Category: New Album Review

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New Album Review

“New Shapes” by Charli XCX Track Review

"New Shapes" Track Review

Charli XCX has had a very interesting career trajectory. She first really came into public consciousness on the hook of an Icona Pop song and stayed in the mainstream radio friendly sphere for some time, crafting hits like “Boom Clap” that are still her most popular songs to this day. But for a solid five years now she’s almost been a brand ambassador for hyperpop, the experimental candy coated shock to the system that has seen a massive rise in popularity recently. For me, her music was a gateway into this world, and her last two albums, 2019’s “Charli” and “how i’m feeling now”, a meditation on the pandemic that was equal parts reflective and cathartic, were each my favorite albums of their respective years.

On Thursday, November 4, she kicked off the rollout of her upcoming album, “CRASH”, set to release in March of 2022 and with an accompanying tour. “New Shapes” is the second single off this project, and already it’s clear that the album will be a shift in style from her previous work. “Good Ones”, the first single, was an 80s-inspired pop rumination on lost love accompanied by an aesthetic straight out of that decade, down to her permed hair on the washed out album cover. I thoroughly enjoyed this song and have listened to it a lot since its release, but in a lot of ways it felt like a step back from the highs of “how i’m feeling now”, less adventurous both sonically and lyrically.

Which finally brings me to “New Shapes”. Part of the reason I took this long to talk about the actual three and a half minutes of music was because the context is very important to its appreciation. There are a lot of elements I really like. Charli’s vocal performance is great, and the minimal instrumental really sits back and puts her center stage. I love the quiet but still very present synths occasionally punctuating the track and adding some nice flair. Christine and the Queens, who are Charli XCX feature royalty thanks to her amazing work on “Gone”, are here and put in a great verse to keep the song chugging along.

There were a few elements, though, that drag the song down. The chorus is both too long and somewhat weak for the climax it’s built to be, the concept of loving “in new shapes” is a bit vague and the song could generally use a more clear direction. And while I love Caroline Polacheck’s music (and her amazing set at Hopscotch earlier this year), her feature on the third verse here was just not it. It wasn’t entirely her fault, the instrumental just completely recedes into the background, but her lines were just very awkward and it lacked the sharp edges of recent work like the absolute bop that was “Bunny is a Rider”.

And that’s my biggest frustration with this song. On its own merits it’s fine, good even, but as a Charli XCX song with big name features? It just doesn’t reach the standard her last few albums have forged through their inventive production and just by being a unique voice in a very crowded field. I’ll never forget listening to “claws” for the first time and being blown away by the energy on that track, but I don’t know if I’ll be revisiting “New Shapes” next week, much less next year. I’m still very excited to hear the full album, but it’s a different kind of excitement then I had going into her last few releases, more of how I anticipate a Marvel movie than an Oscar contender. Oh I’ll have fun with it, and take away some memories, but if “New Shapes” is an indication of the direction of the project, I won’t be blown away, and that’s something I had been getting used to from her music.

-Erie

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New Album Review

Album Review: “Queens of the Summer Hotel” by Aimee Mann

Queens of the Summer Hotel album cover
Album cover of"Queens of the Summer Hotel" by Aimee Mann

As fellow WKNC DJ Snapdragon remarked recently, the weather is no longer cute. It’s getting pretty wintery here in the Triangle, but if you’re looking for an album to hit that sweet cozy spot and make it feel like fall for forty minutes, “Queens of the Summer Hotel” is a sleeper pick.

It achieves this cozy aura by managing to capture the feel of an old record perfectly. This goes beyond the vintage-style album cover or the pianos and strings that are straight out of a 1950s living room, but in the subject matter as well. “Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath” shows a snapshot of the titular pair walking “together down the primrose path” and slowly peels the layers away to detail their downfall. A certain Vermeer painting anchors the experiences of the characters in “At the Frick Museum”, while “You Could Have Been a Roosevelt” reminisces on legions of women who are entering a world that doesn’t treat them as an equal, equating it to being born in the wrong US political dynasty. These references act like a familiar blanket for the listener, while the subject matter isn’t always pleasant there is a sense of belonging that keeps you hooked.

