October 2016 Review

There were some great albums released in October. I've been on the hunt for a solid, guitar-oriented, heavy album all year, and I think this month's crop might just have cracked it. There's been tons of great Hip-hop and pop albums I've listened to this year, but a lot of the guitar albums I've tried have been average, so it's been good to listen to some proper good heavy stuff. There's more coming up next month too. The calibre of the records in October was high, 5 A's were hard to rank, mainly because I didn't want to relegate such high quality albums to 4th or 5th. With a weaker selection, some of the top 5 could have been album of the month. This month's #1 is especially good, and might just sneak into the end-of-year top 10.


The Rest:


2 Chainz - Hibachi For Lunch - C

Hip-hop


Darkthrone - Arctic Thunder - B

Black Metal


Mono - Requiem For Hell - B

Post-Rock


Omar Rodriguez-Lopez - Infinity Drips - C

Experimental/Noise/Ambient


The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Third World Pyramid - C

Alternative Rock/Psychedelic


Yelawolf - Hotel - B

Hip-hop


The Best:


01: The Dillinger Escape Plan - Dissociation - A

Mathcore/Experimental Rock


This album will be a choice way out of left field for most people. The 6th and final (if vocalist Greg Puciato is to believed) studio album from a heavy/shouty band with about a million notes in each riff is unlikely to be seen on many end-of-year lists in 2016. I wasn't expecting it myself; I've never given The Dillinger Escape Plan much of a chance, barring the superb Aphex Twin cover they pushed out over a decade ago. But this really is worth it. Trust me.

Dissociation's not an album that is easy to listen to, or rewarding in a traditional sense. What makes it so great is the span of different styles touched by the band, and the complex and subtle interplay of melodies that you only hear after 10 listens. There's a Jazz breakdown section in Low Feels Blvd that comes out of nowhere. It's a trip to listen to DEP develop that into a harsh Metal/Hardcore thrashfest over the course of a couple of minutes. That's what keeps me coming back to this record, there's surprises everywhere and progressive sections that need digesting over time.

Dissociation is full of half-time thrashy groove-drops, it has soaring vocal choruses, it has trapdoors that still catch you out after a few spins. There's not much in the way of accessibility here, but if you're listening to Dissociation to relax in the bath, you're barking up the wrong tree. Having said that, the closing pair of string-led songs bring the last 11 minutes back from the stratosphere, and ensure a soft landing. Nothing To Forget is markedly simpler than the other songs while the heartfelt vocal performance from the aforementioned Puciato on the closing and title track is incredible. If this is DEP's last ever album, it's probably the highest note they could reach.

02: Kate Tempest - Let Them Eat Chaos - A

Alternative Hip-hop/Spoken Word


Kate Tempest's long list of accomplishments belie a huge amount of work in her short time on this planet. Barely out of her youth, she's already a celebrated and much-loved wordsmith, known for possessing one of the most extensive vocabularies in UK Hip-hop and having a golden ability to utilise it. When I saw her new album pop up, it was an automatic addition to this month's short list.

Let Them Eat Chaos is a straight-up concept album based around one moment in time shared between 7 complete strangers. The story reflects Tempest's views on the world and modern London, which is explicit from the first few seconds. What makes this stand out however, is the gallons of pathos that flood through and greet you. It's a friendly, welcoming listen. The politics and social commentary aren't abrasive, and the balance between story and rhetoric is perfect.

Tempest brings her characters alive with honest care, her voice sometimes cracking with emotion, sympathising with their state. In turn, it makes you care about them, too. The people in Chaos are relateable in the extreme; As I was listening, I began to associate them with real people and faces I know. As the story progresses, through several different perspectives, and backed by some solid Hip-hop beats, Tempest's worldview, both warm and gritty, gets mapped out, and it's hard to disagree with the matter-of-fact common-sense nature of it. Her closing statement implores us all to love and care more. After all that's said and done on Chaos, that's a strikingly positive notion to take home.

03: Omar Rodriguez-Lopez - Cell Phone Bikini - A

Progressive Rock/Experimental Rock/Psychedelic


It feels like El Maestro is having a clear-out of the vaults with these albums. There's been some filler records that don't warrant much attention, and some of them have alternate versions of previously released songs on them. Hell, one of them even has an Ellie Goulding cover on it. This raft of releases (and with more to come in 2017) seems to be him drawing a line under his solo projects and putting everything out, for better or worse.

Cell Phone Bikini is one of the stronger releases. With an exciting blend of mid-career Mars Volta-esque guitar riffs and some powerful vocal takes from Teri Gender Bender, OR-L's long time musical collaborator, this is a great listen for any fan of OR-L's music. All the hallmarks of a classic OR-L release are on Bikini - His signature freaked-out guitar style, the idiosyncratic off-kilter song structuring, the mumbling distorted singing from his own voice contrasted with an intense, high-range lead vocalist, it's all there. It's a good representation of the breadth of his solo work for someone who's never heard anything he's done.

I don't usually like Teri's vocals on record, and to be honest I don't rate her as an artist/musician full stop. But her turn on Bikini completely lifts the album. It's the best thing she's ever been on, and shows a maturity and passion I've not heard on anything else, Le Butcherettes or otherwise. Her vocals on Suetre y Aire, Amarillo and Sell Yourself In in particular spring out of the mix and bring the songs to life. Bikini is an opportunity for Teri to stamp her brand on an album, and she shines out of each and every song.

OR-L is his generation's Zappa. He's worked with dozens of different musicians and spread out over countless forms of music. His style is hard to pin down, but there's a delightful fusion aspect to his work and it's uniquely weird. He's skipped through several vocalists in his time, and maybe with Teri Gender Bender, he's found a keeper. Bikini isn't the most experimental OR-L album, but it's a great showcase of his and Teri's partnership, and a positive sign for future releases from the duo.

04: Leonard Cohen - You Want It Darker - A

Folk/Soft Rock


What can you say about Leonard Cohen that hasn't been said before? One of the most underrated of the God Tier songwriters of the last century, he was inspirational to millions, and enjoyed a career that spanned multiple decades. He succumbed to mortality barely 3 weeks after You Want It Darker was released. This album is his final statement, and deals with his imminent death in a brilliantly optimistic way.

It's impossible to not draw comparisons with this and David Bowie's Blackstar. Both projects are attempts by the artist to capture a final snapshot of their thoughts as the twilight of their existence closes around them. While I didn't really dig Blackstar, Darker is something I understood from the first listen. I think that's because it's simpler. Cohen has always been known for his poetic lyrics before any musical backing. While Bowie was a multi-faceted artist who created music, art and fashion as a package, Cohen's work is intended to be a vessel for his words. Cohen has never been cited for experimental envelope-pushing as Bowie was, simply as a great lyricist.

And so it is on Darker, the music is a gentle breeze accompanying the artist's reflections on an extraordinary life. Some of Darker is touched with sadness, but overall Cohen is content and humorous about death which makes what could be an uncomfortable album an uplifting experience. Cohen's final word is as moving as anything he's ever done, and signs off one of the greatest ever songwriting legacies with style and grace.

