video review: 'relaxer' by alt-J

Hey, this was a request, so to some extent you all were asking for this (well, probably not for this review specifically, but I had to set my cards straight, and it'll be fascinating how many subs I lose in the end here).

Anyway, not the only review dropping tonight - Bleachers coming up next, stay tuned!

album review: 'relaxer' by alt-j

Oh, I'm not going to make any fans with this review. Mostly because there is very much a reason I've avoided talking about alt-j, a breakthrough UK indie pop group that I've found a fair bit more frustrating than actually likable, not helped by comparisons to Radiohead I never thought we deserved.

See, I've listened to An Awesome Wave and This Is All Yours, and to some extent I see the appeal - they can take some obtuse methods of hitting melody, they have a liquid approach to guitar grooves that I'd normally like, they have a frontman with a distinct voice and writing that on the surface seems somewhat approachable, they dabble in other subgenres adjacent to rock... yeah, note the word 'dabble', because every listen to alt-J gives me the impression there is nothing all that striking or compelling beneath all the 'weird' indie pop pivots. The biggest consistent criticism with their first two records are that they're overstuffed messes, but that can be redeemed if they add up to something with an edge or something to say, whereas every listen I've given to alt-j just finds it all the more hollow to me. I can tolerate weirdness for its own sake, but frankly, this doesn't feel alien or imposing or challenging, just obtuse and sterile and sexless, the music marketers think the lowest common denominator of hipsters like. Sure, there are a few pretty vocal harmonies, especially on This Is All Yours, but that doesn't disguise the fact the records are dreary slogs that think they are a lot more interesting than they actually are. And it's not helped by the fact that I find Joe Newman a particularly unengaging and unlikable frontman, especially when you dig into the lyrics - it's one of the reasons I've never found the Radiohead comparison made any sense, because even though I'm not really a fan, Yorke's writing and intensity was far more compelling than this, and he certainly aims higher.

But hey, you guys wanted me to talk about Relaxer thanks to Patreon, so maybe three records in alt-j will have found something workable?

video review: 'no shape' by perfume genius

Man alive, I enjoyed the hell out of this record, and I really do think this is one of my better reviews too. So thrilled I finally got to it, definitely will land on year-end lists.

The next record, though, is even more critically acclaimed... well, stay tuned!

album review: 'no shape' by perfume genius

So there's a critical preconception about singer-songwriters that the more layers of instrumentation they add, the less intimate their music is perceived. Now this is more observed on the flipside - that when artists strip things down they're working to intensify the closeness of their music - but I've always found it to be a bit of a misconception, and not really taking into account the music as a whole. Sure, when you strip things back to place all the emphasis on the singer, you can get that intimacy for sure, but just because the instrumentation becomes lush or more expansive doesn't mean the focus has to necessarily change - you just need a performer who can captivate with bigger emotions.

Enter Mike Hadreas, who sings under the moniker Perfume Genius. If you remember when I covered his absolutely incredible third record Too Bright back in 2014, I highlighted that despite being his most expansive record to date, he still managed to leverage his incredible intensity and charisma into a powerfully intimate experience - which is stunning considering how much that album held a mirror to the audience to confront discomfort with Hadreas' open sexuality while actively confronting the insecurities projected upon him. It was a powerful step that might have eschewed the direct storytelling of his previous records, but the combination of rich themes, potent vulnerability, and an incredible lead performance certainly won me over.

But what fascinated me was that instead of returning to raw, quieter material, Hadreas was going bigger. Buzz was suggesting that it was a more baroque record, with grander opulence in its tones and aiming for high decadence in its romance, and the second I started hearing comparisons to Kate Bush I knew I had to find some way to muscle this up the schedule so I could talk about it. So no more wasting time, considering this review is late already, what did we get with No Shape?

video review: 'blood bitch' by jenny hval

Man, this was a weird record... and to the point where I wish I liked it more, to be honest. Ugh, frustrating, frustrating.

