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Featured reviews
23 April
An American masterpiece by one of my favorite bands. A perfect pairing of music and atmosphere to words, documenting themes of addiction, isolation and communication (and the lack thereof). A beautiful, disquieting record of unflinching emotional intensity with absolutely marvelous arrangements. Jeff Tweedy's songwriting is so richly felt and powerfully told. Even at its least accessible (as on Radio Cure) the truths cut right to the bone. There is something wrong with me.
It always knows when to let off the darkness a bit and offer a respite because, in Wilco's world, things are never entirely bleak. There's always music and there is family. The beating heart at the center of the record is what holds it together and ensures that it means something. Truly amazing music that helped me confront some truths about myself and overcome them.
It always knows when to let off the darkness a bit and offer a respite because, in Wilco's world, things are never entirely bleak. There's always music and there is family. The beating heart at the center of the record is what holds it together and ensures that it means something. Truly amazing music that helped me confront some truths about myself and overcome them.
23 April
1990s EP Anniversary
There's a bit in Ned Raggett's essay for the book Marooned where he talks about the first time that he heard "Soon", describing it as one of the most beautiful, profound moments of his life where he discovered these amazing sounds that he'd never before heard. On paper it sounds trite, but that's exactly the kind of thing that MBV often went for. Both the Marooned essay and Mike McGonigal's 33 1/3 book talk extensively about MBV's live performances of "You Made Me Realise", which featured extended sections of pure noise that the band kept playing until everyone in the crowd translated it into bliss in their minds - an approach that apparently worked. Loveless, too, is notorious for being a grower, for some of those same reasons. A lot of their songs force you into your own headspace, attempting to make sense of this uneasy noise that's being presented to you and somehow converting it into something that's entirely more profound than anything that could have come out of a "normal" version of that song.
Alas, you don't see quite as much of that from the band prior to Loveless, when their noise was more predictable and less textured. There were moments of it, perhaps most notably "No More Sorry", but I don't sure that they (or perhaps more accurately, Kevin Shields) had quite ascribed to that philosophy yet. Here I think you start to see it coalesce, and it also happens to be the first time you can really see the classic Loveless guitar tones emerge. (Those two ideas aren't as inherently connected as one might think.) The last two tracks still feel closer to their late '80s releases, and they're certainly more conventional. "Off Your Face" is actually about as conventional as MBV gets, with more sonic clarity than Isn't Anything but not nearly as much distortion as Loveless - it's not hard to see the proper tweaks being made to the sound to make it fit in properly with either of those albums. The guitar sounds of "Don't Ask Why" are more or less Kevin Shields' tremolo technique applied to clean guitars, until the end where they emerge into form we now expect. (Unfortunately, it also provides Shields' drab singing with much more clarity than we ever needed.) I'd be willing to bet that I would've been fascinated by the sounds provided on that track in ways that aren't possible now simply because they become so immensely dwarfed by those of Loveless, which this doesn't quite stack up to. (There's not enough back end to really support the massive guitars near the end - which says something, seeing as there isn't much back end on Loveless itself - and the actual song doesn't do much itself.)
Though really, I probably would've still just played the first two tracks on repeat - those are the places where the new sounds really emerge in bizarre ways. "Glider" is the "You Made Me Realise" philosophy played out on record, where this rather ugly noise piece is played on repeat for a little over three minutes. It just doesn't sound right - the beat ends too early, the atonal qualities feel too deliberate. And yet somehow your brain just makes sense of it, taking on its own kind of groove and melody that quite simply works. It's bizarre how it starts off sounding so abstract and ends sounding so conventional, even though barley anything changes by the end.
"Soon" approaches that philosophy in a slightly different way, less through its specific sounds but through the way it uses them. It's funny hearing the song over 25 years later, because, as McGonigal mentions, the drum sounds that were meant to signal the future instantly date it now that it is the future.. Yet in a different, anachronistic way, it feels fresh because, coming at the end of Loveless, it seems to repurpose the established sound into an entirely different and unexpected genre. It blows my mind that this was put out as a finished product before anything else on Loveless, and I can't possibly imagine what it would even sound like not having anything else from the sessions. I can see why McGonigal felt like he'd dropped out of space and time, because once those guitars swell in, it's an enormous moment that engulfs your entire mind. They're not as off-kilter as some of the tracks on Loveless - one of the few ways this is apparent as a precursor and not a successor - but juxtaposed with the initial guitars, which hold much steadier and more cleanly, they take on an extra level of power. Belinda's vocals (or maybe Shields's? hard to tell) seem to be bending with the guitars as they drift in and out of tune, somehow fighting and swaying within them at the same time. As it commits to its droning dance beat, that sway stays with you as you meld right into the song. This is all coming from a place where I more or less understand what these guitars are doing - wrapping my head around those in the first place took some work, and quite frankly if I heard this song first my brain might have imploded. To this day, it's one of the songs that I can still hear and feel like there's nothing else in the world quite like it, that it captures a feeling exclusive to it.
