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: '747' by lady antebellum

Well, that was fun in an odd sort of way. 

Okay, next up will probably be Perfume Genius. Stay tuned!

album review: '747' by lady antebellum

I'm starting to get the impression nobody in Lady Antebellum has the slightest damn clue what they're doing.

Now I've talked about this band when I reviewed their album 'Golden' and much of that review was monopolized by the comparisons to Fleetwood Mac that everyone seems to place on this band. And the more I examined the comparisons, the less they seemed to fit - sure, the bands did a fair bit with the interplay between male and female singers, and yeah, they did start with a certain rough-edged authentic power before sliding towards a more pop-friendly direction. But Fleetwood Mac had a loose, rougher edge and they occasionally got weirder with albums like Tusk, a brand of off-beat weirdness that Lady Antebellum will never embrace, given their tendency for more traditional and safe subject matter and slick pop-friendly hooks and production while still staying firmly lodged in the relative security of country music acts like Little Big Town or The Band Perry. 

...or at least that was what I thought was going to happen. The thing is that while Lady Antebellum have always firmly been lodged in pop country, the band has been looking more and more towards pop with every single since Golden with 'Downtown' and 'Compass', definitely a firm cry from their more reserved material like 'Need You Now'. And with the pseudo-rap delivery and very pop production of their leadoff single 'Bartender', I wasn't sure what to expect with their newest album 747, especially considering the lack of producer Paul Worley and frequent cowriter Eric Paslay, the latter being one of the biggest songwriting talents in country music right now. But I figured that Lady Antebellum has always delivered some measure of quality, so 747 was probably worth the look, right?

video review: 'tomorrow's modern boxes' by thom yorke

Well, Perfume Genius was supposed to be here, but let's just say it hadn't synced properly on my iPod, which meant I needed to take a look at one of the other albums I needed to cover anyways. Can only imagine how contentious this review will be...

Okay, not sure next, because there's a couple country records dropping that I want to space out. Stay tuned!

album review: 'tomorrow's modern boxes' by thom yorke

It's been a really long time since I've talked about Radiohead in any capacity, the critical darling of so many music critics, Starting off in alternative rock in the early 90s, they quickly dove into the off-beat land of chilly electronica on latter albums that would proceed to influence thousands of artists for the next several years... and I'll admit right now that they're one of many bands that I can definitely respect without really liking. 

And most of my frustrations with Radiohead circle back to Thom Yorke. It's been a slow process, but for the most part I've gotten over most of my issues with his vocal delivery, even though I'd never say he's one of my favourite singers. But I've always found him a more interesting singer in alternative rock instead of electronica, which has meant that many of his experiments in that direction have left me a little cold, either with Radiohead, with his side project Atoms For Piece who dropped their debut Amok last year, and on his solo projects. The odd thing is that Yorke is an expressive vocalist and much of his lyrics tend to fall into the same category, but when paired with such stiff, regimented electronics, the contrast can come across as jarring, and not in a good way. And yeah, I get why Thom Yorke does it - as a singer and performer, he's always seemed distinctly uncomfortable in the presence of other human beings and that angst informs a lot of his material - but it has never quite clicked for me.

That being said, I was curious to check out his surprise album Tomorrow's Modern Boxes, released via Bittorrent a few days ago. After all, despite my general antipathy towards Yorke, he is one of the more influential artists in the electronic sides of rock these days, so I downloaded the album and gave it several listens - what did I get?

video review: 'queen of the clouds' by tove lo

So apparently the upload failed in the middle of the night, and I was long asleep. Figures. In any case, it's a pretty solid review, generally happy with this one.

Okay, next up is Perfume Genius, so stay tuned!

video review: 'manipulator' by ty segall

First review of tonight, and it's pretty damn solid, definitely like and recommend it.

Tove Lo review coming momentarily, stay tuned!

album review: 'queen of the clouds' by tove lo

So as the end of the Billboard year approaches in a few months, many music critics, particularly those of us who cover pop music, are starting to formulate their ending pieces for the year - and like always, this involves many of us looking back to put things in the larger context of history. And inevitably this means placing 2014 in comparison to 2013 and asking the question of what changed?

