New Music (5.27.2016)

Car Seat Headrest
Teens of Denial

Have you ever heard a song, then needed to hear it again every couple of hours? Teens of Denial, the second album of Car Seat Headrest's post-Bandcamp career, is filled with those: from the Strokes-inspired "Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales," to the Parquet-Courts-esque "Connect the Dots," to the Pearl Jam callback of "Destroyed by Hippie Powers," songwriting and execution combine for an addictive experience.

If you liked any music at all in the 90's or early 2000's, you will absolutely love Teens of Denial, as I do. This is the best album of the year so far not written by David Bowie, by a wide margin. The range of influences on showcase are vast and inclusive: there's the previously mentioned Strokes, Parquet Courts, and Pearl Jam; there's dance-y punk like you would hear from LCD Soundsystem or Beck; regular punk you might get from old Green Day or new Cloud Nothings. There's so much to choose from.

But don't fear that list; Car Seat Headrest and its founder, Will Toledo, don't drown in their influences. Instead, they perform a glorious synchronized swimming routine within them. Teens of Denial is like a greatest hits of everything you actually liked on rock radio growing up (if you're from my generation that is: borderline Y-millennial).

And now it's time to talk about one of the best songs of this year and several years, the aforementioned "Destroyed by Hippie Powers." This is masterful song construction and performance: the Julian Casablancas vocal delivery, the grunge guitars that swell in and out like the Pixies at their best, the screamed ending that would make Kurt Cobain jealous, the massive sound of the intro and outro where fuzzed-out reverb combines with drums to sound like a full orchestra. The sheer awesomeness is so beautiful to my alt-rock-loving ears, I want to fall to my knees and cry.

Teens of Denial is the album grunge lovers have been waiting for since Soundgarden broke up (the first time) plus more. It's so incredibly well crafted and carefully structured that not a single moment of the album goes by without demanding your complete attention--and it sounds so damn good, you'll want to give it.

Now let's go crowd surf and smash our instruments.

New Music (5.23.2016)

Chance the Rapper
Coloring Book

Whether it's by choice or just an indicator of how very, very sad the record industry has become, Chance the Rapper is still self-releasing his jaw-dropping mixtapes. I suspect it's the former, because if no one has signed this guy for...I literally can't think of a reason, but I'll sign him right now, and I don't even have a label, or money, or contacts, or recording equipment.

As if his last mixtape, Acid Rap, didn't do the job, Coloring Book is here to put other rappers on notice, that Chance is a hip-hop force to be reckoned with. And unlike Kanye's sub-par Life of Pablo, which claimed to be "a gospel album with cursing on it," but wasn't even close, Chance's third actually is.

Thematically, Coloring Book is different from anything else Chance has done. While his previous efforts included quite a few odes to drugs and doing them, his allusions here are just that--metaphors replacing drugs for relationship problems and loss.  His vocals are elastic and taut, brilliantly graceful, and full of sound collages that pay homage to the art of spoken word.

Coloring Book is one of the best rap albums in recent years, easily comparable to Kendrick Lamar's brilliant To Pimp a Butterfly. But while that comparison may seem trite, know that the constant conversations with God and musings on transcendence make it impossible not to.  This is the album Kanye wishes he made.

Coloring Book is available on Apple Music. You can stream it here.

New Music (5.13.2016)

Anohni
Hopelessness

Despite being one of the world's best singers, somehow Anohni (formerly Antony Hegarty, of Antony and the Johnsons) has never had a solo album. It seems impossible: certainly with the sheer amount of output, in combination with the almost-sickening beauty of her voice, there must have been solo work in there somewhere.

While this "debut" of sorts may have been a long time coming, it more than makes up for it with ingenious songwriting and brilliant execution. On top of Anohni's gorgeous singing is her brilliant choice of producers and co-writers: Hudson Mohawke and Oneohtrix Point Never. The three combine to make beautiful, electronic noise, propping up a message about the decline and fall of Western Civilization that's surprisingly uplifting.

And that is the main takeaway from Hoplessness; it's not hopeless. If anything, the album posits that while the world crumbles, that is when humanity is at its best. Sure, there are bad people who do bad things, but this life is also full of light. As Explosions in the Sky once said, "the Earth is not a cold, dead place," and Anohni continues that sentiment: in a world full of hopelessness, we should be anything but.

New Music (5.11.2016)

James Blake
The Colour in Anything

The surprise release of James Blake's third full-length album came at exactly the right time: the middle of what may turn out to be a month-long soaking rain shower that would give Noah hydrophoby. And while The Colour in Anything may have had us waiting for what seemed like an eternity, it show us that Blake's brand of gloomy, post-dubstep soul is only getting better with age.

Blake is at his best here, making vocal loops and layers that are only comparable to his own "Retrograde." And on this album, he overdrives his synth and electronics use to gorgeous effect: his maximalist approach to The Colour in Anything is so appropriate in its ability to highlight his otherwise dreary tone, it could be a suitor in a Jane Austen novel.

A few critics are tuning out the album as not being cohesive, as Blake's 2013 Overgrown was. But Overgrown was actually the outlier in his work. No other album or EP flowed or had one set, standard theme. You can't keep James Blake in a box, dammit! His strength is experimentation and providing the listener an aural cornucopia: some songs are upbeat, some are sad; some songs are overfull with beats and loops, some are just a piano and Blake's resplendent voice.

The Colour in Anything is also brilliant at highlighting Blake's many influences over the past three years. "Choose Me" sounds like a chamber choir deconstructing a Perfume Genius song. "I Need a Forest Fire," uses Bon Iver's collaboration to the maximum possible. The title track--a simple voice and piano tune--is not only beautiful, but also points to his long musical affair with Feist. And while "Love Me in Whatever Way" sounds like classic James Blake, it also accentuates how operatic and colorful he can make a simple electronic beat and looped vocal.

Blake's third album may be long, and it may not flow, but he hasn't released anything better, and that's saying a lot considering he's already won one Mercury Prize and been nominated for another. The Colour in Anything is a message to those thinking grey skies follow them everywhere: even in the dead of winter, even in a hurricane, the day is bright and full of grandeur.

New Music (5.06.2016)

Beyoncé
Lemonade

In her most subtle (musically, not thematically) turn, Queen Bey weaves a beautiful tapestry of a tale about...okay, it's been everywhere so there's no need to go on about it here.

To say Beyoncé might be upset at...someone...is so obvious it's a "does a bear sh** in the woods"/"is the pope catholic" situation. But that doesn't mean she can't construct a musical world that is intriguing and so easily listenable it becomes addictive.

Lemonade has way too much hype around it for me to talk about its subject matter, but if there's anyone that can take a sensitive situation--whether that's infidelity, police brutality, or race relations--it's Beyoncé. Her deftness and talent are kept so low-key, it's astonishing for the exact opposite reason her music normally is; here Beyoncé blends into the beautiful background while still providing that pop her fans have come to expect.

This is also her most experimental album, using sounds from genres as disparate as Nashville-country and dub-electronic, and none of them seem to clash. Lemonade flows superbly from one song to the next without ever losing sight of the goal: to construct a concept album that highlights the intimate problems the even a very public person has to deal with.

Without getting to repetitive, we can easily say that, with all her talent and her ear for that same talent in others (Jack White, The Weeknd, and James Blake all make appearances here), when life gives Beyoncé lemons, she makes...well, you get the idea.

Beyoncé's Lemonade is only available for streaming on Tidal. You can find it here.