Flea – Honora: Before I found my voice as a bassist, I bought a lot of albums by bass players whose technical skills appealed to my head but failed to reach my heart. Honora is not one of those albums. Flea—who shines more on trumpet than bass—and his bandmates’ performances possess far more heart than head. “A Plea” quickly evolves… Read more »
Grace Ives – Girlfriend: Although I’ve gained more appreciation for pop in middle age and have become a genuine fan of a handful of pop artists, most pop albums leave me unenthused. Girlfriend is an exception. This pushes hard against pop’s boundaries while staying anchored in songs that are structurally perfect. Producers Ariel Rechtshaid and John DeBold help Ives move… Read more »
Em Beihold – Tales of a Failed Shapeshifter: Every once in a while, I imagine doing record reviews in the spirit of Jessica Hagy’s Indexed Venn diagrams, but I’ve tried and it’s way harder than it looks. Not for Shapeshifter, though. This is where Lily Allen and Regina Spektor intersect with a good bit of Queen and a little slice… Read more »
Laurel Halo – Midnight Zone: I turned this off twice in the first three songs. Not because it’s bad (it’s not; it’s extraordinary) but because it messed with my head. Shortly into the opening track, “Sunlight Zone,” the music harmonized with my tinnitus and I felt as if my ears were being pummeled from both the inside and outside. It… Read more »
Gnarls Barkley – Atlanta: More like Gnarls Borekley. And this from a guy who even liked The Odd Couple. Shabaka – Of the Earth: Shabaka made this record by himself, and it lacks the confusing emotional intensity of human interaction. Imagine Rumours without any of the fighting and fucking and backstabbing and namecalling. That’s kinda what Of the Earth sounds… Read more »
Apparat – A Hum of Maybe: I listened to A Hum of Maybe a couple times this week, and my initial feeling is that it’s good but not great. A few songs (“Glimmerine,” “An Echo Skips a Name,” and the title track) immediately jump out, but some others sounded embarrassingly bad on first listen. These high and low points make… Read more »
U2 – Days of Ash: Most of the protest songs I’ve heard have been about a distant past and often a distant land. Whether it was Fela or The Clash or Woody Guthrie, I was separated by years if not oceans. Even my first experiences with U2 were songs that brought distant conflicts and historic people to a fiery life…. Read more »
Lucinda Williams – World’s Gone Wrong: I’ve never felt drawn to Lucinda Williams and World’s Gone Wrong doesn’t change that, but I heard a lot of good in the record while I was being reminded of why her music doesn’t grab me. The biggest thing about this record is the timeliness—and timelessness—of the lyrics. Virtually all these songs could be… Read more »
Blackwater Holylight – Not Here Not Gone: The sludgy guitars on “How Will You Feel” pulled me in, and Sunny Faris’ vocals made me stay. Her voice alternates between ambivalence and resignation, sitting in the space between here and gone, light and darkness, while the music rages behind her. The record touches on shoegaze, grunge, doom, stoner rock, and metal,… Read more »
Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore – Tragic Magic: I woke up at 3:30am, decided to listen to Tragic Magic, and it immediately put me to sleep. In this case, that’s an enormous compliment. The album is complex and beautiful and emotionally challenging when you focus on it, but in the background, it is hypnotically soothing. The songs can sound repetitive… Read more »