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FKA Twigs: LP1

7 Sep

LP1 is a complex album. It’s justified, people are complex beings and LP1 is about people. There’s been a lot of Weeknd-esque R&B through a haze of drugs and sex out recently, but this is an album that not only stands out but raises the bar substantially.

FKA twigs has her weak points lyrically, but there are not that many and the themes she covers more than makes up for it. “Lights On” is a beautiful discussion of vulnerability in relationships and “Give Up” is frightening in it’s quiet dominance. There are weak points here as well. “Numbers” for instance, is well covered ground. However, as a whole, they are powerful. “Kicks” and “Hours” are subtle, scary looks at how dependent one can get on a partner.

The sound is quite as clever. Always ephemeral and sensuous, it is as responsible for setting emotion as the lyrics. The lush production frames her voice beautifully and is surprisingly accessible for an album this intelligent.

This is an astoundingly coherent debut album and quite as inventive as one could hope. The relationships of her album may all be broken, but she has mastered one key part for her relationship with her listeners. She left us wanting more.

– @murthynikhil

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Damon Albarn: Everyday Robots

25 Aug

Everyday Robots is a lovely album. It’s amazing how British that word can be. Damon Albarn is no stranger to the British album. Some of his stuff with Blur, like the unmistakable classic Parklife, is as British as you can get without being the Village Green Preservation Society, but that is the snarky and cynical Brit. This is a more introspective album. This is an album with honesty and with sadness. This is a quiet chat indoors because of the rain.

Everyday Robots is Mr. Albarn’s first solo album. As with Blur, social commentary runs through this album. This time, he speaks of technology and how far it takes us from each other. However, this album is not about society at large as much as the singer. This is by far the most personal album that I have ever heard from Damon Albarn and it makes a nice change.

This is a beautiful, if sometimes a little haunted, trip through his mind. This album does an excellent job of using melodies to reinforce lyrics, both of which hold strong throughout. Standout moments include the downbeat funk of “Lonely Press Play”, the thudding beat of “Photographs (You Are Taking Now)” and the choral effects of “Heavy Seas of Love.” This album does a great job of hitting emotions.

Damon Albarn has to be one of the first people to mind when thinking about auteurs of the past 30 years of music and with Everyday Robots, he remains a powerhouse. However, here he does so intimately. This is a new skin for someone who has been around a while and he wears it well. Everyday Robots is a very good album.

– @murthynikhil

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Broken Bells: After The Disco

8 Aug

Broken Bells, the side-project of the Shins’ James Mercer and Danger Mouse, have come together here to make their second album. After the Disco proves to be a very listenable, if rarely challenging pop album.

This is a consistent and cohesive album, running its themes of the disco beat by way of synth pop and occasionally blues-rock. “Holding On For Life” does a strong Bee Gees impression over a pulp science-fiction
story. “Leave It Alone” provides an interesting diversion into soft-rock and confessionals. However, the album as a whole lacks strong moments. The sum is a little too bland to recommend.

After the Disco ends up being a very gentle album. It has no major offenses, but fails to achieve distinction. This is a pleasant album and I enjoyed listening to it, but I’m not going to regret forgetting it.

– @murthynikhil

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Wednesday’s Wolves: The Queen EP

4 Aug

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It’s a buyer’s market for fans of the indie-folk genre. The likes of Of Monster’s and Men, The Tallest Man on Earth, and Mumford and Sons have popularized melodic guitars and absurdly long band names once again, making it a sizeable challenge for newcomers to leave their mark.

Wednesday’s Wolves’ debut EP The Queen EP makes an ambitious and largely successful attempt at such an impact, with a record that ends up being much, much greater than the sum of its sparse musical parts. The ridiculously gorgeous album art doesn’t hurt either!

The brain child of Ysabelle Durant and Chrissy Renker, The Queen EP avoids some of the familiar trappings of the indie folk genre and embraces others wholeheartedly, providing 12 minutes of hauntingly beautiful music that runs through a whole gamut of emotions.

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 Chrissy and Ysabelle staring wistfully at the ground/horizon

 The EP starts off with “The Stranger’s Waltz” – an understated, harmonized musical delight that showcases the duo’s talent for making magic out of almost nothing. Chrissy’s rhythm-guitar-waltz and Ysabelle’s chilling glockenspeil do a great job of enrapturing right from the start, but it’s when their blended voices kick in that they truly seize your soul. Chrissy and Ysabelle each have vocal textures reminiscent of a mix of Joan Baez and Natalie Merchant, and together are able to create some incredible harmonies, particularly in the final verse’s round.