When trying to capture a particular time period or style, it’s important to not get lost in the aesthetic and make a piece of art that can stand on its own, and “Queens” never loses sight of this. These settings are a backdrop for universal concepts of complicated romance and how life becomes very different as you grow up, all from an explicit focus on feminism and gender roles in a wider society. It doesn’t pull its punches with social critiques either. “Give Me Fifteen” is an unsettling narrative about a doctor who threatens women with “electroshock”, a stand-in for a broken system that grinds away at mental health and creates a cure that is often worse than the disease. Make no mistake, this is not a happy album, and if unflinching ruminations on mental illness is something that you don’t think you can handle, steer clear. But the way this all comes together creates a curiously warm tone that remains reflective, the quintessential fall vibe.

My first experience with Aimee Mann’s music was seeing her in a “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” episode where she made a cameo as part of a vampire band and played one of her songs, “Pavlov’s Bell”. It’s been several decades now since that episode came out, but something that struck me when I listened to “Queens of the Summer Hotel” was how much of what made her music from that era work is present here, even in this less-guitar based form. Her commanding vocal presence and ability to take listeners on a journey haven’t wavered, and if you’re a fan of Aimee Mann’s earlier work, definitely give this one a shot.

-Erie

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New Album Review

“Any Shape You Take”: New Album Review

ALBUM: “Any Shape You Take” by Indigo De Souza

LABEL: Saddle Creek

RATING: 10/10

BEST TRACKS: “Pretty Pictures” “Real Pain” “Die/Cry”

FCC: None

Let me preface this entire review by saying that this album is my personal album of the year, at least thus far, and in my opinion, Indigo De Souza has yet to have a miss in her entire discography. Her sophomore album, “Any Shape You Take”  was released on August 27 of this year. The record is ten songs long and has a run-time of 38 minutes, an ideal length for an album.

In regard to collaboration, the album was co-produced by De Souza and Brad Cook (Alex Farrar and Adam McDaniel also have production credits). As far as songwriting goes, Owen Stone has a songwriting credit on two songs and Jake Lenderman has a credit on one. 

As a listener, I am lyricism focused, and this album’s biggest strength (although it has little to no weaknesses) are its lyrics. It very much has the honest detailed songwriting that has been emphasized in artists like Phoebe Bridgers as of late. However, De Souza juxtaposes this with repetition of phrases over and over again, that often turn into plea-like shouts. It makes for a dynamic and wonderful listening experience. As I often do in my album reviews, here is a list of just a few of my favorite lyrics from this album.

  • “Do you see me when you’re sleeping? / Do you even shut your eyes at night?” — “Die/Cry”
  • “I promise you I’ll always grow with you / And if my promise ever slips just trust I’ll have the heart to quit / I know when I am better off a friend” — “Pretty Pictures”
  • “I see you in colors, in reds and in oranges / But you can’t color me in fear” — “Way Out”
  • “Dirty the dishеs, stack them higher / We’rе not gonna wash them / We’ll throw them away / Kill me slowly, outside that diner / That we liked to go to / When things were okay”— “Kill Me”

This album is exactly what I needed this year. Other releases were somewhat lackluster, and I was losing hope in having an album I really enjoyed come out this year, but this North Carolina based artist flipped the script.

Happy listening, 

Caitlin

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New Album Review

Dochii: Oh The Places You’ll Go Album Review

Dochii Oh the Places You'll Go Album Cover

Alright my recommendations feed has come up with something great. It’s a rare occasion that the algorithm will promote someone without a lot of industry weight behind them, but Dochii is the exception because I had no idea who this woman is, and she’s left a relatively thin paper trail online. So, let’s take a look at this new force in underground rap, and her introductory album “Oh The Places You’ll Go.”

