This is not a particularly daring or noteworthy album but it is very pleasant to relax into the very old-school sound that Danger Mouse and Black Thought bring. Danger Mouse sets the tone strong from the start. He sets up nice funky grooves for people to rap over and Black Thought complements them well. This traditional sound works well for OGs like Black Thought and like Raekwon when he shows up in “The Darkest Part” but can’t cover for Run The Jewels’ anemic rapping in “Strangers,” the weakest cut in the album.
Still, save for that one blemish, this is an album very consistent in its quality. Sometimes, it’s a little stronger, like in the compelling “Aquamarine” but it’s more really just comfortable. This is a safe album. It takes no risks and never really finds brilliance but it’s always a good listen and its just nice to get a throwback like this every now and again.
It’s always nice when an album starts with its best foot forward. “AMA” is In Tense at its strongest. There’s a great bass solo right at the beginning and the backing adds an arboreal element. It’s a verdant and lush sound as the bass puts in energetic work and a very clean vibraphone follows suit.
That vibraphone later finds an excellent groove in “In Tense” and has another excellent solo in “Eight-Thirteen.” This is a very pleasantly concise album and it takes the effort to say what it wants to say well. “Prayer” adds in a great tenor solo and “s2020” trips over itself delightfully.
However, there’s just not enough to provoke thought in this album. The songs are all very well done but tend to very predictable resolutions. Even “Circus Music,” the most complex of the tracks, could really have done with some of the whimsy of the title. It keeps a lot of balls in the air and watching the patterns they make as they cross each other is fascinating, but a little more of the unexpected would have brought in a much-needed lift.
However, In Tense gets too much right to worry about the little it gets wrong. This is an album put together with skill and care. It is clear about what it has to say and always well worth listening to.
Whenever Beyoncé releases new music, it’s an Event™ – especially as she has a penchant for dropping music out of the blue. RENAISSANCE, her seventh album, was actually released on July 29th with a heads’ up by way of an announcement on July 16th. Expectations were high, and the first single “BREAK MY SOUL” raised them even further.
So how good is RENAISSANCE? Does it best Lemonade, her acclaimed sixth album from 2016? Probably not. But there are more than enough highlights on this album – not to mention an exciting new turn for Queen Bey – that makes this one well worth the listen.
By and large, RENAISSANCE celebrates the disco and house sounds of the 1970s, especially from Black America. We’ve already written about “BREAK MY SOUL”, a raucous Afropop-tinged disco track seemingly soundtracking the Great Resignation. “ALIEN SUPERSTAR” is another early stand-out with club-ready beats against Beyoncé’s sweetly-sung vocals. “CUFF IT” offers a funky disco sound with the unmistakable Chic touch – and no wonder, because Nile Rogers himself was involved on the track. “VIRGO’S GROOVE” is another disco-funk classic: a seamless, six-minute ode to the desire that Beyoncé still feels for her husband.
When we looked back at these standout tracks, what jumped out was that all except “BREAK MY SOUL” come courtesy of a production & songwriting duo Nova Wav, consisting of Brittany “Chi” Coney and Denisia “Blu” Andrews. Chi and Blu first worked with Beyoncé on her Grammy-winning “BLACK PARADE” track in 2020. On RENAISSANCE, they have contributed to eight of the best tracks from this album. “MOVE” featuring Grace Jones and Tems is sparse and dramatic with an opening section reminiscent of “Tokyo Drift”, while “PURE / HONEY” is an irresistible track that brings to mind early-90s dance-pop hit “I’m Too Sexy”. “SUMMER RENAISSANCE” is a classic disco / house song that samples none other than Donna Summer’s iconic disco hit “I Feel Love”. It’s not a stretch to say that Nova Wav is the actual powerhouse behind the marketing & vocal genius of the Beyoncé brand on this album.
The other thing that really strikes you about RENAISSANCE is the sheer perfection of the song transitions. They are beautifully done in a way that makes the entire album feel like one cohesive whole, with different sections corresponding to different moods and tracks. In particular, the entire stretch from “CUFF IT” to “ENERGY” (featuring Jamaican rapper Beam) to “BREAK MY SOUL” is a kaleidoscopic ten-minute ride with no discernible stitch whatsoever.
