was really looking forward to her follow-up... and yet I delayed with giving it a lot of listens. I was nervous how she'd follow it up, to be sure, but also because reportedly the sound had changed ever so slightly as well as dialing into the queer themes that had been moved from subtext to text this time around, and I was desperately praying the tightness had not been compromised in setting that vibe. Granted, the reception and critical acclaim has been potent so I had every reason to hope, but how about it: what did we get from Forevher?

video review: 'norman fucking rockwell!' by lana del rey


Okay, so I talked way too much about this album... go figure.

Anyway, next up I'm finally talking about Shura, so stay tuned!

Thursday, September 5, 2019

album review: 'norman fucking rockwell!' by lana del rey

So let me give you all a little bit of insider information when it comes to how albums are usually released in the modern era: presuming the album is done or nearly done, a single is released, maybe tries to spur a bit of traction, and if it sticks the countdown opens up to push the album to the public. The window has shortened considerably in comparison with the predictable radio run, which means that if you start seeing an artist pushing more than a few singles before the album drops, or you see the release date change when the single doesn't catch fire... well, that's not a good sign behind the scenes for the artist and any label support they might have.

And I bring this up because of all the acts for which I expected this wouldn't be an issue, Lana Del Rey was on that list. Yeah, my issues with her have been well-documented - see the reviews of Ultraviolence, Honeymoon, and Lust For Life for the lengthy and contentious details - but she routinely sold a ton of albums, never quite matching her debut but still consistent. And with this album, right from the first singles she was releasing she was getting the sort of widespread critical acclaim she hadn't seen properly in years, even from outlets who never gave her the time of day... and yet she started releasing her first singles nearly a year ago, and the album had already been delayed until the end of summer. Hell, up until last week I wasn't even sure it was going to come out, let alone that it would drop and receive the most critical acclaim she's ever seen in her career! And given that I had purposefully avoided any single had released, the most I really knew going in was how her primary collaborator on production was Jack Antonoff, an intriguing choice if only because whenever he toys with backwards-looking Americana he can hit a decent stride, so I was fascinated how that'd play in the writing. So alright, we probably should have gotten this album a year ago, but what did Lana Del Rey deliver with Norman Fucking Rockwell!?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 7, 2019 (VIDEO)


Okay, here we go, lot of Taylor Swift this week - and for a change, it actually made this pretty easy to handle, go figure.

Anyway... yeah, the week of frustrations doesn't end, because we're going to be talking about Lana Del Rey next - stay tuned!

Wednesday, September 4, 2019

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 7, 2019

So here we go: album bomb from Taylor Swift, where all eighteen songs from Lover has broken onto the Hot 100... and honestly, it just feels like a net positive for the Hot 100 overall, which is always the bizarre feeling I have when we get a good album bomb. Sure, it reflects a skewed anomaly on the Hot 100 that isn't healthy... but I can argue that this one didn't even inflict much collateral damage after Young Thug last week, just sweeping away the wreckage! No, the real turmoil will come in two weeks when Post Malone crashes in, but that's a different conversation entirely...

Tuesday, September 3, 2019

video review: 'GINGER' by BROCKHAMPTON


And this happens - have to admit, I'm not sure how much disappointment will be wrung out of this, but certainly following iridescence it's a disappointment to me...

Anyway, Billboard BREAKDOWN is coming next, and then we'll get to Lana - stay tuned!

album review: 'GINGER' by BROCKHAMPTON

I'm worried about BROCKHAMPTON.

Which is a weird thing to say, given that thanks to their signing to RCA they've started to see significant market movement for their albums outside of their cult fanbase - all well and good, because I still hold iridescence as their best album thus far and easily earning its spot in my top 25 albums of 2018. But that was a project that felt transitional, and while there was always darkness between the lines on every BROCKHAMPTON project, here it was reflected in a fragility that made worry that the rushed push for a new album had pushed the band to the brink. And I know that's weird to say about a group that once put out three albums in a year, but creative burnout is a thing, especially when you have to push out a member for some damning allegations.

And thus I was utterly shocked that we were getting yet another BROCKHAMPTON album so quickly and this year - you'd think the group would take a few seconds to breathe and tour, especially with Kevin Abstract releasing a project of his own, but nope! And the reception from what I've seen has been... scattered, to say the least. Some have called it a return to Saturation-era form, others were noting the darkness had only deepened and was further fracturing their sound... but given how much I loved iridescence with multiple songs from it making my year-end list, I had expectations this time around. So what did BROCKHAMPTON deliver on GINGER?

video review: 'fear inoculum' by tool


And this is going exactly as I predicted... go figure.

Anyway, the disappointments might keep coming here - and this one is going to sting for me, so stay tuned?

Monday, September 2, 2019

album review: 'fear inoculum' by tool

So last year I made a fateful hot take tweet that Tool would never make another album - or even if they did, it would never live up to the expectations of fans. As of now, it seems like both statements are untrue, as there's a new Tool album and the fans seem overjoyed - hell, it might even be true for me... but that's more because I never had any expectations for Tool to begin with.