Because really, there was a lot of change. 2012 saw the indie boom and the death of the club boom, but 2013 was a transitional, cacophonous mess, with the exploding swell of bro-country, the retro-disco revival, rap's return to trap music, and mainstream rock doing precisely nothing on the Hot 100 if your band wasn't named Imagine Dragons. But more specifically, 2013 was the year where pop music adopted some element of self-awareness and began actively criticizing itself, and it led to the breakout success of Macklemore and especially Lorde. And while we really haven't seen many repeats of Macklemore's formula - mostly because a white, socially conscious rapper who has no idea how to properly manage his social conscience is a hard thing to replicate - I knew it was only a matter of time before Lorde's self-awareness would bleed over into mainstream pop music.

And sure enough, it happened. 2014 has been a slicker, intentionally more reserved year than 2013, with the mainstream success of neo-soul, folktronica, and the collapse of bro-country. And sure, the success of Ariana Grande, Iggy Azalea, and Taylor Swift meant that straightforward pop wasn't dead, but along the margins you got songs like Sia's 'Chandelier', a song about drinking away one's emptiness that sounded way more desperate than you'd normally hear on the pop charts, a critique of the club boom anthems written from the inside.

Enter Tove Lo, Swedish pop singer-songwriter who has written songs for Icona Pop, Girls Aloud, Cher Lloyd, and Lea Michele before breaking into pop with her own hit 'Habits (Stay High)', an impressively bleak song about Tove Lo self-destructing in drugs, alcohol, and random sexual encounters. And while both 'Habits (Stay High)' and 'Chandelier' play in the same emotional playground of desperate, hyperbolic emptiness, the more personal stakes and greater detail of Tove Lo's song gripped me a fair bit more, and I made sure to pick up her album Queen Of The Clouds, which buzz suggested was fairly ambitious in terms of scope and songwriting. So I gave some attention: what did I find?

album review: 'manipulator' by ty segall

Occasionally you see people working the music industry who generate an insane amount of music. They've got work ethics like none other, they drop albums every year, they write perform and even collaborate and seem to do it all. And it's even rarer to find acts who can maintain some vestige of consistent quality along the way, because let's be honest, if you continue churning out material, eventually you're going to slip up. And for some critics, it becomes something of a waiting game, eager if you're not a fan or nervous if you are. 

And if you're a fan of lo-fi indie garage rock, the name that leaps to the top of your list would be Ty Segall. Originating from San Francisco, he's managed to drop a frankly astounding number of records, collaborations, and projects since 2005 - and the amazing fact is that the majority of the albums are pretty damn solid, be it on his own, with his band, or with Fuzz, Mikal Cronin, and White Fence. And that's not counting the truly excellent records he's released, the most notable being the noisy and aggressive Slaughterhouse with the Ty Segall Band in 2012.

Now in recent years, some of the darker edges of the 60s blues and psychedelic rock have bled into Segall's work, which coalesced most on 2013's Sleeper, a more acoustic leaning album that showed consistency but didn't always click for me. That's more because the quieter focus meant more emphasis on the lyrics, which have probably been my one big hangup with Ty Segall. Now he's not a bad lyricist, per se, but a lot of his songwriting has fallen into his brand of simple and aggressive self-deprecation that can lack nuance. And that can work when you're playing fuzz-saturated raucous guitars and howling into the microphone - not everyone is trying to be Perfect Pussy, after all - but a more acoustic ambiance naturally draws more focus to the songwriting.

That said, Ty Segall's music has steadily been becoming more polished with every release, and with early reviews suggesting his new album Manipulator was his most lush, expansive, and long to date, I wasn't sure what to expect. So what did I get?

video review: 'pale communion' by opeth

Finally, took way too long to get to this album, but I'm happy I got to it. 

In any case, next up will either be Ty Segall or one of the many records dropping next week - it's going to be crazy. Stay tuned!

album review: 'pale communion' by opeth

There are certain metal and rock bands that are tricky to talk about - and you wouldn't think, upon first glimpse, that Opeth would fall under that banner. Beginning with some well-received records in the 90s, they eventually would explode with a blend of progressive death and black metal in the late 90s and early 2000s with some of the most critically well-received metal records of the time. Hell, I'd probably go on record as saying their 1999 release Still Life is their most full-formed, cohesive, memorable, and well-written release, even more than the critically beloved Blackwater Park or the twin releases of Damnation and Deliverance, and in my opinion an all-time favourite and one of the best albums of the 90s, hands down.