Alas, you don't see quite as much of that from the band prior to Loveless, when their noise was more predictable and less textured. There were moments of it, perhaps most notably "No More Sorry", but I don't sure that they (or perhaps more accurately, Kevin Shields) had quite ascribed to that philosophy yet. Here I think you start to see it coalesce, and it also happens to be the first time you can really see the classic Loveless guitar tones emerge. (Those two ideas aren't as inherently connected as one might think.) The last two tracks still feel closer to their late '80s releases, and they're certainly more conventional. "Off Your Face" is actually about as conventional as MBV gets, with more sonic clarity than Isn't Anything but not nearly as much distortion as Loveless - it's not hard to see the proper tweaks being made to the sound to make it fit in properly with either of those albums. The guitar sounds of "Don't Ask Why" are more or less Kevin Shields' tremolo technique applied to clean guitars, until the end where they emerge into form we now expect. (Unfortunately, it also provides Shields' drab singing with much more clarity than we ever needed.) I'd be willing to bet that I would've been fascinated by the sounds provided on that track in ways that aren't possible now simply because they become so immensely dwarfed by those of Loveless, which this doesn't quite stack up to. (There's not enough back end to really support the massive guitars near the end - which says something, seeing as there isn't much back end on Loveless itself - and the actual song doesn't do much itself.)
Though really, I probably would've still just played the first two tracks on repeat - those are the places where the new sounds really emerge in bizarre ways. "Glider" is the "You Made Me Realise" philosophy played out on record, where this rather ugly noise piece is played on repeat for a little over three minutes. It just doesn't sound right - the beat ends too early, the atonal qualities feel too deliberate. And yet somehow your brain just makes sense of it, taking on its own kind of groove and melody that quite simply works. It's bizarre how it starts off sounding so abstract and ends sounding so conventional, even though barley anything changes by the end.
"Soon" approaches that philosophy in a slightly different way, less through its specific sounds but through the way it uses them. It's funny hearing the song over 25 years later, because, as McGonigal mentions, the drum sounds that were meant to signal the future instantly date it now that it is the future.. Yet in a different, anachronistic way, it feels fresh because, coming at the end of Loveless, it seems to repurpose the established sound into an entirely different and unexpected genre. It blows my mind that this was put out as a finished product before anything else on Loveless, and I can't possibly imagine what it would even sound like not having anything else from the sessions. I can see why McGonigal felt like he'd dropped out of space and time, because once those guitars swell in, it's an enormous moment that engulfs your entire mind. They're not as off-kilter as some of the tracks on Loveless - one of the few ways this is apparent as a precursor and not a successor - but juxtaposed with the initial guitars, which hold much steadier and more cleanly, they take on an extra level of power. Belinda's vocals (or maybe Shields's? hard to tell) seem to be bending with the guitars as they drift in and out of tune, somehow fighting and swaying within them at the same time. As it commits to its droning dance beat, that sway stays with you as you meld right into the song. This is all coming from a place where I more or less understand what these guitars are doing - wrapping my head around those in the first place took some work, and quite frankly if I heard this song first my brain might have imploded. To this day, it's one of the songs that I can still hear and feel like there's nothing else in the world quite like it, that it captures a feeling exclusive to it.
22 April
1990s Album Anniversary
The heart beats strong.
It's not often that one is treated to an album that fits into the space of a rainbow with how wide a spectrum its sound is, and still the project never loses its steam. I have been treated to so many great albums that came before my days this year and I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One may prove to be my favorite of all of them. The veracious lyrics of the vocal team and the massage of the buzzing guitars in the shoegaze-centric sections match themselves incredibly with the more traditional indie rock, and everything in between feels like blueberry jam in a peanut butter and jelly. It's the satisfying taste of courageous songwriting that you look for in the paste of quotidian 'whatever' records that seem to be at the top of the pile nowadays.