05: Meshuggah - The Violent Sleep Of Reason - A

Progressive Metal

That's October's picks done and dusted. I'm already listening to November's albums, and there are some superb releases already making my top 5 for next month a difficult choice. I'm looking forward to the end of the year top albums list. I'll have the agony of choice - This year has been stellar. As several professional publications release their end-year lists, I'm happy to see some of my top picks rate so highly, and kinda smug to see some of them ignored. I've now listened to over 100 albums this year, and I'm looking forward to putting together a really strong top 20.

September 2016 Review

I've been sat here with the cursor flashing and a severe case of writer's block for the last week. To be honest, the crop of albums hasn't been that good in September (barring the top 3) so I found it hard to do my usual thing and just tap out a blog in a couple of hours. I think that the top album from September will be right up with the absolute best from 2016, but everything else I can take or leave. I've not written about it, but the Pixies album is disappointing. Obvious comment warning - They really need Kim Deal back. How can you call it a Pixies album without Kim Deal? It's a dull, middle-aged record. Like many of the big acts releasing this year, (Chili Peppers are another good example) it's been poor, and a world away from their best material. As always, the younger musicians seem to have made the best stuff this month. The old masters are dying.

The Rest:

Devendra Banhart - Ape in Pink Marble - C

Acoustic/Soft Rock

Matt Berry - The Small Hours - C

Jazz pop/Easy Listening

Jamie T - Trick - B

Indie/Rock/Alternative Hip-hop

Kool Keith - Feature Magnetic - C

Hip-hop

Omar Rodríguez-López - Umbrella Mistress - B

Psychedelic/Pop

Omar Rodríguez-López - El Bien y mal Nos Une - C

Experimental Rock/Electronica

Pixies - Head Carrier - C

Alternative Rock

Warpaint - Heads Up - C

Art rock/Indie

Sorry everyone, but this is a stinker! I loved Warpaint's last record, their self-titled effort from 2014, and also The Fool, so I was excited about this one. Warpaint have already created their own musical blueprint. You know a Warpaint song within the first few seconds. That's so vital, and will keep them going for a long time. But Heads Up is a let down following on from the strong clutch of releases Warpaint have put out.

I think this album is a victim of 2 main problems - Poor production, and too many songwriting compromises. The sound is muddy and prioritised badly; melodies that should be loud and proud are pushed down in the mix and lost, while background percussive elements and ambient guitar sounds are at the fore. It's confusing, you don't know which bit you're meant to be listening to, or which part is meant to be the lead. Couple that with not one of the members of this unique, talented and exciting band taking control at any point, and you're left with a mess of numb sounds, paths that lead to nowhere and the sonic equivalent of feeling too full after a big meal.

There's a few songs on here that are worth a go, intro track Whiteout is easily the best song on Heads Up, and Above Control is certainly worth a few spins. There's not much else to pick at though, even New Song, the obvious single from this album is laboured and far too deliberately composed. I'm never going to write off this band, because their previous releases have been so strong, but Heads Up has probably been the most disappointing release I've heard this year.

The Best:

01: Regina Spektor - Remember Us To Life - A

Alternative pop

Regina Spektor has slowly bubbled around my consciousness for a number of years, but I'd not picked up any of her albums and gave it a proper listen up until last month. She's always been on my ever-lengthening musical to-do list, always lauded and recommended by fellow music junkies, so when I saw she'd completed her latest record, Remember Us To Life, I had to get it on my circulation for September.

Spektor has a grasp around her songwriting that her fellow American pop acts could only dream of. Her skillful mastery of the piano and the comfort with which she explores the full range of her vocal ability on Remember... instantly warms your ears with familiar tones. From the blippy pop bounciness of Bleeding Heart, through the spacious, echoey Obsolete and the upbeat head-nodder Small Bill$, Spektor narrates a rich novella of sound, many pieces requiring dozens of musicians to accomplish, but always with Spektor at the heart, the maestro, sat at her piano, controlling the flow. 

The Trapper And The Furrier is my favourite cut from Remember..., it being the enormous orchestral centrepiece of the record. It starts with a calm spoken word intro and builds up the intensity with each passing section, adding in string stabs and timpani crashes. The song threatens to fully let loose several times but is always pinned back at the last moment. The cryptic lyrical passages in the verses are complimented by Spektor's direct observation in the chorus - "What a strange, strange world we live in/Where the good are damned, and the wicked forgiven." It's one of my top 5 tunes from the whole year.

Spektor writes stories, she distills and concentrates the world around her, she builds around childhood memories and subtle observations. She writes about the injustice in the world and the full gamut of human emotion, dusting her songs with the embers of sentimentality, never enough to get schmaltzy - not at all - but enough to make you feel safe, welcome and loved. Remember... is a powerful journey. It gets you hooked from the first listen and offers more and more with every spin. It's put Regina Spektor right up with the very best artists in the world right now. A very important release from 2016.

02: Bon Iver - 22, A Million - A

Experimental Folk/Ambient

I'm happy to be able to put a Folk artist on this list. It's not a genre I take much inspiration from, and I don't mean anything negative by that. It's just not my cup of tea, generally. But I do like to give everything a chance, and I like to try and see the value in all music. 22, A Million got so many positive reviews, I had to see what all the fuss was about.

While created by a Folk artist, 22 is so loosely based in that genre it's hardly worth mentioning The F Word. It's so experimental at times that it's hard to put it in any sort of pigeonhole. That's what's intriguing and fascinating about this project - I've never heard anything like it. Sometimes the lead vocal is so warped and twisted, it takes a couple of listens to realise it's not some synth bassline. The level of experimentation on 22 is through the roof, one reviewer mentioned it was one of the biggest style changes since Radiohead's Kid A, which ain't too bad a thing to be compared to, is it.

22 is a short, oblique picture of  a band hitting a remarkable creative zenith. It's a mutant creature, a hybrid of acoustic and synthetic, of flesh and metal. The lyrics are hard to make out most of the time. There's no discernible melody in many of the tunes. But something about this album keeps me coming back for more. It's disarmingly accessible, in spite of the amorphous form to each composition. 22 resonates with hope, happiness, and the joy of living. It's such an odd record, but it's beautiful.

03: M.I.A - AIM - B

Electronic/Alternative pop

Everyone knows M.I.A from Paper Planes, but she's released tons of great music before and since then, and is also an accomplished artist across several types of media. AIM is her latest project, and it's just as catchy and fun as anything else she's put out. I love the attitude on AIM - It's such an inclusive, welcoming record, and there's a strong pride and self-love exuding throughout.

Each song is crafted in M.I.A's own style, that earworm-plentiful mash-up of London Hip-hop and Asian/African traditional music mixed up with pop song structuring, which makes the album hugely accessible. You can pick it up and put it down whenever you fee like it. AIM one of those albums that sticks with you after the first listen. Some of the ambient elements are mesmerising; wailing vocal samples and swords clashing sometimes form the percussive base of an entire song.