But it was around that time, and especially across their following albums, that another figure comes to the spotlight: producer, singer-songwriter, and frontman of progressive rock act Porcupine Tree Steven Wilson. Now I've gone on record calling Steven Wilson the 'prog metal Kanye West', and with Opeth he found his Jay-Z - because like it or not, Opeth's work became distinctly coloured by tones that are instantly recognizable as Wilson's, which shows an impressive distinctive sound and incredible skill as a producer. Even on the albums he did not produce for the band, his influence was definitely apparent, and as the 2000s wore on, Opeth began slowly moving away from the death and black metal of their roots and towards the more progressive side. Which wasn't a problem for me - I love prog rock and metal, both on the aggressively visceral side of Mastodon and the methodical brilliance of Dream Theater - but at the same time, Opeth was one of the bands that maintained a stellar, textured balance between textured death and black metal and their more folk-inspired progressive side, to the point where I'd actually recommend Opeth as a good gateway from progressive metal into more extreme genres. And as much as I like prog rock, I'd admit to being a little disappointed to seeing that balance drop away.

In any case, after the excellent Ghost Reveries and the shakier but still good Watershed, Opeth ditched death and black metal altogether for 2011's Heritage... and it was pretty good, but not exactly great. Missing the loud-soft contrast between the heavier metal segments and the progressive rock left the album feeling a little lightweight and strangely empty, the latter being an issue with the mixing courtesy of Steven Wilson - and while I appreciate his commitment to dynamics, it probably wasn't the smartest decision to say the album was the first part of a trilogy encompassing his solo album Grace For Drowning and the self-titled Storm Corrosion debut album - I know you've collaborated with Opeth for years, but presumptuous much? The larger issue was that many of the songs felt spacious but lacking instrumentally and lyrically outside of the killer track 'Folklore'.

In other words, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect with Opeth's newest album Pale Communion, but I steeled myself for the worst and gave it many listens. And now, a month late, how's the album?

video review: 'little machines' by lights

Man, I wish this record was better. I do like Lights, but this album didn't really stand out.

Okay, next up is (finally) Opeth. Stay tuned!

album review: 'little machines' by lights

The more I think about it, the more I'm surprised I didn't really get into Lights when I was at university.

I mean, at first glimpse she was the sort of act I'd typically like. Indie pop with a focus on melody, Lights sparked a lot of early comparisons with Owl City with the release of her first album The Listening in 2009, mostly for her keyboard-driven catchiness, her usage of autotune to augment the synthetic sound, her occasional song related to faith, and her lyrics that toed the line between twee and outright adolescent. In fact, it was probably that last part that kept me keeping some amount of distance - her voice had more presence and power than Owl City's, but her lyrics never quite approached the same level of cleverness that occasionally saved Owl City. And to go by that first album, it'd be very easy - and somewhat unfair - to throw the Manic Pixie Dream Girl label on Lights - emphasis on 'girl' because with songs like 'Pretend' there was a certain 'regression to childhood' tendency that had some nuance but rubbed me the wrong way, even if the ultimate message of her album did imply maturity was the natural end goal.

Well, apparently Lights wasn't a fan of those particular comparisons, because most of the cutesy image went out the window for her sophomore release Siberia, at least in terms of her instrumentation. The soft, fluttering keyboards and effects were jettisoned in favour of heavy, icy dubstep-inspired synthpop, which gave the album a darker, grittier feel - and yet for some reason, it didn't really carry over into the lyrics or Lights' presentation. If anything, despite Lights' admittedly solid grasp of interesting poetry, the subject matter felt a little more mundane and pop-friendly, lacking some of the nuance that had characterized her previous work. On top of that, Siberia has not exactly aged well - while it might have preceded the dubstep-flavour that would come into prominence in 2012, it feels very much of its time in terms of mix balance and production, and as someone who has never really been a fan of the upper-to-midrange pop brand of dubstep, it didn't always work for me.