There is much to be said about the album as a whole bringing forth this experience with gusto, but I wanted to point to 3 songs in particular as invigorating for me- the Velvets-reminiscent "Autumn Sweater" (Ira Kaplan is a one-for-one ringer for Lou Reed on this song) that chime with organs that could have been on Jeff Buckley's Grace. Then there's the final track, the affirming tale of place finding, "My Little Corner of the World", that feels like a magnifying glass- the little corner of the world could be a blade of grass to an ant, or an entire planet to a solar system, or a solar system to a galaxy. It's all in the spirit of sweet specific comfort in great expanses.
And most especially, "Center of Gravity", which is such a groovy Gilberto-esque bossa nova love song that you can barely believe it's on this album, but it's such a perfect moment of clarity in the midst of the pressure of the excelling fuzzy production on a majority of the project. That, if nothing else, confirmed for me that Yo La Tengo is destined to be one of my favorite bands and this one of my favorite records.
There is much to be said about the album as a whole bringing forth this experience with gusto, but I wanted to point to 3 songs in particular as invigorating for me- the Velvets-reminiscent "Autumn Sweater" (Ira Kaplan is a one-for-one ringer for Lou Reed on this song) that chime with organs that could have been on Jeff Buckley's Grace. Then there's the final track, the affirming tale of place finding, "My Little Corner of the World", that feels like a magnifying glass- the little corner of the world could be a blade of grass to an ant, or an entire planet to a solar system, or a solar system to a galaxy. It's all in the spirit of sweet specific comfort in great expanses.
And most especially, "Center of Gravity", which is such a groovy Gilberto-esque bossa nova love song that you can barely believe it's on this album, but it's such a perfect moment of clarity in the midst of the pressure of the excelling fuzzy production on a majority of the project. That, if nothing else, confirmed for me that Yo La Tengo is destined to be one of my favorite bands and this one of my favorite records.
19 April
An incredible, singular album, probably the best guitar based album I’ve heard this decade? Guitars, drums and vocals, crashing into and around each other, flecks of twinkly chord warping and bending in real time. I don’t even know the singer’s name but her singing is simultaneously technical jazz contralto and a guttural, uncomfortable sob. It’s like she’s organically imitating processed vocals, Laurel Halo or Klein style stretched out cyborgisms. It’s unbelievable. She blurts put these abstract phrases, elongating them into intricate (almost religious?) phrases with sharps and flats and microtones, just out of step with this spluttering guitar and stop start drums.
There are influences of your classic math rock acts like Hella or Don Caballero, but blown apart, pixelated, encrypted into linear transmissions that add up to less than the sum of their parts. By which I mean it never coheres into an Emotional Experimental Rock Song, it sometimes teeters on the verge of snapping into place, a spasm of neurotically repeated chords and splash of drums, but then it spins away again. This combined with the force of the vocals and the sticky painfulness of some of the lyrics gives it an overwhelming affective force.
There are influences of your classic math rock acts like Hella or Don Caballero, but blown apart, pixelated, encrypted into linear transmissions that add up to less than the sum of their parts. By which I mean it never coheres into an Emotional Experimental Rock Song, it sometimes teeters on the verge of snapping into place, a spasm of neurotically repeated chords and splash of drums, but then it spins away again. This combined with the force of the vocals and the sticky painfulness of some of the lyrics gives it an overwhelming affective force.
English Teacher storms through with debut record This Could Be Texas, an essential piece in the ever-growing puzzle of the British music scene
When you start the month and your major concern is a fear of flights and a font change on Word Online, life must be good. It is better when soundtracked by the quality artists of the last few years – the boom of UK music culture must be noted. Either the trees are dropping the signal intermittently or some shock radio static precedes the calm wash of acoustic beauty on opener Albatross. Wonderful stuff is expected of English Teacher. They have stacked the odds in their favour and paid back their self-confidence and the tall order of their own work on This Must Be Texas, a debut to die for. Perfect music for the Hull to King’s Cross train as the sun starts to reflect in your glasses and blind you. Spring is here in its full form, and so too is This Must Be Texas and all its simmering instrumental joy.
Lily Fontaine delights with inspired, punchy lyrics. Nothing less should be expected. The World’s Biggest Paving Slab still lingers as a damnation of those who walk across people, they think nothing of. Look how they grow. English Teacher depended on some exceptional singles, with Nearly Daffodils and the roaring perfections of Albert Road still fresh in the mind. The world’s smallest celebrity, as Fontaine describes it on Broken Biscuits, hits out at the lack of change despite the cultural cling-on. For those who survived on the already broken classics, this will sit right at home, the pill mentions and instrumental strengths of these jangle-like reactions to the struggle which comes from a sudden splash of focus. English Teacher adapts well though, to the sudden spotlight on their words and work.
