video review: 'magdalene' by fka twigs

So yeah, long-overdue after a busy weekend - was actually planning to have this out on Friday, but given a pretty light schedule ahead, we're going with it here. Enjoy!

album review: 'magdalene' by fka twigs

The last time I reviewed FKA twigs, it didn't really go well.

And again, this is one of those cases where of course there was backlash, but it did feel a little unfair - I wanted to like a lot of what I had heard on LP1, I recognized it was genre-pushing and beautifully sung and featured some pretty fascinating and layered lyrical content... but tonally it just didn't click for me. And I've relistened to the album plenty of times in the years since trying to get into it, with the assumption that as I learned more about experimental music and R&B it'd click more strongly... and yet it just didn't. Hell, even though I wasn't really covering EPs in 2015 I tried giving M3LL155X a chance as well over the years, and while I was more accustomed to the sonic palette she was using - you can really hear the fingerprints of Boots all over it, in a similar way to how Arca's influence coloured LP1, it just didn't grip me, a project I respected a hell of a lot more than I liked - which can happen with experimental music, and I've always found backlash for that a little misguided.

And thus I was reticent to cover the new album... until I saw the list of producers, which seemed to imply she was going in a more accessible direction, or at least one where I had more inroads. Sure, the names that'd jump out are Benny Blanco and Skrillex and Sounwave and Kenny Beats and even Jack Antonoff, but the names that caught more of my interest were Oneohtrix Point Never and Nicolas Jaar, the latter of whom has made electronic music I've really liked this decade. And considering the production was often the sticking point for me, maybe this would click way better, so how was MAGDALENE?

video review: 'FIBS' by anna meredith

Well, this was concentrated wonderful - Billboard BREAKDOWN up later tonight, enjoy!

album review: 'FIBS' by anna meredith

When I first covered Anna Meredith back in 2016, I had no idea what to expect. I had been in a bit of a dry spell when it came to album releases at that point in the year, and here comes a classical composer with a few associations with James Blake but rapidly making a strident name of her own with a project that seemed to win over every critic that heard it... and yeah, I was one of them. I still hold that project Varmints as damn near ground-breaking in its usage of morphing syncopation and groove with classical bombast and twisted electronics, and when you paired it with solid writing, it wound up as one of the best albums of that year.

And ever since then, it seemed like Meredith's trajectory accelerated: she provided the score for Bo Burnham's feature film Eighth Grade - which rightly deserved all the critical acclaim it got - and that same year she also released the project Anno, an extended interpolation of Antonio Vivaldi's Four Seasons suite that may have felt a little too beholden to the original composition to truly take off, but still wound up being pretty damn potent all the same. But with a new project of original material - and with the expectation that I'd probably be the only one covering her on this platform yet again - I really wanted to get ahead of this, so how was FIBS?

video review: 'infections of a different kind / a different kind of human' by AURORA

And here we are - everyone who is asking, I think you might handle this one a bit better than last time (or at least I hope so).

Next up... honestly, I've got a pretty light schedule for the week ahead, so we'll have to see - stay tuned!

album review: 'infections of a different kind / a different kind of human' by AURORA

So I've talked a little about backlash that I've received for certain reviews - I don't tend to bring it up much because it honestly doesn't faze me much anymore, but there are certain cases where I'm a little bewildered at the intensity of the anger or vitriol, mostly because it comes in reviews where I'm more mixed on the project than outright negative. And 2016 was a year where I had more of those episodes than most, but what I think threw me off the most starkly was the response to covering the Norwegian indie pop artist AURORA. Now I'll admit I wasn't really kind to her debut project, but the truth was that I was more ambivalent to mixed on it as a whole - it wasn't really bad, but it also wasn't that distinctive or memorable either, a well-trod indie pop lane that frankly has only felt more oversaturated in recent years. The comparisons I originally made were to Christina Perri and Elvya, but going back to All My Demons Greet Me As A Friend now, it's abundantly clear I should have made the parallel to Florence + The Machine, just swapping out some of the chamber pop with lilting, slightly gothic folk that played on creepy girl weirdness in a way that's felt depressing conventional, or at the very least overplayed. 