The obvious starting place for Dochii is the song “Yucky Blucky Fruitcake,” (yes I know, just bear with me). The song literally starts with a teacher asking her to introduce herself to the class, straight up “Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,” style. This is an extremely well-worn cliché, and you better be at the top of your game if you add something new this way. Fortunately for Dochii, she is. Beyond the persona and content of lyrics, there’s no getting around the fact that Dochii is just a technically masterful rapper. This album is based around Dr. Seuss, and her flows are accordingly very fragmented and sing-songy, but the song never becomes stale. She switches between rhythmic patterns, tempos, and dynamics at such breakneck speed that one medium length song feels like full ep, giving a full impression of her range, personality, and life story through little more than the bread and butter of hip-hop.

The album’s simplicity is a thematic force as well. The ep is centered around school and childhood, hence the Dr. Seuss stuff. Again, comparisons to both Lauryn Hill and about 30 other rapppers are inveitable, but Dochii remains her own person through these well-worn topics. One of the album’s most creative choices is the decision to write and perform from the perspective of an actual tween. Dochii isn’t so much reflecting back on her childhood years so much as performing from an entirely separate character.

If there’s one complaint I have with this album, it’s the interludes. The ep is extremely short, so loading the tracklist down even further with spoken word, found sound, and other skits really makes the pace drag between the actual songs. While I’m the last person to recommending skipping tracks on albums, this is probably a situation where skipping is appropriate.

Dochii is a great addition to underground hip-hop, and while I can’t make any crystal ball predictions about her career, I can only dream of the “Places She’ll Go,” in the future. Take a listen to this new artist, she’s worth your time.

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Blog New Album Review

Album Review: “-io” by Circuit des Yeux

"-io" album cover
Album cover of "-io" by Circuit des Yeux

I didn’t have a traditional music upbringing. I barely knew what music was before sophomore year of high school barring some Soundgarden tracks I heard on YouTube. This meant that I skipped the slowly learning about the most famous artists and went from essentially nothing to experimental rap. While I could do a whole blog about what this has done to my music taste, something I notably missed out on was listening to any classical music growing up, and it’s only recently that I’ve been getting into that. And for anyone who wants a new album that brings the spirit of classical music with modern sensibilities for the discerning JPEGMAFIA fan, “-io” is the album for you.

Circuit des Yeux’s prior work exemplifies an appreciation of the old ways. Their only concert of 2021 will be playing at an opera house with a 16-piece orchestra and their last project was an original score for the 1923 silent film “Salomé”.

Structurally this is a departure from a typical verse-chorus set of builds and releases. Songs don’t come together in bursts, rather they start strong and finish even stronger, with a steady buildup of layering melodies. Oh there are both verses and choruses, but the songs don’t unfold around them, rather the lines are used as instruments, to evoke pure emotion with each word being delivered with its own passionate focus. “Zero is a hero” doesn’t sound inspiring, menacing and spiritually rousing when it’s in a lyric sheet, but when roared on album highlight “Vanishing” it’s downright iconic.

Haley Fohr, the mastermind behind Circuit des Yeux, has the perfect voice to anchor what otherwise could be a runaway train of furious strings and horns. Her 4-octave vocal range commands the listener to pay attention through the gale, able to draw you in alongside a single high note or descend into madness alongside forward marching drums and swirling strings. Moments of barely controlled aggression on songs like “Neutron Star” pair with the soft meditation of a “Sculpting the Exodus”, and the end of one song and the beginning of another often feel like arbitrary points; necessary divisions to turn one long saga into album form.

I need to get into more music like this. I’m not going to pretend I understand all of the themes Fohr is working with on this album, or that I’ll understand on the 100th listen. But the fun of experimental music is that you don’t really have to. If there’s one thing this album does it’s to take listeners on a wild ride, and I’m perfectly happy to sit back, prepare for anything and feel like just by listening to “-io” I’m furthering my education.