Tapping into those early day memories, the water boiling over and the parental guidance or experiences Fontaine and the band experience as growing and flourishing instrumentalists, is a real treat. This Must Be Texas is a slick and heartwarming piece which will live and die on as one of the finest encapsulations of living in the UK. Its title track is a gut-wrenching proclamation of how similar and braggadocious we can be of the towns and cities we live in. All the heartbreak and troubles of each area linger on, they are not to be escaped with a move two hours down the road. Glitzy tech wonders on Not Everybody Gets to Go To Space make all the difference for this one. An arrangement of real wonder and exploration of the soul, where it could go if it were extracted beyond the pain we are struck by. It has flickers of Pulp’s Glory Days – the spoken word interjections, the passion for those not afforded for those stuck on the ground and unable to experience what is out there.
UK music has gained another essential addition. We are not in short supply of those talented collectives, but English Teacher is ahead of the majority. Put down the experiences and stereotypes as R&B does and the world becomes better for it. Sincere chemistry marks an ultimately impressive powerhouse of a record. It is up to English Teacher to make sure they do not peter out – but with work like this, the sentimental strength and the absolute, recognisable passion on You Blister My Paint and Sideboob will steer them clear of this trouble. Intense, inspired by the truth of the horror that is life and such a rewarding piece of work. Heartbreak and warmth stride through in equal measure for This Must Be Texas, an uplifting and tortured piece which makes the most of its autobiographical sentiment, reflected as an experience for the masses – and the truth of it pours from this gorgeous work.
Lily Fontaine delights with inspired, punchy lyrics. Nothing less should be expected. The World’s Biggest Paving Slab still lingers as a damnation of those who walk across people, they think nothing of. Look how they grow. English Teacher depended on some exceptional singles, with Nearly Daffodils and the roaring perfections of Albert Road still fresh in the mind. The world’s smallest celebrity, as Fontaine describes it on Broken Biscuits, hits out at the lack of change despite the cultural cling-on. For those who survived on the already broken classics, this will sit right at home, the pill mentions and instrumental strengths of these jangle-like reactions to the struggle which comes from a sudden splash of focus. English Teacher adapts well though, to the sudden spotlight on their words and work.
Tapping into those early day memories, the water boiling over and the parental guidance or experiences Fontaine and the band experience as growing and flourishing instrumentalists, is a real treat. This Must Be Texas is a slick and heartwarming piece which will live and die on as one of the finest encapsulations of living in the UK. Its title track is a gut-wrenching proclamation of how similar and braggadocious we can be of the towns and cities we live in. All the heartbreak and troubles of each area linger on, they are not to be escaped with a move two hours down the road. Glitzy tech wonders on Not Everybody Gets to Go To Space make all the difference for this one. An arrangement of real wonder and exploration of the soul, where it could go if it were extracted beyond the pain we are struck by. It has flickers of Pulp’s Glory Days – the spoken word interjections, the passion for those not afforded for those stuck on the ground and unable to experience what is out there.
UK music has gained another essential addition. We are not in short supply of those talented collectives, but English Teacher is ahead of the majority. Put down the experiences and stereotypes as R&B does and the world becomes better for it. Sincere chemistry marks an ultimately impressive powerhouse of a record. It is up to English Teacher to make sure they do not peter out – but with work like this, the sentimental strength and the absolute, recognisable passion on You Blister My Paint and Sideboob will steer them clear of this trouble. Intense, inspired by the truth of the horror that is life and such a rewarding piece of work. Heartbreak and warmth stride through in equal measure for This Must Be Texas, an uplifting and tortured piece which makes the most of its autobiographical sentiment, reflected as an experience for the masses – and the truth of it pours from this gorgeous work.
1980s Album Anniversary
This may be one of the most innovative albums ever made, from one of the most unique artists in history. I certainly can't think of anything that's even comparable. Laurie is equal parts performance artist, avant garde musician, university lecturer, beatnik, tour guide, telephone operator and alien. Oh, and she cracks jokes once in a while, too, like a stand-up comic from the 4th dimension. Warm analog synthesizers, saxophones playing whole tone scales, caterwauling bagpipes, vocoders and that signature Laurie voice (both tender, reassuring and completely emotionally detached) all coalesce to create something that revels in randomness and stream of consciousness yet seems to make perfect sense. Big Science (a distilled version of her four night performance art series United States Live) is about the presentation and form as much as the content, if not moreso. Traces of Brian Eno, William S. Burroughs, Alvin Lucier and old educational film strips can all be found here, but in a way you've never heard before. Laurie would create other works of genius, but none as otherwordly and singular as this.