Anyway, one more record and then year-end lists, stay tuned!

album review: 'blood bitch' by jenny hval

It's often considered one of the great contradictions of American popular culture that for as much it worships at the altar of violence and the military industrial complex - and Canada isn't that far removed, I'm not kidding myself here - everyone tends to get skittish around sexuality. You can have plenty of gore in your movie in your movies and still walk away with the PG-13, but show exposed breasts and you can expect the R, to say nothing of if you want to show a penis or vagina. Kind of amusing how parts of the entertainment industry gives a free pass to plenty of penis extensions that deliver death yet get antsy when confronted with the real thing.

Now music is a little different, mostly because you're not dealing with the image outside of the album art... but not that different. Let's get real, with rare exception the majority of modern music is a lot more comfortable talking about male sexuality than female, and even then it's often masked in innuendos or played as a tease. To actively dig into the fleshy, messy side of things, peel back the sensuality and bravado to get to something more primal but no less real, that's explored far, far less. And that's no surprise: for as much as some artists threw open the doors to openly embrace sexuality in their music, it's usually paired with a desire to make it sound accessible to an audience who isn't as comfortable, entice rather than get into the explicit details.

And then there's Jenny Hval - Norwegian singer-songwriter and experimental musician, while much of her music has been characterized by droning, oddly structured soundscapes full of weird experimental shifts - to say nothing of an odd pop sensibility that keeps creeping through - what's always caught my ear are the lyrics. And the best way to describe them is something akin to the inverted metaphor of the film Shortbus - usage of plainly sexual acts and language in order to say something more, rather than the other way around saying or doing something to imply sex. Of course, her themes and abstract writing have gone further than sex, but at the end of the day her music approaches the flesh-driven reality of sex with the sort of unrestrained frankness and language that for certain can startle and shock even the most sexually-comfortable and well-adjusted person. As such, her music for me has always required a concerted effort to fully contextualize and understand - one of the reasons this review is so late - but I have to say I was really looking forward to digging into Blood Bitch. Blending elements of 70s exploitation films, timetravelling and genderbending vampire iconography, and an acute focus on menstrual blood - seriously - into an experimental pop framework partially inspired by the drones of Norwegian black metal and produced by noise musician Lasse Marhaug, this was going to be the sort of trip that I expected to be challenging, but hopefully hugely rewarding. Was I right?

video review: 'remember us to life' by regina spektor

Well, this was a pleasant surprise - may have overshared a bit here, but eh, it happens.

Next up, though... all of the J. Cole wound up on the Hot 100, which is just fantastic... after that is probably Ab-Soul, so stay tuned!

album review: 'remember us to life' by regina spektor

So here's the unfortunate truth of being a critic and a human being: like it or not, sometimes it's not just the art that overrules your critical faculties, but circumstances and memories that are linked to that art. It might not just be the sound or a particular turn of phrase that sparks an emotion, it's the memories and people associated with that sound or lyric that renders fragile objectivity all the more precarious.

Case in point, about four years ago I was dating a girl who was very fond of Regina Spektor and encouraged me to check out her album What We Saw From The Cheap Seats. And while I had something of a mixed opinion on that record as a whole, when she and I broke up later that year it became a bit difficult to go back to Regina Spektor without pulling up old memories - not all bad or good memories, mind you, but fragments that place her music in an awkward context. And it's not helped by my frustrating relationship with Spektor's peculiar brand of anti-folk itself: earnest, frequently clever with some striking melodies, but brimming at the edges with an off-kilter quirk that added personality but could occasionally undercut the dramatic tension some otherwise potent songs. I've said it in the past that I've got a very limited tolerance for 'twee', and while it didn't compromise her early 2000s work up to 2004's Soviet Kitsch, after that it got dicier. And what's frustrating is that it didn't happen all at once or consistently. Begin To Hope actually had some emotionally poignant moments - especially the closer track - but Far started to push it for me, especially if you started getting into the lyrics. And that awkward dichotomy between heartfelt power and utterly garish quirk manifested most on What We Saw From The Cheap Seats - on the one hand you get powerhouse tracks like 'All The Rowboats', but on the other hand... well, let's just say besides that song I haven't had much of an impulse to go back to it.

