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Kendrick Lamar: To Pimp A Butterfly

13 Apr

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I really like To Pimp a Butterfly. It’s hard not to like Kendrick Lamar right now, good kid, m.A.A.d city was a classic and his work since then has been exceptional. While not quite the masterpiece that his previous album was, To Pimp a Butterfly can at least raise the question when it comes to sheer quality and most certainly surpasses its predecessor in innovation.

That’s part of what made the album so hard to evaluate. There is no doubt that this is a challenging album. It bends genre incessantly, “These Walls” could have come off a Prince album and “For Free” is more slam poetry than hip-hop. A jazz band backs the entire production. Yet, despite those things, this is a hip-hop album through and through. Songs like “King Kunta” or “The Blacker the Berry” are fire for even the most die-hard rap purist.

It challenges the listener with content as well though. The entire album has a running storyline of temptations from Lucifer and tests from God with Kendrick as a messiah. “u” tears deep into Kendrick showing him holding himself responsible for his failings and tears into the listener as a result. “Mortal Man” questions the listener’s dedication to him, but comes off as self-doubting instead of accusatory. For all of the lows though, there’s the positivity of songs like “i” and “Complexion (A Zulu Love)” both of which break up the intensity of the album very nicely while also just being very good music.

To Pimp a Butterfly is very simply what you should be listening to right now and what you will be listening to for a long time.

– @murthynikhil

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Drake: If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late

9 Mar

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It always takes a mixtape to get the best out of Drake, and while studio issues have pushed this into being a paid release, this album has a much more comfortable feel than his commercial work. There is a reason why Drake is one of the biggest names in rap right now and this is a much needed return to form for him.

Despite that If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late has a strange feeling set of flaws. The biggest one is that it doesn’t feel as individual as is normal for Drake. There are places where his beats and even his flow feel like they’ve come from someone else. It’s not surprising that Drake would pick up some of what is floating around rap these days, it’s just a little disorienting.

The album as a whole though remains distinctly his. There’s more menace in here than normal, but it’s a good look for him. It does require quite a profound suspension of disbelief when you hear him talking about threatening people, but that doesn’t steal the ominous nature that both his stellar production and lyricism carries here. Also, his shot at Tyga is one of the better disses in recent rap history.

All told, this is a solid entry from a top tier rapper. It’s not a classic, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be listening to it.

– @murthynikhil

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Run The Jewels: Run The Jewels 2

4 Jan

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It’s nice to be treated like an adult. It’s somewhat strange to describe an album that is adolescent in its fury with that statement, but real talk is hard to come by. In a world that feels more and more bullshit, this is at least a flame to hold.

Killer Mike and El-P continue their screed against society with Run The Jewels 2 that their earlier mixtape set up and even if society has not improved, their music has. This album manages incredible consistency without sacrificing an ounce of passion along the way. This has the feel of vast work behind it. The lyrics are quotable to a fault, running such jewels as “We killin’ them for freedom cause they tortured us for boredom” and the excellent “You want a whore with a white dress. I want a wife in a thong”.

Their flow is exactly what you need for an album with this weight and like Outkast or Run-DMC the two rappers have a great feel for the other. The album moves between story-telling about police brutality in the powerful “Early” to long, explicit digressions like “Love Again” with equal comfort. They’re as comfortable posturing as ranting and that leads to an album that never feels stale.

Raw passion alone would be enough to make this one of the strongest albums of the year, but the craftsmanship that they have poured into this as well pushes this far above the normal cut.

– @murthynikhil

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SOHN: Tremors

14 Dec

It feels like the Weeknd’s House of Balloons is everywhere these days, and I’m really happy about it. Tremors definitely has its nods in that direction, even if it lacks quite the level of depravity of that or the more recent LP1 and with it, something of the punch of either of those albums. However, that doesn’t keep it from being quite good. “Artifice” in particular is a stand-out track. It looks like the present is tortured vocals wrapped in electronic grooves, and there are many worse things that it could be.

