Somehow already on his 3rd album of the year, Boldy James delivers some pretty straightforward rapping over some pretty nice production. I don't think Boldy is that interesting of a rapper, but his very monotonous delivery is complimented well by Chuck Strangers' colourful production and subtle yet clever sampling.

The introduction of vocals, at least to this scale, adds a nice change of pace to Arca's music. It simultaneously makes the music more and less weird. On the one hand, the songs do feel a little more cohesive as actual songs with actual structure, so there's a sense of familiarity to some of the tracks. On the other hand, the vocals add another apsect to the music that Arca can completely fuck with. Aside from the vocals, the production remains as weird as ever, it really feels like a ... read more

I like the super bitcrushed production and mixing, it reminds me a lot of bliss3three's and dds' stuff. Some of the sampling here is pretty creative and compliments the production well, adding to the spaced-out psychedelic aesthetic of the whole album.

I love how much emotion is put behind the vocals here, It's great hardcore stuff from beginning to end. I thought the implementation of rapping and hip hop elements was really well done and added to the album's uniqueness. The two styles blend great, going from one to the other really quickly, but not sounding messy in any way.

There are some interesting ideas about soundscapes here. I can't say anything truly captivated me, but it was definitely a pleasant listen.

It's very, very pretty, Aoba's voice is gorgeous, and I love how sparse the strings are, and the rest of the instrumentation is so subdued that it really only sounds like her voice at times. This is an album about the world around us in the most literal sense: how the air moves, how trees fall, how waves crash. It's a very earthy album, and it's handled really well.

BANKS could have embraced the weirder/alternative aspects of this album more. "I Hate Your Ex-Girlfriend" is probably my favourite from the album, but it sounds completely different from everything else on the album. It sets up high standards that nothing else really reaches. That being said, BANKS has a good singing voice that compliments the little production quirks across the album. I also thought the second half was stronger and more consistent than the first.

It's not terrible, but Tate McRae just doesn't have the personality to make an entire album's worth of her music interesting.

YES. FUCKING. YES
I'm so happy this album is as good as it is. Every song here is a banger, the production is top notch, and the brisk runtime works in the album's favour. There's none of the fat that might come with a regular pop album, it's just killer track after killer track. Rebecca Black's voice lends itself really well to this style of music, I'm excited to see where she goes from here.

Where "Shawnee, Ohio" was the collective emotions and beliefs of an entire town's worth of people, "Words and Silences" is much smaller in scope. This album consists of Harnetty reading poetry and describing the creation of the songs themselves to you. This fourth wall break isn't something I've really heard in an album before, at least not in this way. It's very raw, with him sometimes stumbling over the poetry he's reading, clearing his throat, ... read more

Joe Talbot has a very guttural and raw delivery here. It really is all over the place, and the production on his voice makes it sound like he's peaking the microphone at points, adding to the authenticity. I wish the instrumentation was consistently equally as in-your-face because, at times, it can be comparatively run of the mill, though I suppose it does make the vocals stand out more, making them even more powerful. The writing here is equally as angry, lashing out at everything and ... read more

Thanks to @Natimomusic for sending me your song!
I really like the melody to this one, it's catchy in a good way. The subtle bitcrushed effects for the vocals were pleasant and combined well with the production. I think the production itself can be a little overbearing and mixed a little weirdly at points. I thought the gameshow style interlude in the middle was a good change of pace that kept the song exciting.

This isn't too far off from much of the modern digital hardcore music ATR laid the groundwork for. The combination of hardcore techno production, punk vocals, and politically charged lyrics works great in creating a very rebellious album. It carries that infectious high energy throughout the album's runtime, and is just really fun to listen to. The very unpolished nature of the album makes the album sound pretty fresh even today and makes it stand out in the digital hardcore genre, ... read more

Zach Hill's drumming here is insane, and the guitar playing feels like a less distorted version of what I would hear on a Lightning Bolt album. The whole album manages to find a perfect middle ground between deranged and methodical. The two have such great chemistry together that the album almost feels improvisational, with it sounding like the two are bouncing off each other constantly.

Fun to listen to, it completely embraces its weirdness with a consistent blend of super experimental jazz, shrieky "singing" and noises all crashing together. It can definitely be an intense listen at points, with everything layered on top of each other creating this cacophony of weirdness, like on "Time To Change The Climate". There are also very sparse moments musically, which compliment the noisier moments really well. The horns sound like air escaping a balloon at points ... read more

Need a few relistens to form a full opinion on this, but this is probably my SOTY so far.

I think the features outshine Medhane here. He isn't bringing anything new to hip hop, and everything he attempts has been done better by others, before or since. I liked the laid-back production though, and the album closer is decent.

A bigger emphasis on instrumental hip hop rather than ambience. It's not really all that interesting, but the beats are decent enough, and the album doesn't really overstay it's welcome, kinda clever samplework here at points also. (No bonus points for the dog this time, the dog from that other ep is SO much better)

Katie Kim puts a large emphasis on creating interesting soundscapes, rather than following typical song structure, on most of the songs at least. She combines dream pop-inspired vocals, almost psychedelic guitar playing, and lo-fi, ambient-inspired production and mixing. This album has a surprisingly quick pace for being 20 tracks, and nearly 50 minutes, I think the constant experimentation means that the album doesn't hold in one place for too long. An impressive and creative listen that ... read more

It can be hard to judge an album like this as a single project because it combines so many different artists' musical styles. There are pieces of Jazz, country, ambient, and American primitivism-adjacent guitar playing. I'm not sure about this compilation's backstory, or why these songs are compiled in the way they are because there isn't really a consistent sound or theme from track to track. Even with the lack of cohesion, this is still a collection of decent pieces of ... read more