video review: 'nation of two' by vance joy

And this sucked. Look, it was a low-key kind of suck, the sort you have to think about a bit, but yeah, I'm not excusing this.

But next up... well, Billboard BREAKDOWN, and then either Phonte or Oceans Of Slumber, so stay tuned!

movie review: 'annihilation' (VIDEO)

Huh, this was fascinating. Not really a great movie, but definitely one worth thinking and talking about.

But on the opposite note... well, stay tuned!

album review: 'nation of two' by vance joy

Okay, so if you've been following my schedule, you'd realize that this isn't quite what I was looking to cover today. I was looking to give Oceans Of Slumber this slot, but a few listens in made it clear it was either going to wind up on the Trailing Edge or that I was going to need at a few more listens to really process its weight - and when it's over an hour and embraces a lot of doom tones and textures to compliment its progressive and melodic death metal side, that's not something I approach lightly. And given that Phonte was going to demand some serious, lengthy consideration too for his long-awaited sophomore project, I looked to the elevated tiers, and once I moved past the sort of absolutely weird, quasi-insane bandcamp project that I'm not sure my mind is fully fit to process, and a top ten list that's going to take some time to rework, I wound up with this - and I had the sinking feeling that all of that deliberating would wind up more interesting or listenable than Vance Joy.

But that's the thing with silent majority acts like this Australian singer-songwriter - critics are often left bewildered or shrugging with albums like his 2014 debut, maybe able to highlight one song that stands out - usually the big single - while the others are left high and dry. And with Vance Joy, while he released seven singles from Dream Your Life Away, the one that caught everyone's attention was 'Riptide', which peaked at #30 and somehow got enough points to wind up on the year-end list in 2015. And while the strength of that song got Vance Joy to move two million copies of his debut record... I couldn't stand it. Seriously, it was the last song to get cut from my worst hit songs of 2015, the sloppy brittleness, weak vocals, utterly wimpy or misconstrued lyrics, gutless skitters backing up a tempo shift that never paid off, the pop culture references that made less and less sense with every listen, the only thing I could respect about it was how it laid the foundation for Ed Sheeran to take a similar cadence and sound to success with 'Shape Of You'. And if that was considered the strong point of his debut, and even sympathetic critics weren't finding that same magic on the follow-up, we could have something pretty bad on our plate here. But again, there's more people listening to this than every record I would have otherwise covered in its stead, and I've been surprised in this lane before - hell, Niall Horan came out of nowhere last year with Flicker and there's at least similar creative DNA with Vance Joy, so what did I find on Nation Of Two?

video review: 'you're not alone' by andrew w.k.

Huh, I was expecting this review to be way more controversial than it is... guess most people are lukewarm on it too.

Okay, next up, the movie review of Annihilation, stay tuned!

album review: 'you're not alone' by andrew w.k.

I remember when saying you liked Andrew W.K. as a critic was a much more polarizing statement than it is today.

And let's not mince words: when I Get Wet first came out, there was a vast gulf between the critics that adored it and those that hated it with a passion. And a lot of that was a factor of the time: it was late 2001, hard rock was making a hard pivot to the dark and serious, and here comes an artist with the simplest of lyrics, the most obviously overblown sound and production, all driven by strident piano compositions that seemed deceptively simple. For a set of cynical critics coming out of the 90s, it had to be a corporate calculation gone wrong, or a parody years out of date, all of it so damn stupid that nobody in their right mind could ever take this seriously!

In retrospect, time has been way kinder to Andrew W.K. and I Get Wet specifically because of the gradual revelation that it wasn't a gimmick. Yeah, it was broad and goofy and ridiculous, but there was a method to that deceptive simplicity that cut across critical faculties into something damn near transcendent, rooted in sharp melodic songwriting and the real earnestness and optimism that Andrew W.K. brought to the table. Sure, it was a little one-note in terms of content - although the sound would eventually dive towards mainstream rock before going for outright piano rock on later records - but like with Lil Jon in hip-hop, as a collective society we've decided to keep Andrew W.K. around, if only because that good-hearted earnestness is only a net positive, be it on the multiple J-pop cover records or his motivational speaking tours! 

That said, when Andrew W.K. announced his first full-length record in nine years, I won't deny that I was skeptical, mostly because I Get Wet still looms above so much of his musical career, and even if he had found a way to remake that party magic seventeen years later, the album was still going to run fifty-two minutes and sixteen tracks - you can only hit one note so many times. But hell, I wanted a good time, so how is You're Not Alone?

video review: 'all at once' by screaming females

I can imagine given how much critical acclaim this record has gotten that my slightly cooler take might be divisive... folks, I still like it, just not as much as everyone else, it happens.