But hey, maybe this new record - which was supposedly bigger and a little darker, it might hit a more satisfying point for me, and I've always thought Regina Spektor is an interesting songwriter, if not always a good one - she's got a penchant for random noises that drives me off the way - but whatever, how is Remember Us To Life?

video review: 'have you in my wilderness' by julia holter

Well, about damn time I got this one out. Took way too long, but again, I wanted to make sure it was done right.

Next up, probably Coldplay, but not tonight - really shitty day, need to take a breather. Stay tuned!

album review: 'have you in my wilderness' by julia holter

It's so easy to forget that not everyone listens to everything, especially when you're not on the Internet. It's a bizarre thing, especially when you live in a city like Toronto and you hang around a circle that likes to stay up to date on trends - and it's all the more pronounced online where anything and anyone can build a following. But when I was leaving a meeting at my full-time job a few months or so ago and said I was going to listen to some Kurt Vile and I got blank expressions. This guy has been a fixture in indie rock for the past decade in multiple groups, and nobody in that room knew who he was. It really throws into stark relief that so many will only listen to the radio or a few personal favourites, and that while I could brush it off by saying, 'Well, I listen to weird stuff', I bet if I played some of the music off that album, it'd be easy enough to like - it's not that inaccessible. A bit off the beaten path, but if the money or push was put behind it, I could see it gaining a little traction on the right stations.

So fast-forward to me listening to Tragedy, the debut album from Julia Holter reportedly inspired by the Euripedes play Hippolytus, an atmospheric project that utilized overlapping soundscapes with absolutely no regard to conventional song-structure or hooks - in other words, far less accessible and the antithesis to radio, the sort of music that's just as difficult to describe as it can be to enjoy, especially if you're coming from the mainstream. And yet there was something oddly beautiful about the record in its brilliant control of atmosphere and mood that I really appreciated.

And yet since tragedy, every subsequent album from Julia Holter has been stepping towards more conventional definitions of songwriting, first with the gorgeous and pretty damn excellent Ekstasis and then a year later with the even better, more intimate Loud City Song, a tribute to the Golden Age of Hollywood musical from 1958 Gigi. And the more I delved into the gleaming, elegant melodies and impressively textured production and impressionistic but surprisingly potent writing, I realized something that I'm sure will piss some of you off: this would be what Lana Del Rey would sound like if she was good at her job, if she avoided wallowing in her own melodrama and simply worked on polishing her vintage sound into something that brought the past to life now instead of simply revisiting it. Granted, she probably wouldn't have the same pop appeal, but with every album, Julia Holter was proving she could probably do just as well in that world.

And two years later, she's coming back with Have You In My Wilderness, her longest gap between albums and another release that's won her huge critical acclaim - is it deserved?

video review: 'poison season' by destroyer

And about time I could get this done! Fantastic record, so highly recommended!

Next up, the next of my extremely deep backlog before the tidal wave of CHVRCHES, Kurt Vile, Julia Holter, Silversun Pickups, The Underachievers, and so many more! Stay tuned!

album review: 'poison season' by destroyer

Let's talk a little about lyrics. I've often been told that in comparison with most music critics, I pay much more attention to the writing than the sound of the album itself, and in a few conversations with other critics, I've come to realize that I might be the exception than the rule with that approach. Where the conversation gets interesting is when it comes to the mainstream public, because where I'm fairly certain I care about the writing more than some critics, I know for certain I care more than most audiences, and even then it breaks down by genre how much one might care - lyrics matter more in folk and country and arguably most of hip-hop than they do in, say, electronica. Now I could argue that I care more about lyrics because I'm a writer myself and I love to decode poetry good and bad alike, but I reckon even in the cases where they're easy to ignore good writing plays a purpose. It's the primary method for the songwriter to convey their art's story or meaning to the audience, with the sonic palette around them being what sets the mood and atmosphere. For me, writing and instrumentation need to have a certain amount of balance when I consider an entire piece, with strengths and weaknesses in both being enough to save or sink an album.