AIM has a rough continuity about being a refugee and borders, obviously a  nod to the current migrant crisis in the middle east. The album is generally positive though, and doesn't waver on getting slowed down in a political bog for too long, which keeps the experience light and doesn't detract from the music at all, which is sharp, astute and relentlessly cool. M.I.A has stated that this will be her last album. I hope she changes her mind in the future, because I think she's still got a lot to give to us.

04: Preoccupations - Preoccupations - B

Alternative rock/Post punk

05: Wilco - Schmilco - B

Indie/Folk/Rock

That's that for September. I cannot recommend Regina Spektor's album enough, it's such a special journey. It's gonna be at least top 5. Tell me what you think, anyway, as always.

August 2016 Review

August was another grand month for music. I had to go for a top 6 again. Too much quality to merely put out 5. I found myself wishing for more time to really get to grips with some of the top releases. I usually have any given album sussed in 5 listens or less, but the top 3 certainly deserve a double figure amount of spins.

I've listened to countless hours of music in my time, but it still astounds and delights me how a band or artist can squeeze so much content into an hour of sound. It's what keeps me coming back. I'm really happy with the top album this month. It was a genuine random punt, I just listened to it because it was made by such a legendary group. It's mad how things work out, really. If you'd have told me at the start of the year that I'd have been gushing my heart out about an album which has Justin Hawkins on it, I'd tell you to GTFO. August was awesome, I'm already looking forward to some big releases from September, too. I hope you like it:


The Rest:


Crystal Castles - Amnesty (I) - B

Experimental electronica


Dinosaur Jr - Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not - C

Alternative Rock/Indie


of Montreal - Innocence Reaches - B

Indie/Psychedelic/Electronic


Omar Rodriguez-Lopez - Blind Worms, Pious Swine - B

Alternative Pop/Alternative Rock


Thee Oh Sees - A Weird Exits - B

Alternative Rock


The Best:


01: De La Soul - and the Anonymous Nobody... - A

Alternative Hip-hop/Rock/Pop

Sometimes, being a legendary artist can be a poisoned chalice. Your seminal breakthrough record will be the one all your later material gets measured against, and people will inevitably be disappointed. You'll be expected to play the old classics at each show, even though you may have no passion for them any more, after decades of gigs and thousands of performances. One way to remedy the late-career ennui is to remain creative and fresh. Easier said than done, but De La Soul are managing to do just that.

and the Anonymous Nobody... is a truly audacious project. Broadly, it's a Hip-hop album (of course) but to brand it as just that would do disservice to the many surprises and curveballs De La Soul pack into this album. It's dazzlingly overwhelming on the first few listens, the brainy twists, tempo shifts, and little snippets all tumble out of the bag of tricks in an even and considered manner. It settles down after you get to grips with the content. Nobody is a grower.

There is so much familiar content here to latch on to. Pain, one of the initial single releases, is a slice of golden, Snoop Dogg-featuring West Coast Hip-hop that could have been recorded 20 years ago. Snoopies, a sleeper track featuring the one and only David Byrne, undulates between a weird pop section and a couple of rap verses. Perhaps the most bizarre featured artist is Justin Hawkins (yes, THAT Justin Hawkins) who has been plucked from obscurity to belt out theatrical vocals on Lord Intended, a Blues-heavy guitar jam. These are but 3 examples of the wonderful quirkiness that De La Soul bring to the fore on Nobody.

The crazy randomness and mutant nature of the genre-splicing on Nobody is what gives it so much strength. It's quite lovely to see that a group like De La Soul, over a quarter of a century in the game, can come out with something as brilliant and fresh as Nobody. There's been bigger rap releases this year, but this is just as exciting as anything the new generation of young Hip-hop stars have come out with. De La Soul still have a lot to share with us. They haven't taken their foot off the gas since the 80's. Long may they continue.

02: Frank Ocean - Blonde - A

Alternative Pop/Ambient Pop

Frank Ocean is one of those exciting artists who are seemingly impossible to pin down to one genre. He blends elements of Soul, Pop, R 'n B, and Hip-hop to form his uniquely ambient style. His exhortation during Nights - "This feel like a quaalude" sums it up perfectly - His music is a delightful head trip. A good coma.

Blonde is a pleasant scrapbook of sketches, a sparse but welcoming world of friendly happiness. One thing that resonates throughout the album is Ocean's sheer joy at performing, often his mumbling delivery breaks into glorious, triumphant vocal melodies. You get the picture he's happy just to be here, and though his career is going from strength to strength he's still humble and thankful for where he is. It lends sincerity to Blonde, making it an easy, sympathetic album to listen to.

There's a distinct lack of continuity to Blonde. You could put this album on in a random order, and it'd still feel right. The only motif is the ambient synth riff present on at least 4 tracks, in the background of the skits and throughout most of the final song. That just about ties everything together, but apart from that, you're on your own. This is a good thing; you're permitted to wander around the sound world at your leisure, picking and choosing favourite moments to savour as the album meanders dreamily along.

There's no video I can find on Youtube for this album - shame, because Pink And White is a beautiful song. Stick that on Spotify, whydontcha.


03:  65Daysofstatic - No Man's Sky: Music For An Infinite Universe - A

Post Rock/Electronic/Ambient

The soundtrack to Everyone's Favourite Game just happens to be orchestrated by one of the UK's most underrated bands. 65daysofstatic may not assault the charts with each single release or headline Glastonbury every 5 years, but they have a dedicated cult following, and a huge amount of respect for their monumental brand of electronic Post Rock.

No Man's Sky has been a good couple of years in the making, and it shows. Each piece is written to perfection; every sparse drone, every inch of feedback is planned meticulously to afford the maximum amount of emotion and expression to the listening experience. Epic is a word often associated with this band, but it's so true - Listen to the peaks during songs such as Monolith and Red Parallax, hair-raising moments that catch the breath from the bottom of your lungs. 65 is 15 years old, and still pushing out creative and credible work.

No Man's Sky is effectively a dual project - The album proper is 10 (relatively) short compositions, but is packaged with 6 soundscapes which clock in at well over an hour, doubling the album's length. This may feel daunting to the casual listener, but it is worth diving into all of this music. It represents a handy summation of 65's work to date; the album oscillates comfortably between the guitar-heavy and electronic elements that define their sound.

I'm a bit biased here - 65 are one of my favourite bands, and are from Sheffield. I've gigged in the same venues, recorded in the same studios and have a couple of mutual friends with some of the band members. South Yorkshire's a big village, as they say. But I think the A rating is justified through the sheer breadth of this project, and the ease of it's execution. 65 are a band firmly rooted in their groove, and they have their own unique sound within the wide parameters of Post Rock.

04: Omar Rodriguez-Lopez - Arañas en La Sombra - B

Experimental Rock/Progressive Rock

05: Russian Circles - Guidance - B

Metal/Progressive Metal

"Instrumental Metal album" is half a sentence that isn't going to excite a lot of people, and when I had a look at this I have to say I expected this to be a filler record to flesh out the month's choices. Instead, I found Guidance to be a thoroughly enjoyable listen, easy to catch on to, and highly accessible.