So I have to be honest, I had no idea what to expect with Lights' newest album 'Little Machines', but I was definitely curious to find out, in addition to supporting another promising and interesting Canadian artist. So I checked out the album: what did I get?

video review: 'the big revival' by kenny chesney

Well, this gave me way more to talk about than I was expecting. Good to see that happening, even though, like with Tim McGraw, I don't expect this to get a lot of traffic.

Okay, next up will probably be Lights, but it could be Opeth or Ty Segall either, so stay tuned!

album review: 'the big revival' by kenny chesney

Okay, if you've been listening to country music beyond just the past year or two, you've probably noticed that certain acts tend to take their party/relaxation songs to the beach or the Caribbean. It's lightweight, it's generally harmless, and occasionally it can be a fair amount of fun if you get acts like The Zac Brown Band or Jake Owen. Then again, both of these acts realize it isn't exactly a good thing to spend too much time at the beach, which is why Jake Owen's most recent single is an acoustic ballad and the Zac Brown Band are recording with Dave Grohl.

But you occasionally run into acts in country music that don't ever seem to leave the beach, and undoubtedly the most popular of these acts is Kenny Chesney. He may have started out in neotraditional country back the 90s, but in the very early 2000s he found a niche in lightweight country that seemed destined for all-inclusive resorts and cruise lines. And to his credit, it was a niche that fit him well, and he and his arsenal of cowriters produced a fair number of pretty good songs.

But as the decade wore on, astute listeners came to realize the beach for Kenny Chesney became less of a lane and more of a crutch, especially as he pumped out album after album of material that all sounded pretty similar. Sure, he'd occasionally drop an interesting collaboration or strike a more melancholy pose, but in the fourteen album released across his career, about eight or nine of them were firmly lodged in the beach. Kenny Chesney so thoroughly dropped himself into the Jimmy Buffett mold that there were many accusation of ripping Buffett off, but I'd argue that's not quite fair. As much as Jimmy Buffett has written some asinine songs, he wasn't afraid to be loose and silly and weird, and occasionally he did write some stellar songs. Kenny Chesney to me has always seemed like more of a workman with a little more dignity - he'll put out accessible, solid enough albums with plenty of songs that miss the point of 'Margaritaville', but he's never going to write 'A Pirate Looks At Forty' or a 'Cheeseburger In Paradise', and that means I've never really been that interested in him.

That said, Kenny Chesney's newest single 'American Kids' did seem like a bit of a departure for the guy and while he only has four writing credits on this album, he is working with some of the better songwriters in Nashville right now, so I figured what the hell and gave 'The Big Revival' a chance - what did I find?

video review: 'sundown heaven town' by tim mcgraw

I honestly don't expect this review to get a tremendous amount of traffic... but then again, you never know, and I wanted to say my piece on Tim McGraw anyways.

Okay, next up... you know, I think I'm about ready to talk about Opeth, but I might need something in the middle first... okay, stay tuned!

album review: 'sundown heaven town' by tim mcgraw

It's hard, as a critic, to talk about some acts with which you grew up. These are bands that are lodged in your formative psyche and though you might not have heard the songs for years, you still remember every line as if it was yesterday. Despite the fact I have not listened through a Shania Twain or Garth Brooks or Alabama or Sammy Kershaw album in years, I can still remember the songs whenever they inevitably come up at karaoke... well, okay, it's mostly the Shania Twain tracks because of every girls night out party ever, but the point is that I find Come On Over a hard record to judge because I grew up with it and she dropped twelve goddamn singles thanks to songwriter and future Nickelback producer Mutt Lange.

And this is something of a similar issue with Tim McGraw, one of the most popular and successful country acts of all time thanks to a quiet, sensitive middlebrow sensibility and a knack for hiring good songwriters. Unlike contemporaries Alan Jackson and George Strait, Tim McGraw has been using the Nashville songwriting machine for decades now to make material I like to describe as an auditory Xanax, especially around the time of his long-lasting marriage to Faith Hill in the late 90s. The funny thing is that Tim McGraw was a good enough performer with a strong sense of populism, so while he barely wrote any of his albums, they still managed to produce pretty damn solid singles that stuck in the memory.

