video review: 'guardians' by saor

So this record was goddamn amazing - seriously, I'm so happy I got a chance to cover this early, SO damn great.

In the mean time though... I'm thinking Kungs and Phantogram before the big week we've got ahead, so stay tuned!

album review: 'guardians' by saor

Okay, the last time I was aiming to talk about black metal with In The Woods..., I got thrown a curveball, namely by the fact that record only barely stuck its toes in that genre while instead embracing more progressive and doom metal touches. But that didn't mean I was going to stop looking, and thanks to you all, I got a wealth of suggestions to work with to catch up for 2016.

So on that note, let's talk about Saor, a Scottish black metal project that erupted out of the highlands in 2013 with their debut Roots, reportedly aiming for a blend of atmospheric black metal with touches reminiscent of Celtic folk. And hell, that seemed like the easiest way to get me on board since Panopticon brought in elements of country and bluegrass for that last trilogy of records, the last of which Autumn Eternal landed on my list of my favourite albums of 2015. So I was all set to like Saor... and unsurprisingly, I really did come to enjoy a lot of what I heard from both Roots and their 2014 album Aura, which balanced the relentless blur of tremolo picking with flutes, brighter acoustics, and a defiant soaring Celtic flavor in the melody lines. Now let me stress that I don't really think either record is better than Panopticon's trilogy - for as much as I loved the melody lines, the actual mixing of the black metal riffing and blast beats could feel a little sloppy, not quite always supporting the dramatic swell the way I'd like - but hey, this is a sound I'd like to see expand and if fine-tuning the details could get there, I had hope that Saor could really bring it on their release this year Guardians - was I right?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - november 26, 2016 (VIDEO)

And that's two years of Billboard BREAKDOWN... and we end with a Rae Sremmurd song at #1. Oh... oh boy.

Now odds are I'll continue this series - I'd be a fool not to - but I've got some plans over the course of the next week that'll play out, so we'll see where this goes next. Until then, though, I've got Saor and Kungs coming up soon, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - november 26, 2016

Seems like the end of a Billboard year can still surprise you, eh? If you had asked me six months or a year ago if I had wanted 2016's godawful year on the Hot 100 to end like this, I would have justifiably called you crazy. But here we are... seems like a lot of things have changed in this past week, and this Hot 100 is a prime example - the sort of week with a lot of change, including a new #1... and yet we had more returning entries than new arrivals. The more things change, the more they stay the same...

video review: 'a fistful of peril' by czarface

So I really should have gotten to this sooner... and by sooner, I mean earlier this weekend, which was a long one for me but frankly I needed some time to decompress and take a break... hell, given the week we all just had, I needed it.

Coming up next, though... man, this Saor album looks interesting, but Billboard BREAKDOWN is too... stay tuned!

album review: 'a fistful of peril' by czarface

Sometimes I've got a lengthy diatribe to open up these reviews... and sometimes I really don't. Sometimes the formula is so strong, so well-refined, so deceptively simple then complicated then simple again at its core that you don't really need to say a lot. Sometimes, if you're a fan of the genre and sound, you just get it.

And for me, Czarface, the collaboration project between underground duo 7L and Esoteric and Wu-Tang member Inspectah Deck, is that project for me. On the surface, it's over-the-top, old-school hip-hop that goes hard as hell in terms of bars, but peel beneath the surface and you find the meticulous construction in interweaving, explosive samples and interconnected rhyme schemes. And yet at the end of the day, it's not a record that's aiming to do anything beyond bringing back some old-fashioned, hard-hitting lyricism back into the game, and for the most part that's all you really need. As such, even though there's a lot of fantastic punchlines crammed into each Czarface record, especially the excellent sophomore project Every Hero Needs A Villain that was inches away from my top 25 albums of 2015, it's also a record that I don't feel the need to dig into in detail, half because the punchlines speak for themselves and half because so many of the grooves and flows give the album an easy-going charm that's hard to replicate.

