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

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