Next up... hmm, probably Annihilation, but we'll see what shows up on the schedule come tomorrow, so stay tuned!

album review: 'all at once' by screaming females

So here's a hidden truth about being a music critic: in the age of the internet, you haven't heard everything, and you will never hear everything. And learning to reconcile that on some level is pretty much the only reason I haven't burned out nearly five years into this, and one reason I am so grateful Patreon provides some structure in my schedule. It doesn't mean I'm any less curious about everything that's out there or that I'm not kicking myself at the end of every year when I miss some record that's notched critical acclaim that I just didn't get a chance to cover, but it softens the blow a bit, especially considering my Patrons have a nice habit of pushing me outside my comfort zone, which is definitely healthy. That being said, since it's my policy to try and hear a band's entire discography before reviewing them in depth, it gets a tad exhausting when you see yet another indie rock band with considerable critical acclaim and a discography close to double digits wind up on my schedule. And it's not even that the bands are bad - it's typically got enough of a punk edge to stay exciting, the writing is often passable to pretty strong, the riffing is usually pretty well-developed, and at some point they typically get Steve Albini behind the production boards - but I also won't lie and say that unless the sound shifts significantly these records can start to run together a bit. 

Fortunately, it seems like five records in, Screaming Females realized this and started shifting up their formula after four pretty damn solid releases - my personal favourite favourite of those being Power Trip. For their fifth record in 2012 called Ugly, they brought in Steve Albini, tightened up the production and riffs, and crystallized their sound... only to swivel on their next full-length towards a crunchy brand of metal in 2015 on Rose Mountain that while was pretty likable didn't always flatter their more melodic guitar digressions or Marissa Paternoster's incensed, throaty vibrato. So when I heard they were heading closer towards mainstream rock radio on their newest collection... well, I had mixed expectations, given that they had kept Matt Bayles on production - and he's most well known for working with Mastodon on their pre-Crack The Skye years - and a swivel towards power-pop or pop punk seemed like uncharted territory, even if the critical consensus has generally been unsurprised by the pivot. Granted, said critics have also been giving this album the most praise Screaming Females have gotten since Ugly, so what the hell: how was All At Once?

trailing edge - episode 003 - february 2018 (VIDEO)

Yeah, bit of a rough round this time - thank god Eric Taxxon delivered quality, I really must say...

Anyway, next up is Screaming Females, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 3, 2018 (VIDEO)

Huh, this is up... WAY earlier than usual. And when the week is this decent, I'm all right with that!

Next up... well, we've got the Trailing Edge, but after that stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 3, 2018

Okay, I made the statement last week that things were likely to slow down - I didn't expect it to slow down this much. Of course, it was still a modestly busy week within the charts - fair number of gains and losses, sizable number of returning entries, even some top ten activity - but we only have two new songs this week, so regardless of what I do this is going to be pretty short... at least until 6ix9ine crashes in next week, but we'll deal with that engorged appendix when it explodes.

video review: 'chime' by dessa

I think I stunned a couple people with the score I gave this one... hell, I even went back to the others I scored the same to check to see if it deserved to be on the same pedestal. But the truth is that I couldn't find a problem with it - every song sent a chill down my spine, the sonic themes meshed perfectly, the emotional throughline was wonderfully balanced, and the writing is top-of-the-line, analytical but never sacrificing the emotional core. This is the album to beat in 2018, and really, it deserves the score.

Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN - stay tuned!

resonators 2018 - episode #002 - 'fresh fruit for rotting vegetables' by dead kennedys (VIDEO)

...you know, I was expecting WAY more critical backlash than what I've received thus far... but I think I've just got to give this one time, I reckon.

Anyway, now for the real event...

album review: 'chime' by dessa

So I've covered a lot of truly excellent records in February... and I can't help but feel it's all been building up to this, the newest, long-awaited solo release from one of my favourite-ever MCs, most notable for her work in the Doomtree collective but also for the diverse, genre-twisting blend she brought to her own work...

And yet I'll admit I was nervous about this, mostly because Dessa's solo work is very different than the fire she typically spits with Doomtree. I might love A Badly Broken Code as an underrated near-classic, but it's meditative and restrained in an uncanny way, and certainly took a lot of listens to grow on me as much as it did. And her 2013 follow-up Parts Of Speech, even though that record made my year-end list, it was a pivot towards more R&B and less hip-hop, and I was a little unsure whether it played enough to her strengths - she's an absolutely excellent rapper, but not quite as expressive or potent as a singer. And thus when I heard that her newest project Chime was pivoting even further, moving closer to mainstream-accessible pop... well, it's not like I couldn't have seen it coming, given her contributions to The Hamilton Mixtape and her own wild creativity to be more than just a spitter, and I was sure there was bound to be real density and punch in the content, and it's not like Lazerbeak or Cecil Otter would steer her astray on production - okay, maybe I was worrying too much over nothing, I'll admit it. But again, Dessa is an all-time favourite MC of mine, I really wanted this to be amazing, especially given some of the critical buzz about this release and that she had brought in Andy Thompson to augment her sound with more classical elements... so, what did we get on Chime?

resonators 2018 - episode #002 - 'fresh fruit for rotting vegetables' by dead kennedys

So for the second episode of this series, I wanted to tackle something a little more widely known - and we immediately hit a quandary, because in the 1980s, hardcore punk didn't cross over to the mainstream, not unless you had a hot single or managed to snag the popular zeitgeist for one blistering sharp moment in time. And that also means that I'm going to be talking about a lot of records in this series that even decades later didn't sell at all. 

