August 2017 review

These are getting later and later. I'm gonna retire the format for 2018 - Publishing an August album reviews blog in November is silly, ain't it. Plus I wanna do more longform stuff and rank full discographies and all that. No surprises for the top spot, Ghostpoet's put something incredibleout that could challenge for top 5 of 2017. Don't listen to that XXXTENTACION album, though. That's one weird kid.

The Rest:

Brockhampton - SATURATION II - C

The War On Drugs - A Deeper Understanding - C

XXXTENTACION - 17 - C

Queens Of The Stone Age - Villains - C

Queens Of The Stone Age are certainly a singles band. Snappy, 4-on-floor dalliances such as No One Knows, Little Sister and My God Is The Sun pepper their discography and have heralded album releases with a burst of radio-friendly propaganda, for listeners who don't want to venture too far over the iron curtain and into hard rock territory. That's the crux of their success - They manage to generate tons of mainstream appeal without turning off the leather-jacketed riff fiends that drove their initial rise to prominence. On the first listen, what's so disappointing about Villains is that it contains none of the easy delights we've come to expect - Lead single The Way You Used To Do is frustratingly mediocre and nowhere near their usual standard. On repeated listens however, it's the sheer blandness of the majority of the album that makes this one such a dud. Ball-busting hard rock blasters from their back catalogue like Mexicola, Song For The Dead, Sick Sick Sick, and I Think I Lost My Headache do not compute with the laid back, chilled soft rock disco vibe on Villains.

A stylistic change in the circumstances is to be expected. Queens Of The Stone Age are a different animal from their past releases, Homme being the only constant member since the beginning. Their last release ...Like Clockwork (A magnificent record, and a career peak, by anyone's standards) drew a line in the sand between the old Queens material and a new, fresh perspective. Villains is an attempted continuation of that, and with Mark Ronson on board to produce, this album was always going to be a curve ball. I have a lot of time for that, but the issue I have with Villains is that it strips out the core principles that made Queens such a vital, rewarding group, with nothing but some average lyrical content and aesthetic guitar to replace what they once stood for - Pulsating, hook-laden rock and roll. It's a bit too safe.

There's a couple of cuts on Villains that are worth a look - Domesticated Animals is one, a subtly malevolent song similar to Leg Of Lamb and I'm Designer from previous Queens releases. Songs like this allow Homme to use the full tonal capacity of his voice, giving him a clean backing to float over. The other tune of note on Villains is The Evil Has Landed, a 6 minute rock behemoth, a heavy-duty foot-stomper in the purest sense, with several undulating sections of pleasing, intricate melodies. The final movement has the repeated single power chord motif that has defined their sound since the beginning, and it's just about worth getting through the rest of the album to reach that point. Everything else sounds like a Them Crooked Vultures filler track. This isn't offensively bad like the Arcade Fire record last month, but it is the weakest Queens Of The Stone Age release to date.


The Best:


01: Ghost Poet - Dark Days + Canapes - A

Twice Mercury prize nominee Ghostpoet is back with his 4th album Dark Days + Canapes, an album for big city living in the mid 10's, with all the filth and noise of a subway train creeping out of the station in the darkness. Inky, paranoid compositions filter through the speakers to touch the the deepest recesses of the human psyche, and it all hits home just a little too hard. Ghostpoet's languid takes on futile relationships, loneliness, addictions, and lack of connection with the world and people in it make for difficult, uneasy, but vital listening. This is quite something.

To say this is all dark would be wrong. There's humour, with some light sarcastic utterances scattered around. At times you can hear him smile through the mumble. Somehow, this makes it bleaker. There is mountains of instrumentation throughout the record, but at no point does anything overstep the mark into self-indulgence. Everything has a purpose, and a reason, and there is a tremendous amount of restraint from front to back. Layers of carefully crafted music fill every composition, which is the big metaphor for the whole of Dark Days - Ghostpoet is quietly measured; he is depressed, but ultimately, he is in control. What this creates for each song is a tightly-packed piece, with no beat or note out of place. It's hard to be critical of such an efficient method of expression.