The intro salvo covers the first 3 tracks of Guidance, breaking you in to the tightly-wound grooves that make Russian Circles teeter on the knife edge between Hard Rock and Metal. The genius of those intro tracks is that there isn't one definite moment where The Heavy Bit comes in, obviously an elemental staple of heavy guitar music. This keeps you engaged and receptive, and before you know it, 20 minutes have passed.

Guidance isn't going to appeal to anyone who isn't already familiar with this genre, but it's well worth a spot in the top 6 this month. If nothing else, the mid-album zenith Afrika should be an essential listen for any true metalhead, in a year where there hasn't yet been a true classic of the genre to listen to.

06: Banks & Steelz - Anything But Words - B

Hip-hop

So that's that for another month. To all my Volta-heads (I know y'all read this) I'm well into all those early TMV grooves on Arañas en La Sombra. It's such a nostalgia trip listening to that record. Some of those sessions must have been proto-Volta sessions, no? Like, Frances The Mute era. Anyway, this OR-L multi-release thing is VERY exciting. See you in a month.

July 2016 Review

July was the best month yet for music in 2016. It's been so good I've decided to do my first ever top 6, such was the quality on offer. My first 4 are especially brilliant records, and all of them would have topped the chart on a weaker month. It's been difficult once again to rank the best from July, I pretty much only made up my mind last night, but it's been lots of fun getting acquainted with some wonderful, varied music as the summer has swung through London.

I have 3 levels of music consumption that I run concurrently. The top level is what I write about, which is new releases. Another is old classics (The first 3 Stereophonics albums these past few weeks) that I have a cheeky spin of when I'm hungover in the mornings and can't deal with explorative Jazz improvisation. The last is where I sweep through back catalogues of artists that I like. Right now, I'm in the middle of a quest to listen to EVERY Wu-Tang Clan related album. That's not the whole army, mind. I do have some semblance of a life. It's the original 9 plus Cappadonna. I'm currently trawling through some of the more high-profile solo outings, and let me tell you, the 2nd half of Uncontrolled Substance is ferocious. Enough of that, though. On with the show.


The Rest:


Dirty Heads - Dirty Heads - C

Reggae/Ska


Metronomy - Summer 08 - C

Electro/Dance/Indie


Omar Rodriguez-Lopez - Corazones - C

Pop-rock/Folk/Americana


ORB - Birth - C

Hard Rock/Metal/Stoner


The Best:


01: Bat For Lashes - The Bride - A

Rock/Baroque pop/Experimental


Concept albums are a rare commodity in today's world of Soundcloud demos, live Facebook feeds and download-only singles. Like many musical hallmarks of decades past, they have begun to dwindle and shrink as an entity. Call me old fashioned, but I think a well executed concept album is the pinnacle of musicianship and creativity, and I think there's still some room for it in 2016.

Thankfully, Natasha Khan, (AKA Bat For Lashes) thinks so too, and has put one out herself with her self-produced 4th studio effort The Bride. The album is the story of a woman who's fiance dies in an accident on the way to their wedding, and of her struggle to come to terms with the spectrum of emotions in the wake of the event. The Bride covers an enormous range of mental states, which would be impossible to cover in the short form I give to myself for these reviews, but Khan's own words about the album cover it better than I can: "The trauma and the grief from the death of[..]the groom [is] a metaphor and it allows me to explore the concept of love in general, which requires a death of sorts."

Death and darkness are a strong theme throughout The Bride, which touches many musical tones. None of the songs could be said to be a "single" as such, though there is a large swathe of accessibility that hooks you in early. On the other end of the scale, some pieces are downright dreamy and esoteric, the squeak and echo of heavily distorted guitars rumble through sections of ambient reflection, reaching out to elements of rock, folk, and pop to create a murky swirl of sadness and longing. The album is sprinkled with some hopeful moments too, and the last couple of songs I Will Love Again and In Your Bed melt the fog and jerk you out of the sparse nightmare and make you feel safe again. The Bride is a perfectly balanced work of art, and fully deserves July's top spot.

02: BADBADNOTGOOD - IV - A

Jazz/Soul/Hip-hop


BADBADNOTGOOD, in spite of their atrocious band name, are responsible for some of the sleekest Jazz grooves in today's musical landscape. IV captures 50 minutes of  the band enjoying a trip through clean, layered instrumental grooves, piqued by occasional vocal contributions from an eclectic range of guests.

The wonderful thing about IV is that it's complexity never gets too dense. Often when the band are deep into an intense jam section it's tempting to wince at the blaring trumpet pushing through your headphones, but they drop into calmer sections at the right time, not wavering too long on one section or milking a riff. BBNG have endless melodies that stretch through every part of IV. It's as fresh as the first time on the 15th listen.

My top pick from IV is Time Moves Slow, a soulful old-school slice of chilled Jazz, featuring a superb vocal performance from Sam Herring. Herring's gentle voice repeatedly observes a cryptic truism, "Running away is easy/it's the leaving that's hard" which sums up the listening experience of IV. It doesn't give you everything straight away, which is entirely the point; each spin unlocks more of this rewarding, precise record.

03: Roisin Murphy - Take Her Up To Monto - A

Electronic/Art pop/Experimental 

04: Avalanches - Wildflower - A

Plunderphonics/Psychedelic/Hip-hop


I'm often critical of artists who take too long between albums. I don't see the point in waiting for longer than 3 years, because the longer you leave it, the more potential it has to fail. Plus, what are you doing all day? Get in the studio, or get a job like everyone else. Having said that, when I heard The Avalanches were finally set to release their 2nd album 16 years after their debut, I knew it wasn't going to disappoint.

Wildflower is exactly what you'd expect from an album by The Avalanches in 2016. Their style has not changed much, but that's OK because there's plenty to explore in their head-swimming world. You wander around a vibrant soundscape, every now and then you'll hear a second or two of a song you know that fades away before you can capture it. The effect is a sunny, joyful waking dream. Wildflower is crazy, it's beautiful, it's lush. The wonderful thing about The Avalanches' sound is that by it's very nature it's timeless - They take musical ideas from all eras of modern music, sampling snippets from a diverse range of influences, making it impossible to pigeonhole, so it sounds as new now as it did a generation ago.

The reason why it's lower on my list is that Wildflower is unflatteringly front-loaded. The opening set of Because I'm Me, Frankie Sinatra and Subways promise a bombastic thrill-ride of banging hits, however the big guns stop firing around the time the tracks get into double figures. I get that the album is meant to be a big explosion followed by a gradual, meandering finish, but it's about 15 minutes too long. Still, Wildflower is a glorious return for The Avalanches, and hopefully their 3rd album will be come a little sooner than 2032.

05: Omar Rodriguez-Lopez - Sworn Virgins - A

Experimental rock

I'm warning y'all now - You're gonna be seeing a lot of this guy in the coming months. OR-L is releasing 2 albums a month from July until the end of the year, and as a huge fan of his work, I will be listening to every last blessed one. So I'm sorry, but you're gonna have to deal with my obsession.

