It’s tempting to call Arlo Park’s debut album, Collapsed in Sunbeams, “deceptively simple”, but to use the word “deceptive” feels cruel in its implications. Arlo Parks has no intent to deceive on this album, everything is presented with such a warm, wistful openness that getting the full picture of the stories she’s sharing here is simple in an obvious way. That word “simple”, however, I keep returning to for various reasons. The songwriting ... read more

This is more like less like something like it I like it. I like this album. I don't love it, but there’s a lot of good here. I know I opened my Get Behind Me Satan review by saying “everything feels like it’s been done before”, but that’s not entirely true of that album. Here, however, I don’t think it could be any truer. This is the most back-to-basics, garage-blues-rock banger mode White Stripes we’ve gotten since White Blood Cells, and that’s ... read more

I had a really close friend in high school who introduced me to a lot of music I love, and the importance of that (and everything else from that friendship) in my life has been immeasurable. And, in some significant part, it’s been that importance that has kept this album with me all this time since. Rise Against’s The Black Market is my favorite album of all time, and while I’ve questioned myself on that statement a bajillion times since I first decided on it some years ago, ... read more

Everything on Get Behind Me Satan feels like it’s been done before, which of course it has. I shouldn’t be surprised that The White Stripes’ fifth album feels a bit stale; their formula has been tried and true for the most part up to this point, but this time around it just feels tried. This could’ve been the time to really switch things up, but instead the duo has elected to change nothing and persevere with what’s already worked before. And that, unfortunately, ... read more

This is… less like it. A lot less. Far less than I was expecting. I mean a ridiculous amount less than I should’ve ever reasonably expected. I mean, this thing opens with the band’s most iconic song which I’ve loved for years and still enjoy every time I hear it, and it’s even got my favorite White Stripes song overall in The Air Near My Fingers! This should’ve been a shoo-in! And then I reached track 4, I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself, which ... read more

This is even more like it! White Blood Cells is where the band start to reach the icon status they’ve held ever since, with mega-hits like Fell In Love With a Girl (Banger!) and We’re Going to Be Friends (Adorable!) at the forefront of a record full of could’ve-been megahits (Well, maybe not Aluminum, but I can dream). And the quality is there to boot, with it being very immediately clear why these songs are all so beloved. Sure, not everything in the track list is quite at ... read more

Now this is more like it. The White Stripes’ sophomore effort De Stijl is, in a lot of ways, more of the same from their debut, but with clear improvements all over the place. Jack White’s gotten a handle on his songwriting chops and really came to play with this one, making a series of fun, fluid blues rock bangers that all have reasons to stand out among the track list. And that track list is significantly shorter; four tracks and six minutes might not look like a lot, but it ... read more

I’m convinced Drake just has bad taste. Surely no human being would make music this excruciatingly bland and valueless if they didn’t see something in it that nobody else can. I’m struggling to imagine what the conversations in the studio must’ve looked like otherwise, because not only does Drake bring his worst, lowest effort to every track, but so does every guest rapper. The instrumentals weren’t the absolute worst, but the chances of me remembering a second of ... read more

Memorability matters a lot to me when it comes to music, as I’d imagine it is for most people. The most obvious way to attain that precious memorability is an immediately gripping hook, and I know Jack White is plenty capable of writing songs with immediately gripping hooks. But whenever he managed to figure out the secret to such a hook, it seems like it must’ve been after his debut album. The White Stripes’ self-titled project has every other hallmark of the band’s ... read more

What is Donda even about? That’s a question that I think is worth asking, but the answer is quite disappointing. Ultimately, Kanye seems to simply want to let everyone know that Jesus Christ is cool and can help make the world better. How that is meant to happen is unclear. What that has to do with Kanye’s mother, the album’s namesake, is unclear. It’s not even clear if the album was supposed to be released when it did, but that’s a story for another time. What is ... read more

