video review: 'hell-on' by neko case

Well, this took WAY too damn long to finish... but again, when you have a record with this much going on, you kind of have to dig in deep.

Next up, we're going really underground, so stay tuned!

album review: 'hell-on' by neko case

I'm a little surprised in spite of myself that this is the first time I'm talking about a Neko Case solo record - I've talked about her with The New Pornographers and with case/lang/veirs, but Neko Case has had a distinctive and critically acclaimed presence outside of her other groups and side projects, and considering my fondness for sharp-as-hell songwriting married to vocals overflowing with charisma and production...

Well okay, this is where things get tricky, because when I took the time to revisit Neko Case's entire discography, I found myself naturally being drawn to the alternative country murder ballads that characterized her very early work like Blacklisted and Fox Confessor Brings The Flood - the jagged guitars working through interesting melodies with more ragged production, it just proved more distinctive and potent in comparison with her more refined and experimental but more mild work like her albums in 2009 and 2013. I'm not saying either record is bad - hell, you could make the argument that the writing and hooks were sharper than ever - but it couldn't help but feel like some of the greater edge had been tempered. What I was looking to hear was the return of some anger and firepower, or at the very least the production picking up some righteous fervor... and considering what I had heard surrounding Hell-On, we could be getting the best of both worlds, especially as she corralled a pretty impressive list of collaborators - spanning from perennial frustration of mine Mark Lanegan to her bandmates k.d. Lang and Laura Veirs, the latter who I covered on the Trailing Edge earlier this year. So hell yeah, I was looking forward to this kicking ass, especially with all the critical acclaim it's received, so how is Hell-On?

video review: 'butter' by karen jonas

Okay, this is pretty great - not quite as strong as her last two, but still really enjoyable, definitely take the time to check this out!

Next up... man, I could do with some Neko Case right about now, so enjoy!

album review: 'butter' by karen jonas

I'll freely admit I'm not surprised by Karen Jonas' artistic direction in indie country. That's not to disparage said direction - beginning in the hardbitten, world-weary acoustic grit of indie country to a more relaxed and lush Bakersfield sound, all coaxed through writing that's subtle enough to emphasize the details but conveyed with the intimacy and charisma to really suck the audience in, it's a natural progression as Jonas has built up steam among critics and fans alike. And it feels comfortable - I may have been won over initially by the edge, but Jonas has avoided histrionics and it makes her brand of burnished country feel impressively sensual and mature, she's got that pure magnetism.

And thus I wasn't really surprised she was picking up elements of jazz, blues, ragtime, and barroom soul for her newest project Butter, which she herself has described as her most broad to date... but I was a bit worried. Part of this is the fact that this cross-section of sounds in indie country has been pretty saturated in the 2010s, but also because Jonas is the sort of singer-songwriter who has been at her best leveraging subtlety, so I wasn't sure if going bigger and broader would pay off - and again, I'd have a wealth of comparison points in this style for when it's done right. But hey, what did we get from Butter?

video review: 'ye' by kanye west

Well, this is already contentious... seriously, some of you really need to get off of Kanye's dick, it's kind of embarrassing...

Anyway, probably Karen Jonas next... although that NateWantsToBattle record is tempting, so we'll see. Stay tuned!

album review: 'ye' by kanye west

I remember when it felt like a new Kanye West album was an event. I mean, hate him or love him and there's ample room for both sides of that conversation, he was a good enough producer at least to monopolize the conversation, and he took enough chances to at least generate some interesting music that felt fiercely relevant to the cultural conversation.

It doesn't feel like that with ye - and Kanye tried to make it feel like that, with the overloaded spectacle of piling up album releases one after the other with deadlines that seem impossible and production that can't help but feel incredibly rushed. And as much as I dig DAYTONA by Pusha-T, I knew that was a fluke, because Pusha-T is a great rapper who only really needed the fat trimmed away. With Kanye putting out a seven song record, the list of things that could go wrong seems to stretch on for miles - badly chosen features, incompetent rapping, sloppy vocal arrangements, inconsistent production, and that's before we get into some of the provocative commentary that have revealed a talented artist holds some painfully undercooked, ill-informed, or just flat out stupid opinions that too many people have validated for too long. It led to many people saying Kanye was cancelled, but I knew that was never going to last, so I just refused on principle to give his material more attention when I had more interesting projects up first on the docket. But this is what the people wanted, so what did we get out of ye?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 9, 2018 (VIDEO)

And now we have a busy but overall pretty damn good week, I'm generally pleased with this.