Ghostpoet's style is inextricably linked with the Bristol Trip-hop sound of the 90's, an underrated style that ran parallel to the popular guitar movements of the time. His vocal delivery is similar to Tricky, a legend of that scene, while Woe Is Meee, with it's simple bass funk and tripped-out guitar sounds might as well have been a Portishead track. Dark Days is special because it takes these threads of influence and weaves them into something much bigger, giving Ghostpoet a truly unique spot in the musical landscape. From the anxious rising strings and off-key jazzy piano stabs in Blind As A Bat, through the blackened sound wall that is Many Moods At Midnight and the bleak ballad Trouble + Me, Ghostpoet explores rich, varied veins of quietly neurotic self-reflection. A third Mercury nomination must be a formality for this record.

02: UNKLE - The Road, Part 1 - A

UNKLE's long-awaited new release, The Road: Part 1, 7 years in the making, has come to a deservedly comfortable landing in this list. Their genre-busting debut (and one of this writer's favourite albums of all time) Psyence Fiction is almost 20 years behind us, but UNKLE still have the ability to carve out fresh and varied sounds. The Road is predictably lush, and it's many twists and moods make for a characteristically enriched listening experience.

In a way, UNKLE represent the closest thing we have to Prog-rock in the post-millennial era. They don't have a specific style or form, but it could be broadly defined as electronic music. Along with their dabblings with Hip-hop and Rock, (Prog-rock's equivalent would have been Folk and World music) they create timeless records that strike through multiple genres and eras of popular music. Their song structures are crafted in a progressive sense, but without the long form noodling or extended improv sections, both cornerstones of 70's alternative music. Neo-Prog, perhaps?

In any case, their penchant for guest spots paint them as a connoisseur's Gorillaz, a less hooky version, but certainly comparable, in a musical sense at least. While there are no cartoon avatars, global stadium tours or multi-platinum certifications, UNKLE do exhibit a murky, hallowed presence in music. That they can draw such a polarising list of feature musicians for The Road shows that the group still have a lot of contacts in their little black book. Mark Lanegan, Twiggy Ramirez and Liela Moss are just 3 that appear on this record. And a damn fine record it is, too!

03: King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard - Sketches Of Brunswick East - A

Sketches Of Brunswick East carries on the extremely prolific nature of King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard's output, it being their third release this year. (the first one was titled Flying Microtonal Banana, surely the best album title of 2017). With it's multiple leitmotifs and seamless segueing, Sketches plays as one long song; even when you're staring at the track list scanning across Spotify it's virtually impossible to pinpoint breaks between pieces.

The sounds on Sketches are familiar enough for any of you (like me) who follow similar jazz/psychedelic/WTF acts such as Thundercat, Flying Lotus and BADBADNOTGOOD. KGATLW's warped-up vocal takes, down-the-rabbit-hole style flute stylings and low-key bass solos are just about original enough for them to hold their own in the wave of progressive artists that have enjoyed such a successful few years of late.

This is, if nothing else, one of the most fun records you'll hear all year. Though the jazzy melodies can sometimes be challenging to digest, the overall feel is cheery and inclusive. There's a bizarro-world advert break psychedelia that permeates throughout, like the lift music if Captain Beefheart had a mansion. The music glides along steadily, always with the threat that the ride could sharply change direction at any point. It ensures that Sketches keeps producing surprises after several listens. It's mercifully short too, and worth it if you want a vibrant adventure that doesn't take up your entire lunch hour. To say this group have now released 12 full-length projects in 5 years, they are still sounding fresh and lively.

04: Brand New - Science Fiction - B

05: Everything Everything - A Fever Dream - B

Everything Everything's 2015 release Get To Heaven was a superb experimental electronic Rock/pop record, a statement about global politics and their human effect which made my top 5 of that year. When I saw a new album from the Manchester 4-piece on the release list, I got excited. While A Fever Dream doesn't match up to that previous album's lofty standards, it is worth a spin. This is lighter, smoother, less refined. The songs are longer, and the catchy bits are sparingly dotted around. This is an evolution, but still with their signature synth sound, not straying too far from the formula.

The style on this is much more uniform, the boys have opted for laid-back electronic grooves over straight-up pop hooks, and it doesn't work all the time, but when it does, the band show they still have the creativity and verve to carry off their 4th record with as much ease as the rest of their back catalogue. Their musical intelligence is always present, but never garishly so. The lyrical references are subtly educated, and they push the Art-rock aesthetic just far enough without it becoming overbearing. At the core of this album is the warm-hearted sincerity that have got Everything Everything their well-deserved seat at the critic's favourite table.

06: Action Bronson - Blue Chips 7000 - B