Sworn Virgins is the first of the compendium of albums OR-L is releasing on Ipecac. The albums are all from the last 5 years or so. I always say OR-L is the Frank Zappa of his generation. He's wildly prolific over a number of styles, and his music is an electic savantism, a huge creative intelligence that is both amazed and disgusted with the world, expressed through that weird, sober cutting edge. Sworn Virgins is as typical an album as you can get from an artist with such an expansive list of genres in his locker. It's loud, grinding, and achingly repetitive.

Underneath the frantic exterior of chopped up melody lines and noise is a surprising catchiness that bleeds through every now and then; To Kill A Chi-Chi is almost radio-friendly. Almost. The highlight of Sworn Virgins is the climactic suite of Crow's Feet/Heart Mistakes, which features an oscillated guitar line and a clip of John Lennon exclaiming "Those freaks" to create a maddeningly simple groove that will run around your head for days.

I get the feeling that we'll have as many misses as hits from this forthcoming series of releases, but Sworn Virgins is surely going to be one of the best of the lot. It's got everything an OR-L fan could want from an album of his, and after a 3 year wait from his last solo effort (an ice-age in OR-L terms) it's a sizzling return from El Maestro.

06: Aphex Twin - Cheetah - B

IDM/Electronic

So that's your lot for July, I'm pretty chuffed with the whole of my top 6 if truth be told. If you're only gonna listen to 1 of my top picks I suggest Wildflower. It's the most accessible of the lot and it's one of the most summery, happy albums I've ever heard. It's awesome for drifting off in a daydream on a bus or sitting in the park watching the world go by. I'm gonna be dropping Frankie Sinatra at every party I'm at for the next year, it's too good to keep under wraps, man. See you all in a month.

June 2016 Review

June saw a lot of releases I wanted to get my teeth into. There were some I couldn't get round to, which is a shame. I would have like to have listened to the new Swans record, the new Melvins record and some others, but my morning commute is only so long. I'd rather do 10 albums well than 15 sparingly. One big disappointment was the new Chili Peppers album. I don't wanna do a full review about it, but they're clearly missing John Frusciante. Without his contribution, there a large hole in their music. It's a shame, but at least they're trying. Anyway. My top 2 from this month were so close I agonised over the ranking for days. I feel like I've made the right choice though. Dig in.


The Rest:

Gojira - Magma - B

Metal


The Kills - Ash And Ice - C

Indie/Alternative Rock/Garage Rock

The Kills were at the sharper edge of the 00's Garage guitar revival in terms of creativity. Their 2-piece set up never threatened to impede the songwriting talent offered by Alison Mosshart, whose lyrics and voice are genuinely unique in a scene where it's easy to filter into the background and become Just Another Indie Band.

There's been half a decade since their last album, and I was excited at the prospect of a follow-up to what was by all accounts, a superb record. Unfortunately, Ash And Ice is a step back. There's no development in terms of sound, songwriting or style.

It would be unfair to dismiss the album purely on that basis - The Kills, after all, have carved out their own sound, they have their own niche, and for that you have to give them props. But if you're gonna listen to Ash And Ice, you might as well not bother, and dust off that old copy of Blood Pressures. Satellite still bangs hard, doesn't it?


Ladyhawke - Wild Things - B

Pop


Red Hot Chili Peppers - The Getaway - C

Alternative Rock


The Best:


01: Laura Mvula - The Dreaming Room - A

Experimental Pop/Art Pop


In a month of safe releases from established guitar acts, it was a welcome reprieve to listen to something completely different. It's difficult to pigeonhole Mvula's musical style. In the 36 minutes that The Dreaming Room lasts, it covers all kinds of musical styles, lyrical themes and emotional states.

Mvula's talent and sheer depth of musicality seems largely untapped, even with the kaleidoscopic breadth of The Dreaming Room. Only on her 2nd release, Mvula is already showing herself to be a highly accomplished artist, and the prospect of further work from her is exciting. She worked with several established figures on The Dreaming Room; Nile Rodgers, Wretch 32 and Troy Miller. They all put in a good shift, but these merely garnish the ocean of creativity poured out by Mvula.

Overcome, Let Me Fall, Show Me Love and Phenomenal Woman are all excellent pieces, all different, and all worthy. Mvula has perfected a brand of music that is regal, powerful, and dominant, but also humble, understated and graceful. Sometimes all these qualities reside within the same song. The symphonic work on The Dreaming Room is a specific highlight, the orchestral trills slip and slide to form a naturally beautiful layer to an already delightful listening experience. The best album in June was something I took a chance on, and I'm so glad that I did.

02: Band Of Horses - Why Are You OK? - A

Indie/Folk/Alternative Rock


I think it's hard to be in a guitar band these days and release music without being accused of being uncreative, (see The Dud below.) Rock music is as old as the hills and there are some people who like to say that there's no new guitar music out there. I think there is a new scene emerging, and Band Of Horses are one of the leading voices in that. Why Are You OK? is their latest, and it's thoroughly delightful.

The first half of OK is far more interesting than the second. Lyrical themes throughout explore life and love and the confusion of strong emotions, of travelling wide and meeting new people. The album is front-loaded; each one of the first run of songs could be a single, the catchiness speeds you through the tracklist on a smooth ride of styles and moods.

From the epic dual-movemented opener Dull Times/The Moon, to the prime cut, certified indie banger Casual Party right to the back of the record, OK flows steadily through rock, country, folk and indie themes, never settling on one level for too long. By the end, there is maybe too much "Aw, Shucks" tweeness, (Country Teen is a stinker) but OK has enough in the first half to tip the balance and keep it in a positive light.

I don't usually like to list influences, because it's mightily subjective, but I think it's clear that the boys REALLY like Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. There are also some Weezer chord changes on OK that could be lifted straight from the Blue Album. It's nice to see that the natural evolution from these soft indie bands of the 90's is an album as expansive and satisfying as OK. There's lots to explore on this album, and most of it is highly enjoyable.

03: Kayo Dot - Plastic House On Base Of Sky - B

Experimental/Progressive/Electronic Rock

04: DJ Shadow - The Mountain Will Fall - B

Hip-hop/Electronic/Dance


DJ Shadow is responsible for one of my favourite records of all time, his much-lauded debut ...Endtroducing, which set the Hip-hop world alight with layers of structure on an ethereal base of distant guitar samples and orchestral stabs, like a film soundtrack without a visual. Rightly or wrongly, all of Shadow's work since has been measured against that impossibly high benchmark. The Mountain Will Fall has not surpassed that standard.

Mountain is exactly what you would expect from a DJ Shadow record in 2016. With elements of Hip-hop, electronic and dance music, Shadow pulls the strings together to form an amorphous project with plenty of peaks and troughs to reel you in. Nothing else sounds quite like a DJ Shadow record, he has a wide range of musical influences that come together in his own output to form an instantly recognisable style, and even at this point, 5 albums in, it is a sound with plenty of ground left to cover.