-Erie

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New Album Review

New Album (EP) Review: “Red Hand Akimbo” by Paris Texas

Paris Texas' "Red Hand Akimbo" Album Cover

ALBUM (EP): “Red Hand Akimbo” by Paris Texas

RELEASE YEAR: 2021

LABEL: Paris Texas LLC

RATING: 8.2/10

BEST TRACKS: “girls like drugs” and “BULLSEYE”

FCC: Explicit language

Paris Texas, the musical duo consisting of producer Louis Pastel and rapper Felix, brings a fullness and humor to alternative rap that’s proven exciting and inventive. The two met in community college in South Central, Los Angeles and have worked together officially as Paris Texas for over three years now, but their music tells a different story. “Red Hand Akimbo” is so tightly-crafted that you’d think these two had been working together for most of their lives. While their sound has remained consistently vibrant and interesting, “Red Hand Akimbo” sees Pastel and Felix pulling together a work far more cohesive than their previous project, “BOY ANONYMOUS.” Their new EP flows together seamlessly, even making use of comedic interludes that make me laugh a bit every time. The EP has only five tracks, but I still had trouble choosing my top two.

The second song on “Red Hand Akimbo” is pure fun. “girls like drugs” brings together rap and rock, layered with what reads as grunge inspiration (despite Paris Texas’ denial of any influence from the Seattle sound), which all makes for a unique and high-energy experience. If girls like drugs, then this track is the best medicine on the market.

“I’ve been smokin’ cigarettes until my lungs bleed,” is the moody and heavy opener that sets the tone for the fourth track of the EP just for it to be turned around with an Assassin’s Creed reference in the next line. “BULLSEYE” is angry, loud, funny, and passionate. I can imagine a crowd jumping around at a Paris Texas show, screaming these lyrics, and sweating a little too much. The vocal distortion in the chorus is King Krule-esque with just enough pop in the background to keep the energy up. The last forty seconds drop the vocals completely and showcase that specific brand of lo-fi hip-hop study beats that somehow just works in this song.

Overall, the project is criminally short, coming in at just under thirteen minutes, but I swear it’s worth every second. I can’t wait to see what the duo puts out next, and perhaps they say it best themselves on “Epilogue,” the spoken final track of the EP: “And the only path these two will follow is up, and if it is up, then it shall remain stuck.”

Here’s to getting stuck on good music,

Silya Bennai

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New Album Review

Kacey Musgraves Why?

star-crossed album cover

            The divorce album has been a staple of country music for about the last century. It’s a powerful statement that you’ve moved into the depressed and alcoholic part of middle age, which is the prime productive period for good old fashioned ballads about misery and killing your ex. It’s pretty hard to mess up, and yet, Kacey Musgraves has managed to mess it up.

            This last year has apparently been bad for Musgraves, as it has been for all of us. She divorced her husband, fellow country singer Ruston Kelly. However, determined to make the best of it, Musgraves headed into the studio, taking her usual sound palate and collaborators with her, ready to make her very own divorce album, “Star Crossed.” Now, considering the overwhelming acclaim of Golden Hour, and the general tradition of country divorce albums, I had high hopes for the album. Kacey Musgraves has been a very cheery and bright artist, and while no one would ever wish for something to dampen her spirits, I was interested to see how she would handle darker subject matter.

However, in retrospect, the fact that Musgraves had never really taken on an angry or aggressive tone should have been a red flag. “Star Crossed” is about the nicest and vaguest divorce album on the planet. Kacey is an extremely sharp songwriter, and good at forging incisive lines that never feel brow-beating. And yet, we’re treated to nearly an hour of listless and melancholy reminiscence. While there’s nothing wrong with a sad breakup album, Musgraves seems to have nothing to say about her own personal tragedy, giving the whole affair a vibe of “Quick! Say something!”

Even the angry tracks like “bread-winner” are extremely general talking about “guys like that” who come in to ruin your week. No one individual guy in particular, just like, the vague idea of guys who do nonspecific bad things to the idea of women. This isn’t to say that Musgraves needed to go into any kind of detail, we aren’t owed any kind of insight into her personal life, but in a album framed entirely around her divorce, it seems like a rather critical oversight to not, you know, talk about the divorce.