Apart from the core tenets of disco and house, Beyoncé does a good job of highlighting other sub-genres – for example, the dancehall vibes on the aforementioned “ENERGY” and on “HEATED”. Gospel and trap intersect on the Megan thee Stallion-like “CHURCH GIRL” with its insistent drumline and a lot of quotable lyrics, while “PLASTIC OFF THE SOFA” is the closest thing to sweet pop on this album that’s otherwise aggressively sensual.
While there are definite weak points on RENAISSANCE (for example, the tryhard “THIQUE” and the forgettable “ALL UP IN YOUR MIND”), it’s clear that Beyoncé has spent considerable time, energy, and skills in creating the distinctive throwback sounds on this album. The production values are sharp and her vocals are as on point as ever. RENAISSANCE doesn’t have the emotional range of Lemonade (and to be honest, people like Jessie Ware have already made better disco albums in recent years), but Beyoncé’s seventh album is certainly worth a listen.
Rating: 7/10
Best tracks: “BREAK MY SOUL”, “VIRGO’S GROOVE”, “CUFF IT”
Sometimes, Forever makes a habit of sliding right through you. At its best, it does so smooth as razor, leaving you with lacerations as it passes through. At its worst, it does so like aether, completely beneath your perception. It is strong more often than it is weak, but the end result is nevertheless a little mixed.
It’s never anything less than solid though and there’s a decent amount here that stands out. “Still” cuts into you with a very simple guitar base. “Following Eyes” is very good lo-fi indie rock. It’s just a few simple elements but deep enough to drown in. “Feel It All The Time” is very good shoegaze-y music. It’s not the most innovative lo-fi but it is very good.
However, these are balanced by cuts like “With U,” a perfectly acceptable indie rock song. It’s competent, but forgettable for that. I’ve heard countless songs just like it and without any particular piece to elevate it, the song just slips past your notice every time.
“Shotgun” though is nothing short of spectacular. It’s got a delightful fuzz running through it and painfully smart lyrics. It’s a fantastic song and Sometimes, Forever at its best and with peaks like this, it becomes very easy to forgive an occasional song that falls short of distinction
Of all the solo careers coming out of One Direction, there’s no doubt that Harry Styles is just a notch above. He didn’t necessarily start out that way: his eponymous debut album showed promise with its 60s-tinged classic pop sounds, but ultimately proved to be fairly mediocre. Things got better with his second album Fine Line (2019) which featured earworm-of-the-decade “Watermelon Sugar” and bagged Styles his first Grammy (for the same track).
In the years since that album and third album Harry’s House (2022), a lot has happened in Styles’ personal life. Most notably: actress and now award-winning director Olivia Wilde famously left her partner and father of her two children for Harry Styles. Olivia’s presence features subtly throughout the album’s lyrics – appropriately so, since Harry’s House is apparently meant to be about a day in his brain.
“Late Night Talking”, the album’s second single, is a bright R&B track with a ridiculously catchy chorus that features the title words. With the references to breaking cameras and following his lady to Hollywood, we guess that the late night talks in question were with Ms. Wilde. If “Late Night Talking” bases itself on oblique references, “Cinema” gives it to us straight as the most direct ode to Olivia. The track lays bare the equation between them – she, the worldly cool older woman and he, the eager-to-please and madly in love. “I just think you’re cool, I dig your cinema / Do you think I’m cool, too? Or am I too into you?” he simpers. Also notable: his voice may be sweet may be sweet but the lyrics on this track definitely veer into some spicy territory with his thoughts about her.
There are other tracks on this album that are great outside of referencing his new lady love, though. Opening track “Music for a Sushi Restaurant” immediately grabs your attention with the heavy bass lines and Styles’ charming falsetto. The bright and brassy chorus makes for an altogether irresistible track – one can even call it a “song of the summer”. Of course, it would have to share that title with Styles’ other big hit from the album – first single “As It Was”. It’s not “Watermelon Sugar” in terms of sheer virality but it’s as great of an addition to his discography. The instrumentals are bright but muted, and his vocals have a melancholy edge to them – if the whole album is about a day in the life in his brain, this is about a not-so-good day where he’s sitting at home, alone, on the floor, and possibly with drugs, to numb his loneliness.
