On Earth, Simpson continues to have fun flipping the genre’s tropes on their head.
She’s the sort of artist that you couldn’t imagine ever making a bad album, and her newest is more proof.
Whereas My Krazy Life offered a fairly straightforward narrative about a haphazard 24 hours of YG’s Compton exploits, Still Brazy starts by focusing inwards and widens its lens to the outside world, linking the scrutiny around YG’s personal life to the universal horror of being persecuted simply because of what you look like.
Paradise lands closer to technical brilliance than emotional resonance, but you can feel the band reaching.
Wildflower feels as though it was made for the Avalanches rather than a patient public. Where Since I Left You mapped a plaintive longing onto a travel agency’s idea of heaven, Wildflower is designed for comforts of no special ambition.
It’s hard not to find Teens of Denial at least a little bit exhilarating, because Toledo’s now-fully-formed voice is such a new and powerful one, and because it’s easy to see how young listeners will find an entire universe to behold within.
What makes Human Performance a narrowly great record is that it bucks narrative. It’s not their most sensitive record or politically astute or least dissonant but all of these things — their most convincing performance as humans to date.
Goodness is a spiritually rich listen, but none of it would matter much if it weren’t such a goddamn great rock album.
The LP’s sunset pastels and recurring elastic bass lines at times threaten to rob the tracks of their singularities. But 99.9% is a success because Kaytranada fosters an environment where every guest shines.
It’s not easy to homogenize the opposing forces at play, but everything here feels like a genuine rumble through a mind scarred and inebriated by the reality of gang life and chasing the American dream while the room spins. Like the title hints, Blank Face LP is dark and full of stone-grilled stares that lay things out in plain terms, and there’s very little, if any, glamorization at play.
While it’s refreshing that a major label, in 2016, has enough faith in a regional star to let him do what brought him to the dance in the first place, Islah also happens to be the most-balanced Kevin Gates project to date, discovering an equilibrium between his pummelers and his caressers we didn’t previously know was possible.
untitled unmastered. can feel like the clearing of a table, rather than a feast. But in this lies its power and greatest asset: With the stakes low, Lamar can air out his demons, have some fun, bask in the afterglow of the Grammys.
Her fifth album is indeed one of the most alt-friendly jazz cycles you’ve ever heard, pivoting constantly on tight, proggy arrangements.
It’s a high-watermark of post-irony indie, a cracked safe of perspectives previously unheard in lump-throated punk. It plays like a sketchbook, but you’ll grow to hum every Sharpie stroke.
As glacially paced, mood-enhancing music, Pablo is a hypnotic slam-dunk and this reviewer will be among those first online if an all-instrumental edition finally surfaces on Vocaroo, because over the long haul ‘Ye the MC here proves as elusive as the proverbial Cheshire Cat.
ANTI is Rihanna’s first aesthetically personal album, and throughout its disorderly roaming, it remains revelatory in a strict sense; it’s a musical step sideways but an artistic step up.
On Coloring Book, he displays the most joyful part of his universe, and invites listeners across the globe to share in the festivities.
★ finds Bowie and longtime producer Tony Visconti as hungry as they ever were, and with no modern context into which the artist can insert himself (including rock) he’s free to do what he likes.
The first half of Blonde is astonishing, sustained beauty. The second is more distant, closer to the shower improvs of Friday’s sounds-like-a-soundtrack-and-it-is Endless.