The song is backed by some vivid (albeit somewhat obscurantist) lyrics:

“All the golden coins the callers gave to me
They vanished as the daytime caused the dark to flee
And all the silver starlight that lit up my way
It faded as the sun came up, turned silver into grey”

Reading a lot like an early Neil Gaiman draft (which would make sense, given the American Gods reference hidden in the band’s name), the lyrics paint a romanticized, gloomy picture of a symbolic “morning after.”
Up next is “War Paint.” Despite the aggressive title, the song continues the musical theme of minimalist texturing, albeit this time in a major key. Chrissy’s finger-picked guitar provides a soft but sturdy framework on which to hang her lovely reverb-laden voice. Again, Ysabelle’s glock provides a punctuated descant at all the right places.

The cheerier tones of the song are somewhat betrayed by the darker lyrics: an abstract imagery-laden take on what seems to be broken love.

“War Paint” seems to capture the electric atmosphere of the world after a Thunderstorm, making it a great song to listen to during this monsoon season!

Rounding out this too-short EP is the titular “Queen.”

“Tamer of the savage beasts
And so much braver than I ever could be
You’re queen of all that you survey
And ruler of the youth that stayed in me”

“Queen” continues the upbeat trend of “War Paint” by sticking to finger-picked major key guitar. Not dissimilar to Goldspot’s “Miss Johnson” in its musical approach, “Queen” relies equally on all of Wednesday’s Wolves’ best elements. Ysabelle’s cajon makes its presence felt properly for the first time, providing a scattered barely-there rhythm that fortifies Chrissy’s finger pickin g and allows for a marvelously mellifluous vocal line to drive the song forward. “Queen’s” bridge features Ysabelle finally going to town on her glockenspiel, creating a rhythmically intricate melody that leaves traces of itself in one’s memory long after the song (and EP) is over.

The Queen EP is a wonderful debut effort, and is evidence of a band with a bright future ahead and the ability to stick out in an overcrowded genre. Future efforts could stand to see some more musically complex work to accompany their wonderful vocal textures and moods, but it’s clear that this level of musical craftsmanship is definitely not out of their grasp.

 


The Queen EP is available on Bandcamp for livestreaming and download on a “name-your-price” basis. Physical CDs are also available at the band’s live shows, for those of you lucky enough to live in England.  Check out Wednesday’s Wolves on Facebook for more updates!

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Phantogram: Voices

21 Jul


Voices is exactly what it appears to be, a good indie pop album. There’s a little more R&B and a little more hip-hop here than you would find on, say, the CHVRCHES album, but it still hits all the notes you expect it to and hits them well.

Sarah Barthel’s vocals are excellent throughout and shift the songs around the more static beats behind them beautifully. The beats themselves are easy to fall into. This is a hard album to tire of.

The album suffers from some inconsistency though. Songs like “Black Out Days” and “Howling at the Moon” cannot help but be stand-out tracks, but much of the rest does not bring that same level of intensity. Also, while Sarah Berthel’s vocals are amazing, the couple of times that the other half of Phantogram, Josh Carter, takes the mic are sub-par.

At the end of the day, Voices is an album with plenty of strengths, but ends up a little forgettable.

– @murthynikhil

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Robyn & Röyksopp: Do It Again

5 Jul

Everything about this collaborative EP screams experimental. Certainly neither Robyn nor Röyksopp have ever been scared of doing something new. Do It Again is chock-full of ideas. Unsurprisingly though, those ideas vary in quality.

The EP opens with “Monument”, a gorgeously somber and reflective piece that is then intruded on by the mediocre electronic of “Sayit”. The title track, “Do It Again” is then a more standard Robyn track, showcasing her vocals over an exuberant beat. While not quite a Robyn classic (such as Who’s That Girl, if you wanted initiation), it is still fun. “Every Little Thing” aims for unexpected but falls a little too hard into tiresome. Finally, the closer “Inside the Idle Hour Club” brings us back into introspection and then keeps going. The wordless, synth track is undeniably self-indulgent and overlong, but nonetheless lovely.

