"Boarding House Reach," Jack White's third solo record, is a record for one person: Jack White. Filled with inane pseudo-philosophies about pets, terribly unnecessary short stories, and just a sense that White thinks quite highly of himself, this record finds White in directionless experimentation. There's no denying that experimentation contributes to growth and, clearly, White wants to break free from his past. But from the opening track "Connected by Love" to the final ... read more

On their eighth record, The Decemberists continue to be lost in a field of experimentation, this time with synthesizers and brief excursions into sounds popularized by others. Similar to their previous record, "What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World," "I'll Be Your Girl" fails to sustain a clear through line. Tracks like "Everything is Awful" and "We All Die Young" feel designed for any other band that is not the Decemberists. For me, the ... read more

"To find, to find the exact words, to find the perfect words, to say less but to say more." Emo-rapper XXXTENTACION seems to have entered my mind with his "Introduction" (or should I say "warning"?) on his newest project "?." But X failed to take into consideration that saying less does not equal releasing half-baked, not fully realized tracks, or a mishmash of different ideas that barely link together. I will applaud the opening section from "ALONE, ... read more

I tend to write a little piece about each record that I review. Not today. "Lil Boat 2" is so bland, boring, and lifeless. And I thought "Teenage Emotions" was bad.

On his new LP "No News is Good News," Phonte, member of the now defunct Little Brother and half of the duo The Foreign Exchange, gives us a serviceable record that wears thin. My initial enjoyment with tracks like the biting "So Help Me God" and the smooth, R&B beat of "Sweet You," gradually fades. Return listens failed to generate any excitement. There's no denying Phonte's talents and abilities for several tracks have some excellent verses, verses that I ... read more

Korean composer and piri player Park Jiha's Communion combines soothing new age/ambient environments with chaotic and frightening explosions of free jazz. If you're unfamiliar with the piri, like I was, it sounds like a saxophone/oboe combined. Moments free of stress and concern quickly erupt into discordant, tense, raw – and, admittedly, sonically difficult – adventures into anarchy. The composition "Communion" highlights the first half's more subdued nature while the ... read more

Pipette's singer Gwenno released her second LP, "Le Kov," Cornish for "The Place of Memory," a Stereolab-harkening electropop record centered on the Cornish language. With only 300 Cornish speakers left in the world, Gwenno's record reflects the necessity to catalog dying languages. Stored in these piano-laden electronic soundscapes and through Gwenno's breathy, effervescent vocals is a vision of worlds past and future. Musically, though, I'm not entirely sold as this record ... read more

It's disappointing when the first thing that comes to mind when listening to a new bad are all of their potential influences. On "Basic Behaviour," the debut of LP for the Toronto four-piece FRIGS, I immediately heard Sonic Youth and Fiona Apple. It's difficult not to hear those influences on opening track "Doghead," with its scratching guitars and lead singer Bria Salmena's snarling delivery, especially at the track's conclusion. FRIGS's particular strength rests in their ... read more

Jericho Jackson, the duo of MC Elzhi and producer Khyrsis, combines low-key, sampled boom-bap beats with fantastic lyricism. Elzhi's confident conscious storytelling captures my attention; I hang on his every word thanks his abilities to turn a phrase and deviate from a rhyme scheme only to return to it several lines later. Elzhi wades through language like an Olympic swimmer through the water. His charisma and energy never fade, allowing him to be the primary voice throughout the record. ... read more

This is for the NPR listening, Saturday-morning-Farmer's-Market-shopping, dear-God-I-hope-Donald-Trump-is-impeached-soon set. I guess I'm one of those people. Formed in 2014, folk/roots trio I'm With Her consists of Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O'Donovan, and "See You Around" primarily focuses on their stringed instrumentation: acoustic guitar, mandolin, and violin. Some tracks incorporate electric guitar to add sonic depth, and those tracks tend to offer the trio's most ... read more

My favorite ambient records effectively utilize space to create emotion. Brian Eno's "Music for Airports" and William Basinski's "The Disintegration Loops" are, to name only two, perfect examples of emotional spaciousness. Dedekind Cut's second LP, "Tahoe," embraces space differently than those respective Eno and Basinski by framing space not as silence but as a creation of spatiality. In other words, each track encompasses a headspace, such as on the fantastic ... read more

Considering that 6ix9ine pled guilty to "the use of a child in a sexual performance," even a 0 is too generous. This is even more disconcerting when you look at the cover art. There is no removing that stain off this record or 6ix9ine.

I don't care how hard it goes or if it's great for working out at the gym, it's a garbage record with no redeeming qualities.

Ideas repeat and songs sometimes outstay their welcome. However, I dig this record.

On their debut self-titled record, Loma creates a cavernous, enveloping sound that when it works, works really well. The trio consists of vocalist Emily Cross and multi-instrumentalist/engineer Dan Duszynski, known as the duo Cross Record, and Shearwater front man Jonathan Meiburg. And for a debut LP, it sounds like they've been together for years. For a record built on atmospherics and rapturous melodies, it's a remarkably rhythmic collection that provides necessary percussive propulsion to ... read more

U.S. Girls, the moniker of Canadian-American artist Meghan Remy, released their eighth record, "In a Poem Unlimited," spins tales of revenge, revolution, and redemption through the histories of funk, disco, and dance music. "In a Poem Unlimited" is full of vibrant, evocative, visceral musicality and inspired lyricism. Remy's reedy voice – it almost sounds like you could break it in half – retains a power and vivacity that further enlivens her excellent ... read more

Laurie Anderson and the Kronos Quartet have created a haunting, mysterious, and always tipping on the edge of comfort record with their collaborative work "Landfall." Electronic sounds, beats, and noises beautifully intertwine with the Kronos Quartet's minimalist stringed arrangements, as does Anderson, on occasion, with her realist and surrealist passages about Hurricane Sandy. To say that I enjoy one track over another would result in the failure to see this work as a unified, ... read more

"Everything is Recorded by Richard Russell" is the debut record of XL Recordings co-founder Richard Russell. Running at a clean 38-minutes with 12 tracks, this record features several guests, like Syd, Sampha, Wiki, Owen Pallett, Kamasi Washington, and, somewhere but I don't know exactly where, Peter Gabriel, among others. Clearly, talent is not lacking here and several tracks, such as "Close but Not Quite" and "Bloodshot Red Eyes" reinforce just how necessary ... read more

24-year-old Irish rapper Rejjie Snow's debut LP, "Dear Annie," is a record I want to list. The funky, jazzy opening track "Hello," provides a warm welcome, and signals the record's overall sound, a sound that I truly enjoy. But "Hello"'s welcome is quickly worn out by Snow's apathetic vocals on "Rainbows," that, for the most part, occupy the vast majority of the record. I frequently wonder whether he cares about what he's saying or if he is merely playing ... read more

Hungarian metal band Ektomorf's "Fury" is their thirteenth (!) studio record. However, the only consistent figure in the band is lead singer Zoltán Farkas. Remarkably, even though Farkas recruited an entirely new behind him for this record, Ektomorf maintains their known thrash, groove metal sound. It's perhaps this new group of musicians that results in the record's formulaic qualities. Farkas's growled lyrics typically address violence, death, and other metal-ly things ... read more

What the hell is Future doing on "King's Dead"? While labeled as a "Various Artists" project, we all know that Kendrick Lamar is running the show here on the Black Panther soundtrack. And we get Kendrick immediately as he provides the soundtrack's best track: "Black Panther." Chaotic, disorienting, but also gorgeous, this track recognizes Kendrick as the "king" of this project. There are other standout features, such as Schoolboy Q's verse on ... read more