– @murthynikhil

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Porter Robinson: Worlds

29 Nov

When you get down to it, Worlds is just a meeting point between indie pop and EDM. There’s enough space there to create a variety of sounds for the album, and there’s enough talent here to make it consistently very listenable. The issue is that the touchstones never feel far. I lose focus when listening to something like half the album because I’ve heard the core of it before.

For all of that though, this album is large, varied and quite solid. The beats of something like “Flicker” for instance are undeniable. This is enough of an album to win a smile as long as it is playing. I just wish it forced some thought as well.

– @murthynikhil

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Jhene Aiko: Souled Out

9 Nov

Jhene Aiko has always had a number of things going for her. She has a lovely voice. Listening to her is always soothing. Also, the sheer number of big name collaborations that she has had ensures that she’s never too far from sight. With her earlier work though, I’ve always felt that her music has too little variance in it. It always felt a little too easy to move from calmed to bored. The stellar production on this album however keeps anything like that from happening.

Her voice still makes the album, but it plays with the music instead of using it as mere backing. On “To Love & Die” for instance, the beat shifts continuously under her vocals and sets up her vocal shifts perfectly. The album is still all slow jams about relationships, her core sound has not changed, it’s just better realized than ever before.

This album doesn’t try to be clever, but it manages very well at being comforting.

– @murthynikhil

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Thom Yorke: Tomorrow’s Modern Rainbows

27 Oct

Honestly, you probably already know if you’re going to listen to this album from the title alone. Very few bands have quite as large a musical footprint as Radiohead, and fewer still have as passionate fans. Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes is a little more personal than most Radiohead albums but very familiar all the same.

Tracks like “Guess Again” and “Motherlode” run the more up-tempo electronic-but-not-EDM beautifully, while on the other end “Truth Ray” is much more melancholy. However, it’s not all standard Radiohead fare. “There’s No Ice (For My Drink)” and “Pink Section” feel almost like world music. Large sections of the album don’t worry about leaving you with something to nod along to. They are just the sounds that feel interesting at that point.

There’s definitely experimentation here that would not make it on a Radiohead album, but it’s not the kind that causes you sit up and take notice. The feeling is more of a slightly familiar, slightly novel sound to fill a groove. This is far from being a masterpiece on the level of OK Computer or Kid A, but there is not much that is and that doesn’t keep Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes from being quite a fine album indeed.

– @murthynikhil

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Ex Hex: Rips

25 Oct
Photo courtesy Ex Hex's Facebook page.

Photo courtesy Ex Hex’s Facebook page.

Rips, the debut album of Washington, DC-based pop-punk trio Ex Hex, is definitely not about breaking new ground. The song structures are familiar: on mid-album number “How You Got That Girl”, an upbeat first verse leads into an equally energetic chorus, complete with Wo-oh-ohs thrown into the background. The lyrics are rather dated, mostly riffing on men who are disappointing (“Beast”), desperate (“You Fell Apart”) or foolish (“Hot and Cold”). Overall, Ex Hex is perfectly content with using the wheel just as it is.

That being said, Rips is one of THE best debuts we’ve heard all year.

Ex Hex is a perfect testament to an age-old saying: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Sure, the band makes songs with classic, almost predicable elements of pop and punk: but man, does it work. The ballsy opening lines on “New Kid” drip with the derision of Timony’s sneers and instantly draw you in. The sparkly, 70s-glam gem “Waterfall” subtly underline the exhilarating effect of a well-placed, well-timed guitar solo. On “Hot and Cold”, the broad beats, easy guitars and uncomplicated lyrics make you wonder: it can’t be that easy to sound so good, is it?

Photo courtesy Ex Hex's Facebook page.

Photo courtesy Ex Hex’s Facebook page.

One of the most striking things about the band is the comfort shared between its talented members. Ex Hex comprises three of punk rock’s women royalty. Mary Timony, singer and lead guitarist, is a punk veteran, starting her career with girl-punk band Autoclave and going on to form the all-women super-group Wild Flag with Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss. Bassist Betsy Wright and drummer Laura Harris have equally impressive resumes, working with bands such as Fire Tapes and The Aquarium, respectively. On Ex Hex’s crisp, concise 12-song run, the three members sync together in a way that belies their one-year common history – and speaks more of the diverse years of experience behind them.