Next up... okay, fine, we'll deal with the elephant in the room, and I won't have a lot of mercy - stay tuned!

video review: 'prequelle' by ghost

I have to keep remembering to post these video updates here... anyway, solid record, but it should be better - enjoy!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 9, 2018

...well, I can't say that the Hot 100 doesn't surprise me occasionally. I was expecting some fallout from the Pusha-T and Drake beef, but the most we got was the worst song to come out of it and half of Pusha-T's album! And when you pair it with all the rest of the scattered entries, this week wound up feeling surprisingly busy...

album review: 'prequelle' by ghost

There's a part of me that finds it really weird how big Ghost are becoming as a band.

That's not to disparage the talent behind the group, of course - in terms of metal they've hit the increasingly rare sweet spot of being able to merge progressive and heavy tendencies with actual melodies and hooks and a commitment to a gimmick that I respect a great deal. A little over-the-top and theatrical, sure, but if the music remains kick-ass like it did on the self-titled debut and Meliora, I wasn't going to complain. But that sort of theatricality tends to ostracize bands, especially with Ghost tilting so heavily into blatantly Satanic material - say what you will about Black Sabbath and classic metal bands, if you dug into their content they tended to avoid that, and even for an act like KISS that leaned even harder into their image, the content rarely backed up the spectacle.

And yet Ghost has doggedly remained committed to the content and the gimmick, and with their rising fame and in the age of the internet, that's genuinely impressive... although I had to question how much longer it would last, especially as the frontman's identity was leaked and all his former bandmates quit and then sued him for treating Ghost like a glorified solo project. And yet after a tumultuous few years for the group - including winning a Grammy - Ghost has recruited a new set of musicians and have a new record, one that was reportedly aiming to be their most accessible to date... which can be a loaded qualifier when it comes to any metal act looking to make a pivot towards mainstream rock radio, but I was curious where the hell this could be going, especially given how awesome their last record was, so how is Prequelle?

video review: 'god's favorite customer' by father john misty

And here's the first review of the night... but it's not over yet, stay tuned!

album review: 'god's favorite customer' by father john misty

So there comes two distinctive times in every singer-songwriter's life, especially if they've got a theatrical slant and even more especially if they've had any degree of crossover success. The first is the concept record: the overblown, overwrought 'statement of the human condition' record that often proves to be the point where even diehard fans start looking for the exits. These are the records that end careers, full stop... but if they don't, you get the second case: the inevitable comedown release, the one that might try to win back the fanbase but crystallizes more on the wide-eyed, panicked feeling that you have nothing else to say and thus are going to collapse inwards in spectacular fashion. They're often just as pretentious but considerably more uncomfortable, the artist ripping away any veneer in grotesque, self-destructive fashion to expose the humanity within, when the artist holes up in a mansion or hotel and truly starts to fly off the rails - and sometimes more rails than you might realize.

And I'm not remotely surprised that Josh Tillman aka Father John Misty took both of these steps, especially considering the narrow line he walks between biting self-aware satire and genuine earnestness which manifested most strongly on the breakthrough record I Love You Honeybear in 2015. And thus with Pure Comedy we got the overblown concept record and now... look, the seeds have been planted for years, Tillman knew he'd have to go down this rabbit hole in the same way Dylan and Beck and Berninger and Cave have, for as much as he has deconstructed his ego and artistic persona, it's still one he has yet to truly set on fire, and God's Favorite Customer looked like it would be that moment. And I'll admit records with these themes really get under my skin in a great way - beyond just the artistic deconstruction and raw humanity exposed, for an artist with such intense self-awareness of the artifice of his image and the crowd that has embraced it, ironically or otherwise, as Josh Tillman, he would know exactly what buttons to push, a You're The Worst-episode made flesh. In other words, this could be a total trainwreck and I'd be here for it, so what did we get on God's Favorite Customer?

trailing edge - episode 006 - may 2018 (VIDEO)

Heh, nearly forgot to post this... ten records too, lots to cover. Anyway, I've got multiple reviews coming tonight, so stay tuned!

video review: 'DAYTONA' by pusha-t

Took a while to get to this one, but MAN I'm happy I did. Great project, damn great project...