I don’t want to just drag this album, there’s a more important lesson we might take from this specific type of failure. It might be that not all artists are built for the requisite messy personal album coming from tragedy that famous artists are expected to churn out. I can’t speak to whether Musgraves was personally pressured into making an album about her personal baggage (though it would certainly explain a lot). However, even if no agent, label executive, or fan asked her to make art out of her suffering, Musgraves was doubtlessly influenced by the general cultural expectation that a musician can’t go through personal tragedy without creating an album out of it. Not everyone is cut out for that kind of career move, it’s emotionally taxing and requires a specific type of person (read: a slightly narcissistic person) to be comfortable putting themselves out so completely.

I’m fairly confident Kacey Musgraves will bounce back from this. She’s still obviously very talented, and like I said at the top, country is perhaps the only genre where woman can expect greater success in middle age than they did in their twenties. So here’s hoping she can find a niche that suits a bit better, because Tammy Wynette she is not.

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New Album Review

Jenevieve: Album Review

The debut record from rising R&B artist Jenevieve establishes her as an artist with lots of promise, talent and the potential to create even better works in the future.

Sonically, I was pretty impressed with “Division.” The production and mixing on this album were very solid, and producer Benziboy did a fantastic job curating sounds that fit well with Jenevieve’s voice, allowing both the production and the vocals to shine. Although this album was produced entirely by Benjiboy, he still manages to show range and diversity in his production choices. The album has upbeat, pop-inspired tracks such as “Mellow Eyes” and “No Sympathy,” but also includes a few warmer, down-tempo tracks such as “Baby Powder” and “Nxwhere.” Benziboy and Jenevieve seem to make a great pair, and I respect their ability to create a collection of tracks that fit together in a cohesive group without sounding too repetitive.

Lyrically, this project was solid, but nothing remarkable. Jenevieve delivers with a beautiful vocal performance, and her lyrics are enjoyable to listen to, but very little of the lyrical content is especially captivating. However, I’ll admit that I typically don’t pay the closest attention to lyrics, so I could be biased.

I have few criticisms with “Division,” one being that the album didn’t have a very strong ending. I don’t dislike any of the tracks on the album, but I definitely prefer the first few tracks of the album to the rest of it. All the tracks after “Mellow Eyes” are solid, but they’re the weakest tracks on the record, in my opinion. However, I won’t be surprised if my opinion on this changes as I give this album a few more listens.

My only other criticism is that Jenevieve still needs to work on creating her own distinct sound. While I enjoy this album, there are only a few songs on it that separate Jenevieve from other up-and-coming R&B artists. That’s not to say that Jenevieve has no individuality — tracks like “Baby Powder” and “Résumé” show that she is perfectly capable of sounding unique — I just think she should continue to make more songs like these, and I’m confident that with time, she’ll develop her own unique sound.

All that being said, “Division” proves to be a solid body of work and a very impressive debut project. Overall, I give this album a 7.5/10. Jenevieve has established herself as a driving force in alternative R&B, and I’m excited to see what she releases in the future.

— Marshall Morgan

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Band/Artist Profile New Album Review

“SYS03” by FJAAK (EP Review)

SYS03 album cover

EP: “SYS03” by FJAAK

RELEASE YEAR: 2021

LABEL: SPANDAU20

RATING: 8.5/10

BEST TRACKS: “Fabric” and “Blitz”

Berlin based duo FJAAK is back with their new EP “SYS03”, the third installment in the “SYS” series. It’s no secret that clubs all over the world have struggled to stay financially afloat amidst the current COVID-19 pandemic. Seeing an opportunity to give back, FJAAK created the “SYS” series, a charity project where four club-titled tracks are released with all revenue generated going directly to the four clubs. The clubs featured in “SYS03” are London based Fabric, Munich based Blitz, Brussels based Fuse, and Cologne based Gewölbe. 