Mountain is a good record on the whole, but at times it's more like a series of sketches than a fully-fledged album. It can get jarring when Shadow gets a groove going and then drops it out for 16 bars of weird noodling. The ending to Mambo is particularly frustrating, the song rising to a crescendo with an immeasurable amount of anticipation for a huge drop that - Oh. That's the end of the song. Nobody Speak, a straight-up Hip-hop song featuring Run The Jewels is far and away the best cut on this record.

05: The Temper Trap - Thick As Thieves - B

Indie/Rock

The Dud:


Rival Sons - Hollow Bones - D

Rock

D is for derivative. This is the worst album I've heard this year. This is pointless, lifeless and thoughtless. Hollow Bones is everything that is wrong with guitar music in 2016. There is no message, no dynamic, and the guitar riffs are on that intensely annoying knife edge between soft and heavy. You can't mosh to this, but you can't sit back and groove to it either. There is no discernible difference between the songs, save for the token acoustic ballad at the end, which somehow makes it even worse. A whole lot of hot air. Expect to find this soundtracking beer and car adverts for the next 12 months. Are we done? I think we're done here.


That's June, as always there's been some wonderful listening to be had this month. And hey! I actually got this done (just) before August. See you in a month.

May 2016 Review

I only got 'round to 8 albums in May. Not much took my fancy this month. It did allow me to get well acquainted with what I did choose. I actually wanted to review 9, but one of them was Bob Dylan's album, a like-for-like covers album of old standard pop songs. Seems like everyone sells out at some point, eh? I'd have to have given it a D, and I can't bring myself to do that to such a legend. At the other end of  the scale, my #1 album this month is a total banger. It could even be the best of the year.


The Rest:


Catfish And The Bottlemen - The Ride - C

Indie/Garage Rock


Kate Jackson - British Road Movies - B

Pop/Indie


The Best:


01: Chance The Rapper - Coloring Book - A

Alternative Hip-hop/Gospel/Soul


Coloring Book was one of the most anticipated albums of 2016. Chance The Rapper, an upcoming starlet of hip-hop on the crest of a wave, championed by such names as Kanye West and Jay Electronica has dropped his 3rd album, and 2016 seems so much brighter all of a sudden. Coloring Book has this delightful positivity that pours into your heart from front to back, and obligates you to smile. Chance's hyper-elation spreads generously thick musical effervescence over every track. The listen is not taxing in any way; Coloring Book, for it's length is a joy to listen to, with a perfect combo of initially pleasing hooks and deeper musical dynamics that demand well over a dozen spins.

As with a lot of Hip-hop records these days, there is a rich cast of guest spots. Chance sometimes dominates songs and sometimes allows his friends to take centre stage, making the entire experience flowing and collaborative. Chance's moniker may lead some casual observers to label this as Just Another Rap Album, but Coloring Book is so much more. There is as much Soul and R 'n B on here as anything else, and along with the glorious Gospel choir sections peppering the album, Coloring Book is a genuine masterpiece of a style of music so young, it barely has a genre specified. Let's call it Gospel Hip-hop.

The socio-political situation in The States is complex and troubled, especially for the POC community, and in this context Coloring Book is all the more sweet. It shines out beams of hope and love in the face of so much hostility, an antidote to the dark swell, a beacon in the fog. Looking at the high level of quality in the tracklist - No Problem, Blessings, Same Drugs, Juke Jam, Smoke Break - All these are incredible pieces, varied in style, produced to a razor sharp standard and treated with a high level of care. Chance has poured all his energy into this project, and helped with a cast of musical super-luminaries has achieved something really special. Album Of The Year contender.

02: Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool - A

Experimental/Ambient

A new Radiohead album these days is a rare occurence, coming with the frequency of a general election or a solar eclipse. The Abingdon boys are grown up, with wives and children to look after, solo projects to work on, and Greenpeace campaigns to be the face of. When they do get back to the lab as a fivesome, the product always ends up succinctly representing a different half-decade of reflection on the world, people, and the human condition. A Moon Shaped Pool is the latest epoch-definer from Probably The Best Band In The World.

Everything that is to be said about Pool has been said, and said, and said. Yorke's lyrics are mysterious, emotional and cutting as ever, Greenwood's musical arrangement (especially the string sections) are breathtaking and refreshing. The rest of the band, as always fill their boots. Radiohead are 5 separate artists who come together to form something that is at times indescribably superb and wonderful. We all know that.

What is worth saying is that Radiohead have torn up their own rule book with Pool. As experimental and genre-defying as the band have been over the years, they have kept a certain feel and structure to all of their songs. Most Radiohead songs have rigid verse/chorus/etc structures that temper the swell of virtuosity. Very few Radiohead songs clock in at over 5 minutes, very few lack a chorus. With Pool, Radiohead have done away with these restraints and released their most experimental, ambient album; their most creatively free project to date.

I feel though that this is actually a negative thing, as Pool lacks the solid, driving paranoid meticulousness that makes their top tier releases untouchable. As such, Pool is in the mid range of Radiohead's back catalogue, better than Amnesiac and Pablo Honey, but not troubling the likes of OK Computer, In Rainbows or Kid A. But after all, a middling Radiohead album is still better than the vast majority of music. This will fit snugly in the top 10 of many end of year lists.

03: Adult Jazz - Earrings Off! - B

Jazz/Experimental


This is one of those releases I took a random punt on. I literally only listened to this because I thought the name Adult Jazz was a wonderfully simple name for a band. I mean seriously, how come no one nabbed that decades ago? Anyway, Earrings Off! is grand.

The style of Adult Jazz is quite simple for such an off-the-wall group. The album is composed of sparse horn arrangements and is easy to listen to. The wailing vocals from lead singer Harry Burgess are the centrepiece, floating nicely over the repetitive motifs from the band. His lyrics are simple and expressive. There's a measured craziness about Earrings Off! that is instantly endearing, the dichotomy of the emotional vulnerability and the mature inspection in the lyrics mixing up with the texturally exciting music to form a unique and fascinating artistic style.

It's a shame it's so short, because Earrings Off! is full of brilliant ideas and creativity, and surely a full length project would not drop the quality level. There are only 7 tracks and 3 of them aren't really "proper" songs, serving as bridges between the madness. The finished product is delightfully consumable, the band have bags of talent and love showing it off to the world. Earrings Off! is well worth a go, for even the most casual listener.

04: Katatonia - The Fall Of Hearts - B

Melodic Metal

05: James Blake - The Colour In Anything - B

Pop/Soul

The Dud:


Death Grips - Bottomless Pit - D

Alternative Hip-hop


Is this what you kids listen to these days? Is this cool? Is this the music of the era? Of the people? Is this the vessel that carries the message? Have I missed the boat? Have I finally passed the threshold of old age and gone into pipe-and-slippers land? Should I just chuck it all in and get my Daily Mail subscription sent off and be done with it? If I don't get to listen to this album again, then take me there now.

The thing I admire about Punk music is the obvious - It backs its strong lyrical message with angular, loud, discordant music to create an artistic statement that fully transcends the need for acute musicianship. It pushes through the vain pretences of society and screams revolt. It's simplicity allows anyone to make it, and anyone to love it. But the important thing is the message. It has to be a statement. It has to mean something.