But while of course I was going to cover A Fistful Of Peril - cute reference there - I was a little perplexed by what I had heard about it. For one, it swapped out guest stars like GZA, R.A. The Rugged Man and Method Man- the latter who featured on 'Nightcrawler', a song that very nearly made my list of my top 50 songs of 2015 - for artists who might not have the same name recognition. Sure, we got Psycho Les of the Beatnuts, but then when you throw in Conway and Blacastan and Meyhem Lauren - the last of whon I wasn't all that impressed with on the last record - I was a bit concerned, especially considering this project was a lot shorter than the last, down from nearly an hour to around thirty-five minutes. So okay, maybe trimming off the fat would help, how is A Fistful Of Peril?

video review: 'nightride' by tinashe

Well, this was a nice surprise. In a day where we somehow lost Leonard Cohen, I needed something more positive all the more... my god, FUCK this year.

In the mean time, Czarface is coming up - stay tuned!

album review: 'nightride' by tinashe

The last time I covered Tinashe in 2014, it didn't go well.

And there are a number of factors to consider as of why that is. Part of it was overexposure: the competition for debuting female R&B acts in 2014 was pretty fierce, between Jhene Aiko, FKA Twigs, Kehlani, Teyana Taylor and SZA, and that's before you add in Banks, Ariana Grande, or the long-awaited but tepid return from Mariah Carey. Tinashe's lane was catering to more towards commercial R&B and hip-hop, but even then it was a record spread thin, with more ideas than it could conceivably execute, more breadth than depth, not helped by some frustratingly inconsistent production. And when you combine all of that with it not being one of my better reviews from a writing standpoint, I can definitely understand why people got mad.

But from there, Tinashe didn't seem to have the staying power and momentum that you'd expect coming from '2 On'. Sure, she was touring heavily in 2015, but her self-released mixtape didn't cross over to the mainstream outside of her fanbase, albeit with some intriguing visuals. And while I've never really been wild about her singing, I did think she did a solid job on her collaboration with Snakehips and Chance The Rapper much earlier this year - that song really should have been a bigger hit, let me tell you. So I figured I'd give Tinashe another chance... and then without much warning, she released Nightride as a digital album, the first part of a two part project with Joyride in 2017, similar to what reportedly Tove Lo did with Lady Wood earlier this year. Now I've got mixed opinions on this: I get the appeal, as the digital visual project Endless did drive the anticipation for Frank Ocean's Blonde not days later... but on the other hand you risk flooding the market, or delivering half a project that might not hold as well on its own without the second piece - and since Tinashe doesn't really make succinct projects, creating a two-part project that could have been trimmed down. But regardless, I figured I'd give NIghtride a chance - how was it?

video review: 'black america again' by common

Believe it or not, I cut a good two minutes of politics out of this review. They may come again, friendly warning, depending on what I cover over the next few years, but politics are a part of culture, and if punk and hip-hop react the way I think they will, we're going to hear something we haven't heard in a long time.

In the mean time, Tinashe and Czarface, so stay tuned!

album review: 'black america again' by common

It's easy for people like me to speak messages of encouragement and hope, given what has just happened in the United States. Hell, I'm in Canada, I'm further insulated from all of it. And what can I do with my platform and audience - who is primarily in the United States - that will make a difference, especially considering what is to come? Odds are over twenty million of people are going to lose their health insurance overnight, and providing Obama doesn't pull a fast one and somehow fill that Supreme Court vacancy, abortion and gay marriage rights will probably be going away too - look at that VP and tell me otherwise. The balance has once again shifted back to protect those who discriminate rather than those who are discriminated, punching down instead of punching up, and while I could blame the Democrats for a sloppily run campaign and third parties for asinine voter deflection and the FBI for violating the Hatch Act in the eleventh hour and Republicans for disseminating blatant lies and active voter suppression and the media for feeding into all of it, normalizing lunacy and abandoning any civic responsibility to the public... at the end of the day, America, particularly white America, brought this on herself. They bought into a con, and if there's any proof that 'greatest country in the world' label has been sorely tested indeed and will face even greater challenges in the years ahead, it's here. And given that the president-elect's policy challenges include revising trade deals that affect my home country and non-existent or outright fraudulent environmental policies that impact the planet, you can bet I'm can feel the urge to say or do something, in even the smallest way.