18 April
2000s Album Anniversary
XO already took a step away from Elliott Smith's lo-fi beginnings, and Figure 8 goes even further and contains his cleanest production and most accessible songwriting, but none of that takes away from the emotional impact his albums usually have, and it's just as creative, if not even slightly more.
"Son of Sam" is a brilliant indie rock song about the serial killer Son of Sam, and just like few years later Sufjan Stevens he compares himself to the killer, but in a much more mysterious way. Elliott Smith called this a more fragmented and dream-like album and it's a great description because just like in the opener some of the lyrics are rather cryptic and slightly surreal whereas some others are in his usual fashion, very clear, melancholic and honest.
Elliott Smith shows why he should get more recognition as a guitar player on "Somebody That I Used to Know", a track whose only flaw is that it's too short. "Everything Means Nothing to Me" is the most psychedelic track he has ever made, with some fantastic drums and hypnotic vocals. "LA" sounds a little bit like "Bled White" and contains great guitar lines and lyrics (as on each track of this album).
"In the Lost and Found" is sonically maybe the most playful track in Elliott Smith's discography, and every track on this album is incredibly beautiful, and it definitely sounds much lighter than XO and Either/Or, but lyrically it's just as dark as his other works. What makes this album stand out in his discography for me is that this has the perfect balance of sadness and carthasis through the music itself.
This album feels like a bittersweet dream, with highs and lows, with eerie and playful moments, full of surprises and incredibly varied. Elliott covers the widest range of sounds here that he has on any of his songs, without it ever feeling incoherent or messy. With the last soft sounds of "Bye" it feels like waking up from one of the most magical dreams, back into a reality that's rarely as beautiful as this masterpiece.
Highlights: Happiness/The Gondola Man, Somebody That I Used to Know, Can't Make a Sound
"Son of Sam" is a brilliant indie rock song about the serial killer Son of Sam, and just like few years later Sufjan Stevens he compares himself to the killer, but in a much more mysterious way. Elliott Smith called this a more fragmented and dream-like album and it's a great description because just like in the opener some of the lyrics are rather cryptic and slightly surreal whereas some others are in his usual fashion, very clear, melancholic and honest.
Elliott Smith shows why he should get more recognition as a guitar player on "Somebody That I Used to Know", a track whose only flaw is that it's too short. "Everything Means Nothing to Me" is the most psychedelic track he has ever made, with some fantastic drums and hypnotic vocals. "LA" sounds a little bit like "Bled White" and contains great guitar lines and lyrics (as on each track of this album).
"In the Lost and Found" is sonically maybe the most playful track in Elliott Smith's discography, and every track on this album is incredibly beautiful, and it definitely sounds much lighter than XO and Either/Or, but lyrically it's just as dark as his other works. What makes this album stand out in his discography for me is that this has the perfect balance of sadness and carthasis through the music itself.
This album feels like a bittersweet dream, with highs and lows, with eerie and playful moments, full of surprises and incredibly varied. Elliott covers the widest range of sounds here that he has on any of his songs, without it ever feeling incoherent or messy. With the last soft sounds of "Bye" it feels like waking up from one of the most magical dreams, back into a reality that's rarely as beautiful as this masterpiece.
Highlights: Happiness/The Gondola Man, Somebody That I Used to Know, Can't Make a Sound
Vegyn bolsters his production style that shot him into fame after contributions as Executive Producer of one of my favorite albums of all-time, Frank Ocean's Endless. The Road to Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions is his most well-rounded project that expresses his intentionality without dragging out the run time unnecessarily. While less vocally expressive as the peaks of Endless, Vegyn generates soundscapes in this project that make this my top contender for my favorite album this year.
