Review Roundup #2
Ten more albums from this year that I thought were great and deserve your attention:
Mountainhead
Everything Everything
Synthpop
This album is incredible. Like a synthpop National, the lyricism is top notch, trying to find meaning and purpose in an otherwise random world. “I have to keep going, I have to keep living” is at once one of the most powerful things you can say, as well as one one of the most horrifying. And the instrumentation is simultaneously lush and light, progressive and catchy, melancholic and energetic. Love, love, love this one.
Highlights: “The End of the Contender”, “Buddy, Come Over”, “Canary”
Filthy Underneath
Nadine Shah
Art Rock
Nadine Shah’s fifth proper album is a combination of Massive Attack trip-hop and Amy Winehouse contemporary R&B. It makes for quite the sonic adventure, especially given the dark, almost goth lyrical themes that give the album an overall nocturnal atmosphere. Some listeners may be confused, but it’s a fog worth immersing yourself in.
Highlights: “Even Light”, “Topless Mother”, “Sad Lads Anonymous”
Half Divorced
Pissed Jeans
Noise Rock
My god, I have been looking for a replacement for The Jesus Lizard. Finally, I have found it with this new Pissed Jeans album. Maybe I’ve slept on them, but this is straight up great. It’s fast, it’s noisy, it’s hilarious, it’s a masterful collection of hardcore and punk ragers pushed through post-rock production and insane performances. Mosh to this as soon as space allows.
Highlights: “Killing All the Wrong People”, “Junktime”, “(Stolen) Catalytic Converter”
Loss of Life
MGMT
Neo-Psychedelia
This may be MGMT’s most sonically consistent and well-written record. Perfect for our ambiguously failing world, it’s a mostly depressed, occasionally hopeful cure for our modern ailments. Where Little Dark Age fought against the void, this album submits to it with reckless abandon. It is one of the most interesting, most original, and most genuine albums I’ve ever heard.
Highlights: “Mother Nature”, “Dancing in Babylon (feat. Christine and the Queens)”, “Loss of Life”
Musow Danse
Les Amazones d’Afrique
Mande Music
Don’t let the whole “world music” thing distract and/or scare you. This is one of the most danceable and fun albums I have heard so far this year. Easily playable for a house party or in a club, Les Amazones d’Afrique have created an awe-inspiring dance album that perfectly blends modern production appeal with traditional lyricism and instrumentation. Between this and the upcoming new album from Ibibio Sound Machine, it’s gonna be a great year for “traditional” dance music.
Highlights: “Musow Danse (Women’s Dance)”, “Kuma Fo (What They Say)”, “Queen Kuruma”
Where’s My Utopia?
Yard Act
Dance-Punk
After a blistering debut, Yard Act return with another dancey post-punk album that proves they have their grip on the societal pulse. Slowly but surely, Where’s My Utopia’s (fairly obvious) messaging forms into a concept album that sounds like if Gorillaz covered Parquet Courts while listening to Berlin-era David Bowie. This record has more melody and more developed structure than their first, and we can only hope their upward trajectory continues.
Highlights: “We Make Hits”, “Dream Job”, “Grifter’s Grief”
TANGK
IDLES
Art Punk
After an explosive first two albums, including best of the year Joy As an Act of Resistance, IDLES kind of fell off. Not that Ultra Mono and Crawler were bad, far from it, but their more stylized approach to songwriting didn’t quite spark the way they used to. TANGK however is both their most diverse album and a glorious return to form. High octane and electric, this collection of 11 tracks is their most complete project since those heady days of the late 2010’s.
Highlights: “Gift Horse”, “Dancer”, “Grace”
The Collective
Kim Gordon
Experimental Rock
I don’t know what this is, but I can’t stop listening to it. It’s noisy and dissonant and ominous and abstract. Because of Kim’s signature speak-singing the album can technically be classified as industrial hip-hop, and I’ve seen some marking it as trap. Sure, why not? Take all the styles in and run them through an industrial shredder and lay some deadpan, avant-garde def poetry overtop and you got… something. I don’t even know how to recommend this to people, just, promise me you’ll try it.
Highlights: “BYE BYE”, “I Don’t Miss My Mind”, “The Believers”
BLUE LIPS
Schoolboy Q
West Coast Hip Hop
After a rather disappointing attempt with 2019’s CrasH Talk, Q has come back hard five years later. The time off has clearly allowed him to find the energy and focus needed to make this incredible return to his Blank Face form. BLUE LIPS is introspective and violent, with Q laying down some of his most extreme bars yet, surrounded by a horde of hyper-talented guests and jazzy, almost psychedelic beats. Welcome back, sir.
Highlights: “Pop (feat. Rico Nasty)”, “Yeern 101”, “First”
Invincible Shield
Judas Priest
Heavy Metal
This album… I mean. They still got it. Somehow, some way, the solos, the double-kick drums, the high wailing, they still got it. Just listen to, jeez. Throw the goat 🤘
Highlights: “The Serpent and the King”, “As God Is My Witness”, “Escape from Reality”