So I'll admit I was in no hurry to hear more from her and indeed I skipped her 2018 project Infections Of A Different Kind, especially with the expectation this was part one to a full-album part two dropping this year, which is why I'm covering both here. And I figured I'd go in cold here - after all, Florence has grown on me considerably over the past few years and I had to hope that all the Bjork poses AURORA was making would wind up translating to slightly more interesting music, so what did we get on both Infections Of A Different Kind and A Different Kind Of Human?

video review: 'titanic rising' by weyes blood

Yeah, I expected this one to get messy... it happens.

Anyway, Billboard BREAKDOWN is up next, stay tuned!

album review: 'titanic rising' by weyes blood

So I'll admit I find myself a little fascinated by the 'critically acclaimed indie blow-up' story, mostly because I'm curious whether they are genuinely as calculated as they might appear from the sidelines. 

And you know how it goes: an indie act who normally has put in a few albums that are well-received but never quite beloved or super-popular suddenly goes to put out a project, and it seems like without warning a majority of critics have decided this is the one to get onboard with this artist, their time is now, and the critical acclaim is so pronounced it almost seems extraordinary. Normally it's when the act puts out their most accessible project but not always - hell, at some points you find yourself wondering what the hell is so distinctive about this one that will drive folks bananas. And this doesn't tend to happen for the consistent critical darlings or your more widely popular hipster mainstays or even your one-and-done flukes, which often leaves me wondering why the hell it's this album or it's this artist. The criterion feels nebulous, and I kind of feel sorry for the artists who might see their hype balloon for one album before all of it evaporating for their next when the formula doesn't change that much. 

So when we get to Natalie Mering aka. Weyes Blood... look, the signs are there this is happening to her. She's been putting out albums in the underground that split the difference between fuzzed out dream pop and more vintage baroque textures - think the opulence of the pop of the mid-60s before firmer grooves took hold in the latter half of that decade - and I've always thought they were okay enough with decent writing, but nothing that jumped off the page or I found truly riveting, both on the albums or her collaborations. And that seemed to be the critical consensus too, and yet suddenly this becomes the project that has won folks over en masse and is one of the most critically adored projects of 2019, with fans who just will not shut the fuck up about it? I'll admit that it did seem suspicious, but I was open to this potentially being amazing, so okay, intentionally very late to the punch with this, what did we get from Titanic Rising?

video review: 'neotheater' by ajr

So it was written... so it was done.

Okay, next up I want to handle either Resonators or that P!nk album, we'll see. Anyway, stay tuned!

album review: 'neotheater' by ajr

...well, second time's the charm, right?

But before we get into this, let me set the scene: it's the middle of July in 2017, I'm churning my way through my schedule, and I figure on a lark I'd check out this new project from a band for which I had no expectations. Yeah, their first album had been an inflamed cyst upon the bowels of 'indie' pop rock, but reportedly they had "left" their major label to deliver this themselves - a facade easy enough to blow through when you consider the connections they had and the copyright claims they leveled and any access to Billboard and RIAA documentation, but I respect the persistence to hold up the illusion and call me a liar directly for pointing it out. But I'm getting ahead of the story, because at that point, while I had zero expectations the album would be good, it couldn't be that bad, right?

And you know the story: I took in the album and despite being quite ill at the time - and speak of the devil right now - I got in front of the camera and gave it the thorough flensing it deserved as an incoherent fusion of genres and malformed ideas that was still screamingly convinced of its own transcendent power. To this day it is the worst project I've ever "reviewed" on my channel - and I say that more because there's a part of me still faintly sickened by the pastel-shaded cumshot wrought upon the tears of an evangelical youth group taking their first hits of a bad joint laced with PCP. And while one can recoil in absolute revulsion from the sound on display, what I took the strongest umbrage with was how it was a complete thematic failure: sure, the lyrics might be overstuffed and drooling over with dunderheaded pop culture references that fostered a lingering suspicion the trio was more brand deal than band, but at its core it was an attempt to complete similar arcs to what twenty one pilots did with Blurryface or Jon Bellion did with The Human Condition in examining the arc of their success, taking the novel approach to avoid owning any real drama by making the mother of bad faith decisions to wallow in over-privileged non-action. That's what made the project feel so hideously wrong to me, clearly deluded into believing there's dramatic impact through their framing and delivery, and then delivering something the antithesis of all of it - it'd be worthy of Dadaist horror if there was any trace of subversive thrill instead glassy-eyed, autotuned scatting.