The Messthetics are a rock trio that includes the rhythm section of the legendary post-hardcore band Fugazi (Joe Lally on bass and Brendan Canty on drums) and guitarist Anthony Pirog, who is no slouch either. Here they team up with sax player James Brandon Lewis, and what a combination it proves to be. The chemistry between the four musicians is remarkable and the saxophone adds a jazz vibe that truly enriches the band’s instrumental sound. Tracks like ‘Three Sisters’, ‘Boatly’, and closer ‘Fourth Wall’ really display the best of both worlds, bringing an emotional load that is hard to dispel. There are no weak or merely decent moments, everything flows in a convincing manner, and the album is an easy recommendation to all who believe that rock and jazz can belong together. Now I just will have to check out those two previous Messthetics albums to find if the magic was already there…
17 April
1980s Album Anniversary
Sometimes you have to separate importance and quality. Art can imitate a preexisting style so well that it transcends its influences, just as it can sketch out something utterly original that goes on to influence future greatness, without quite attaining that greatness itself.
But that distinction doesn't apply to Doolittle. It's the complete package: banger after banger after banger. And 35 years on, this is still the definitive blueprint for an indie/alternative rock album, with all due respect to Surfer Rosa, which I love just as much. It's all here: loud-soft-loud, avant-garde cacophony followed by lush strings, the cocktail of profundity and silliness, lyrics a palimpsest of a "proper" song, moments of shrieking dissolution followed by a palate-cleansing bit of something completely different, making way for the next masterpiece. The Pixies sound was shockingly original; I still don't know where the hell this came from. Through Nirvana and Radiohead, that sound filtered into the collective unconscious; Doolittle still sounds current, bright, and vibrant, an album at least as suited for 2024 as it was for 1989. It earns every ounce of its indie hype, and more.
But that distinction doesn't apply to Doolittle. It's the complete package: banger after banger after banger. And 35 years on, this is still the definitive blueprint for an indie/alternative rock album, with all due respect to Surfer Rosa, which I love just as much. It's all here: loud-soft-loud, avant-garde cacophony followed by lush strings, the cocktail of profundity and silliness, lyrics a palimpsest of a "proper" song, moments of shrieking dissolution followed by a palate-cleansing bit of something completely different, making way for the next masterpiece. The Pixies sound was shockingly original; I still don't know where the hell this came from. Through Nirvana and Radiohead, that sound filtered into the collective unconscious; Doolittle still sounds current, bright, and vibrant, an album at least as suited for 2024 as it was for 1989. It earns every ounce of its indie hype, and more.
Exploring UK Street Soul
13 April
1980s Album Anniversary
Three-year old Billie Jo Campbell was walking down a street in California with her mother when they were approached and offered $100 to take a photograph which subsequently became the album cover to one of the most distinctive records of the early alternative movement, and an enduring cult classic. After being discovered by James Honeyman-Scott while busking on the street, Violent Femmes signed with Slash to issue their self-titled debut. Most of the songs featured on this collection were written when lead vocalist and songwriter Gordon Gano was still attending a Milwaukee, Wisconsin high school. Naive and childish one minute, bitterly frustrated and rebellious the next, Gano's output perfectly captured the contradictions of adolescence and difficulties of making the transition to adulthood. Through the virtue of encapsulating the essence of teen angst with remarkable precision, Violent Femmes achieved a rare feat by going gold four years after its release, and later platinum, four years after that, without having made an appearance on the Billboard 200 album chart.
12 April
In his time with Injury Reserve RiTchie has proven himself to be a remarkably talented MC with a unique style and flavour, and his debut solo work is packed with that same style just with more potency. RiTchie and the small set of co-performers all do great work and deliver the package with a delightfully bizarre energy while also just being really funny (especially Aminé on "Dizzy").
RiTchie also helms production on a number of the tracks here and the production is great, some truly mind-melting stuff on these beats. The only real issue I have is there are a lot of interludes on here and most of them don't do much on their own, but they add to the bizarre atmosphere of the whole record in a way that makes me not mind their presence. A pretty exceptional first work from RiTchie, and while I still anxiously wait for what will come next from By Storm, for now, this album has absolutely satisfied me.
RiTchie also helms production on a number of the tracks here and the production is great, some truly mind-melting stuff on these beats. The only real issue I have is there are a lot of interludes on here and most of them don't do much on their own, but they add to the bizarre atmosphere of the whole record in a way that makes me not mind their presence. A pretty exceptional first work from RiTchie, and while I still anxiously wait for what will come next from By Storm, for now, this album has absolutely satisfied me.
Beautiful
In 2019, Frail Body released A Brief Memoriam, their first full-length studio album. Living up to its name, the aforementioned record barely cracked twenty minutes and yet still managed to endure as one of the most distinct screamo albums of the past few years. The themes of grieving, acceptance, and death surrounding that record made it one of the most earnest "extreme music" albums of its given year. Five years later, the band follow it up with their sophomore studio album. Artificial Bouquet, Frail Body's latest studio album, allows them to expand upon their sound and give the listener more material to sink their teeth into while also creating a soundscape that is genuinely beautiful at times.
