February Review Roundup
New Year, New Roundup. Trying to make this monthly, so the number will change based on how many good albums there are. Also, trying a faster, snappier write-up of each album. Here we go!
DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS
Bad Bunny
Reggaetón
Bad Bunny has been making consistently good reggaetón for…ever? But this newest is the first from him I feel the need to revisit. He makes some bold production choices, incorporating samples of mariachi and latin folk music to fantastic effect. A fantastic fusion of old and new.
Highlights: “BAILE INoLVIDABLE,” “DtMF,” “LA MuDANZA”
Perverts
Ethel Cain
Drone
Did you ever want ambient sounds for concentration or, like, those “chill vibes” videos YouTube used to pawn on people constantly, but instead of gentle beats and whale songs, it’s the score of Se7en slowed down to a 90-minute drone that makes you feel like John Wayne Gacy is right…behind…you…right…now…if only you could turn around fast enough to stop him? Because, boy, do I have the album for you. But seriously, it’s legitimately well made and does its job…almost too well.
Highlights (if they can so be called): “Punish,” “Onanist,” “Amber Waves”
EUSEXUA
FKA twigs
Electronic Dance Music
FKA twigs has been making legitimately great music for years, but has been relatively quiet of late. That makes this return, now bursting with 90’s and 2000’s EDM and trip-hop influences, all the more wonderful. The songs are intense and insanely creative, while her patented delicate delivery floats over acid jazz ballads and dancefloor burners alike. I’ve loved everything she’s made so far, but this is above an beyond even that: inventive, catchy, perfectly executed, utterly brilliant.
Highlights: “Eusexua,” “Drums of Death,” “Striptease”
Showbiz!
MIKE
Abstract Hip Hop
I’ve said several time on this platform: hip hop is difficult for me to discuss. So much of how I experience it (and therefore decide whether I like it or not) is based purely on feeling. But occasionally there’s an artist who is all in the brain. MIKE’s newest is cerebrally dislocating, able to rhyme about some of the most difficult things a person can experience in free-flowing verses that barely skirt around some serious beat ingenuity. It’s a thinker, but it’s worth the Rodin pose to experience it.
Highlights: “Man in the Mirror,” “Lost Scribe,” “Burning House”
LOWER
Benjamin Booker
Art Rock
I…don’t know what this is. Hearing this the first time had me seriously confused and also totally entranced. Benjamin Booker has taken his usual 90’s-acoustic-grunge and added the brilliant Kenny Segal’s production, making a stark construction of corrosive beat-driven folk ballads. It’s dark and full of (let’s be honest, justified) outrage, heard in its dusty noise and distortion. It can occasionally disturb, but I can’t stop going back to it.
Highlights: “Black Ops,” “LWA in the Trailer Park,” “Same Kind of Lonely”
Héritage
Songhoy Blues
Songhai Music
I am an absolute sucker for West African and Saharan rock and blues music (see last year’s Funeral for Justice by Mdou Moctar), so finding another group I had never heard before is like opening a non-birthday, non-holiday present. Songhai incorporates a lot more traditional sounds of the region than other genres from the desert, making it an entirely new experience, while still maintaining the familiarity of something like Tishoumaren or electric blues.
Hurry Up Tomorrow
The Weeknd
Alternative R&B
Seriously? How was this NOT going to be good? The Weeknd’s last two albums, part of a loose trilogy, of which this is the final installment, were paragons of R&B-pop. Dawn FM was an insanely fun package of tight, soulful dance tracks, and After Hours was just a stunning revelation of an album, one of the best of the decade so far. So Hurry Up had a lot to live up to, and goddamn did it ever. It’s also by far the darkest thematically of anything I’ve heard The Weeknd do yet, so buckle up. Hurry Up is his most complex, most intricate, and I can’t forget to mention, longest album, and it’s worth every second.
Highlights: “Wake Me Up,” “Open Hearts,” “Take Me Back to LA”
Decius Vol. II (Splendour & Obedience)
Decius
Acid House
I. Cannot. Stop. Listening. To. This. Album. This is my shit. This has been my go-to gym listen since it came out. It’s the hottest, sluttiest, messiest big beat club shit I’ve heard in well over a decade. Decius is all that Hercules & Love Affair could have been (even the Greek/Roman theme is the same) if they had just stuck to that first album’s formula. Low frequency, throbbing beats propel vague, smokey dances though dimly lit, fog-filled night clubs, proclaiming their desires, sexual and otherwise, in hushed erotic nothings, until you’re left in a quivering, sweaty heap 50 minutes later. Lordy, I do believe I have the vapors.
Highlights: “Birth of a Smirk,” “Walking in the Heat,” “Queen of 14th Street,” “Ibrahim,” “I Gave Birth 2 U,” “Punishment/Improvement”
BLACK’!ANTIQUE
Pink Siifu
Experimental Hip Hop
I would say this will fill the void between JPEGMAFIA releases, but that guy just can’t stop coming out with stuff. So, instead I’ll say, Pink Siifu’s newest release is a fantastic complement to PEGgy’s output. The beats are harsh and out-there, the rhyming is incredible and extra-dark, and the production strikes the perfect balance between listenable safety and mind-altering experimentation.
Highlights: “1:1 (Fkdup.Bezel),” “SCREW4LIFE'! RIPJALEN'!,” “Last One Alive'!”
Humanhood
The Weather Station
Art Pop
This lush combination of folk instrumentation and electronic textures is a wonderful setting for The Weather Station’s exploration of personal crisis and global upheaval. The tracks feel incredibly light, but deliver an incredibly profound message about searching for meaning amidst the constant bombast of chaos. Several listens are required to fully explore everything, and each one is more rewarding than the last.
Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory
Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory
Indie Rock
I. Love. Sharon Van Etten. Everything she touches is gold: that single with Angel Olsen from 2021 is pure Bangles-pop perfection; her appearances with Hercules & Love Affair (two mentions in one article!) and Xiu Xiu; and her re-release of the immaculate Are We There’s “Every Time the Sun Comes Up”, just brilliant. Working within the confines of a larger band could have stifled another singer, but here Van Etten soars, her bandmates the springboard for new, even more powerful sounds. The entire album is deeply inspiring and lovely and wonderful.
Highlights: “Live Forever,” “Afterlife,” “Trouble”
Glutton for Punishment
Heartworms
Darkwave
This is one I did not expect. Imagine The Kills, then add a bunch of dancey, industrial sound effects, and remove the male vocal. That’s Glutton for Punishment. And I am not complaining. I vaguely remember their debut EP from a couple years back, but not well enough to think something this inventive, emotional, and sonically intense was on the horizon. Heartworms has created something totally absorbing full of great rock performances, great punky lyricism, and great dancey hooks.
Highlights: “Just to Ask a Dance,” “Jacked,” “Smugglers Adventure”
Happy listening!