Today, we're going to be talking about one of the exceptions, one that actually predates Black Flag's Damaged by about a year, from a band further up the west coast that were a fair bit more political, but possibly dating themselves in the process, a band that had a legit underground single that led this record to actually move units and win certifications, even spots on the UK charts! But of course it came with a fair amount of controversy, protests, and holds a much more contentious spot in the hardcore canon. But when it comes to bands bridging the gap between traditional punk and hardcore, they do deserve attention, even if they're far from the purest expression of the genre. In other words... strap in, folks, we're talking about Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables by Dead Kennedys, and this is Resonators!

video review: 'what it's like to fly alone' by courtney patton

So it took me a while to get to this, but it really is damn great - definitely check this out!

Next up, probably the next episode of Resonators as I work on Rhye and Dessa, so stay tuned!

album review: 'what it's like to fly alone' by courtney patton

You know, it's a bit of a shame that I haven't had a chance to discuss Courtney Patton's solo work as much as I have her material with her husband Jason Eady - so let's rectify that, shall we? And the first thing to note is that while she's worked in indie country with Jason Eady, her own lane is a little different than his, less of a straightforward traditionalist and more leaning towards Americana or even folk. Now this means she typically brings a little more lived-in detail to her songs, and while the structure of her writing can feel a bit more ragged and rough around the edges, it doesn't detract from the mature framing and painfully realistic pictures she paints - perhaps not quite as elegant as Lori McKenna, but she'll bring a more direct edge in her writing and delivery that McKenna might balk at, and sometimes, that's exactly what you need.

Now on the flip side to that, for as much as I like her last few records So This Is Life and Triggering A Flood, her production can sometimes feel a tad inconsistent as well, which is why some of the critical buzz suggesting this was more of a country affair than Americana was intriguing. Of course, those same critics were also raving that this might just be one of the best records of the year, full of complicated songwriter-driven stories than more of an overarching narrative. So okay, given that this has flown under the radar of pretty much everybody except the diehard indie country set, I really wanted to give this a listen, so what did we get on What It's Like To Fly Alone?

video review: 'room inside the world' by ought

So yeah, I was expecting this to be better... and the fact that it's not was kind of painful, but eh, it happens.

Next up... hmm, how about some Courtney Patton and then something off my backlog, so stay tuned!

album review: 'room inside the world' by ought

I'm not going to lie, as much as I was looking forward to this release, some of the buzz leading up to it had me, well, more concerned than I wanted to be. 

Because look, I like Ought for their smart, amazingly well-textured and nervy post-punk that especially with their record Sun Coming Down in 2015 saw greater refinement in its melodic grooves and complex transitions. And for as much as Tim Darcy could sound like he was splitting his David Byrne impression with that of Elias Bender Ronnenfelt of Iceage, this sort of artistic but deeply felt indie rock is an easy sell for me. And that's before you consider how well they can translate the anxious tension at their core into the sort of unstable core where you literally cannot predict its shifts. 

But in the rollout for Room Inside The World, I starting hearing buzz that the band had changed labels and this record was embracing more new wave and synths and streamlining things even further - and I was really conflicted on this, mostly as the critical reception seem a little more reticent. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate Ought looking to intensify their internal sense of logic and composition within the songs - the improvisation is a nice touch but it can lead to mixed rewards - but there is such a thing as over-polish when you look at a band like Ought where you can lose some of the wild spirit that makes them distinct. And considering the mixed reception to Tim Darcy's solo project a year or so back, I wasn't sure how that would translate onto this project, but what the hell: what did we get on Room Inside The World?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 24, 2018 (VIDEO)

Hmm, so this turned out all right... filmed it the same day as the Ought review dropping tonight, so stay tuned for that, but overall it was a pretty decent week.

Okay, so next up, Ought and Courtney Patton, then probably something from my backlog, then Resonators - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 24, 2018

This is one of the weeks where everything seemed muted - I made predictions about what was coming, and while most of those predictions came to pass, the impact was less than expected. Sure, I was planning for the Black Panther soundtrack to make an impact, but it wasn't much of an album bomb, and there were larger debuts that disrupted the top 10 and Hot 100 more. Not precisely bad, sure, but in a year where I have felt oddly disconnected with a lot of the songs that have shown up, it leaves me with a very weird feeling.