Artificial Bouquet feels like Frail Body at their absolute best on all musical fronts. There are almost countless small moments here that add up to a record that is beautifully detailed to a greater extent than most would likely expect. The various moments where Lowell Shaffer's guitar work slows down and becomes the melodic focus of the record as he progressively becomes even more raw in his screams can be absolutely stunning. In fact, the guitar tone on tracks like "Horizon Line" provides a certain melancholic warmth that nicely contrasts and works alongside the naturally cold nature of the sonic palette on display here. Shaffer is more than just an intense leader that suits Frail Body's overall style. Throughout Artificial Bouquet, he can often feel possessed by the spirit of a deeply wounded being crying out its darkest thoughts into something that feels morbidly beautiful. The bass tone throughout the record is tight and punchy as well, though Nicholas Clemenson's drumming should not be underestimated either. The percussion that he provides on tracks like "Critique Programme" and "Runaway," the latter of which being especially notable due to the aforementioned Shaffer simultaneously spouting some of the most striking lyrics on the record with "And if my memory loses every day/Then how else can we speak?" is outright explosive and provides a degree of chaos that beautifully adds to the already apocalyptic nature of Artificial Bouquet. From this entirely instrumental standpoint alone, Artificial Bouquet is Frail Body putting every ounce of their souls into their music. The instrumentation here is packed with emotion both in the most dense wall-of-sound moments (a quality beautifully provided by producer Pete Grossmann) and the most stripped-back melodic moments alike, with the final record feeling every bit as mournful as it does cathartic.
At the end of the day, however, Artificial Bouquet isn't a record exclusively about the instrumentation itself. Of course, the impassioned performances on display here are what define the record and its own high standards. However, this album isn't truly about the impactful bass tone, the lush guitars, the pounding drums, or anything of the sort. Rather, it is the atmosphere found in songs like "Devotion" or the final, brooding moments of the album-closer "A Capsule in the Sediment" that truly makes for a gripping listening experience. All of these aforementioned things come together to make one quite stunning whole. It is very reasonable to say that the entire record bleeds together to some extent, and that could understandably turn away some looking for a record that has more individualistic tracks that don't overlap to any degree. However, the choice to make Artificial Bouquet feel like a necessary front-to-back listen was a necessary one, and it allows Frail Body's ability to convey all of the pain and suffering of the record in a way that is not confined by the need to pander towards any particular group of listeners. It is, again, the smaller details of this larger picture that really do make the album as great as it is. Whether you find yourself awestruck by the immediacy of the album-opener "Scaffolding" or you enjoy the studio trickery of "Monolith"'s opening riff and the manner in which it bounces between channels before returning in full force, it is hard to not appreciate the intricacies of such a passionate record.
Artificial Bouquet may arguably be Frail Body at its best, though it likely doesn't matter to them what their "best" could be defined as. Above all else, this feels like a band of pure emotional release before anything, and said release just so happens to be produced by a trio of highly talented musicians. This record does not feel like the expelling of negative emotions, nor does it feel like a nihilistic embrace of them. Rather, Artificial Bouquet is a record made to acknowledge feelings of hurt and regret, perhaps in an attempt to move on to a degree. When Lowell Shaffer delivers the final lines on the record, "I'll get you to the lake some day/A sediment bed you'll rest," all you can do is take in what remains of a record that feels frayed, devastating, and otherwise broken in a way that is heart-achingly beautiful in its best moments.
Artificial Bouquet feels like Frail Body at their absolute best on all musical fronts. There are almost countless small moments here that add up to a record that is beautifully detailed to a greater extent than most would likely expect. The various moments where Lowell Shaffer's guitar work slows down and becomes the melodic focus of the record as he progressively becomes even more raw in his screams can be absolutely stunning. In fact, the guitar tone on tracks like "Horizon Line" provides a certain melancholic warmth that nicely contrasts and works alongside the naturally cold nature of the sonic palette on display here. Shaffer is more than just an intense leader that suits Frail Body's overall style. Throughout Artificial Bouquet, he can often feel possessed by the spirit of a deeply wounded being crying out its darkest thoughts into something that feels morbidly beautiful. The bass tone throughout the record is tight and punchy as well, though Nicholas Clemenson's drumming should not be underestimated either. The percussion that he provides on tracks like "Critique Programme" and "Runaway," the latter of which being especially notable due to the aforementioned Shaffer simultaneously spouting some of the most striking lyrics on the record with "And if my memory loses every day/Then how else can we speak?" is outright explosive and provides a degree of chaos that beautifully adds to the already apocalyptic nature of Artificial Bouquet. From this entirely instrumental standpoint alone, Artificial Bouquet is Frail Body putting every ounce of their souls into their music. The instrumentation here is packed with emotion both in the most dense wall-of-sound moments (a quality beautifully provided by producer Pete Grossmann) and the most stripped-back melodic moments alike, with the final record feeling every bit as mournful as it does cathartic.