Yeah, let's get this out of the way now, I've danced around it for years and it should be on the record: I'm not much of a Tool fan. Of the "big four" in progressive metal, I've typically ranked Tool as my least favourite among Queensryche, Dream Theater, and Fates Warning, and revisiting their entire back catalog for this review has only cemented that opinion. And there's no easy way to approach this opinion in a way that won't piss off the legion of Tool fans - which if I had less tact, boy would I have words for that crowd - and let me stress that I get Tool's appeal and influence; it's just that most of appeal and influence doesn't work for me whatsoever. And I don't even think that should be surprising - you all know how much of a fan I am of melody and tight song construction, two things that Tool seems to treat with disinterest at best as they lock into extended polyrhythms amidst a load of dated alternative metal downtuning which is technically complex and impressive, but emotionally unengaging. And this would be where the band would point to the songwriting... which is the definition of two-dimensional, soaking in try-hard nihilism and abstraction - a shame because there can be a real emotional core and idea to some of these songs bowled over by hamfisted lyrical bluntness - and quasi-spiritual pseudoscience that either is more impressed with its cleverness than its depth or only bothers to make sense after several bowls and a handful of caps! And yet it's absolutely no surprise to me that Tool became by far the "biggest" of the big four coming out of the 90s - they certainly sound most 'of the time', and to their credit they're absolutely a band with a lot of talent that took risks, even if its not my thing I can appreciate what they were trying on a project like Lateralus, especially when they actually embraced some convincing heaviness - but it also put to mind a common observation: a lot of progressive metal fans are also Tool fans, but not nearly as often the other way around. 

And normally this wouldn't be an issue - I prefer the more tuneful side of prog metal and there's normally a ton of that, I can leave Tool's bloated song structures and edgelord deflection and sloppy vocal mixing for the fans - except that Tool has been influential, and while it's inaccurate to blame the spread of utterly tedious focus on polyrhythmic groove patterns and djent over melody through progressive metal on them, on a compositional and structural level they share some DNA. And then factor in the structural disinterest in hooks and concepts that don't hold up to much intellectual rigor, especially when channeled through increasingly blunt poetry... look, I wasn't cheering when Tool went on indefinite hiatus, but I wasn't exactly cheering for their return either. So with all of that context established and all the dislikes firmly given, what did we get out of Fear Inoculum?

resonators 2019 - episode #020 - 'deltron 3030' by deltron 3030 (VIDEO)


So I know I remain pretty much the only guy who cares about Resonators, but I'm genuinely pleased with how much I wound up loving this - fantastic hip-hop classic, so happy I got a chance to revisit it.

Especially considering my next review is bound to disappoint a lot of folks... yeah, stay tuned!

Sunday, September 1, 2019

resonators 2019 - episode #020 - 'deltron 3030' by deltron 3030

Oh, we're going to get weird with this one.

But first, let me back up, because I've referenced this album in passing before in previous reviews but haven't really provided much context or history behind its strange, strange lineage, even though it might stand as damn near one of a kind even to this day, one of the few examples of a narrative-driven Afrofuturist hip-hop concept album, described by some as a rap opera. The producer is Dan the Automator, a California-based producer who by the late 90s had established his reputation through collaborations with DJ Shadow and especially Kool Keith, who had created his Dr. Octagon alter-ego and had released the celebrated if utterly demented concept album Dr. Octagonecologyst. This was the project that arguably won Dan the Automator the most initial attention for blending in organic instrumentation against Dr. Octagon's graphic iconography, which saw him garner the attention of De La Soul affiliate Prince Paul, who teamed up with him under the name Handsome Boy Modeling School for a 1999 project called So... How's Your Girl - unfortunately, it's as goofy and slapdash as it sounds. Then a year later he'd team up with Primal Scream for some production work - not the first nor last time he'd work with British acts, if you're familiar with one Damon Albarn's work in the 2000s - but he was still working with underground hip-hop acts as well...

Which takes us to Del The Funky Homosapien. The cousin of Ice Cube, he struck some commercial success in the very early 90s, but he wanted to go in a weirder direction with his second album... which despite some well-deserved critical acclaim promptly tanked, which saw him not release another solo album until 1997, which he mostly produced himself. But it was around this time he joined the hip-hop collective Hieroglyphics, who carved out their own critical acclaim in 1998 with 3rd Eye Vision, which I honestly hoped to cover before this as it's been on the voting block for some time now. But in the year 2000 in San Francisco, Del teamed up with Dan the Automator and DJ Kid Koala for a one-of-a-kind album that stands as a defiantly unique entry in underground hip-hop, even today. And while I expected I would cover this later rather than sooner, might as well tackle it now: so here we go, this is the self-titled album from Deltron 3030, and this is Resonators!