Hot & Not, Mid & Meh: Iona’s Weekly Tracks (9th Feb ‘24)
HOT
‘The Feminine Urge’ — The Last Dinner Party: The (presumably) final single off ‘Prelude to Ecstasy’, which I suspect might be one of the best and most exciting debuts of the year. This band are stupidly, stupidly good at what they do given that this is their first record; an intoxicating blend of straightfoward pop rock, time and tone experimentation, and just plain beautiful vocals over sharp-as-glass lyrics. Easily my fave of the week.
‘Shortest Fuse’ — Softcult: If this be “music for mall goths” as Softcult’s own bio states, then bully for those lucky mall goths; for a sound still so rough and obviously unpolished, Softcult are still rich and gorgeous to listen to.
‘Become Surrender’ — The Halo Effect: Yet again, The Halo Effect put out material putting the member’s ex/primary bands (In Flames and Dark Tranquility) to shame. An excellent single with a really Amorphis-esque prog gloss to the meaty riffs and soaring lead vocals.
‘Oh No :: He Said What?’ — Nothing But Thieves: If you’ve a hole in your heart that only The Weeknd’s ‘Dawn FM’ was able to fill, you should probably play this right away. No fronting; this is pure rip-off, a sound so closely imitative of The Weeknd’s current sound in both songwriting and performance it’s frankly shocking. And it works — this is just a fantastic synth-pop track that hits the mark beautifully.
‘Refrain’ — Frail Body: Another band joining Svalbard in the coterie of acts calling themselves hardcore punk but who in practice sound a lot more like a bizarre new outgrowth of black metal; this is much more raw, lo-fi and desperate than Svalbard, and that is no bad thing at all.
NOT
‘Sensei’ — Tyga: I’m not saying Tyga sounds completely indifferent and utterly bored on every last bar on this track, but I know it’s how I felt going through all of them.
‘Disease Called Man’ — Origin: This at least made me chuckle, opening on a distorted sampling of the “humans are a disease” monologue from The Matrix, instantly establishing a laughable tone via a reference that was old-hat and juvenile when even the movie used it let alone the incels and edgelords that followed in its wake. Beyond that, this is hopelessly rough stuff from a tech-death act that used to have a much stronger grasp on both musicianship and songcraft.
‘Point ’Em Out’ — That Mexican OT feat. DaBaby: For the lead artist this is simply bland; for the feature, it’s an embarrassment, and a sad reminder of just how far DaBaby seems to have fallen as an MC.
‘Caffeine’ — Jack Kays: Sometimes a lyric works, sometimes it falls flat, and sometimes it makes you sound like an outright creeper. Kays is still fairly young at 23 and there’s nothing wrong in principle with making lovelorn songs for hormonal teens; there is however something deeply unfortunate about a lyric like “I wanted more than you could give me/so certain for a 15 year old” that made my skin crawl a little on each listen.
‘Ceremony’ — Marshmello feat. SVDDEN DEATH: 2012 called to say it absolutely does not want this sub-step wub-wub trash back.
MIDS & MEHS
‘Turn the Lights Back On’ — Billy Joel: It’s a Billy Joel song, undeniably, but that’s literally all I can say about it; if there’s a specific mood or feeling Joel was attempting to evoke in me here, he’s not succeeded, and this entire Elton John-as-aural-wallpaper ballad passed through my ears and into my brain before dissolving into nothing.
‘S!CK’ — The Warning: I hoped I’d vibe with The Warning forever after loving ‘More’ last year, but it looks like I’ve got to accept that this is a much more limited act than I’d hoped. It’s OK, as rock and roll goes, and I vibe with it, but I can’t deny it’s not got much more going for it than that.
‘Serotonin’ — Normandie: There’s Bring Me The Horizon songs that sound less like Bring Me The Horizon than this; solid loud rock in its own way, but every riff and vocal tic is far too close to BMTH (themselves far from the most challenging band) to make any impact.
‘Bandit’ — Don Tolliver: Plenty of fire verses and excellent beatwork here, but I can’t lie, the Marilyn Manson line made me cringe enough to knock this off the Hot list almost immediately.
‘Beyond The Chemical Doorway’ — Job For A Cowboy: I don’t love anything off JFAC’s forthcoming record so far, but their reinvention into a far proggier and stranger band is a much more interesting development than if they’d come back from hiatus with more of the same old deathcore. Fun stuff
‘Fear’ — Logic: Dig the rich beat and funky instrumental, not so keen on Logic’s hyper-fast flow and goofy lyrics.
‘Backbone (It’s Not Over)’ — morgxn: It’s a good thing I don’t make a yearly Blandest playlist, or I swear…
‘Blood & Teeth’ — Enterprise Earth: I applaud a broadminded attitude to music, but I haven’t a clue what Enterprise Earth are trying to achieve here. That’s a lovely, somber, even beautiful piano intro, but does it fit at all with the slam riffs and growls so guttural they often sound like groans? Not half as poorly as any of that slots into the emo as hell chorus — what, in this strange mish-mash, is actually being said?
‘Living Is Easy’ — Agriculture: Like our lads Enterprise Earth above, this song doesn’t really work, technically speaking, though in this case it’s not so much missing as it’s throwing too many oddballs in too many directions at once. And yet I can’t quite get it out of my mind; this is strange black metal music, and for a supposedly iconoclastic genre, that comes around all too rarely.
‘Shooting Star’ — Jazzy: There’s an excellent club banger here that needed a stronger, silkier and above all more passionate voice to bring out the best in it — as is, it’s far too emotionally restrained to hit.
© Sam Iona Burgess, 2024