So of course I'm reviewing Common, what else could I do? Common, the conscious rapper who may not always have the most consistent discography but in modern years has seen a creative reawakening in some of the most political material he's ever created. His 2014 album Nobody's Smiling, while not at the level of his best material, was easily the best record he had made in a decade, and in this polarized, burned out shell of a year in 2016, you can bet I was looking to Black America Again to connect, to say something. It dropped before the election, so it was inevitable it wouldn't have the titanic revolutionary fury an album like Run The Jewels 3 was bound to have, but it would have to have something, right?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - november 19, 2016 (VIDEO)

Well, this was precisely what I needed on an awful political day, a whole lot of shallow shouting in my ears. Just fucking perfect.

On that note, there might be a political tinge that'll creep into upcoming reviews where appropriate. Just felt that it's important to warn you if you get turned off by that sort of thing, but culture matters, and even if I'm insulated by a border from the president-elect's new administration, he still has the capacity to do damage, and I'm not taking this laying down. Stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - november 19, 2016

First, a bit of housekeeping. As some fans are probably very much aware, the episode of Billboard BREAKDOWN from last week is blocked in all countries because Sony decided they didn't like my usage of Little Mix, even though I gave it Best of the Week. I was tempted to drop and reupload it, but at the moment I also have the entire script and attached videos on my blog for that episode, so you can head over to spectrum-pulse.ca, check it out there, and just imagine my dulcet tones saying all of it.

video review: 'more than ever' by sims

Well, this fucking ruled. You think Danny Brown went hard... Sims can give him some serious competition, with arguably even stronger lyrics!

Beyond that, I think I'm going to go for something lighter with this Tinashe release... then Common and Czarface and of course, Billboard BREAKDOWN, so stay tuned!

album review: 'more than ever' by sims

So, here's a story for you: I saw Doomtree in Toronto twice last year. Once was at Riot Fest - it was awesome, they put on a terrific show, and I was able to leave to see Frank Turner before Tyler The Creator showed up - and the second time was in a small venue downtown. I actually ran into an old university friend there completely by accident, and afterwards we hit up a bar and talked about the show. And I remember a big part of the conversation being which Doomtree MC was our favourite... because let's face it, there's five of them, they're all ridiculously good, but there's always a hierarchy to these things. Obviously Dessa topped both of our lists, but that should be no surprise to anyone - Dessa would make my top five of all time, and the fact that she's now featured on the Hamilton mixtape is all the more deserved.

But after that, the ranking was a little more mixed. For me, I tended to gravitate to Cecil Otter, more because of his production work and because I had heard a lot of his solo material and work with Strange Famous. My friend consistently brought up Sims as her second favourite, and while she was making her entirely justified case, I realized I had never listened to Sims' solo work. I had heard P.O.S.'s albums - I can't say I'm the biggest fan, but I appreciate his distinct lane - but Sims... I had a hard time evaluating his material outside of Doomtree, especially going back to his breakthrough record in 2011 Bad Time Zoo. On the one hand, his unconventional rhyming patterns could definitely get frustrating, but he was also probably the most eccentric and borderline odd rapper of the Doomtree collective. Unlike Dessa, whose material tended to be more conventionally tasteful - as well as intricate, gorgeously performed, ridiculously intelligent, I could go on - Sims was the guy who would take more risks, in his content, wordplay, and especially his instrumentation. He had a flair for theatrical bombast and some really great hooks, but there was an off-kilter edge to Bad Time Zoo that in retrospect really feels ahead of its time. It was experimental and weird courtesy of Lazerbeak's eclectic production, almost certainly underappreciated in 2011 - and I include myself in that category. Even as a fan of Doomtree, the collective that along with of Run The Jewels is everything I want to hear in modern hip-hop, I probably didn't give Sims enough credit.

