So, I’ll be honest, I first heard of acloudyskye a few days after this album dropped through some discussion online about it. Even with that though, I am immediately in love. There’s something so nostalgic about the early 2010s indie rock and pop elements here but also the record still feels so modern. Maybe it's how noisy Skye allows some of the sounds on here to go or the post rock-isms that show up on some of the later tracks such as Innards, but something here definitely ... read more

The way I know that Kendrick has done irreparable damage to Drake in the minds of real music nerds is the fact that this album is rated far lower than even CLB. Now do I think this is Drake’s worst album, yeah, it’s down there, but it’s also on par with what we’ve come to expect from Drake in the past few years. Also I am calling this a Drake album despite the fact it's technically a collab with PARTYNEXTDOOR, purely because it is much more focused toward Drake. I ... read more

Although I got into Mac extremely late, ever since I first heard Swimming and Circles, I’ve been entranced by his artistry and going on to hear the rest of his discography, his evolution. From frat rap to abstract hip hop he’s done it all and this record only strengthens that for me. It’s by far his weirdest to date, which makes sense considering it was made during the Faces era, his other most abstract project. The “normal” sounding tracks still fit into that ... read more

MJ Lenderman better

Seriously though, this is pretty harmless and fun to just have on as background music. I didn’t expect a Ringo album in the year 2025 to be anything special, especially not a country one, but I didn’t mind it. Ringo still has a nice voice even at 84, although I did feel like I heard some weird processing on it at points. The instrumentation is pretty good as well, but I wish the drumming stood out a little more. Though I understand keeping it kind of low key ... read more

Maybe I just need to spend more time with it or hear some more of the integral records to the sound but drone continues to be one of my least favorite sects of ambient music and this EP does nothing to improve that. I think there are some interesting ideas here and some tracks are genuinely haunting but I don’t know when I see myself returning to this project outside of the few songs that sounded like past Ethel Cain tracks such as Punish or Vacillator. I understand the fact that it ... read more

Wrote this for twitter but this album doesn't deserve a real review anyways so:

Boring, too long, mixed badly, annoying, thankfully less jew bars unless I just didn’t notice them, probably 2 songs I’d actually ever return to. Also, please stop trying to make another Carnival and if you do keep doing it, DONT PUT THE 2 FUCKING TRACKS THAT DO IT RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER.

This mixtape goes to show how a bad album cover can affect the want to listen to it. I never went out of my way to hear this because: 1. J. Cole was never as good to me as people said, and 2. The album cover is fucking awful. It just recently got put onto streaming though, so I thought I’d check it out because I’ve heard great things, and wow. This is the J. Cole people say is the best rapper alive. While I still don’t agree with that sentiment, his performances throughout ... read more

Being completely honest, I didn’t think this would live up to the hype. Schlagenheim was fantastic, after hearing that record I immediately knew this band was going to mean something to me. Cavalcade however, I didn’t love as much as I wanted to. It was gorgeous and there are some tracks I adore, but it just didn’t quite reach my expectations after listening to their debut. This album though, Hellfire, where do I begin?

It really is the best parts of their last two albums all ... read more

This record has left me, well… Bewitched. It sounds like a Disney movie soundtrack while still managing to stay genuine to Laufey’s artistry. From the pillowy strings, to the gorgeous piano, to the light guitar, everything works so well to create a soundscape that sounds like pure heaven. The lowest of lows on here simply fall into the background, but the highs, just wow. From The Start and Letter To My 13 Year Old Self specifically, they both feel like they’ve been out ... read more

If the production wasn’t so lofi this could literally just be a modern Caroline Polachek album. And that’s honestly the biggest thing holding this record back, the lofiness. The gorgeous vocals, the great ideas, and the unique sounds are all here. It just doesn’t sound as great as it could. Still, that doesn’t make this bad by any means. Plus, I will say it’s pretty impressive sounding for an album that was created entirely off a macbook, including the recording of ... read more

