Hot & Not, Mid & Meh (31st Oct ‘24): Iona’s Weekly Tracks
HOT
‘Noid’ — Tyler, The Creator: With the caveat that, just maybe, there’s a little too much going on — too many sections, too many effects, and one too few verses — I dig it, because it does evoke a relentlessly powerful sense of paranoia so vividly. The wailing layered vocals, the stalling, flailing staccato beat, Tyler easing off on the aggression of the Call Me If You Get Lost era for a breathy, hunted-sounding delivery; for all that it’s a banger, it’s an unsettling one too.
‘Over Each Other’ — Linkin Park: Not just the best of a so-far fairly poor run of comeback singles; this is just good on its face alone. Where ‘Heavy Is The Crown’ was bland and ‘The Emptiness Machine’ insipid, ‘Over Each Other’ shines as a powerful rock track and the first true showcase of Emily Armstrong for the only thing she really needs to bring; her voice. And she shines brightly, turning an otherwise passable track with the usual Linkin Park-ish all-too-unsubtle lyrics into a sorrowful powerhouse, making the song completely her own and not simply a refraction of what we imagine Chester might’ve brought.
‘Jerkin’ ’ — Amyl and the Sniffers: Vulgar, crass, hateful, noisome, defiant and thoroughly, unpleasantly horny throughout. Exactly what I want from my good punk rock.
NOT
‘Cancelled’ — Motley Crue: Where this out-of-breath, out-of-shape, out-of-touch, self-sabotaging, self-litigious, listless, lifeless band (who got away with considerably worse crimes against themselves and others including manslaughter long before “cancelling” was even a popular concept) can possibly get off complaining about “cancellation” when they haven’t been “cancelled” for anything is utterly beyond me. Easily one of the worst tracks of the whole year.
‘Rest in Pieces’ — The Rasmus: Half-hearted to the point of cardiac arrest. The Rasmus have always struggled with creating a strong identity, but this bland, bland, bland loud rock is almost offensively lacking in interesting qualities. There’s nothing here that’s not cobbled together from elsewhere and processed to death; even Lauri Ylonen’s usually very distinctive, plaintive voice seems smothered under numbing layers.
MID/MEH
‘Immaculate’ — Shygirl feat. Club Shy & Saweetie: “Pussy be the gun” is a lyric and a half and no mistake, and that club-ready beat is close to immaculate, but something’s not clicking for me; the mood it actually evokes with its single-tempo bump is too well-behaved, too controlled, too tamed, as compared to the ‘ready to pounce’ mood it’s trying to evoke.
‘Panic Attack’ — Halsey: Stevie Nicks-ish, sorrowful pop rock that’s a little too thin in the instrumentation, and a little too askew in the lyrics — “Now I think I need a blood test or an antihistamine / Because you make me fucking nervous” — to care much about.
‘Malignant Perfection’ — Cradle of Filth: A perfectly standard CoF track, somewhat reminiscent of ‘Her Ghost In The Fog’ in atmospherics but lacking that track’s punch even as frontman Dani Filth tries a few new tricks at the lower end of his range. CoF have been putting this sort of mid-power gothic metal out with clockwork regularity since the ‘Nymphetamine’ days, and while this isn’t one of the hard-hitters (see last year’s ‘She Is A Fire’ for that honour), it’s always nice to hear them chugging along.
‘THE MOON MAN SURVIVES’ — Kid Cudi: He might survive, but on this middling, stuttering track, he never quite sticks the landing; Cudi’s solid-enough bars on waxing self-doubt and waning self-worth are fine, but over this hookless electronica, they just don’t have a lot of power.
‘Disease’ — Lady Gaga: Back to the ‘Telephone’ days for Gaga? Certainly there’s novelty in hearing a track so firmly of the aggro-pop ‘Fame’ era after Gaga’s spent so long doing so many other things, and god knows it’s a breath of rich fresh air after the embarassment of ‘Harlequin’ this year. Fine enough fare for its genre, but this is definitely more ‘Paparazzi’ than ‘Just Dance’ in terms of hooks.
‘Suspended’ — Gaerea: If you like your metal extreme, fast, and masked, Gaerea have been a good go-to for the past several years, a black metal act who offer an often hurricane-ish level of ferocity in their live shows. ‘Suspended’ shows even more growth in songwriting and improvements in atmosphere to keep fans interested, and to be honest, I made sure they made this list for that wonderfully striking cover art alone.
‘NEVER FIND’ — GloRilla feat. Kay Carbon: I still love her energy and her bars, but the limits of GloRilla’s sexy-but-sometimes-stiff flow have been tested hard by the two albums (two!) she’s released in 2024.
Also featured this week: Summer Walker, bbno$, TOBi, Sylosis, Hunxho, The Great Old Ones
©️ Sam Iona Burgess 2024