As we wrote about last year’s trio of darling women rockers Haim, Ex Hex is blessed with a sense of what works. Unlike Haim, however, Ex Hex’s members have gained this sense over decades of successful work. In a way, that’s what sets Rips apart: although it is a debut, its comfort and confidence give it the aura of a record that is years and years in the making.

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Lykke Li – I Never Learn & Live at the Fox Theater (21/9/2014)

24 Sep

I’ve been listening a lot to the new Lykke Li album I Never Learn and also happened to have tickets to her concert last Sunday, so in the standard hyper-efficient Top Five Records manner, here is both the album and concert review.

I Never Learn

It has been a while since I’ve heard an album as dedicated to ballads as this one. I Never Learn is not just a collection of true pop ballads, it is a collection of true pop ballads about a break-up. It is also an excellent one, if a little repetitive.

Firstly, Lykke Li’s voice is consistently amazing. It is rich, human and above all communicative. She ranges from the more hazy “Just Like A Dream” to the frighteningly destructive “Gunshot” with ease. Her ballads are powerful and personal things. The entire album blames herself for the failure of the relationship and mines that vein deeply.

There lies my major complaint with the album though, it falls a little too far into sameness. It’s not precisely one-note, the slow “Love Me Like I’m Not Made Of Stone” is followed immediately by the anthemic “Never Going To Love Again”, but the album does blend together. There are songs that stand out, the aforementioned “Gunshot” and “No Rest For The Wicked” are excellent, but too much of the rest feels undifferentiated.

Nevertheless, this is a beautiful set of ballads and an excellent album. The relationship the album is drawn from may have ended, but with music like this her listeners at least will never let her go.

Live at the Fox Theater (21/9/2014)

Mapei

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The show was opened by Mapei, a Swedish genre-bending pop artist. Her set was inconsistent, but fun despite that. Her sound is rooted in pop but mixes in hip-hop and R&B and even has her occasionally rapping. Her debut album Hey Hey has just released and is definitely worth checking out.

Lykke Li

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Lykke Li herself was a pleasure to see. As with her records, her voice served her beautifully. She did not restrict herself to just her latest album and that added some welcome variance. Her sound has shifted a fair bit over the years and hearing them all made for an interesting concert. Besides, it was fun to hear her hits. Personally, “Little Bit” was the standout moment of the concert for me, but “No Rest for the Wicked” was also really good and her cover of The Boss’ “I’m On Fire” was exceptional.

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Additionally, her stage presence was amazing. She was frankly flirtatious during the entire thing, and she did it wonderfully. It was like watching her at prom, she felt young and happy. Her manner did a huge amount for the show. When the performer is clearly enjoying herself and feels at ease, it’s hard not to follow suit.

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This was a great show and it had everything that I look for, varied and great music with improvisation and done with personality to boot.

– @murthynikhil

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Bombay Bicycle Club: So Long, See You Tomorrow

13 Sep

The story of this album is that frontman Jack Steadman wrote it while traveling in India, Turkey and Japan. Travel is a tried and true method for innovation. “Blue Rondo à la Turk” for instance is a fascinating look into what Jazz could have been were it Turkish. So Long, See You Tomorrow however, has only made the tiniest of nods to its journeys. This is an acceptable alternative rock album, but not a particularly interesting one.

There is a lot of blandness in alternative rock. You see one generic group of young men follow another and they all seem and sound the same. There are a few things to distinguish this from the rest, “Eyes Off You” plinks its way through a piano backing and “Overdone” stacks layers and continually flips them back and forth.

You know what though? This review feels pointless. This is just another alternative rock album in a world that has too many. There is nothing here that offends and nothing that innovates. I’ve heard every sound it has to present too many times before. If you want yet another acceptable indie rock album then this is as good as any other. The only problem is how stagnant you’d have become.

– @murthynikhil

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