I did not expect to be saying this after this listen, but wow, this is a new 10 for me. Genuinely, why is this album not talked about more? This shit is so raw, it’s like Toxicity on steroids. Toxicity’s production sounds almost clean compared to this record’s. That’s nothing against Toxicity, I still like it more than this, but jesus christ System Of A Down’s self-titled is a truly insane record. Other than a few small moments, like the two minute intro to Mind, ... read more

While I’ve still got to go back and do an active listen to The Blueprint (an album I still don’t quite love as much as many others do), this record is exactly what I wanted out of that one. To me, Reasonable Doubt has the Jay-Z that everyone talks about being one of the greatest rappers. The wordplay, the production, the flows: everything that I love so much about this era of hip hop is there. Lines like “You draw, better be Picasso, you know: the best” on Friend Or Foe ... read more

THEY JUST DON’T FUCKING MISS

Death Grips continue to shock me with just how consistently phenomenal their music can be. Other than a few patchy spots, their discography is one of the greatest I’ve had the chance to experience and Bottomless Pit only makes it better. If I had to differentiate this record from the rest, I’d say it’s much quicker. They really give you no time to breathe on this thing, it just attacks you for 39 minutes non-stop. Although this is a theme ... read more

This rating may change in the future because recency bias exists or whatever, but for right now, this remix album has brought BRAT up to a 10 for me. This is genuinely the most fun I've had with an album in a while and I don't think I could have asked for a better remix album (okay maybe if Taylor was on Sympathy is a knife but we all knew that wasn't happening). Although I don't think that many of the remixes here are better than the originals, that doesn't seem like ... read more

What a first experience with a full Young Thug record. In the only 28 minutes this thing lasts, you get nothing but banger after banger. Digits and With Them are some of the greatest trap songs I have ever heard, and the only song I’m not immediately in love with is Slime Shit. Thug is such a great rapper, he really knows how to get into some fantastic pockets and flows where he can go off for minutes straight. His voice is also still so unique, even after hearing so many of his features. ... read more

It’s honestly appalling to me that Katy would want to work with someone who is not only just an awful person, but also who’s production style is still 10 years behind. Nothing about this record is appealing in the year 2024. The lyrics are vague and uninspired, the sound is stuck in 2012 (other than the odd trap inclusion throughout), and it’s simply not fun to listen to unless you completely tune it out to the point where you are exclusively processing the base melodies. And ... read more

I have very mixed feelings. There are great tracks but most feel unfinished. I can only hope this is the album SOPHIE would have wanted, especially with her brother working so closely with her during the time she was still here but whether it is or not doesn’t change the fact that this just isn’t as good as I hoped. It still needs some relistens before I really have all my thoughts (this was also a bit of a distracted listen because other shit was happening during it), but I do ... read more

It doesn’t seem to me like Future and his producers spent too much time working on this project, so I’m not going to spend too much of my time reviewing it. Here’s a list of things I did and did not like: The mixing is awful. The beats are too similar in structure. I actually think PLUTOSKI is great and really interesting. LOST MY DOG is a nice tribute (possibly to Rich Homie Quan???) and I enjoy hearing Future discuss his struggles. Future is the main highlight of this ... read more

Question: if the general consensus of an album is that it’s overrated, is it really?

I touched on a similar idea in my Born Sinner review, though, it’s a genuine question. I’m not going to say that there aren’t people who “overrate” this record, but considering it’s not even a must hear on this site, I’m not too sure how much you could call it “overrated” in 2024. Still, I did enjoy this album quite a bit. It’s nothing new or ... read more

Although it doesn’t have the lows of something like Lover, Midnights is just wallpaper to me. There are some interesting ideas at play, mainly production wise like with the spaced out chorus of Midnight Rain or the odd, horn-like synths on Sweet Nothing; but I don’t think any of them are expanded out to make anything more than simple, bland synthpop. This is to an even higher degree than it is on her newest record, THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT, as I think there are some actually ... read more