That's why, believe it or not, when I hear about records that are highly touted for their lyrics above all else and aren't hip-hop albums, I'm intrigued but cautious. Sure, I'm predicated to like this sort of thing more, but that means as a critic I have to make sure I'm not giving undue praise when it's not earned. Thankfully, today we're talking about Destroyer, the project of Canadian singer-songwriter Dan Bejar and an artist whose lyrical eccentricities often are matched by eclectic and interesting instrumentation that at its worst can feel sloppy or indulgent but at best can be genuinely breathtaking in beauty and melodic composition. Affiliated with critically acclaimed indie rock group The New Pornographers, who really have a disturbingly high record of producing great side projects from their members, the most striking thing about Destroyer is the choice to switch up musical sounds with nearly every album. From the tight cohesion that defined the excellent Streethawk and Thief to the meandering and yet compelling mess of This Night to the synth-touched and goddamn spectacular Your Blues to the drunken cacophony of Trouble In Dreams. Now since his 2011 album Kaputt - which I thought had some great writing and some gorgeous melodies but could meander a little in late-80s easy listening territory, Dan Bejar has been taken longer and longer between releases, and now he's finally got a new album: Poison Season. And with it came the explosion of critical acclaim: was the album actually worthy of it?

video review: 'honeymoon' by lana del rey

Well, this is going over about as well as I expected. Think I'm going to stick with releases that spark less of a crazy reaction for the next few videos, I can only contain so many shitstorms at a time.

So next up, Brett Eldredge, stay tuned!

album review: 'honeymoon' by lana del rey

I bet there's a slew of you who are wondering why I'm bothering to do this review. I mean, it's not like I haven't made my opinion on this artist pretty damn clear by this point, so why on earth am I bothering to cover her?

Well, believe it or not, I actually do have a certain fascination with Lana Del Rey, at least in terms of her somehow still increasing popularity. I mean, I got it at first: 'Video Games' remains an excellent song, and I can even see it making sense into Born To Die - sure, the writing was melodramatic as hell and I didn't care much for Lana's delivery, but at least the production had a veneer of glamour and bombast that made songs like 'National Anthem' workable. But then Ultraviolence happened with Dan Auerbach behind the production boards and an attempt to emphasize more of a bluesy, reverb-swallowed sound, and the veneer was torn away. It didn't have the grandiose bombast to make compelling melodrama, and the writing rapidly became insufferable as Lana tried without fail to romanticize and glamorize her terrible behaviour, bad situations, and seeming inability to do anything to change them without an ounce of self-awareness. And sure, you can argue that's a character she's playing and that this is what Hollywood has 'made' her, but the writing and especially the framing doesn't really support that insight - and it's not as if it made the music any less tiresome and drab to add any subversive thrill to the regressive cliches and stereotypes. On top of that, she chose to abandon more her more soulful lower range for this high baby-voiced cooing slur that when it wasn't getting overwhelmed by the mix failed to raise any emotional response in me whatsoever. 

And you'd think that more people would have picked up on that, but it seemed like critics and audiences alike were enraptured by it and Lana Del Rey got bigger than ever, even finding her perfect male counterpart with The Weeknd and his shameless brand of hedonistic exploitation - but at least he knew enough to bring some visceral punch to his best melodramas. Whereas with Lana... well, maybe it's just everyone already knowing my preferences, but I've received a lot less requests for Honeymoon than I did for Ultraviolence, and I'll admit I was interested. Sure, singles like 'High By The Beach' annoyed the hell out of me, but I did notice that there were fewer producers than ever behind this album, with Lana handling even more of the production herself. So with more artistic control than ever before, what does Lana Del Rey deliver?

video review: 'how big, how blue, how beautiful' by florence + the machine

Man, another record I really wanted to like more than I did... guess I'll go back to listening to more Jamie xx (although I was going to do that anyways...