And so we come to Death Grips, the mid-2010's musical equivalent to Punk. But lyrically, there is no statement, no meaning. The sound drops quickly into a dirge of angry noise, shouting and no dynamics. Bottomless Pit loses all it's worth through never having any meaningful thrust in the first place. It taps into the unrequited anger of youth but offers no answers to the rage. There is at least a credible sense of displeasure at the futility of facile modern pop culture, but it never comes up for air under the melee. This is worse than that Wolfmother album.


So that's May. I surpassed 50 albums this month, so I'm well on track for at least 100. I'm looking forward to compiling a strong top 40 come the end of 2016. There's some great June albums I'm already getting my teeth into, and I promise I'll do more than 8 next month. Hope you check out the less famous albums this month, smaller artists need the exposure. Listen to Adult Jazz, they're bloody mad! And don't @ me about Death Grips. I can't believe a label put out that album. It's awful.

April 2016 Review

I listened to a lot of music this month. I'd anticipated some of the albums on this list for ages. Some lived up to the hype, others didn't. I was pleasantly surprised by my top 2 albums, as they came out of nowhere. I listened to them on a whim/the recommendation of others just to fill up space, but they turned out to be my favourite picks for April. It's always great when that happens.

There were several albums that let me down this month. The Rest is littered with records that I wanted to slap a well-deserved high rating on that turned out to be average. But this is why I try to listen without prejudice, because you never know which one is gonna be the dud, and which one is gonna be the bases-loaded home run. As always, the #1 album is a belter. I hope you agree.


The Rest:


Autolux - Pussy's Dead - B

Rock/Electronic


Brian Eno - The Ship - B

Ambient/Spoken Word


Explosions In The Sky - The Wilderness - C

Post-Rock


The Heavy - Hurt & The Merciless - C

Indie/Garage Rock/Funk Rock


J-Dilla - The Diary - C

Hip-hop


The Last Shadow Puppets - Everything You've Come To Expect - C

Alternative Pop/Indie

The Last Shadow Puppets are part of a wave of culture that rehashes older styles, be it through art, music or film. The music they make is an attempt to capture the vintage quality that classic 60's pop records had. My issue with this is that it's dated. It's been done before. Will people want to hear this sort of music from contemporary artists in a decade, or will times have moved on? I strongly suspect the latter.

Everything You've Come To Expect is an apt title, as the boys cover no new ground with this 2nd record. The debut album was good as a standalone project, keeping the hordes at bay while the 3rd Arctic Monkeys album was in development, and simultaneously giving Turner an alternative songwriting outlet. It was good as a snapshot, but now it seems that The Last Shadow Puppets are very much A Proper Band, and we may have many future instances of a new Arctic Monkeys album being pushed back for a year to make room for this project.

It's like a Tarantino film. Great fun the first few watches, and it looks cool and all the characters are saying cool things and doing cool things and wearing cool clothes but then you wearily realise it's the same aesthetic every time. Art for art's sake.


PJ Harvey - The Hope Six Demolition Project - B

Soft Rock/Acoustic/Alternative Rock

I really wanted to love this one. When you're a critically acclaimed artist, when 2 of your albums have won the Mercury Prize and when you're known as a shape-shifting experimenter, there is a weight of expectation that comes with each release. Sometimes you meet that expectation, other times you don't.

The Hope... is a bold enough statement as it is; far too little music in this day and age is politically or socially aware. Harvey attempts commentary on most of this album but it's rather laboured and doesn't come out saying much at all. The musical content is dreary and often when a song finished I found myself saying "what was the point in that one?"

One good tune on this is Chain Of Keys, a classic slice of Harvey's gothic/country/effortlessly cool vibe, with minimal instrumentation and percussion that manages to bring a lot to the table. I think that this was the feel Harvey was gunning for on the entirety of The Hope... but it didn't work out. Let England Shake still hangs over this record; 5 years older and a much more accomplished effort.  


Royce Da 5'9" - Layers - C

Hip-hop


The Best:


01: Yeasayer - Amen & Goodbye - A

Experimental Pop

There's a wonderful scene right now for several bands that defy categorisation through their creativity and experimentation with multiple genres. A few months ago I lumped praise on The 1975's latest release for being innovative and eclectic. Yeasayer's Amen & Goodbye is more of the same.

Amen & Goodbye is a thoroughly delightful journey through many different sounds and eras. There is syncopated percussion, a Baroque-era harpsichord interlude and floor filler basslines throughout the whole scope of the record, pulling you up and down without getting lost in the clouds or jamming out sections for too long. The whole thing is concise and snappy.

Yeasayer have big anthems in them, making regular waypoints throughout Amen & Goodbye - Silly Me, I Am Chemistry, Dead Sea Scrolls and Cold Night all gleam with the quirky catchiness the band are famed for. Amen & Goodbye is mature, intellectual and just a little bit emotionally vulnerable. Yeasayer have been going for a decade now, and show no signs of dropping their quality levels. What a great little record this is.

02: Melt Yourself Down - Last Evenings On Earth - A

Jazz/World

This came straight out of leftfield, I listened to Last Evenings On Earth mainly because one of the band members of Melt Yourself Down happens to release his solo material through the label I work for. It was well worth the punt. This is blissful Jazzy madness.

Last Evenings... plays effortlessly between several different Jazz themes, the band thrashing through sections of tribal drum thumping and whacked-out screaming, maintaining a bizarre and wonderful intensity throughout the whole album. The energy levels hit the ceiling instantly and don't come down until the final note, pulsing and irradiating like a pagan festival echoing through the countryside on a bright summer's day.

What pushes it over the top for me though is the sheer catchiness of it all. The band pour melodies and signature vocal lines into every composition, and this lifts Last Evenings... above the quality of "Just another Jazz album." For a scene that is saturated, that has been hashed and re-hashed, this is refreshing and brings a new element to the fore. It enables the songs to run around your head for days. Melt Yourself Down are having a blinding party, and it's going on all night.

03: Aesop Rock - The Impossible Kid - A

Alternative Hip-hop

Aesop Rock has cultivated his style to perfection over the years, drilling out intelligent lines over precise beats, proving his verbosity and spinning off 6 syllable word rhymes to infinity. Some critics say that Aesop does this merely to show off, but what comes across in his music is a real sense of self-introspection. The Impossible Kid is the latest record to bear his signature sound.

Good Hip-hop can be homespun and accessible, it doesn't have to be opulent to be worthy. Aesop talks through heavy subject matter, but is just as suited to lighter songs about ordering ice cream, ("Cherry? No. Whip? Yes") and loveable quirky nerdiness ("My first name is a random set of numbers and letters and other alphanumerics that changes hourly forever") that fills out the experience without cheapening the serious side.