That was 2017. I posted the review, it went about as viral for me as any album review is wont to do, to the point where Angel Olsen's embittered 'they made a meme out of my legacy, darling' from Alex Cameron's 'Stranger's Kiss' echoed whenever I thought about it. That the revolting thing about the acts you lambast in the era of internet content creation, because in addition to their somehow real fanbase, they have picked up waves of infamy thanks mostly to yours truly. And thus in the only way they'd understand when they see this review - a pop culture reference - I thought of the Joker near the end of The Dark Knight and the line, 'I think you and I are destined to do this forever'. And so we have Neotheater - reportedly a bit better and a bit darker from the trio, and with no obvious featuring credits to jeopardize that illusion they aren't managed or distributed through the major label system. And considering you all want it, what did we get?

video review: 'amidst the chaos' by sara bareilles

So yeah, this is one that I've left on the back burner for some time, but I'm happy I got a chance to review it just the same - not sure how many will care, but still, pleased to go back.

Next up... well, this Mountain Goats album is a thing, but I am seeing Avengers Endgame tomorrow, so stay tuned!

album review: 'amidst the chaos' by sara bareilles

You know, of all the releases over the past couple of weeks, it seems like this is the one that's flown under the radar the most.

And it's not hard to see why: outside of the singles, most of the mainstream seems to have had a touch-and-go relationship with Sara Bareilles' brand of sharply written adult-alternative indie pop - they're not going to complain about getting tunes like 'Love Song' or 'King Of Anything' or even 'Brave', but they're not really going to go out of their way to find more from her. Which is a shame, because while I'd struggle to put her among the upper tier of piano-driven pop rock - it's a crowded field, and while I think her albums are consistently pretty good I'd struggle to call her great across the board - I think Sara Bareilles has a lot going for her with a strident vocal tone, well-structured lyrics, and a pop sensibility that can give her a sense of accessibility and make her easier to revisit than many of her peers.

That said, the flip side to this is if she can't deliver the hooks or a more striking performance, it's easy to brush her music aside, and as much as I think there are some underrated album cuts on her 2013 album The Blessed Unrest, underwhelming compositions and slightly oversold production combined with weaker writing did leave the album as rather forgettable, or at the very least not as cutting as she's been in the past. Now that review was one of the first I ever put to video, so I was curious to revisit her material over a thousand reviews later, especially given this new album was coming off a lot of well-received stage work and was looking to get a lot more political. What caught more of my interest were cowriting credits from Lori McKenna - who I still hold as one of the best writers working in music of all genres right now - so I'll admit I had some high expectations yet again, so what did we find from Amidst The Chaos?

video review: '-' by jetty bones

Yeah, it's a short one, but I'm really happy I found time to get to it - great stuff!

Next up... well, Resonators, but what to follow... stay tuned!

album review: '-' by jetty bones

Yeah, we're going back into Bandcamp for this one - and yet before we begin, here's a quick observation. One thing I've noticed about a site where indie artists can literally upload damn near anything is that you don't especially find a massive pileup of undiscovered quality, even among the promoted material. If anything, it becomes all the more proof that's there's a normal curve to the quality: a metric ton of stuff that is decent or passable, not a lot of outright trash but also not a lot of immediate standouts. And more to the point, it becomes all the more rare you find talent that's immediately magnetic in front of the microphone - especially in indie pop where desaturated non-effort is the norm, not the exception.

Enter Jetty Bones, the project of an Ohio singer-songwriter Kelc Galluzzo who approaches indie pop rock with what I'd call a mid-2000s sensibility: strident vocals, a focus on hooks over vibes, and the sort of overwritten but biting lyrics that owe a noticeable debt to Paramore and the left-of-center emo that broke in the waves of Say Anything. Yeah, her debut Crucial States in 2016 had a rough case of what I'd describe as 'theater girl voice' and I thought the album could have afforded to be a bit longer - similar concerns I've got about this project here as well and the EP she put out in 2017 - but the writing and her knack for hooks was enough to get me on board, so screw it - what did we get from '-'?

video review: 'assume form' by james blake

Honestly, I'm really proud of how this review came together, generally one of the better ones to put together - I dig it.

Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN, and then I think I've finally got time for Aesop Rock - stay tuned!

album review: 'assume form' by james blake

So am I the only one who is a little bit surprised there's so much hype surrounding this album? Or indeed around James Blake at all - I get that he's quietly racked up the sort of credits and connections for production details and work you'd be hard-pressed to notice, but it's not exactly the sort that seems designed to build a following, let alone a mainstream one.