Next up... hmm, not sure yet, because I'm going to need some time with Sun Kil Moon or that Surf album. I might talk about Billy Currington first, see if my goodwill doesn't run out. Stay tuned!

album review: 'how big, how blue, how beautiful' by florence + the machine

Well, I'm pretty much obliged to cover this. Not because I've been getting requests - although I have - but more because I think every girlfriend I've ever had is a fan of Florence + The Machine, and if I didn't say something, I'd probably hear something.

And really, I can't blame them, because Florence + The Machine is one of those acts I always thought deserved to get a lot bigger than they have. When they smashed onto the scene in 2009 with the album Lungs and anthemic songs like 'Dog Days Are Over', a lot of critics drew comparisons with artists like Fiona Apple, PJ Harvey, and especially Kate Bush. Now I would not go that far - especially on the last one - but there was often a raw desperate power behind Florence's vocals that lacked subtlety but had a ton of presence and power, which was often enough to allow you to overlook the fact that the lyricism could occasionally stray into clumsiness and that the instrumentation wasn't really as raw as it could have been. Hell, you could make the argument that without Florence + The Machine, you wouldn't have so many acts hammering the percussion-groove-over-melody as has been popular over the past few days, although they did do plenty to make it sound pretty damn pretty along the way.

So with that in mind, why the hell isn't Florence + The Machine more popular, like on the charts? Well, I'd argue part of it is the fact that they've never really played the 'pop' game, especially in the lightweight silliness of the beginning of the club boom in 2009. Some of it might tie to the fact that Florence + The Machine fall into a similar area where most power pop ends up - too heavy and loud for pop radio, yet not quite rough-edged enough to rock harder. And part of it might just be that Florence Welch's intensity and rawness can be a hard sell - granted, I'm not sure I buy that, given the recent success of acts like Sia or Tove Lo. Hell, even Florence landed on the charts thanks to goddamn Calvin Harris making everything worse as he usually does. Or maybe some of it was just bad timing - their follow-up record Ceremonies dropped in 2011, and yet had the misfortune of going against 21 by Adele, which took Florence + The Machine's percussion-heavy formula and one of their main producers Paul Epworth and brought a level of tightness in the writing that Florence had never quite mastered. Yes, I get that a voice like Florence's doesn't exactly need subtlety to make impact, but eventually cranking every chorus to eleven loses impact when you don't have adequate melodic crescendos or stronger lyrical punch, especially when she goes for such self-serious gravitas.

But after four years away, Florence + The Machine are back, apparently after Florence went through one of the most difficult points in her life, having a 'bit of a nervous breakdown' according to her, which places this record as her most personal. Did it pay off?

video review: 'too bright' by perfume genius

Man, this was something special. Seriously, listen to this, it's damn near unearthly.

Okay, next up will probably be Blake Shelton, but you never know. Stay tuned!

album review: 'too bright' by perfume genius

Okay, when you become a music critic, you eventually realize that outside of the generally accepted musical acts that everyone is expected to know, there's also a list of critically acclaimed independent singer-songwriters that are beloved by huge chunks of the critical public, and yet your average music fan will never have heard of the majority of these acts. And in this case, there's a reason why they have never received the slightest bit of mainstream airplay - they're weird, they write uncomfortable songs with offbeat subject matter, they opt for eclectic instrumentation or production that is used to enhance the song's atmosphere over what many would deem traditionally accessible. 

In other words, they fall into a category I like to call Pitchfork Approved Singer-Songwriters, or PASS for short, indicative of the common and frequently unfair response from everyone else. It might be hard for most to understand why critics love these acts, especially when they frequently display less polish, cohesion, or even visible talent in comparison with most, and thus it becomes a bit of a balancing act to sort out those who who might deserve said acclaim and those who can just play to that critical audience's sensibilities exceptionally well. 