Tunes like Rings, Lotta Years and Blood Sandwich are grand and eloquent, they are well written dynamic songs that push The Impossible Kid up a notch. The beats are self-produced, not an issue as such, but it does have a samey feel towards the back of the album. Some of the tracks are superfluous; Aesop kinda runs out of ideas after the 9 or 10 best tracks on this record. Nevertheless, The Impossible Kid is a solid, vital, cerebral Hip-hop album, and shows the gold you get when you scratch even the tiniest bit below the surface of the genre.

04: Mogwai - Atomic - B

Post-Rock/Ambient

05: Deftones - Gore - B

Post-Metal/Hard Rock

I'm happy with the albums from April. There's tons of variety in my top 5. I have a feeling they'll still be around the upper tier when I compile my year-end best of. May's albums are already giving me plenty of food for thought. I'm looking forward to writing about the Radiohead album, for sure. See you in a month!

March 2016 Review

Another month, another 10 albums, another blog I should've done a week ago. Life's busy, yanno? Mainly good busy, but busy nonetheless. I've gone days and days on end in April not listening to music, which is mad for me because I usually spin 5 or 6 albums a day at least. So it's taken me forever to listen to everything I wanted, and I still have stuff left over I want to try. I'm determined to get April's in on time. Hopefully.

Anyway.

March was interesting, wasn't it? Some steady releases by established artists, pleasant surprises by virtual-unknowns and one big hitter dropping a mixtape on us without warning. It's all here. One album I loved and was all ready to give a super thumbs-up and a big shiny "A" to was Thao and The Get Down Stay Down's 2013 release We The Common, which I had downloaded accidentally while trying to find their latest album A Man Down. It's really good though, and would have come 2nd in my top 5. Chalk that one down to me getting old (or being drunk when I downloaded it at 3am.) Without any further ado:


The Rest:


3 Doors Down - Us And The Night - C

Rock


Denzel Curry - Imperial - C

Hardcore Hip hop


Hælos - Full Circle - C

Electronic/Pop


Matt Corby - Telluric - B

R 'n B/Soul


Nada Surf - You Know Who You Are - B

Indie/Rock


The Best:


01: Kendrick Lamar - untitled unmastered. - A

Alternative Hip hop/Experimental Hip hop

Kendrick Lamar's status as the golden boy of Hip hop was cemented with last year's ubiquitous list-topper To Pimp A Butterfly, and he's been rocketing upwards ever since. It's a testament to how vital Lamar is when he drops an unmastered mixtape of out-takes and studio jams from the Butterfly sessions with no prior official promotion and it goes straight in at number one on the billboard charts, selling 200,000+ units in under 2 months. King Kunta.

The music itself, as one would expect from such eclectic sessions is a kaleidoscope of themes and moods. Lamar is as much at home with his socio-political remonstrations as with his hood rhetoric. As always, his flow is urgent and direct, and yet at times verging on surreal. The clear radio play choices are the start of Untitled 07, (released  as a single titled Levitate) and the final track Untitled 08, the latter dubbed Blue Faces by fans. I'm also totally enamoured with Untitled 03's superb mix of cerebral synth stabs and horn trills mixed with female vocal hooks.

Untitled 06 is a summery happy tune with Cee Loo Green's distinctive voice leading the way before Lamar drops in. You can tell he's got a smile on his face as he cruises through his lyrics like he's reciting his ABCs. This song, like the rest, is effortless. The bulk of the tracks feature a welcome continuation of the collaboration between Lamar and Thundercat, whose wandering basslines and soulful voice are a signature element of Lamar's music. In truth, I could keep going for a while. I don't want to pick out all the bits I like here, because it'd be all of it.

If Butterfly was the arena show, with an adoring crowd of thousands following every move and screaming back the lyrics to the band as they play through a tightly wound, well-versed setlist, then untitled... is the chilled out blunts and beers jam at the after party. Everything's more relaxed, and that's why it's so much more accessible than Butterfly. untitled... asks nothing, assumes nothing, and just gives. It's a representation of an artist at the peak of his game, in the rawest form possible. It's my favourite record of the year so far.


I can't find a proper video for anything from the album but this performance on US TV is AMAZING:

02: Iggy Pop - Post Pop Depression - B

Alternative Rock

Iggy Pop has been around since the dawn of recorded time, and even though I've never been much of a fan, he's one of those artists that I feel compelled to listen to whenever I get the chance. Post Pop Depression is billed as an Iggy solo record, but it would be fairer to label this as a supergroup, as Iggy's band contains members from some of the great princes (and future kings) of this generation's rock royalty.

The result of a collaboration between such artists is as you'd expect - Effective simplistic drum patterns from Matt Helders, triple-decade matured riffs and into-the-hollow weird trippyness from Josh Homme and Dean Fertita, all sitting comfortably underneath Iggy's American poet polemica. Post... is a textbook walk along the path most trodden, using the tried and tested rock four piece method, with almost a century of professional experience between them to give it that cask-aged, instant vintage quality.

Homme will have grown up with Iggy Pop and The Stooges as idols, and I can only imagine the feeling it is to perform with such a legend of your younger years. He steps back and gives Iggy the space his elder-statesmanlike level of rock stardom demands, so the usual ego nonsense that often afflicts such super-pairings is not present. This is definitely Iggy's project, but Homme is always in the passenger seat, pushing harmonised vocals and his signature guitar style in wherever he can.

The lads aren't pulling up any trees with Post...; every single member of this project has bigger fish to fry, and I suspect the A material has been put on ice for their respective main projects. (Come on, Matt, when's the next Monkeys album out?) While Post... doesn't advance any of it's creator's careers much, it certainly hasn't pushed them back, and the high quality of musicianship and songwriting on this record is well worth the 42 minutes. They certainly had a lot of fun doing this, and that's always a good thing. Post... is an extremely listenable and accessible record, and I think it will appear on many end of year best-of lists.

03: The Body - No One Deserves Happiness - B

Experimental Rock/Post-Metal

04: Underworld - Barbara, Barbara, We Face A Shining Future - B

Electronic/House/Ambient

05: The Joy Formidable - Hitch - B

Indie/Rock

The Welsh soundwall churners return after a 3 year break with the suitably epic Hitch. This is a good record that would be great if the fat were trimmed. At well over an hour, and with most of its songs in excess of 5 minutes, Hitch keeps on going and going and going. And then it goes some more. The compositions are huge, and there's plenty of room for reverb-laden guitar and pounding drums while the band are at full stretch.

Singer Ritzy Bryan does well to float strong vocal melodies over the noise, and the overall catchy and friendly qualities that abound on Hitch are pleasant to behold. The band are a perfectly balanced 3 piece; the sound is simultaneously uncluttered yet full.

Songs such as The Last Thing On My Mind and A Second In White are nice enough, but there's just too much to chew on, and the later acoustic tracks come too late to stave off the musical equivalent of eating an entire chocolate cake to yourself. They have a good, original sound, but it's not worth every minute of Hitch.

So that's March. There's about a million things I want to listen to from April, which I have already begun doing. You might even get a top 6. How about that. Tell me what you think, anyway. Should Kendrick be so lauded? Is Denzel Curry actually the king of Hip hop?  When is the next Arctic Monkeys album gonna drop, eh? See you in a few weeks.