April-August Mini-Reviews: The Albums

KENDRICK LAMARR | 𝘛𝘰 𝘗𝘪𝘮𝘱 𝘈 𝘉𝘶𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘭𝘺 | (Hip hop)

So… is this the best album of 2015? One of the most diverse, imaginative and fucking fearsome records made this past decade? As grimly furious (‘The Blacker the Berry’) as it is adventurous (‘Wesley’s Theory’) and pensively hopeful (‘Alright’)? Does it feature Lamarr at his absolute peak as a writer and rapper? And did I sleep on this album for five straight years, like an utter moron? Yes, to all of the above. Essential listening, especially right now, and second only to Nick Cave as my favourite record of the last four months.

BEST TRACK: ‘The Blacker the Berry’

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DARK TRANQUILITY | 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘳 | (Melodic death metal)

Dark Tranq had a good start to the 21st century, producing gem after gem on ‘Haven’ and ‘Damage Done’. ‘Character’ is not exactly in that class; not quite a stumble, given that it features ‘The New Build’ and the brilliant anthem ‘Lost to Apathy’, but still a slight, rather bland release. The songs just aren’t there this time, especially compared to matchlessly excellent ‘Fiction’ and ‘Atoma’ records, two of the very, very best albums in the strangely named and thoroughly Swedish ‘melodeath’ genre

BEST TRACK: ‘Lost to Apathy’

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HALSEY | 𝘔𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘤 | (Electropop)

I love Halsey’s music, and for the most part, I can’t account for why. At first blush, she was the new Pink, a brightening star with her pop sweetness given a bitter taste by frank lyrics and a fixation on sorrows past and buried. But plenty of pop artists have got that done, not least Pink and her last, excellent, album. Perhaps it’s that Halsey is a good deal queerer than Pink; an artist who experiments, who plays with music as much as with presentation and identity, and whose personality blasts through the expert production.

BEST TRACK: ‘you should be sad’

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DAVE | 𝘗𝘴𝘺𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘥𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘢 | (Conscious rap)

The weirdest thing about ‘Psychodrama’ is just how chill it is. You wouldn’t think that, given the righteous and rightful anger of the lyrics to ‘Black’, given the therapy session as a narrative throughline, given the sheer intensity of the lyrics. It’s the piano that does it, I think. The brilliant, flowing, often very gentle compositions on that instrument are even more vital than the beats (killer as they are) to ‘Psychodrama’’s effect — a perfect compliment to Dave’s rock-solid flow and steady voice, but a vivid contrast to the conceptual work.

BEST TRACK: ‘Black’

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ENSLAVED | 𝘐𝘴𝘢 | (Black metal)

Every year my old identity as a metalhead sees a finger slip on the desperate one-handed grip it still has on me, and it’s albums like ‘Isa’ that help to shake it further loose. What did I use to hear in this, I wonder? I still love black metal (well, some of it), and I still love much of Enslaved’s work, and this is very much still in Enslaved’s black metal era, even if it’s the tail end, but this does absolutely nothing for me anymore. Much of this album is mere gesturing at bigger, grander ideas, all of which are suffocated by the contradictory need to be shrill, noisy and bleak. Anyone who wants to hear something more ambitious from this kind of band is better served by ‘Vertebrae’, ‘In Times’ and the recent, wonderful ‘E’.

BEST TRACK: ‘Ascension’

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DISRUPT | 𝘜𝘯𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵 | (Grindcore/punk)

This stuff, on the other hand, I very much still understand, even if I’m perhaps not as thrilled by it anymore. You try listening to extreme metal for fifteen years and still be gleeful over bands whose only ambition is ‘noisy as fuck’. Still, I’m as fond of this messy, badly-made, fearsomely angry anarchist crust-punk as I was when I picked up this re-release way back in 2008, and lord knows, given the state of the world, I’m more in sympathy with what they’re screaming about now than I was then.

BEST TRACK: ‘Same Old Shit’

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ALEXIS FFRENCH | 𝘋𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥 | (New Age/piano)

A band as nasty and fierce as Disrupt obliges a listener to decompress, and apparently ‘decompress’ to my mind means ‘go in entirely the opposite direction’. I’m so, so fond of Alexis Ffrench, though I will say right now that nothing on ‘Dreamland’ comes close to the sheer sorrow and beauty of ‘Exhale’ on his last record. A superb and surprisingly adventurous composer, and one I recommend to anyone who might never normally go near purely piano-driven music but who harbours a secret love for the likes of Ludovico Einaudi.

BEST TRACK: ‘Forever Song’

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TOM WAITS | 𝘔𝘶𝘭𝘦 𝘝𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 | (Experimental rock)

‘The world is not my home / I’m just a’passin’ through’, indeed. Considering just how many different ideas Waits’ and his regular collaborator Kathleen Brennan try out on this album, it’s telling that I truly adore the raucous, joyful howl of that closing track above all. This is loving, lovable music, about love and tenderness and empathy, delivered quite counterintuitively through Waits’ ragged, woebegone voice and a bevy of accompanying musicians who just WAIL on their instruments. Waits’ masterpiece in a career strewn with brilliant and playful experiments.

