Katy B - Honey
Katy B as fairly faceless dance-pop-voice reigns over the Katy B with slew of prominent house production at her disposal -- but despite the tangles-of-love/in-the-club thematic banalities and capable-yet-customary delivery, she rarely overbears and is regularly adept and reliable when adapting to late night vibes, summer pop, the boisterous bangers, the slowed-n-sensual. A few killer hooks and revitalization via bicontinental guest-spots and the ability to hold a good long note are always nice too, but lordy does it get fatiguing by the final third or so -- luckily said slew does its best to graciously keep ya groovin' right up to the soothing reward/headphone homage outro. Slew also does its best to rectify the fact that maybe the most curious she gets is when admitting that "anxiety's a bitch, babe." 6/10
Cobalt - Slow Forever
*******HIGHEST RECS*******
///BRAV-FUCKING-O\\\
Dropping the twelve-track double-disc bombshell not as a flow-focused vehicle for some visionary concept, but cuz they simply seem stuffed to the gills with vehemence, vitriol, and riffage. Of course their penchant for patience positively plays its part in this 80+minute pelt-fest as well: severe savagery packs just as much a punch as the extended grooves and exactitude, and for all the snarls and screams and mosh-motivator grunts and double-bass demolitions there's steady+studious buildups+transitions and reprieve in the form of desert-folk forays+an all-too-tru analysis on first-world writer-problemz. Remarkable in its ability to capture the stalked-buffalo beast-whip buried-elephant animalisms they allude to, sure, but more treasured is their exceptional conglomeration of heavy+catchy+curvy with performances that are electrified and invigorating as fuck, frankly. Xtra points upon learning that Erik Wunder plays all instruments on this thing. As in, the guy both ripped those riffs and decimated those drums. A Wunder, indeed. 8.5/10
Dälek - Asphalt For Eden
Heavy-yet-airy hip-hop duo content with a majority of the verses rendered shrouded and/or decimated by the massive murk of comfy+claustrophobic boom-beats and sempiternal shoegaze-squall -- and as adequate as their levelheaded vitality and political proclivity and antique scratch-n-sample choruses are, that murk does make for quite the delightful binder all on its own. Whether its piercing+occupying the skies or emulating slo-mo blacktop-melting summer sultriness, it persistently provides a wide world to be besieged by while retaining a drawing dirtiness throughout. Their faith in said murk certified by lettin' tracks linger and an instrumental inclusion, a nugget of their matters+concerns divulged by a scantily-clad 'terrorism' voice-loop. 7/10
G.L.O.S.S. - Trans Day of Revenge [EP]
Can't claim this ain't unlike a thousand-and-one other hasty hardcore EPs before it, or that the majority of those k+unos will ever see a smidgen of the spotlight these Girls Living Outside Society's Shit have seized from gender-bend topicality and being the prey of some tactless Whirr-hurled scurrilities -- but their ire is formidably tangible and even sanguinary; the downtrodden+rancor-ridden call-to-arms urgent, madcap, and presently pertinent enough to seem pretty much obligatory. And the tunes, right -- five songs, seven minutes, a few shout-along opportunities, succinct shredding -- hasty hardcore linchpins indeed. 7/10
Guided by Voices - Please Be Honest
K. 5/10
Haken - Affinity
After they boot up via ominous .exe file and promptly delve into initiatory off-kilter stiff-chug riffs+emotional falsetto whines, you get the feeling there's some clear-cut cheese in sto fo sho -- an assumption confirmed by the spasmodic 9-minute followup "1985" with its sudden swerve into a sprightly shmup soundtrack from the year in question and all-out beach-biker solo-fuck-wankery. Which winds up precisely the sort of proficient polished-prog-robot+sweetly-silly-jocundity intermingle that keeps me atingle through the inevitable noodling/dragging: sober heavy-lite with transitions aplenty they do fine, but when the soft-n-soaring stuff/fun-n-flashy solos approach stunning they do alot finer. Guest throat Einar Solberg brings a much appreciated and refreshing scream-section to the table, it ends on an empyreal wind-in-your-hair note and .exe reprise/shutdown -- and is there anything more exhilarating than when the sinuous 16-minute centerpiece is succeeded by the almost-hilariously epic-n-tender "Earthrise"? 7/10
James K - PET
Inaugural demands for kowtow fall kinda flat when it yields to disregardable drafty driftin' and glitchin', and even through the generally angelic vocal-soars and mysterious misty-dream tranquility and occasional peppy pop pulses it's that same drafty driftin' that ends up prime deterrent. Too floaty for fun, too airy to care, too illegible to assume there's a whole lot to care about anyway, too sleepy to ever really "sokit to me". ~*~meh~*~
Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
*******HIGHEST RECS*******
Delicate+divine+creeping+cryptic in a way only this band can do, an atmospheric+"rock band"+electronic+strings-n-piano commixture savviness few could claim -- in what tends to be procedure, the words wielded within Yorke's yakkin' aren't nearly as necessary as his fragile-gone-broken delivery in itself and the falsetto moanings/murmurs/mantras. And while a witch-wither opener teases at some semblance of liveliness, it's the frequently-following subtleties and sorrow and textures that find 'em fertile as fuck; them getting their kraut on during "Ful Stop" perhaps being the kinda-peppy still-exceptional exception. Stunner of a soft soundscape it may be, it's also overall a bit too subdued+shadowy for its own good: but if a track like "Daydreaming" doesn't trap ya in its gloomy grasp, terminator "True Love Waits" is there a-waitin'. 7.5/10
Omar-S - The Best!
Total traditionalist house down to a T -- the mid-pace no-frills dance-or-nah manner of which doesn't conform to the consummate cockiness of the album title nor the exclamatory eccentricities of the song titles, but is sturdy+simmering+sagacious for days; and considering the platform, sufficiently sundry. Also true to house ritual, just about every piece is overlong; and guest-voice bestowals are a toss-up: "Seen Was Set" a narrated standout surge of bittersweet club-nostalgia that truly sets the 'seen' of a Detroit dance floor and its devotees circa 1988, "Ah'Revolution" a long-winded and dare I say even embarrassing ad-lib with hand-drum backin' to boot, finale dyad featuring Diviniti and John F.M. both prosaic but pleasant. 6.5/10
Andy Stott - Too Many Voices
Semi-intriguing skewed electro that fiddles in both the weird and the genteel, the overblown deformities and the airy twinkles, the disquieting and the quiet -- and as semi-intriguing skewed electro oft-tends to, the bulk of it feels bumbling, cobbled together with its stitches showing, going out of its way to evade the groove. Sections of stimulation seem lost in all this staggering+stagnation and any sense of solid connectivity is out the window, pitch-shifts encumber far more than they enhance, and those huntin' for plenteous melodies should go hunt elsewhere. Just in case you were curious, no there isn't too many voices; an adequate amount actually -- but in concurrence with the "tunes", they don't really accomplish much. 5.5/10
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Robbie Fulks - Upland Stories 6.5/10
Kowton - Utility 6/10
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - Ears 6.5/10
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