I don’t remember exactly when it was that I decided it, but I know that I’ve known for a while that I was expecting Emma Blackery’s sophomore album Girl in a Box to be my favorite album of the year. Maybe it was the first time I heard the lead single Crying, so jaunty and lively while also being absolutely drenched in sarcasm, that I knew how much fun the project was gonna be. Maybe it was the first time I listened to the second single Brutus, or the forty-some listens after ... read more

I’m not sure I even know how to talk about Utopia. Most of the time listening to it, all I can think basically consists of “Birds! Flutes!! AAAAAAHHHH!!! SO GOOD!” Not the most coherent, maybe doesn’t make for the best review, but that’s what I’m getting. This album is so consistent in delivering that feeling of awe, of sheer wonder at how music this beautiful can possibly even exist, that it makes it hard to focus on all the specifics. And that level of ... read more

Vulnicura is a weird one, but not in the “Björk is experimenting again!” sense. In fact, it’s quite the opposite, as this album is really a step backward for Björk. Not necessarily in a bad way though, and there’s good reason for it. A fellow Discorder said this album was “the most like Homogenic”, and that comparison makes perfect sense to me. Homogenic was Björk’s most filmic album up until this one, which goes all the way in on that ... read more

Once again back to not much to say with this one. Biophilia is an interesting premise, both in terms of the educational aspect and the songs themselves, but it doesn’t get much more interesting than that. The album doesn’t drag, everything flows nicely, but most of the time it’s not exactly riveting stuff like her best work. Nothing super gripping, it all just goes by. In one ear, out the other. There are definitely some specific flourishes, namely the breakbeat and noise ... read more

This album is harsh noise, so of course there’s a constant loud, crashing static wall of sound throughout, which unfortunately doesn’t make for a very interesting listen. There were some additions in track one to border on “varied” and “interesting”, but not enough to quite get there for me. Track two was too short to be all that memorable; the spoken-word (If you can call it that) portion at the end was intriguing but still not enough to sell me on the ... read more

Debut jumps back and forth between house bangers and a variety pack of Björky songs, but at least it’s mostly sonically consistent. Vespertine and Medúlla were finally getting to a place where sonic consistency across an album was the name of the game for Björk. But on Volta, Miss Guðmundsdóttir said fuck sonic consistency, I’m doing whatever I want. And unfortunately, Volta is worse for it. Not bad, but not quite great. Clocking in at 51 minutes long ... read more

There are two sides to any Björk song: Björk’s songwriting and her sonic palette. The songwriting on Medúlla is mostly decent, never quite at her peak, but it all works well enough. The sonic palette of this album, however, is A LOT to take in. The choice of creating all of the instrumental sounds with a variety of vocalisations, including beatboxing and throat singing, sounded really cool on paper. And on my first listen to the album, I thought it was mostly incredible. ... read more

This album is about as straightforward as it gets. The emotion is raw, the guitars are loud, and the production makes everything sound like a deafening explosion. If you want something to scream along with ‘til you can’t speak louder than a whisper then look no further. If you’re looking for somewhere specific to direct those emotions, however, don’t expect any of these songs to guide you. There are vague notions of things worth being sad about in here, but frankly I ... read more

The sonic uniformity of this album makes it hard to come up with a lot to say here. Everything on here is very very very pretty and full of the most intriguing soundscapes yet on a Björk album. The found sound nature of these tracks brings out some really neat percussion. The songwriting isn’t quite as gripping as the best of the previous three albums, and the length can be awkward at times which may make this album harder to return to, but I certainly enjoyed my time with it just ... read more

Unlike Debut and Post, Homogenic is what I’ll call an anti-surprising album. The first two pieces of Björk’s discography were full of odd left turns, generally welcoming but frequently unexpected. Homogenic, however, feels a lot more decided in its sonic approach. For the most part, this album chooses a mood and sticks with it. I don’t particularly mind that conception -- in fact in some ways I wish it’d been even more focused -- but I also enjoyed Debut and Post ... read more