“Daydreaming” is another sunny and bright track with horns, a thick bass and almost a disco feel in its exuberance, while “Satellite” is a decent track with some interesting drums and a space analogy to the distance between two individuals – kind of in the same spiritual tone as Ariana Grande’s “NASA”. Finally, “Matilda” is a sweet track ostensibly written for the title character of Roald Dahl’s classic novel (or at least someone like her). The quality of his vocals shines in its warmth and understanding on the chorus: “You can let it go, you can throw a party full of everyone you know / And not invite your family ’cause they never showed you love, you don’t have to be sorry for leavin’ and growin’ up”.
Beyond these tracks, though, the album has its fair share of weaker tracks – not duds, especially, but low on the notability scale. A lot of these tracks seem to be about a failed romance that, in retrospect, judging by the relative quality of these tracks, hasn’t provided the best inspiration for him. “Daylight” is a largely forgettable track about a withholding girlfriend while “Grapejuice”, “Little Freak” and “Keep Driving” are mild, vague tracks about the missed love interest, albeit with some interesting visual cues (red wine; ginger ale; tracksuits hiding a yoga-toned body). Album closer “Love of My Life” caps off this series of tracks with a final ode to this lost love; distance seemed to have been the death knell (“It’s unfortunate / Just coordinates”) so at least we have the full story there.
All in all, Harry’s House opens invitingly enough with some bright, brassy hits, but things get milder and less interesting the deeper you go in. To stick with his chosen house-as-mind analogy, perhaps there’s some finetuning and self-work that’s still pending on Styles’ end – and hopefully the next album will be even better.
Rating: 7/10
Best tracks: “Music for a Sushi Restaurant”, “As It Was”, “Late Night Talking”
The first things that sticks with you from Remember Your North Star are a couple of razor blades embedded in the candyfloss. The album has a lot of the cloud-like consistency of candyfloss; the music is soft, gentle and jazzy. It’s ever so mildly effervescent. It provides the softest of velvet to envelop the iron of “mama loves her son” and of “i’m certain she’s there.” These snippets of her personal suffering and the universal pain that they mirror are storytelling of the absolute highest caliber.
She’s also a lot of fun when she stunts though. The swagger in “big daddy ya” is as infectious as the music. It’s empowering to sing along to. Similarly, her bragging in “keisha” is impeccable. You’re as puzzled as she is at someone unable to appreciate how good she is.
The only issue here is that sometimes in between all of these strengths, she can take the relaxation of the music and slip too far into languor. The jazz of “reprise” is mostly strong, but in places like the chorus become a little too smooth for even her vocals to save. It’s a great album, albeit one that would have been elevated by a little more energy. Still, I’m certainly not churlish enough not to like nice things.
Sometimes, a musician needs to take some space from their existing band to go and explore something new. Neither Thom Yorke nor Johnny Greenwood is that musician. Their new project with drummer Tom Skinner never strays that far from their Radiohead roots and sadly never quite lives up to the best of a band that admittedly is quite hard to live up to.
A Light For Attracting Attention has its fair share of interesting fragments and plays fairly decently overall. There’s nothing here that’s really objectionable. However, the sound really did need additional texturing. They’ve stripped it down, but lost some of the depth and complexity that made Radiohead and this is just not a compelling album in the way of their best. The album just evolves too slowly and doesn’t pack enough in what it does. It’s still decent Radiohead, I just wish it was more.
Un Verano Sin Ti was the most puzzling release of the year thus far. Bad Bunny’s mix of Caribbean musics was completely unexpected and constantly surprising. It was also just too good to deny.
“Party” could be pretty standard reggaeton but Bad Bunny’s crooning elevates it well beyond the regular just for it to go straight back to the dancefloor with the chorus. Similarly, the first half of “El Apagon” is conversational and feels intimate, as though you’re talking to someone in a bar, just for the bar to turn into a dancefloor and a Puerto Rico-pride one at that. You can see the flags unfurling from the rafters. You can hear the entire building jumping up and down and you can see the solo voice take command over the whole thing.
