jenbamin

Before anything else, "LUX" should be praised (in broad strokes): it's certainly more original than large swaths of the current pop landscape, what with the unmissable orchestral sweeps and powerhouse vocal performance. If anything should be said of ROSALÍA as a person, it's that she clearly has a nonstop inner drive to innovate, to transform herself and her music, and that is soundly reflected in her latest sprawling, maximalist effort.

This new sound palette is ... read more

Another era for Rosalía, another concomitant experimental shift; while this baroque-hop palette is fun, the vocal performances and overall structure feels too unfocused. When compared to some of her more self-indulgent work like "BULERÍAS," "Berghain" isn't much of a standout.

"Pain to Power" is an album of absences, a surreptitious experience that blazes by in bombasts of sax harmonies and overdriven bass lines before you can even realize that there's nary a melody on most of these tracks. Not that they need it--this debut is total victory on every front. Easily the most important album of the year and the best Windmill record since "The New Sound."

Well, it's here... and it's certainly an album!

I mused about, and eventually lamented, the fact that this was Nine Inch Nails instead of Reznor and Ross and, in short, my cynical take is that this soundtrack served as proof that NIN was still active and profitable. While I don't feel entirely validated, I do feel correct: there is nothing separating this from a standard Reznor and Ross score. Like it or not, this thing's purpose is to deliver money to NIN the entity; this ... read more