Perfume Genius definitely falls into that category. The stage name for Seattle-based singer-songwriter and baroque pop artist Mike Hadreas, Perfume Genius broke into the indie scene with Learning in 2010, a gorgeously melodic record full of lo-fi fuzz, rattling pianos, and uncomfortably explicit songs that didn't shy away from controversial subject matter. And I get why he got the critical acclaim he did: despite the fact he wasn't a stellar pianist or singer, Hadreas brought a warmth and raw honesty to his material that felt authentic and real and balanced the real darkness in his songs quite well, filled with little details that really set a vivid scene and left plenty unspoken in the subtext. Now the risk with this sort of material is that the quickest way to raise the stakes is to go darker which can be an even trickier tonal balance, but Perfume Genius went in a different direction, instead exposing more vulnerability and more complicated portraits on his second album Put Your Back N 2 It, an album that wouldn't be out-of-place in today's indie scene with its cleaner production, focus on reverb, and heavier percussion - and like Lykke Li who would follow him, he made it work because of a continued focus on melody above all else even as the instrumentation got slightly more diverse. And with songs like the damn near transcendent title track, it's no surprise the album got the acclaim - it deserved it.

And so now he's back with his third album Too Bright - would Perfume Genius be able to sustain his streak and sound, even as the indie scene has gotten more crowded with artists in his vein?

video review: 'ultraviolence' by lana del rey

I predict to get hit with a hailstorm of hatred over this video, but I do think it's one of my better written reviews, so what can you do?

Okay, Linkin Park, show me what you've got. Stay tuned!

album review: 'ultraviolence' by lana del rey

How many of you are familiar with Hollywood director Sofia Coppola? The daughter of Francis Ford Coppola, she defiantly made a name for herself with an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Lost In Translation, which I most remember for an absolutely stellar performance from Bill Murray. But since then, Sofia Coppola's movies have drifted towards a theme she has explored many times: the hedonism and existential emptiness of the idle rich. Marie Antoinette, Somewhere, and The Bling Ring hammered on these themes, and while each film is beautifully shot, the framing of the movies always frustrated me, in that there always seemed to be an attempted justification behind her protagonists' poor behaviour that tended to feel flimsy. Coppola seemed to show a lot of empathy for her characters, even when that empathy didn't feel earned by the script.

And I get the exact same feelings whenever I listen to Lana Del Rey. Like most people, I listened to her major label debut Born To Die in 2012 - and like most critics, I wasn't impressed. Yes, the production was lush, and Lana Del Rey could create some very pretty and opulent songs, but there was an air of artificiality and calculation surrounding every song of the record, from the arsenal of brand names to the completely out-of-place trip hop elements placed to blend both old and new ideals of wealth and success. And on a certain, shallow, fantasy-level, it kind of works... but in an era where we have Vienna Teng, Fiona Apple, Regina Spektor, Tori Amos, Lykke Li, and Sharon Van Etten, you're not going to convince me that any of this is soulful or deep. It's not even a commentary on this sort of opulence in the vein of Lorde, but is instead framed as a glorification, a fantasy - and to be fair, I got the impression that was Lana Del Rey's intention. And such a fantasy would be fine if there weren't some really troublesome narratives beneath it, such as Lana Del Rey's obsession with glamorizing bad relationships or retrograde sexual politics, and she didn't really step up with the personality to back it up. So when I heard that Lana Del Rey had written 'Young And Beautiful' for Baz Luhrman's version of The Great Gatsby, I wasn't surprised in the slightest - because like that film, it's a fusion of old and new flavours of glamour that misses the depth in the spectacle. But even if I were to give Lana Del Rey the benefit of the doubt and say she was self-aware, her artistic framing certainly wasn't - coming back to Sofia Coppola, there's shallow hedonism and existential emptiness in Lana Del Rey's music, but it's framed as though we should empathize with the drama she presents when the text and subtext don't support it.

And thus when she titled her second album Ultraviolence, I had no idea what to expect, especially considering the album was mostly produced by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys. But, since it was requested time and time again, I decided to give the album a fair chance: what did I find?