At the end of the day, however, Artificial Bouquet isn't a record exclusively about the instrumentation itself. Of course, the impassioned performances on display here are what define the record and its own high standards. However, this album isn't truly about the impactful bass tone, the lush guitars, the pounding drums, or anything of the sort. Rather, it is the atmosphere found in songs like "Devotion" or the final, brooding moments of the album-closer "A Capsule in the Sediment" that truly makes for a gripping listening experience. All of these aforementioned things come together to make one quite stunning whole. It is very reasonable to say that the entire record bleeds together to some extent, and that could understandably turn away some looking for a record that has more individualistic tracks that don't overlap to any degree. However, the choice to make Artificial Bouquet feel like a necessary front-to-back listen was a necessary one, and it allows Frail Body's ability to convey all of the pain and suffering of the record in a way that is not confined by the need to pander towards any particular group of listeners. It is, again, the smaller details of this larger picture that really do make the album as great as it is. Whether you find yourself awestruck by the immediacy of the album-opener "Scaffolding" or you enjoy the studio trickery of "Monolith"'s opening riff and the manner in which it bounces between channels before returning in full force, it is hard to not appreciate the intricacies of such a passionate record.
Artificial Bouquet may arguably be Frail Body at its best, though it likely doesn't matter to them what their "best" could be defined as. Above all else, this feels like a band of pure emotional release before anything, and said release just so happens to be produced by a trio of highly talented musicians. This record does not feel like the expelling of negative emotions, nor does it feel like a nihilistic embrace of them. Rather, Artificial Bouquet is a record made to acknowledge feelings of hurt and regret, perhaps in an attempt to move on to a degree. When Lowell Shaffer delivers the final lines on the record, "I'll get you to the lake some day/A sediment bed you'll rest," all you can do is take in what remains of a record that feels frayed, devastating, and otherwise broken in a way that is heart-achingly beautiful in its best moments.
1980s Album Anniversary
Murmur is a cohesive and dazzlingly bright debut from a band that would continue to expand on this sound in creative ways for years to come. This maturity partially stems from their already having worked through the kinks on their equally gorgeous Chronic Town EP, but that doesn't take away from the fact that Murmur is a masterful recording and overflowing with elegantly arranged songs. It is also, in my view, the most grounded yet cryptic record they ever released. The whole album is brilliant with the first side hitting quite hard from the beginning, and the second half shining particularly well with Buck's contributions on guitar. Stipe's vocal delivery is truly filled with emotion in every performance and balances perfectly with each song's storytelling arc. There are moments in between where the music lacks a necessary sense of urgency, but the majority sparkle with a delectable buzzing and resounding joy. Songs like “Moral Kiosk” or “Shaking Through” exhibit boundless potential in songwriting that foreshadow a style preceding hits from Automatic for the People. Not mentioning Stipe’s lyrics and wordplay would be silly, as they add a serious depth to what otherwise may sound like typical, albeit very catchy and layered, eighties pop music. He clearly draws from true inspiration along with a healthy sense of humor to create songs with such masterful prose. All of this backed by a band brimming with bright, springy energy give the album an endless supply of buoyant momentum and a seemingly illimitable charisma. There is an individual appeal to Murmur even within R.E.M.’s impressively varied evolution as a band within their career, but luckily we were gifted with another twenty eight wonderful years of music from the group.
Sonemic
Sonemic is the name of an update to Rate Your Music which is currently under development. It's an upgrade to RYM which greatly improves and modernizes the existing features of RYM. The Sonemic charts, genre pages, message boards, and new music page are already part of RYM today.
Glitchwave, our video game site, is currently in Beta 4, accessible to all users at glitchwave.com
We have recently announced a new development strategy: We are bringing all of the already-developed Sonemic and Cinemos features into RYM, one at a time, and have opened Glitchwave to everyone.
You can read more on the Development status page.
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2000s Album Anniversary