BEST TRACK: ‘Come On Up To The House’

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QUEEN | 𝘈 𝘒𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘔𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘤 | (Rock)

Reviewing Queen, for me, is an utterly pointless endeavour. I was raised on this band. I remember hearing their music and seeing their videos before I recall ever reading a book. They are a band whom I encountered on old media, on VHS and vinyl, and who are as timeless in my mind as music itself. This album is not their greatest — that’s either ‘Innuendo’ or more likely ‘The Works’ — but I remember my father’s utter love for it, and when you consider that first side, you know he had a point.

BEST TRACK: ‘Friends Will Be Friends’

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THE NIGHT FLIGHT ORCHESTRA | 𝘈𝘦𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘤 | (New wave/hard rock)

What melodies be these?! If you love to dance, and specfically, if you love to dance to music that has scarce been heard since the last mullet vanished following the end of the 80s, this is your album. A goofy-beyond-description record full of great hooks for the dance floors I am by now desperate to see reopened, COVID-19 be damned.

BEST TRACK: ‘Divinyls’

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21 SAVAGE | 𝘐 𝘈𝘮 > 𝘐 𝘞𝘢𝘴 | (Hip hop)

I need to retrain my ear for this kind of thing. There’s a lot going on in this record that I, white boy with no real taste for the subdued monotonous sameness of trap beats, am actually able to hear, much less appreciate. Yes, ‘A Lot’ is a work of genius. Yes, there’s a few catchy hooks. But there’s a blankness here that feels like deep emotional repression over expression, and compared to the work Dave and Stormzy (whom I’ve been listening to again quite obsessively) are both doing, 21 Savage just doesn’t draw me in.

BEST TRACK: ‘A Lot’

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GARY NUMAN | 𝘚𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 | (Industrial)

In these his later years, Gary Numan could well be accused of shamelessly stealing from the youngsters who stole from him in turn. The man behind ‘Cars’ getting so heavy in middle age, twisting around the influences of NIN and Marilyn Manson and injecting them back into his own music makes a mad kind of sense, and Numan suits the sound (and the look) none better. More so than anyone he influenced, he is VERY good at taking his bleak beats and wailing synths and turning them into a sound like a vortex; repetitious, hypnotizing, and unignorable.

BEST TRACK: ‘Love Hurt Bleed’

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JONATHAN HULTEN | 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘍𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘈𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘗𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 | (Folk)

Look, I won’t lie. Hulten’s music means to me exactly half of what his look means to me. That album cover tells you everything you need to know about his unique aesthetic and I am. HERE. FOR. IT. Go and see his main band Tribulation when this damned disease passes, and you’ll understand what I mean when you see him move. What’s that? An album? Yeah, it’s pretty good, but it’s nothing on those cheekbones.

BEST TRACK: ‘The Call to Adventure’

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LADY GAGA | 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢 | (Dance-pop)

A little like the Night Flight Orchestra above, ‘Chromatica’ charmed me for sounding like an artifact from another time. Why am I so fond of the pop of the 80s, a decade I missed by a month? Perhaps I overheard too much new wave on the radio in the womb. Regardless, Gaga won me over with the deeply retro opener ‘Alice’, and kept me delighted throughout, despite the frankly shaky guest appearances that almost unanimously turn out lesser than Gaga’s starring turns.

BEST TRACK: ‘Stupid Love’

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SLIPKNOT | 𝘚𝘭𝘪𝘱𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘵 | (Extreme metal)

When I fell in love with Slipknot in 2004, I worked backwards on their records, and heard the debut long after ‘Vol. 3’ and ‘Iowa’. There’s a special delight to hearing a beloved band devolve and shrink in many ways, a joy in knowing that eventually, this scrappy noise will develop into something quite special. For the most part, though, ‘Slipknot’ is still a thoroughly special record — nothing in metal sounded like this in 1999, and plenty of these songs, ragged and liable to fly apart as they seem to be, still hold strong twenty years later.

BEST TRACK: ‘Liberate’

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CARLY RAE JEPSEN | 𝘋𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘚𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘉 | (Pop)

You know why Carly Rae is good? Because she gets it done. Like Kylie Minogue (easily the best comparison for the position CRJ occupies in pop music) before her, Jepsen has a singular talent for producing top-notch music on an alarmingly regular schedule. ‘Workhorse’ is definitely not the word, but considering that ‘Side B’ is every bit as good as ‘Dedicated’ from a year before, I’m still casting around for what the word should be…

BEST TRACK: ‘This Love Isn’t Crazy’

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COHEED & CAMBRIA | 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘯 | (Prog rock)

After fifteen years hearing the odd track here and there, I finally hooked on to C&C last year, with the brilliant album ‘Unheavenly Creatures’. This double-album, (covering both ‘Ascension’ and ‘Descension’) was a bit of back-fill, to see if I could make any sense of the by now extremely long story these albums string together, and I remain completely and utterly lost. Not entirely unhappily, of course — there are plenty of good tracks between these two releases, but things may be a little too dense, too difficult and (sorry) too dorky to easily hook into; only that excellent power ballad and best track (see below) really sticks in the memory by the end.

BEST TRACK: ‘Dark Side of Me’