The idea behind the whole project makes each individual track and EP installment a unique listening experience. Before playing the opening track “Fabric”, I decided to search for a couple images of the dancefloor. Hearing the heavy and slightly reverberated bassline as the track played, I envisioned the bass vibrating and reverbing off the brick walls, the subtle melody kick-in drawing oohs and ahs from the crowd.  For a club that looks like a residential brick house, it perfectly encapsulates the atmosphere. I followed my same process for the second track “Blitz”. While maintaining the similar heavy bassline form “Fabric”, the melody is much more pronounced with vocal echoes and hi-hats alongside an almost euphoric synth breakdown. Located in a former museum hall with two dancefloors, two bars, and a vegetarian restaurant, Blitz is a world away from the underground basement setting of Fabric and FJAAK’s ability to portray this juxtaposition throughout the EP is why I gave “SYS03” an 8.5 out of 10.

I have proudly done my part in supporting these clubs and many others by purchasing all three installments, and I hope you will all do the same.

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New Album Review

“Solar Power” by Lorde (Album Review)

Cover of Lorde's "Solar Power"

Lorde is notorious for the story-like nature of her albums, often starting and ending an album with similar or juxtaposed themes. On her debut record, “Pure Heroine,” she begins the first track with “Don’t you think that it’s boring how people talk?” and ends the final track with the line “But people are talking, people are talking / Let ’em talk.” And on her sophomore album “Melodrama,” she tells the tale of a house party. The concept for her brand new album, “Solar Power”? Nature. In 2019, Lorde visited Antarctica and that trip bore her memoir/photo-book “Going South.” The book was released in June 2021 as a “precursor” to “Solar Power.”  

It seems to me that Lorde’s proven superb ability to procure cohesiveness has leaned more into sonic repetitiveness this time around. The production, done by Lorde, Jack Antonoff and in part by James Ryan Ho (better known as Malay) leaves something to be desired. I understand that not every album is going to be as blatantly over-the-top pop as fan favorite “Melodrama,” but the whole album falls one step short of whole, and is almost too understated.

However, songwriting is one area in which I’m convinced Lorde will never fall short. “Secrets from a Girl (Who’s Seen It All),” “The Man with the Axe” and “Big Star” are the three lyrically strongest tracks on the record. The following is a collection of my favorite lyrics from the album:

  • “I should’ve known when your favorite record / Was the same as my father’s you’d take me down” — “The Man with the Axe”
  • “Couldn’t wait to turn fifteen / Then you blink and it’s been ten years / Growing up a little at a time, then all at once / Everybody wants the best for you / But you gotta want it for yourself, my love” — “Secrets from a Girl (Who’s Seen It All)”
  • “I used to love the party, now I’m not alright / Hope the honeybees make it home tonight” — “Big Star”
  • “In the future / If I have a daughter / Will she have my waist / Or my widow’s peak? / My dreamer’s disposition or my wicked streak?” — “Oceanic Feeling”

And it does possess the aforementioned circularity that her previous albums boast. The first track, “The Path” begs the audience to understand that she is not a savior nor a messiah (despite her stage name). “Oceanic Feeling,” the closing song, ends with the lyric “… I’ll know when it’s time / To take off my robes and step into the choir.”

Aside from the previously mentioned production collaboration, the album also contains much collaboration with other artists. Clairo, Phoebe Bridgers, Lawrence Arabia and Marlon Williams provide backing vocals on numerous tracks. Swedish musician Robyn, co-wrote and did the spoken outro on “Secrets from a Girl (Who’s Seen It All).” Jack Antonoff also has songwriting credits on eight of the twelve tracks. 

Fan and critical reception has been decent but far below par for a Lorde album. In my opinion, she had a vision and executed it, which is all you can ask for in art. She wasn’t trying to make another “Melodrama,” she was trying to make “Solar Power,” and she did just that.