Granted, it's not like James Blake has been entirely in the indie scene - he's had hip-hop verses as early as his second album Overgrown, of which I go back and forth whether it's better than his debut, and again, he's had credits on songs with Beyonce and Kendrick. And I guess I shouldn't be that surprised that he'd have crossover appeal - in comparison with any number of experimental electronic artists he's probably one of the most accessible - but I remember in my review of The Colour In Anything that I said I wasn't sure if he'd ever cross over, or if he even wanted that. Granted, if said crossover was going to help him tighten up a flabby album that lacked a lot of the character that made his first two projects so striking - seriously, that album has aged rather poorly since 2016 and I think I was too nice on it even then - I wasn't going to be against that, but I was skeptical about this. While Overgrown had credits from the RZA and Brian Eno and The Colour Of Anything had Frank Ocean and Bon Iver, this album... has credits from Metro Boomin and Travis Scott. Now granted, it also has a verse from Andre 3000 and the critics have been praising this to high heavens so I had reason to believe this could be great, so does James Blake deliver on Assume Form?

video review: 'glory sound prep' by jon bellion

Hmm, this was kind of disappointing, especially given the songs I loved from his debut... eh, I guess it happens.

Next up, since I'm still exercising my policy of ignoring Imagine Dragons for as long as I can, let's talk about cupcakKe - stay tuned!

album review: 'glory sound prep' by jon bellion

I think I wound up alienating a lot of people the last time I reviewed Jon Bellion.

Now to be fair, some of this was intentional: I knew the thesis 'Owl City trying to be Kanye West' would be controversial as I dug through the tangled mess of genres that comprised The Human Condition, but the more I returned to it, the more it fit. The blocky production blending, the uncanny knack for a decent tune and hook marred by lyrical ideas that would have been better left on the drawing board, the flailing attempts at certain genres that left me wondering how hard I should laugh, the contradictory religious subtext that was probably best left unexamined... but when The Human Condition worked, it was magical. The big hit might have been 'All Time Low' - a song that grew on me more than I ever would have expected - but I've found a slew of deep cuts that I revisit to this day. The biggest highlights remain 'Hand Of God' and 'Morning In America' - both songs that were among my favourites of 2016 - but 'Fashion', '80s Films', even 'He Is The Same' have all wound up on my personal playlists, and I was convinced that once Bellion managed to iron out his wildly uneven tendencies, he could make something truly great. 

So, sophomore album, a fair bit shorter than his last but also featuring Roc Marciano and the RZA on a song... look, Jon Bellion's stabs at hip-hop are always the most awkward and embarrassing parts of any of his projects, and I had to hope he wasn't doubling down on it, so what did we get from Glory Sound Prep?

video review: 'am i a girl?' by poppy

Man, I do wish I liked this a fair bit more... eh, not bad, though.

Next up, let's blow through this Vince Staples album pretty fast, let's GO!

album review: 'am i a girl?' by poppy

So here's something that concerned me surrounding Poppy for some time now, and really more than ever going into her output in 2018: how long would the satire hold?

Because let's face it, for as much as I enjoyed Poppy.Computer, there was the unanswered question surrounding what that next step could even be for her musically if she wanted to continue down this route. What worked about that album was how, on some level, it was both a dissection of the pop idol and the system that props her up, but a celebration of the craft all the same, and there was enough poise to split the difference between dark, subversive nightmare fuel and the plastic sheen of bubblegum pop. Overall, I found the album pretty excellent, even if it was taking one too many sidelong glances at a sound where Grimes had laid the groundwork - ironic, given that she's now on this new Poppy album.

But to be blunt, 2018 hasn't been great for Poppy. I'm putting aside the Titanic Sinclair/Mars Argo drama - mostly because in mid-September a judge dismissed the case and there were a lot of ugly, convoluted layers that aren't relevant to the music - but it's hard to deny the plotline of the videos has felt undercooked compared to the build-up to Poppy.Computer, and considering the YouTube Premium series never took off, I wasn't sure what more satirical territory they could target. What also raised alarm bells was the expanded team behind the project: yes, Poppy and Titanic Sinclair still had writing credits on everything, but the team was much bigger and it was hard not to see Diplo's increased involvement as a label head looking to deliver a more commercially-viable product, and I didn't want to see good pop satire diluted by the pop machine. But hey, Am I A Girl? could still work, right?