It’s always nice to see something new, and Do It Again manages that in spades. It doesn’t reach the quality bar I’ve come to expect from Robyn, but that wasn’t its point.

– @murthynikhil

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Lana Del Rey: Ultraviolence

23 Jun

I enjoyed Lana Del Rey’s 2012 album Born to Die. It was over-stylized and a little too easy to digest, but nevertheless good, intriguing music. Even if it painted in cliché, the album itself made an interesting whole and the pictures it drew were unique, if not wholly novel. Additionally, it was highly consistent and coherent, both of which are necessary for something that tries to be new. Ultimately though, the album failed to live up to its breakout single “Video Games” and similarly her second album Ultraviolence fails to live up to Born to Die.

The album starts well. The title track is a wonderful trip into her world. There is all of the theater that defines her work, the sounds and imagery writ large for none to miss. When she does well, she can do very well. Her voice drifts languorously through exquisite soundscapes. It’s hard to find music quite as evocative as her best.

Sadly, that doesn’t sustain long enough and the album collapses a little on itself. Her pose starts to feel tired and the album devolves in places to mere emotional hooks instead of actual statements. Additionally, the lyrics are bad enough to break the mood in places. I don’t really need her crooning that she’s a bad girl and the ending of “Brooklyn Baby” is so painfully obvious that actually saying it is just crude.

The album does sound quite different than Born to Die. This is slower and less catchy, but more rich and atmospheric, more theatrical. This is still very clearly a Lana Del Rey album though and there are not enough of those around. No one else makes pop that sounds like hers. All told, this is a quite reasonable album and she does get points for uniqueness, but this is still nothing more than reasonable.

– @murthynikhil

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Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Push the Sky Away

15 Jun

Push the Sky Away is one of the most consistent albums of recent memory. It does an amazing job of setting a tone and a quality bar and sticking to both. Mildly disconcerting and quite ominous, this is the aural equivalent of walking at night in a strange forest.

The enunciated, almost groaned, vocals make for a potent atmosphere and the bass and drums push it far into the sinister. It is rare to get an album this coherent and it is quite the pleasure to listen to. The music itself is very solid. Despite a lack of true hooks or accessible entry points, it is quite easy to sink into the depths this album affords you. The songs unfold at their own leisurely pace, but carry you along the entire way. These are songs capable of grabbing you early and never letting go.

Save for lyrics that are never as clever as they seem to believe, this is an excellent album and well worth a listen.

– @murthynikhil

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Kendrick Lamar: Section.80

2 Jun

Section.80 is the work of a very talented kid. This is Kendrick Lamar’s album before good kid, m.A.A.d city and before “Control.” This is back when he was just a guy with talent and not one of the biggest names in the rap industry. The inexperience shows, there some degree of searching for who exactly he is, but there is also enough identity to make a very good, very individual album.

There are some stellar cuts on this album. “A.D.H.D.” is an excellent tale of life in the poorer parts of L.A. “No Make-Up” is a positive track in the vein of Goodie Mob. “HiiiPower” is K.Dot’s take on “So Appalled” and “Keisha’s Song” is “Brenda’s Got A Baby” and both are exceptional themselves. However, the album has its share of weak points and lacks the consistency of a more experienced rapper. His flow is a pleasure to listen to, but his lyrics have moments of weakness amongst all the cleverness.

In summary, Section.80 is a little bit rough but well worth a listen, even three years and a sequel into its history.

– @murthynikhil

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Diana: Perpetual Surrender

22 May

Perpetual Surrender is now inextricably linked to the video game Hearthstone for me. The nice thing about Hearthstone is that it is a game that you can play with whatever music you like and I have had Perpetual Surrender on hand for a while now. This is good, solid music. I could listen to this album indefinitely. I just doubt that I will remember any of it later.

This is a glossy, 80’s revivalist pop album that is fun to listen to. That statement is neither praise nor damnation, merely fact. It is the kind of album where soft saxophone solos play over synths. “Perpetual Surrender” is often intriguing. “That Feeling” is an excellent song with undeniable catchiness. Yet, for all of the album’s many strengths, it is a little too bland to truly champion.

This album is a person at a party, a person who is dressed nicely and seems to have everything together. A person with whom you have an interesting chat and share some laughs. A person with whom you enjoy the time you spend. At some point though, you have to leave the party and you leave unchanged. I needed something more.

– @murthynikhil

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