But in recent years, Tim McGraw has been in a bit of a complicated situation behind the scenes, and it's shown through in his music as he's struggled to keep up with the times. The larger issue was with his label Curb Records, which milked his name into the ground through a pile of increasingly redundant greatest hits albums that traded off his late 90s success. Eventually he was able to claw his way out of his contract and move to Big Machine with Taylor Swift, but the artistic flailing on that record was noticeable. And sure, 'Highway Don't Care' was okay, but 'Truck Yeah' was easily the stupidest song he had ever released, leaving that 2013 record a bit of a mixed bag. And off of the opening single 'Lookin' For That Girl', which featured some of the most egregious Autotune I'd ever heard in country song, I was pretty concerned. That said, he did manage to return to his comfort zone of middlebrow tracks with 'Meanwhile Back At Mama's', a duet with his wife that was pretty good but not exactly inspiring considering Miranda Lambert made 'Automatic' this year, so I didn't have any idea what to expect. But I figured, 'Hey, it's Tim McGraw, and at the very least my mom would appreciate me doing this review, and I need to improve my YouTube demographics testing', so I gave Sundown Heaven Town a couple listens - what did I get?

video review: 'songs of innocence' by u2

I went into this hoping this was going to be good or that U2 was actually going back to their roots. Wishful thinking, I know, but man, still a disappointment.

Okay, I need to talk about some country and clear my head, so probably Tim McGraw next. Stay tuned!

album review: 'songs of innocence' by u2

On September 9th of this year, Apple unveiled its newest tech lineup, which included the newest iterations of the iPhone and the Apple Watch, the latest tech gimmick to try to replace the common wristwatch and will likely fall into the same fate unless Apple fetishists embrace it. But that wasn't the only thing revealed at that press conference - because rock band U2 announced that their newest album Songs Of Innocence would be arriving in your iTunes that very day for free should you choose to pull it off the iCloud.

And consumers revolted. Suddenly the big story was the backlash leveled against U2 for not only allying with Apple - which they've done extensively in the past - but that U2 had suddenly injected their newest album into everyone's iTunes library whether they wanted it or not. And the response was emphatic: people did not want this album, to the point where Apple released a tool specifically designed for iTunes users to get rid of the album instead of just waiting for the iCloud download window to expire. And honestly, I was a little shocked by this reaction - I mean, it's free music from one of the biggest rock bands on earth who hadn't dropped an album in five years, why the backlash?

Well, I suspect part of it is that people tend to be protective of what they put in their iTunes libraries, but the larger truth is that many people tend to have complicated feelings regarding U2. They started as one of the most potent and explosive mainstream rock acts of the 80s, known for earnest, explosive power, sweeping scope, and socially-minded lyrics... until Rattle & Hum exposed the mind-boggling pretentiousness and swaggering rock arrogance beneath it that made the band come across as more than a little preachy. Without warning, the band pulled a 180 and went straight for the self-aware shields of irony with Achtung Baby, throwing earnestness aside for a highly artificial image of cool that paid diminishing returns as the 90s wore on and U2 drifted more towards electronic music. This experimentation eventually ended in the flashy and intentionally empty-feeling record Pop, the mixed reception of which pushed U2 back towards the earnest, politically-minded anthems that made their fortune in the 80s. Unfortunately, the shift took a while to stick, mostly because the instrumentation lacked visceral punch and Bono's lyrics had taken a turn for the self-indulgent. And while they would fix some of the former - it was plainly apparent U2 was never going back towards the explosive power of War any time soon, which would probably be my favourite U2 album after The Joshua Tree - the lyrics remained spotty across 2004's How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb and 2009's even more scattershot No Line On The Horizon. And considering the opening buzz for this album was that it was going to be produced by Ryan Tedder, Paul Epworth, and Brian Burton aka Danger Mouse, the last whose work has taken something of a downturn this year on the new albums from Broken Bells and The Black Keys, I wasn't really looking forward to this album. But hey, it's U2, one of the greatest rock acts of all time, surely they could pull something together, right?

video review: 'jealous gods' by poets of the fall

Dear god, this album kicked all amounts of ass. Epic and yet accessible and somehow making it all work, it's easily one of the best of the year. GO GET IT ALREADY.

Okay, next up - finally - is U2. Stay tuned!