More vanilla soft serve from the massive reservoir of possible 60s/70s/80s jangle, power, folk, yacht, soft, and AOR aesthetics. Nothing remotely novel, provocative, or revisionist.

Bursting with strong hooks and melodies throughout, but still space-blind, asphyxiated, and crushing to the ears after a couple of tracks. Reminded me of Carly Rae Jepsen's 'Emotion,' Oneohtrix Point Never's 'Garden of Delete,' Sophie's 'Bipp,' and 100 gecs' '10,000 gecs.' League fucked whenever Grey finds an Eno or A.G. Cook type to help stretch the dynamic range of their songwriting and production.

Kind of a nightmare. Everything that could go wrong did. Low-contrast arrangements. No breathing room. All front-loaded energy, no recharge. Some of the emptiest, most aesthetic (yet paradoxically sloppy/loose) riffing and rhythm I've ever heard. Not a single interesting phrase or motif. Antiquated-sounding mix compared to other records released the same year. "Mardi Gras" and "M'Wandishi" nausea-inducing, especially in synth voicing. "Song Bird" with ... read more

Happy for more of Immolation's industrial motifs and fractured, jagged structures. Loved the crushing traditional death metal breakdowns, ramp-ups, and midtempo riffstomping. The blackened behemoth-y elements not so much. "Attrition" and "Bend Towards The Dark" anchor with a few interesting ideas that don't really propagate into the rest of the album.

Music for shaking ass. Can't listen without smiling. Killer performances and lush mix. Borders on absurd in the best way.

Sounds like someone doing their best flylo impression, but extra rigid and quantized. Groove, wonky swing, and psychedelic trash/destruction kept to a minimum; "Pink Dream" closest to the expected formula. I'm choosing to believe there was a studio move or something and he had his beatmaking workflow thrown off.

I adore Evinha to the point that my brain goes quiet. Her voice makes me feel safe and loved. This is her most cohesive work, I think. "Sozinha" is a gem.

Time experienced as space, texture, movement, and sensation; mortality as a moment. 'Flipping through channels' pacing and preoccupation with industrial motifs and capitalism in media reminded me of Obayashi's 'Hausu.' "Air Vibes" a gorgeous standalone track; "Some Day, That Place In Time" a moving finale.

Similar to 'Esoteric,' a couple of stand-out singles padded with hit-or-miss maximalist production samplers. "Cheap Poetry" showcases Alkhateri's ear for soul-crushing melodic motifs. Holding out hope for a stripped-back, vocal-centric album with a bit more tonal commitment.

Hookless songwriting, vague atmospheres, and lack of narrative dialect, throughline, or directionality place onus on performances, which aren't particularly expressive or innovative. Drumming stands out with loose, fatigued blasts that consistently lose steam and fall behind the beat to bail for fills mid-run. Asphyxiated, lopsided production (esp. bass drum mix) had my ears fatigued after the first track.

Gréco's timbre, emotional intuition, and sense of control hits a resonant sweet spot in a way similar to Luiz Claudio: like a rosin-coated bow over thick strings. "Shut up and listen" levels of rapture. Paced perfectly with superb vocal-weighted production and accompaniment.

Vulnerable, organic; full of collective love, courage, and optimism, with moments of anxiety and confusion as contrast. Dances a stream-of-consciousness tightrope that feels something like tropicália with twists of zolo and rock in opposition (my first foray into 'vanguarda paulista'). Feels deeply indebted to Gal Costa's early albums. Unfortunately, runs long and meanders through the final five tracks.

Repetitive and constrained to the point that it almost feels like one continuous medley on the same motif; more for dancing than listening. Gorgeous guitar tones. "Que mal es querer" stands out.

Phenomenal. Explores the desolation of loneliness as a sort of ghostly, out-of-body lucid dream projection through memory spaces of differing sizes and resonances in constant motion and change. Remarkably cinematic in tone and expression; reminded me of Mizoguchi's 'Ugetsu,' Fellini's 'Juliet of the Spirits,' Cocteau's 'Orpheus,' Antonioni's alienation trilogy, as well as Juan Rulfo's novel 'Pedro Paramo.' Also: if you love Angel ... read more

Sex in all of its consentual iterations is awesome and an urgent frontier for exploration, but this album renders it constrained, performative, transactional, bourgeois, lifeless, and empty. Which is maybe the point. Aesthetic seems to shoot for a transgressive John Waters/Maisie Cousins vibe and I think it fails on all fronts. A lot of the conceptual stuff might be forgiven if the production was even a little bit interesting.

Light, sanitized, toothless, cloying songs about cartoon country folk in fairytale towns set to static, lifeless arrangements. "Time Traveler," "Dirtbag Saloon," and "The Time For Flowers" especially awful. Robinson's voice has a pleasant timbre, but for me lacks any sort of emotional undertone or authentic feeling.

A fistful of kickass hooks and driving punk riffs jammed into tapey, saturated spaces with winking, campy, gothic tension like something out of a Jacques Tourneur film or Flannery O'Connor story. Reminded me of Flamin' Groovies, Meat Puppets' mid '80s albums, and Deerhunter's 'Monomania.' Loved "100 Bill Is Gone!," "Not Real," and "Who Could It Be?"

Fun mix of genres, eras, spaces, and story motifs. Lots of "Boom Clap" era Charli and "Oh No" Marina & The Diamonds on massive, mystical sound stages that reminded me of The Orb's 'Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld,' supplemented by a couple of driving '80s anthems with hints of Blondie, Nena, and Pat Benatar. Enjoyed the emphasis on abstract, stream-of-consciousness story shapes rather than hooks. Loved "sever the blight."

Competent production, but didn't make me feel much aside from steady riff bounce. "Bad Faith" rips start-to-finish; "Beyond Repair" resets; "Force Meets Presence" an irresistible opening groove; "Make Me Forget You" and "We Were Never The Same" end story-rich. Enjoyed the organ-like lead guitar voicing in the mid-range on the final tracks.

A revelation. Sounds ten years ahead of its time. Fingerprints of Javier Vázquez and Jon Fausty. If 'Rican/Struction' marked the end of salsa dura, 'Con Sabor' ushers it forward toward salsa romántica. "Hermanos de la salsa" might be the most sumptuously atmospheric, deeply felt guajira I've ever heard.