Ari Lennox – Vacancy
Her voice is good, but the music seems synthetic. I mean, I know it is synthetic, but it shouldn’t feel so mechanical. It’s clear she wants to show off her soul chops, but that effort is undercut by soulless backing.
Listen: No
Buy: No
Megadeth – Megadeth
Of speedmetal’s Big Four, only Megadeth continued to release records that I ever get interested in enough to listen. While their self-titled finale isn’t their best record and, like even some of their best albums, is a little too solo heavy, it is a fine farewell. Unlike his nemeses in Metallica, Mustaine can look back and say he never made a record that was just about money. Although the lyrics are a bit dumb, Mustaine remains pretty angry which has fueled good material for him for a long time.
Listen: Yes
Buy: Maybe
Immaterialize – Perfect
This sounds familiar in a way I really like. Maybe it’s the jangle. Maybe it’s the drone. Maybe it’s the reverb. Yeah, it’s probably the reverb. Nonetheless, this is catchy record that never hits you over the head with its catchiness. “Cheesecake Factory” is a weird title for a song and a weird reference in the lyrics. It seems really out of place here, because there is a really mellow melancholy to the album, that song included.
Listen: Yes
Buy: Yes
Louis Tomlinson – How Did I Get Here?
I love when songs have those moments that just suddenly take off and soar. Like Harold Melvin’s “Don’t Leave Me This Way” (or better yet, Thelma Houston or the Communards doing the same). Louis Tomlinson tries to do that on this record and he fails. I can hear some good ideas in here, but none seem to turn into good songs. “I’m scared of what if our futures / They never collide / If this were the last night / The last night of our lives.” How does that end up falling this flat? Could it be he’s a One Direction alum? Well, that didn’t stop Harry Styles from making the amazing Harry’s House which succeeds at everything at which Tomlinson fails.
Listen: No
Buy: No
Lucinda Williams – World’s Gone Wrong
There are artists that it seems you should just trust. Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, and I think many would include Lucinda Williams. I don’t think there is anything unexpected on World’s Gone Wrong and it is not so much profound as it is just pure. Early into the record, the adjective “simmering” occurred to me and then she uses the phrase “simmering rage” on “Something’s Gotta Give.” That encapsulates the record pretty well, but it might be good to add “foreboding” and perhaps “apocalyptic” as well. I would not call it hopeless, but it definitely lives in collective dark times as it struggles for a way out.
Listen: Yes
Buy: Probably
Roc Marciano – 656
I’m not usually a fan of this kind of laid-back delivery, but this record grew on me as I listened. It’s a pretty creative record in what seems to be an artistically dry era for rap.
Listen: Yes
Buy: Probably
Poppy – Empty Hands
Sometimes, a record doesn’t really resonate at first, but builds over the course of its tracks or over successive listens. Empty Hands is kind of the opposite of that. On first listen, the opening track was kind of interesting and I thought there may be a masked optimism in its deliberate chaos. Continuing on, it just became a pop-leaning nu metal record. When I went back to the opening song, even that had lost its luster.
Listen: Nah
Buy: Nope
Searows – Death in the Business of Whaling
The Moby Dick reference in the title made me want to like this (which is odd, because I have never read Moby Dick, but it nonetheless is part of my sense of American restlessness). This record’s sparseness also made me want to like the record. Nonetheless, this just fell short.
Listen: Maybe
Buy: No
Leftover from the January 16 releases, but not to be ignored:
Westside Cowboy – So Much Country ‘Till We Get There
Something I like in dance music is how the energy can change in one layer and stay the same in another. It creates its own kind of energy that can be restrained and unbridled at once. This EP is not a dance record by any means, but the way its layers of analog and electronic sound work together and apart creates a similar energy with nods to folk, garage, and power pop rather than disco. There is so much movement in a mere 14 minutes.
Listen: Yes!
Buy: Yes