Hot & Not, Mid & Meh: Iona’s Weekly Tracks (22nd Mar ‘24)
HOT
‘The Black’ —Imminence: How unique Imminence are as a metalcore act, compared to how unique they’d like to think themselves, is still an open question for me; the riffs and rhythms are all very much of a piece with the Sleep Token/Bad Omens/I Prevail age of the genre. But a single element can make not just a song but a whole songwriting approach, and for these guys it’s that violin, laid on not simply as a flavouring but deeply integrated into the music, beautifully played, and doing wonders for the atmosphere. Some of the loveliest work of its kind since My Dying Bride.
‘Deep In The Water’ — Don Toliver: “Deep in the water / through your pregnancy” is a hell of a line. This is powerfully intimate stuff, not in the usual way for a hip-hop or pop track trying to build an impression of a committed relationship through trite, cliched promises, but instead we have a few beautifully, carefully-chosen lines indicating a, well, deep connection with someone that can barely be articulated but demands to be understood. Helps that the beat absolutely slaps, too.
‘Down Swinging’ — Holly Humberstone: Of all the mumblepoppers working in the twin shadows of Lorde and Billie Eilish, Humberstone’s one of the most fun, because she knows just what little twist to make in her tunes to keep them vibrant and interesting under the general gloom of her pensive voice.
‘SNAKE EYES’ — Tierra Whack: Massive hypocrite that I am for loving this chorus, which goes ‘mmmm’, and hating Trippie Redd’s chorus (below in Not) that goes ‘uhhh’, it just goes to show how much charisma can do to sell a relatively simple work. Off-beat hip-hop from an artist with a real skill for highly visual and deeply weird bars that have a way of sticking in the brain.
‘Hate Yourself’ — When We Were Wolves: Disclosure! As a friend of this band’s guitarist and the victim of his heartless bullying to include their track here, I can say only; he’s lucky this is pretty damn good stuff ;) A compact little banger of a rock track, with shades of early Rain City Drive in the melodic lines and full to bursting with suitably overwrought yearning in the vocals.
NOT
‘The Architect’ — Kacey Musgraves: No I don’t enjoy being as mean as I have been to this one artist over three separate track reviews (and now the full album’s out I can stop sticking the knife in at last), but in my defence, listen to what I’m working with here. Whether through the bald, unchallenging simplicity of her rhymes or the flat affect with which she delivers them, something about a lot of Musgraves’ music can’t help but come across as twee and toothless, even on a song like this that’s quite plainly groping for a mood it cannot hope to catch.
‘LWRW’ — Trippie Redd: I’ve heard more enthusiastic car backfires. Everything about this — the basic as hell flow, the obnoxious ‘uhs’ in place of actually fun call-and-response, the Dragonball Z samples that just remind you of Juice WRLD’s much-better song ‘Wishing Well’, and the boring, nothing bars — all of it combines into a song that seems to actively resent having been made at all.
‘Coyote, My Little Brother’ — Mitski: There’s an ideal full of potential here, a dark core to this song that the lyrics — expounding on a theme of warning against loss and death — express rather beautifully. And the delivery utterly tanks it. Not one line has the impact it should, performed as it is in a close-to-the-mic breathy wail that just doesn’t work with the sentiment of the track, coupled with sparse acoustic instrumentation that only emphasises the mistakes in the production choices.
MID/MEH
‘I Will Never Stop Loving You’ — The Dandy Warhols feat. Debbie Harry: Having given not one thought to The Dandy Warhols since the ‘Bohemian Like You’ days, this was a pleasant surprise; a doomy trudge of a rock song with spooky piano licks and a faraway weirdness, creating a mood not unlike late-period Bowie at his most beguilingly gloomy. It’s too long and drawn out by the end and Harry is definitely not prominent enough on the material, but it’s good to be reminded of what TDW have always been capable of under the shadow of their old hit.
‘Get It Sexyy’ — Sexyy Redd: Even when she’s mid, Sexyy Redd’s still fire. Far from her best and not helped by an indifferent, dour beat, but the lead artist is still so horny, so blunt, so fun that you can’t help but go along.
‘Time :: Fate :: Karma :: God’ — Nothing But Thieves: It’s not ‘Oh No :: He Said What’, which might be a mini-masterpiece, but it’s still some pretty fantastic, snyth-rich pop-rock in its own right and that ain’t no bad thing at all.
‘Enough (Miami)’ — Cardi B: Fine’s fine, but fine’s not good enough for Cardi B; this song rests solely on her flow for its appeal, with no other hooks or musical surprises helping her with the heavy lifting, and all that does is remind that Cardi, for all her charisma, really doesn’t have that many flows in her repertoire.
‘Know-Nothing Ingrate’ — Six Feet Under: Always give credit where it’s due. By their last album SFU had somehow become an even deeper embarrassment to extreme metal scene (itself no stranger to goofiness) than they already were, to the point that a comedy band could shoot them down inside of three seconds without playing a note. There’s no point pretending that Chris Barnes isn’t giving any more than godawful — his scratchy, straining voice was ruined long ago and his lyrics are dogshit — but the rest of the music is surprisingly fiery; that guitar tone is thick, gnarly and dangerous, a real delight if you enjoy riffs that could slice your face clean off at the edge. And hey, at least it’s not ‘The Noose’!
‘Push N Shuv’ — Lava La Rue: It’s no barn-burner but as modern funk goes, the bass is rich and groovy, the harmonies are delicious and the lyrics are cutting; I very, very much dig it.
‘I Guess’ — Lizzie McAlpine: A little plain for my tastes, though there’s a cutting bluntness in some of these lines — “We dance together / You’re not that good” — that still makes me sit up and remember that this wave of doomer-folkpop still has teeth when it wants.
© Sam Iona Burgess, 2024