So I wasn't going to be making that mistake again, and even if nobody else cares to cover this record - which is likely, as I'm not sure he's got the immediate name recognition as Dessa or P.O.S. or even Cecil Otter - I wanted to get to this first, before Common or Czarface or anything else this week. So what did I get?

video review: 'pure' by in the woods...

Took me entirely too long to get to this, but man, definitely glad I did, this thing is a powerhouse... albeit not quite the same powerhouse as our next album on the docket, so stay tuned!

album review: 'pure' by in the woods...

You know, it's kind of funny, when I was working on my Avenged Sevenfold review and discussing the path towards metal I had taken, I came to the realization that for as much talk as I've put forward about exploring black metal, I really hadn't done as much as I would have liked this year. And that's almost entirely on me: there were a lot of black metal records that dropped this year, and I haven't done my due diligence in covering them. Now to be fair I also haven't gotten many requests for them either - black metal is a niche genre, and the brand of it I tend to like that's more melodic and atmospheric is more niche still - and I'm coming close to putting out more reviews in 2016 than I did last year, so it's not like I haven't been busy...

But still, there have been black metal records I've wanted to cover and haven't yet had time to do so, so let's make up for lost time a bit and discuss one that's been on my radar for some time: In The Woods... Now immediately out of the gate, you have to make some qualifications: when In The Woods... began releasing records in the 90s, they may have started in black metal but they didn't stay there, venturing into progressive metal and blending intricate instrumentals with some impressive melodic song structures and remarkably solid songwriting. I probably hold their sophomore album Omnio as their strongest release, but even though I'm not exactly wild about Strange In Stereo, it was still disheartening when I was rediscovering the band last year and discovering that they hadn't released any full-length records since. Thankfully, In The Woods... actually did reform with new vocalist James Fogerty, and they actually released a full-length record this year. And I really wasn't sure what to expect - progressive metal, black metal, either way the pedigree of this group is strong enough to warrant one hell of a comeback. So, while I'm entirely too late to the punch here, how was Pure?

video review: 'collage' by the chainsmokers

Well, this was junk - but to be fair, I wasn't expecting this to be good. But on the other hand, I wasn't expecting something this cynically mediocre, so I'm not exactly surprised here...

Next up, though, something great that I missed from earlier this year, so stay tuned!

album review: 'collage' by the chainsmokers

There will be no way to talk about pop music in 2016 without talking about The Chainsmokers - even if you desperately don't want to talk about The Chainsmokers.

And here's the funny thing: I'm starting to get the impression that the people who don't want you talking about The Chainsmokers in deeper detail includes the duo themselves. They'd probably prefer that you don't reference their atrocious faux-ironic sketch comedy beginnings, or the fact they were responsible for inflicting that viral marketing trash 'hit' '#SELFIE' on the world in 2014. In other words, right from the start I had a certain distaste for these guys, especially in their attitudes towards pop music, which can be aptly summed up in a quote they made in an interview with Billboard: 'even before success, pussy was number one'. Fantastic, all the proof that the attitudes typically associated with the 'white guy with acoustic guitar' stereotype can cross over: the guys who never made music out of any sort of artistic impulse, just to pick up chicks. Follow it up with an awful live performance with Halsey at the VMAs, their slagging of the band Weezer as 'thirsty', and their much-covered insults at Lady Gaga and Rihanna for either sucking or having 'no work ethic', and you can see why legitimate artists both in and outside of EDM treat The Chainsmokers with at best disinterest and at worst outright contempt.

