Review Roundup #1

Stealing this title from Mic the Snare (who you should all watch by the way). Since the year is already so overwhelmed with new music the idea of “catching up” (i.e., the Ketchup articles from last year) is already…like everything from now on. So unless there’s something so totally awesome I have enough to write about individually, this is probably the review format from now on.

Note: this does not include the Rewinds, which, I swear, I’m working on. It’s harder to remember 10 years ago than I ever thought it would be.

Anyway, here’s ten albums from this year so far I thought were great and deserve your attention:

She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She

Chelsea Wolfe

Darkwave

Chelsea Wolfe continues on her ever darkening gothic journey, but she has now left the lands of metal. She Reaches Out… is half return-to-form, half new direction, expertly incorporating elements of industrial and trip hop to weave an ethereal tapestry of ominous poetry. The album is brilliantly paced with new sonic experiments and old goth-folk standards in equal measure. I loved Hiss Spun, but I love this darkwave form just as much, and hearing new material from the queen of goths is always a welcome treat.

Highlights: “House of Self-Undoing”, “Everything Turns Blue”, “Salt”

Wall of Eyes

The Smile

Art Rock

This album is different from The Smile’s previous album, 2022’s A Light for Attracting Attention. That album, while still very much sounding like Radiohead, was a riveting collection of warm, eclectic, psychedelic tunes. Wall of Eyes drives deeper into experimentation, ambience, and darkness. This album is no collection, but a singular journey split into eight acts, as we follow Thom Yorke and company into a post-rock, existential nightmare backed by the most lush, sombre, and hypnotic musical compositions you will hear this year.

Highlights: “Teleharmonic”, “Read the Room”, “Bending Hectic”

What Now

Brittany Howard

Psychedelic Soul

I am the one person on this entire planet of Earth who… didn’t care for Alabama Shakes. But this Brittany Howard solo album, this shit right here? This slaps. Parts of What Now are just plain weird—there’s no other word for it—but they’re weird in the most fascinating and fun way. Howard’s vocals soar over funky, jazz-inspired drum anthems and Nina Simone-esque introspections alike. What Now is a wild ride, but I just keep getting back on and paying for the front-row speed pass. It’s early, but this is the best album of the year so far.

Highlights: “Red Flags”, “Another Day”, “Power to Undo”

Orquídeas

Kali Uchis

Latin Pop

What a trippy experience this is. Just last year, Kali Uchis released some of the smooooovest R&B that I’ve ever heard. This seems like a complete 180. There’s plenty of that smoooooveness, but it’s peppered throughout with Latin hyperpop bangers that are sure to have you sweating in the discoteca, super-chill reggaetón, and some straight up Miami Sound Machine-sounding jams. It’s the most eclectic Kali has ever sounded, and incidentally, it’s also the most captivating.

Highlights: “Te Mata”, “Muñekita”, “Dame Beso // Muévete”

Prelude to Ecstasy

The Last Dinner Party

Indie Rock

What an experience this is! It’s like a full-on rock opera, and when do you even get those anymore? Its quirkiness is matched only by its instrumental maximalism and brilliant songwriting. The entire experience is so fun you almost miss the explicit feminism or ballads about alienation. It’s anthemic and explosive and so very necessary right now. Go and check it out immediately!

Highlights: “Caesar on a TV Screen”, “Sinner”, “Nothing Matters”

Three Bells

Ty Segall

Psychedelic Rock

Three Bells still sees Ty Segall in his mellow era. It’s not as mellow as last year’s “Hello, Hi” which was so mellow it literally made me fall asleep (don’t get me wrong, it was good, just very sleepy), but it’s still calm compared to my past favorites: Harmonizer, Freedom’s Goblin, and the perfect, immaculate masterpiece that is 2012’s Slaughterhouse. That said, this album picks up the pace and develops Segall’s warmer songwriting side with more up-tempo rhythms and a ton of added progressive elements. If you’re looking for a chill-out-but-still-very-much-rock-and-roll album, this may be for you.

Highlights: “Void”, “My Best Friend”, “My Room”

People Who Aren’t There Anymore

Future Islands

Synthpop

With People Who Aren’t There Anymore, Baltimore’s own Future Islands return to the styles and sounds of 2014’s hyper-successful, meme-generating Singles. The pop songwriting formulas—absent from much of their work in the intervening years—and bright, syncopated synth loops prove that the group still has what it takes to make a soulful, energetic, and overwhelmingly delightful experience.

Highlights: “King of Sweden”, “The Tower”, “The Thief”

Letter to Self

Sprints

Post-Punk

The extent to which I stan for post-punk as a genre is inexplicable and, frankly, a little tedious. But this debut album from Sprints is a brilliant take. Leaning very hard into the punk side of post-punk, Letter to Self is fast, loud, and dark, calling on influences from Bauhaus to Pere Ubu. I hear as much New York No Wave as I do CBGB New Wave, and all of it is layered inside a musical delivery that is blistering, noisy, and downright frenetic. It’s an energy I’ve not seen in the scene for quite some time (we miss you, Savages).

Highlights: “Heavy”, “Cathedral”, “Literary Mind”

Girl with No Face

Allie X

Like… Goth-Synthpop

I… I don’t know what this is. I just know it has the best chorus not written by Mitski I’ve heard in a looong time:

“I live in a weird world / It’s sad but it’s true / Maybe you can’t see it / But you live in one too / I used to be a dream girl / But the world interfered / At least now I know I… / Now I know I’m weird”

The Vantablack darkness of opener “Weird World” is set inside the best 80’s throwback synthpop I’ve heard since Magdalena Bay’s perfect, immaculate masterpiece Mercurial World, which, come to think of it, aren’t those essentially the same titles? Well, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, I guess.

I love, love, love this. Allie X’s alienated misanthropy is couched in dense, futuristic beats and almost-disturbingly playful Duran Duran synth loops. It’s nihilism as mille-feuille, and I can’t stop myself.

Highlights: “Weird World”, “Galina”, “Staying Power”

I Got Heaven

Mannequin Pussy

Hardcore… Indie Rock?

This album is hard rock. Like granite, like diamond levels of hard. It’s punk in parts, and just straight up late 2000’s-2010’s alternative in others (think Joy Formidable or Wolf Alice). Despite the…indelicate band name, this group knows what they’re doing in the alt-rock space. I Got Heaven is rebellious and raw, holding nothing back. Even on a tempered ditty like “I Don’t Know You,” they kick the door in with a massive, wall of shoegaze guitars in the chorus. They take no prisoners and nothing is spared.

Highlights: “Loud Bark”, “I Don’t Know You”, “Aching”