Next up, Trailing Edge - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 2, 2018 (VIDEO)

Oh man, this was a messy damn week.. but eh, I'll take it...

Anyway, now for something better - stay tuned!

album review: 'daytona' by pusha-t

This is one of those reviews where I'm actually incredibly grateful I didn't jump the gun and review this early, if only because it feels like this week for Pusha-T might be one of the most tumultuous for hip-hop in 2018, and even now it feels like we're only joining the story in progress. And indeed, there's a part of me that just wants to focus on the beef with Drake, how Drake seemed to think he could put away Pusha-T's career with 'Duppy Freestyle' like he had Meek Mill, only to put Pusha-T's fiancee on wax and for Pusha-T to declare all bets are off with 'The Story Of Adidon', which might just join Jay-Z's 'Super Ugly' in the realm of diss tracks that seemed to step over the line. And yet for me... there's a part of me that feels Drake brought this on himself and has been pushing this line with too many people for too long, and not only did Pusha-T seem fully aware of the gravity of his references, the framing of all of it was highlighting the twisted cycle of abandonment that Drake was perpetuating from his father, be it his closest producer or his previously unrevealed son. For someone of principles - even the warped code of bleak, nihilistic pragmatism that Pusha-T adheres to - this is a much higher crime.

And yet it already seems like some are forgetting how the release of DAYTONA had been mired in some controversy of its own, with Kanye West operating as sole producer yanking the album art to replace it with a photograph of Whitney Houston's bathroom for a sum of $85,000, and that's before you got the lingering questions whether just seven songs from Pusha-T would be enough. Granted, I did just cover Minor Threat's Out Of Step less than a week ago, and that was about as long with nine tracks, but seven songs meant Pusha-T had no room for error or dead weight, and while the critical acclaim was really damn encouraging, I was cautious, especially as it seems like this might be the abortive substitution for the long-delayed KING PUSH - but hey, that didn't mean it wouldn't be good, right?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 2, 2018

This was a weird week. A pretty busy one, to be sure, and some things did turn out as I had predicted, but overall... it's not often you can say that our new arrivals span between k-pop, Lil Baby, Kevin Gates, and the Backstreet Boys - yeah, we'll be getting to that one, I did not see that coming at all! And that's very telling of the Hot 100 right now: there doesn't seem to be any one musical movement that's driving the pop culture conversation with any sustainability, and we're ripe to see everything blow apart.

video review: 'love is dead' by CHVRCHES

So this night turned out to be way crazier than I thought it would be... and it's a shame that this middling review of a middling record will get lost in the shuffle.

But hey, Billboard BREAKDOWN is up next, so stay tuned!

album review: 'love is dead' by chvrches

I was worried about this record.

Actually, 'worried' isn't quite the right terminology there, because that implies a level of uncertainty that something wouldn't turn out to the standards that we all expect and hope from CHVRCHES, who at least for me have hit two line drives out of the park with their first two albums. Many cite The Bones Of What You Believe as the stronger release with its sharp, garish early-80s synths, but I actually stand behind their follow-up Every Open Eye as the better record: the gloss has been buffed to a mirror shine, the lyrics focused the abstract narrative into a more emotionally nuanced package, and the hooks were easily among the best in synthpop. Both records would wind up making year-end lists for me, but it was Every Open Eye that broke my top ten, and for damn good reason.

But I did have a concern coming out of that sophomore record, and that was, in essence, CHVRCHES had just copied their own formula, including much of the thematic arc from their debut, and I at least had a concern they could fall into that same trap yet again... until I saw the production credits for this record. A switch in labels put them with producer Greg Kurstin, the first time any of their records had not been produced entirely in-house... which sure, could net them a very different sound, but Kurstin has had a bad habit of suffocating his mixes in reverb and even if CHVRCHES was acknowledging they were heading towards conventionality, it would require a very delicate balance to do so without compromising their sound and style. But hey, if this was their big pop swing, they had been primed for this off of Every Open Eye, so Love Is Dead might just work, right?

video review: 'shawn mendes' by shawn mendes

So I sincerely doubt this video will be dislike-bombed in the same way the last Shawn Mendes review was... but hey, you never know?

Anyway, I've got Billboard BREAKDOWN and a lot of other reviews to get through this week - stay tuned!