But look, we've had assholes in music forever, I'm not holding The Chainsmokers to any sort of moral standard. No, what I find more corrosive is how it feels like so much of their music feels like an extended con run on the mainstream public, abusing the pass that's now common for pop in the cultural conversation to make some of the most cynical and hollow music imaginable. You might not like Lady Gaga's artifice or The Weeknd's nhilism, you might think Taylor Swift is thin-skinned and vindictive and Drake is overexposed and creatively stagnating, that Meghan Trainor can't back up her ego and Shawn Mendes is way over his head, but when I listen to their music, there's an artistic impulse that I might not like but is at least there. Even will.i.am, who I used to loathe for his 'music-as-marketing savant' approach at least took the music with artistic integrity - even if he couldn't always execute, there was at least something. The Chainsmokers, meanwhile, freely admit in public to being inspired by Jeremy Piven's character from Entourage and seem to treat music more as a marketing gimmick to enable hedonism rather than any sort of art - so no wonder they've said they've never considered releasing a full-length debut album, because that would enable critics to drag them into a serious conversation they aren't prepared or willing to have. And that's the reason why I'm covering their second EP Collage in detail - call it a review, call it an expose, what did this Collage deliver?

video review: 'the stage' by avenged sevenfold

Well, this happened. Wow, did not expect to find anything to like here, but hey, it happens.

Next up... look, I'd like to say that new "solo" album from The Game is worth talking about, but I really want to knock something out of my backlog first... so stay tuned!

album review: 'the stage' by avenged sevenfold

Oh, I am the wrong person to be covering this record.

See, I think I've gone on record that I never really had an 'angry white boy' phase, and since I was such a massive nerd growing up, when I did start getting into metal in the mid-2000s, I kind of skipped hard rock radio entirely and dove straight into fantasy-inspired symphonic and power metal. Sure, I heard some of it in passing if it ever crossed over to pop radio, but my musical evolution was taking me in precisely the opposite direction of rock radio: I was listening to progressive rock and metal and later the more anthemic strains of hair metal and thrash, or getting into punk and post-punk that would drag me into experimental and noise rock, all of which would culminate in my continuing exploration of even more abrasive genres like black metal which continues to this day.

But going back to relisten to some of that mid-2000s material now... wow, I can't tell you how lucky I feel about this. I avoided the dregs of nu-metal, the post-grunge imitators, so much of the meat-headed metalcore scene... look, I doubted I would have gotten into this when I was a teenager anyway, but it's very telling that going back to this now how badly so much of it has aged. That's what makes a look back at Avenged Sevenfold kind of fascinating to me, a band that gets dumped on by metal fans for not being heavier and the sort of theatrics that they've rarely if ever been able to pull off convincingly. Yeah, okay, the guitar work and solos did have a certain charm on City Of Evil, but the band followed it with a self-titled release in 2007 that tried to add elements of symphonic rock and fell ridiculously flat. And yes, for the most part I'm going to blame frontman M. Shadows for this - his songwriting has always been hilariously overwrought and his more nasal delivery has never had swell or impact for me. 

Now granted, things have improved: after the unfortunate passing of their drummer The Rev, they pivoted into heavier material like their 2010 album Nightmare, which was a decent if unremarkable slice of heavy metal. But by the time they released Hail To The King in 2013, it became apparent that even if Avenged Sevenfold had started to evolve past adolescent whinging, I was struggling to find anything fresh or interesting about their material. I get making a tribute to the past, but when the influences are so blatant without fresher content, I can lose interest. And it looks like Avenged Sevenfold have reportedly taken that to heart: without warning they released their longest album to date, apparently drawing on progressive metal, thrash, and even hints of their metalcore sound they left behind years ago. Now I still wasn't a fan of this band, but this looked to potentially be their most experimental work to date, one of their more 'conceptual' and perhaps even their heaviest, and that looked interesting at least, so I dug into The Stage. Did Avenged Sevenfold redeem themselves?