There are two pillars that make this album special. The first is the depth and texture of the sound. “Moscow Mule” opens as though this is a producer’s album with an extended instrumental-only section and wildlife sounds and as the song progresses, this remains true. There are quiet drum beats, little vocal hiccups, quiet moments and tiny, little fascinating subbeats.
Secondly, Bad Bunny just brings a ton of emotion to every track. There’s a quaver in his voice in “Dos Mil 16” that immediately just takes the whole song over. On top of that, these tracks are just bangers. Listen to something like “La Corriente” and no matter what you feel of Latin club music, you can’t help but enjoy it, and that’s really this album in a nutshell.
I didn’t expect the maturity of Mr. Morale. It kind of feels not only that Kendrick is too big and too important for growth, but also too developed. When your second album is To Pimp a Butterfly, you no longer feel human enough for growth. We don’t expect the prophet on the mount to go to therapy.
This growth is most obvious in the music. Mr. Morale takes from Kendrick’s discography and builds on it. There are pieces of all of his major work here synthesized into a single album. You can see some of the storytelling of Good Kid in cuts like “Auntie Diaries,” the message of TPaB in ones like “Savior,” the bangers of DAMN in the earworm “Rich Spirit” and even the cinematography of Black Panther in songs like “Mr. Morale.” This is not a medley though, each of the songs show a variety of Kendrick’s strengths and all of these themes run strongly throughout the entire album
More memorably though, the entire album is themed on a message of growth. This idea comes in again and again and from a variety of angles. The opener “United In Grief” starts out with the emptiness of materialism as Kendrick details buying cars and watches he doesn’t care for, a theme later reinforced by the absolute banger “Rich Spirit”, in which he doesn’t even bother spending the money to replace a broken phone.
“Savior” is the strongest statement of this thesis and the one that most brings in the personal side. TPaB was an album with a message and an album that came at a very specific moment in time. “Alright” was an anthem for BLM and that combined with the clear intelligence of Kendrick Lamar makes it hard not to look to him for guidance. He takes this song and a few others to absolve himself of this responsibility and absolve ‘Bron and Cole and Future at the same time so as to highlight that the weight falls on you and no one else.
He does this with some excellent guest spots. It’s a fascinating song that brings in a lot of interesting pieces and uses them to underscore the message of the song. That chorus asking if you’re happy for him sells the core of the song and the album strongly. He’s got a lot of soft piano work and swirling backing in this album and it really lets his raps shine.
This thesis runs especially strong at both ends of the album. The opener “United In Grief” really drives home the emptiness he feels and uses intriguing, fluttering percussion at the back and a halting piano to texture Kendrick’s words. It’s neither him at his best rapping nor his most insightful thinking, but he does bring some really interesting musical shifts through the song.
On the other end, “Mirror” is a top-tier closer. It takes the cinematography and exultation of Black Panther and gets a clever, pulsating, beat going that fully underscores the repeated “I choose me, I’m sorry” of the chorus. It’s hard not to feel happy for Kendrick when you hear the glory in that statement. It’s not new to see how heavy is the head that wears the crown, Kendrick himself said this as far back as TPaB, but he takes that abdication and shows you the wonder in it and so dulls the sting of his ask underneath the message – that you take responsibility for yourself.
Some of the other tracks can’t quite make as strong a statement however. “Crown” speaks of not being able to please everybody, but is never much more than shallow. There are some very interesting swirls in the music and the whole feels almost Radiohead at points, but the song just doesn’t justify it’s runtime. It might have been something if trimmed but ends up just filler. “Die Hard” is another Black Panther-style song and never does more than act as filler here. It was exciting to hear this kind of song in the Black Panther album when it was a new sound and the album was focused on it but it doesn’t do anything much here.
There’s unfortunately quite a bit more filler than I would like. “Silent Hill” never gets to be anything more and Kodak Black brings in a supremely boring verse that in no way justifies his inclusion in the album. Seeing a trap cut was novel but just not interesting enough. “Worldwide Steppers” brings in some solid storytelling but has nothing interesting besides that. It doesn’t even have Kendrick rapping at his best. Baby Keem is just boring in “Savior – Interlude.” “Father Time” has some interesting story in there but nothing that memorable really and it’s even more forgettable as music. It’s not his best rap at all.
