December 2017 Review

Finally, the year's reviews are done. I am fully 2 months behind where I want to be with these updates, and I'm done with the format now. I'm gonna go into some more  longread-y stuff from this point. Unless one of you fancy paying me to do this. Do.. any of you... fancy paying me... for this? Maybe one day. For now, there's the final 9 albums of the year. As with last December's there's slim pickings - I had to put in a film soundtrack to pad out the numbers. But I am very enamoured with the top 2 records, and I did really enjoy hate-listening to Eminem's latest dirge. Top 40 of 2017 to follow!


The Rest:

Eminem - Revival - C-

Eminem's new album Revival (hasn't he already released like 4 albums with that title?) conveniently illustrates the paradoxical dichotomy at the heart of his huge success. It is a confused mess of superstar guest spots, blunt-force attempts at socio-political commentary and downright ludicrous misogyny. Revival is Eminem's latest attempt to reconcile his Still Don't Give A Fuck bleach-blonde shock-rap persona with his No, Actually I Want To Be Serious Now version of himself he started in the mid-00's. As you may have gathered, it doesn't work.

Eminem would be far more credible and relevant if he picked a side. All the ham-fisted sincerity in songs like Untouchable, Bad Husband and Believe would be at least acceptable if it wasn't on the same album as songs like Framed, Offended and Remind Me, (the latter of which making a complete waste of the clearing fee for extensive sampling of I Love Rock 'n Roll) the lyrical content of which is frankly appalling.

He almost gets it right with progressive song structures. He shows brief flashes of the technical brilliance that made him famous in the 90's. But this is all buried in the quagmire of a terminally disoriented middle-aged stream of consciousness. There is no consistent tone or message, and it's about 20 minutes too long. Hip-hop is in it's third golden age. Records are being released that we will talk of in reverential tones in 20, 30, 40 years time. Boundaries are being broken. Legends are being made. This simply will not do.

G-Eazy - The Beautiful & Damned - C

Gucci Mane - El Gato: The Human Glacier - D

Minors - Atrophy - C


The Best:


01: Glassjaw - Material Control - A

It's tough for heavy bands to keep up the energy of their earlier years as they move in their 30's and 40's. This era of rock band come backs has yielded some mediocre offerings in that regard - You only have to look to At The Drive-In's thoroughly OK album from earlier in the year for an example of this. It's just not that easy to replicate the pure energy of your teens with an extra couple of decades between you and that age, with kids and a mortgage in tow.

With Material Control however, Glassjaw have bridged that gap with some vital, moany American Post-Hardcore. Material Control has all the bite of the best of the 90's output of that scene, with the added bonus of self-reflective hindsight. This is only the band's third album to date from a release history that spans over 20 years. That may be what is driving Glassjaw to such achievements - They still have a ton of energy left from the old days. They have unfinished business.

Material Control is a contained, clever piece of art, with every considered emotive phrase licking at the heels of it's predecessor. The intro suite of New White Extremity, Shira and Citizen suggests a relentless aggressive listen awaits, but as the album unfolds, Glassjaw enable their more experimental side to come out. They balance that out with quieter sections, although they are merely contextual to the soaring choruses in tunes like Golgotha and Closer, which are predictably the highlights, and help Glassjaw keep their stripes with the purists. Material Control is a triumph, and a huge statement for the band's first full length release in 15 years.

02: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Gumboot Soup - A

I made a point of doing these blogs at least a month late because I've always been bothered by major publications lopping off the end of the year and releasing their top albums list in November. After all, what if the greatest album ever recorded gets released on December 31st? King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard put that theory to test by dropping Gumboot Soup on the final day of the year. And it's... Just about worth the wait!

Gumboot Soup is the band's fifth album of 2017. It's been described as a collection of tunes that wouldn't fit on the previous four records, mainly for stylistic reasons. Normally this would set off the one-track 30 minute improv jam cop-out alarm, but King Gizzard are a hugely prolific group of musicians. Their final release of  the year is just as snappy and entertaining as anything else they've given us this year. I'd actually go as far as saying it's the best of the bunch, because even though it's not fully representative of their 2017 output, it's a lot more accessible on the whole. The jazzy meanderings and 9 minute songs take a back seat for this round. It's an easy gate into the overgrown garden.

Intro track Beginner's Luck sticks straight in your head from the first listen, but once you've treated yourself to a few more spins, other pieces come to the fore. Down The Sink, The Great Chain Of Being, and Superposition are all songs that will inspire your creativity and have you reaching for your favourite Zappa records for months. There's far too many great moments on this album to mention, but my top cut is the marvellous psychedelic pop of Barefoot Desert, which positively glows with insight and energy. Gumboot Soup is a brilliant, smart record that is a fantastic sign off to 2017 for King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard.

03: Brockhampton - Saturation III - B

Coming out of nowhere, Brockhampton turned up to the 2017 rap party halfway through but still managed to get as wrecked as everyone else. Released in the space of six months, along with a companion film, the Saturation project spans 2.5 hours. It seems like an ambitious foray for what is the debut full-length offering from the self-proclaimed "internet's first boy band," but the burgeoning collective have appeared to find the whole thing totally natural. Saturation III is 2017's final slice of Brockhampton's easy alternative Hip-hop.

We're used to the drill, now. Saturation III is as tightly-packaged and well-considered as it's sister albums. It's tough to pigenhole so many rappers in one go, but their collective status plant their roots loosely in Odd Future and by extension, Tyler, The Creator's early progressive wordplay. That's just a vessel for their originality, though - In a world of battle-hardened MCs and galactic superstars, Brockhampton sit in their own compartment. Clean enough for mainstream rotation without losing any lyrical edge, accessible enough for casual listeners to dip into without being too sappy, the inclusive vibes of self-worth ripple across the surface gently, spiked with the confidence of a dozen-or-so young dudes who are inching into the spotlight.

Though the form is pleasant enough, you really really have to justify releasing three LPs in half a year. Brockhanpton don't even come close to producing enough quality material to fill out the space, and for that I have to mark it down. Saturation III on it's own is fair enough, but with the others, it's too much. I don't think Brockhampton are arrogantly releasing so much music - They are genuinely prolific. But with a fourth and possibly even a fifth record in the works for  2018, Saturation is an apt descriptor for this band's effect on the music world.

04: Jonny Greenwood - Phantom Thread - B

05: Tom Rogerson & Brian Eno - Finding Shore - B

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!