A very mediocre first outing for Rob and the lads. Sloppy performances abound, and the handful of tracks that do manage a catchy melody or a twinge of atmosphere are barely allowed to pass the two minute mark. You can just *barely* catch glimpses of the band's trademark gothic sound struggling to emerge from this otherwise bog standard post-punk, "Subway Song" comes to mind. "Boys Don't Cry", a standalone single released just one month after this LP, handily wipes ... read more

"Ooh this is a great album but ooooh the mixing ohh I can't stand the mixing."

Honestly though, this cuts a little deeper than some of 2024's other musical disappointments. The Cure is one of the best bands of all time, and on their first album in 16 years, Rob and the lads sound like they haven't skipped a beat since 2008. Or, hell, maybe since 1989. Writing, lyrics, and especially VOCALS are all as terrific as I could've hoped for on a modern Cure album. This is ... read more

This album sorta answers the question, "What if there was music that was really awesome and cool also?"

Love this fella. I've always believed Iceage to be one of the most dependable rock bands working today; five albums to their name, all very high-quality. Through its many, MANY revivals and reinterpretations since the late 1970s, the genre of 'post-punk' has grown to encompass so many varying strains of downtrodden rock music that the genre label itself has all but ceased to represent one specific thing. As a band, Iceage has made it their mission to try their hand at every ... read more

Unfortunately, I found this to be one of the more disappointing releases of 2024. "Love You Got" was a wonderful single, and the penultimate track here, "Time To", more than matches that energy, but much of the rest faded into the background for me. With previous albums, Owens proved herself to be a bold, worthwhile voice in modern electronic music. By comparison, 'Dreamstate' is sorely lacking in what made her old music so distinct. If her name wasn't ... read more

It's a little too long, but I'd still probably name this my favorite Halsey album so far, narrowly edging out 'If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power', which was also quite good! I think the "impersonation" concept could've been explored more extensively, especially given the length of this project, but the quality of the songs and the poignant lyrical content speaks for itself. I found myself quite moved by the shifting of lyrics across the "Letter to ... read more

I'm absolutely enamored with this, and I'm at total a loss for words that can explain why. This is the most excited and captivated I've been by a rock album in years. It's got a musical palette that isn't at all uncommon for post-rock, maybe a touch more stripped-back than I'm used to, but all the elements have been jumbled and jostled just enough to feel... wrong. 'If I don't make it, I love u' makes me feel like I'm lost in a maze, or like the ... read more

I generally like Tinashe's music quite a bit, but I found this to be disappointingly scant. There's already a precedent in her work to excel inside the boundaries of a brief mini-album, 'BB/ANG3L' soars and it's even shorter than 'Quantum Baby' here. But compared to her last project, everything here feels severely undercooked. The songs on 'BB/ANG3L' sounded like they had been mulled over for some time, these new songs sound like a scrambled effort ... read more

I think my music taste is getting worse..

The great irony of 'BRAT' is that, in creating an album that set out to interrogate Charli's own insecurities about her place within pop's "middle class", she finally managed to escape that very position. The album was greeted with the rapturous praise and mainstream success that Charli has always, on some level, felt like is owed to her. Now that Charli has achieved a fanbase and status beyond her wildest dreams, it would be easy for her to compromise her sound in ... read more

One of da best bands that we've got.

Occupies a very similar emotional space to Kid Cudi's much-maligned 'Speedin Bullet 2 Heaven', an album that I also have a great deal of love and respect for. This is the most uncomfortable, difficult music that I have heard in 2024, a raw and crude expression of grief. I hope Alan is doing better after getting this out into the world.

fictional music.

Great grooves, some INCREDIBLE guitarwork, and a refreshingly organic production style for an artist whose work typically operates in cold, digital spaces. That said, his songwriting would improve by leaps and bounds in just a few short years. There's a lot more dead air in these jams than with Prince's other classics, the handful of slow-jams being particularly inert. But when Prince is in full rock'n'roll mode, like on "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?" or ... read more

Overwhelming. It's not fair to make a direct comparison here, but I think that the profuse sincerity of The Cure's music succeeds for me where the sarcastic English wit of The Smiths falters. This is an almost inconceivably romantic piece of music, a titanic statement of devotion ensconced in bouquets of black flowers and shimmering rainwater. Robert Smith, you a real lover.

One-of-a-kind band right here. To come back after 11 years with your shortest, wildest album to date? Too cool for school, man. Rock on.

The sound of the fast-approaching 80s. Fresh for the time, maybe even predictive, but beyond its impressive craftsmanship, there aren't too many songs that'll really stick with ya. The vulgar, reggae-flavored closer, "Why'd Ya Do It" is something else, though. Can't imagine how shocking that must've been to fans of Faithfull back in '79.

Oh yes.

I love this one even more than the debut! It's exactly as uniformly slow and morose as what came before, but Alan and Mimi's voices are so much louder and more prominent in the mix. On the first two records, the band had a tendency to hide some of the vocals with reverb, a very common instinct within slowcore, but Alan and Mimi really do have wonderful voices. Getting to hear more of them can only be to the music's benefit. There's a beautiful drone piece at the end of the ... read more

I am not the kind of person who enjoys anything that sounds like this.