Even his filler is pretty good though. There’s some interesting work in K.’s trap and talking about racism through touring Denmark is a lot of fun. “Purple Hearts” might not do much for me but Ghostface brings in a nice old-school verse and the whole things is reminiscent of Graduation-era Kanye. These tracks are not really cause for complaint as much as a mild wish for more.
That’s why it helps a lot that he has a couple of real bangers in this album. “Rich Spirit” is just very good and that hook is nothing short of amazing. “N95” does indeed go hard. “Count Me Out” is similarly excellent. Kendrick does interesting things with the flows and sounds of the song. He builds up expectations just to throw you off, but it takes a while to get interesting.
“Mother I Sober” may not be the kind of track to bump with the top down but it is one of the best songs that Kendrick has ever made. It’s immediately attention grabbing and the mixture of Kendrick’s rapping and the Beth Gibbons chorus is heady. The haunting vocalizations that run through the track serve as great support for the storytelling too. It’s a very exciting song and a very honest one as well and one that links perfectly into “Mirror.”
The most interesting track though is “We Cry Together,” in which Kendrick and Taylour Page scream obscenities at each other for 5 minutes and 41 seconds. It’s an aggressive song. You notice when it starts to play. The directness of the swearing and the twin voices have shades of “Kim.” It may never get as violent but it is every bit as intense.
For all of that though, it doesn’t fully work out. It’s jsut not the best lyrics. The rhymes, especially the cross-rhymes, are weak. It’s a relief whenever the conversation switches to monologues as while having the two rappers overlap should be clever, the rhymes are so weak as to break it entirely, especially as their flows don’t mesh at all. Also, ending with them choosing sex is a weak choice, albeit one almost entirely redeemed by the tap dancing at the end.
The other track to note, “Auntie Diaries” is very strong storytelling with a hell of a stinger at the end. Kendrick is very sympathetic when talking about his trans family members and that sympathy is necessary for a sogn like this. He brings in some of his best lyricism here, especially when the chorus shifts with the subject and the rapping is compelling throughout. It’s a very strong song, but shallower than I would have liked. In his best work, tracks like “Sing About Me” or “The Art of Peer Pressure,” he brings in small, very lived-in details and brings more personality to his characters. Both Mary-Ann and Kendrick’s uncle feel two-dimensional and Kendrick standing up in church is a hackneyed image. The song lacks individuality and so sometimes falls into preachiness, albeit for a very worthy cause. It is a shame though that the most memorable part of the song comes from Kendrick touring. It would have been a better song had he centered it less on himself, even if it is still a great track.
That’s kind of where I end up with Mr. Morale, very good music with evident flaws. It’s not quite the storytelling of Good Kid, not quite the message of TPaB, not quite the rapping of DAMN but enough between the pieces to be only a bit behind the first two and about the level of the last. It doesn’t really bring in much that’s new and that’s a first for K.Dot, but it acts as something of a consolidation of what is already an all-time career in rap, and that’s more than enough to make for truly excellent music.
There’s a lot to like about The 7th Hand. The music is immaculate. There is obscene skill behind the whole thing. There are moments of transcendence. For all of its strengths though, it is just short enough of challenge to mire the whole album.
It oscillates quite sharply between pleasant and aggressive throughout and in the opener “Emanation” you have some very energetic sax work followed by a relaxing piano solo. They both end up flat however. The sax starts strong and is played very well, but it lacks challenge and ends up going nowhere you wanted to visit. The piano solo is a little off-kilter but needed to be fully askew. It’s the same story in “Lift.” There’s a lot of sound and fury, but it’s ends up signifying nothing.
Sometimes, the album takes a turn more towards the pleasant, such as in “Fugitive Ritual, Selah” and it does it well. It may have done better with stronger focus on that side, but that does nothing to help the lack of challenge.
The 7th Hand has moments though. The opening of “Witness” evokes a deep, verdant, arboreal scene and thread some ominousness through it to great effect. These moments just are not enough to lift an album that can never quite escape falling flat.
Top Five Records 