April/May/June album reviews

I havent been listening to much new music for the past three months, I've been focusing on exams and watching a ton of movies, but I've decided to get back on that GRIND, so here are some reviews of albums that I've either loved or hated for the past three months.

Lil Xan - TOTAL XANARCHY

Before I start proper I need to purge the worst musical atrocity released since the newest Fall Out Boy album from my system. TOTAL XANARCHY is one of the most innane, annoying and overly repetitive trap albums yet released, both in the shrill, below-average production of flat 808s and MIDI Hi-hats and in Lil Xan's bored croak of a voice. 'Tick Tock' is my pick as the worst track here, but it is only a few degrees of seperation from what I hesistantly call the 'best' song here, 'Saved By the Bell', with the former consisting of the lyric "Tick... Tock..." repeated dozens of times with bland, dreary production. This is surely one of the worst albums of the year, and even if you disagree, we can at least agree that the album artwork is likely the worst of the year.  2.1/10


Princess Nokia - A Girl Cried Red

Following in the steps of the recently deceased XXXTENTACION, Princess Nokia has gone full on early 2000s emo and I find it unlistenable. to clarify, I think the production on this EP is alright, and there are even some OK songs on here, like 'For the Night'. Unfortunately, Nokia adopts a nasal, shrill singing style that is ear-piercing and droning, as ell as sounding like a cynical parody of emo vocals. Hopefully this project is just a one-off detour, and I certainly don't begrudge this as much as I did XXX's attempts at emo, but at the same time this is decisively unenjoyable. 3.5/10



Father John Misty - God's favourite Customer

'Pure Comedy' was one of my favourite albums of last year, so I was excited to hear what FJM would come out with on 'God's favourite Customer'. While purposely less ambitious and experimental than it's predecessor - it's described as a 'pallete cleanser' in it's online description - this album benefits from being more melodic and less existential tha 'Pure Comedy', making it a more comfortable but less vital listen. 'Date Night' and 'Disappointing Diamonds' are more upbeat and catchy than anything on 'Pure Comedy', and 'Please Don't Die' is more heartfelt. The down side is some of the ballads on this don't stand up as well as the ones on 'Pure Comedy', such as the title track which has little to distinguish it from the more melodic or sensitive ballads that surround it. Even then, this is a very good album that will surely be loved by the vocal sector of FJM fans who hated 'Pure Comedy'. 8.0/10


Janelle Monae - Dirty Computer

This is a damn good pop album that is sure to end up on my end-of-year album list, albeit one which is held back by a few mediocre cuts. the bangers on here are soem of the best songs of the year, and there are a lot of them, especially on the first half of the album - 'Take a byte', 'Screwed', 'I Like That', 'Pink', 'Americans', 'Django Jane', 'Crazy Classic Life' and my personal favourite for now, 'Make Me Feel' - songs which take the best parts of pop music from the 80s and early 2000s and update them with modern-day production quirks and occassionally cringe-worthy but largely interesting topical lyrics based largely around sex and identity. The lull in the tracklist comes courtesy of the 10 minutes of the slow, washed out 'Don't Judge Me' and 'So Afraid', which are both perfectly fine but kill the joyful momentum of the previous poppier tracks. Either way, this is my favourite pop album of the year so far apart from MGMT's 'Little Dark Age'. 8.6/10


Parquet Courts - Wide Awake

Listening to punk albums in 2018 can be a painful expericence, with constant, uncreative references to Trump and ideas that are presented as revolutionary when they're mainstream, largely held beliefs like woman's rights and anti-racism. Luckily Parquet Courts cover a wider variety of topics and with a sense of humour and playful instrumentation. 'Wide Awake', 'Total Football', 'In and Out of Patience' and 'Violence' are all catchy, funky punk songs that sound like they were created at the height of punk, albeit with lyrical refernce to online videos. There's variety here as well, with the comparitively somber 'Mardi Gras Beads' sweeping through with a dreamy essence far apart from the distorted guitar jabs found on the rest of the album. Overall it's an absolute banger and is sure to be among the best punk albums of the year. 8.5/10

Ghost - Prequelle

I rarely review metal because of my lack of experience with the genre, but 'Prequelle' shares a lot in common with other metal-lite acts like Andrew W.K. where I can enjoy the music without feeling like I'm missing the point of it. It good. 7.3/10

 





Arctic Monkeys - Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino

At one point in time I called 'AM' one of my favourite albums - alas, I now think it's actually pretty awful in it's own plodding, arrogant, way. Despite my hang-ups, 'AM' seems to have been adopted as the premiere rock album of my generation and as such I was suprisingly excited for a new Arctic Monkeys album if nly so I don't have to hear the intro to 'Do I Wanna Know' in commn rooms for the next six months. Unfortunately for me, 'Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino' is far too wierd to gain the lnglasting impact of 'AM', but in a strange twist of fate I actually think that this could be their best album since 'Humbug'. It's a unique experiment, with lounge-music passages covered with metaphor-riddled poetry, often without a clear chorus and largely abandoning the dreary guitars of their past albums. As such, the best and worst parts of this album don't sound too diffrent from each other,the main differences being that the worst parts have overly ridiculous and self-indulgent lyrics like "I wanted to be one of the strokes", while the best songs - 'Four Out of Five' are more melodic and cohesive. With all that said, I'm interested to see how this holds up in years to come. 6.3/10

Courtney Barnett - Tell Me How You Really Feel

I really enjoyed some of the tracks off of Barnett's debut album 'Sometimes I sit and think, sometimes I just sit' but at the same time I thought that on the whole the album was overrated and 'Tell Me How You Really Feel' seems to have been with the level of fair praise that I belived Barnett's previous album should have recieved. This album is certainly a worthy follow-up to it's predecessor, the lows on the previous album being higher on this album, but the highs also being lower. Still, it's a charmingly dopey garage rock album that may not be the most original thing ever but is genreally enjoyable. 6.9/10


Pusha T - Daytona

The first Kanye-produced album of the year, 'Daytona' set a high watermark that foreshadowed what would come next. However, unlike on the next two projects, the shining star here was not Kanye but his progidy Pusha-T, who has become the kind of rapper beloved to hip-hop heads with his clear, punchy delivery of lyrics filled with wordplay and double entendres. All the tracks here are quality, with 'If You Know You Know' being my personal favourite. When it was released it was my favourite hip-hop release of the year - although that would quickly fall to the mentor just a week later. 7.7/10

Kanye West - ye

In 2016 Kanye West innovated the concept of what an album could actually be with 'The Life of Pablo', which he constantly updated throughout the year, remixing songs, adding tracks and re-shuffling the album order. Now with his quadruple release of albums he's produced ('Daytona', 'Ye', 'Kids See Ghosts' and that new Nas album I haven't listened to yet) he's once again getting the music world to consider the nature of the album. There has been debate over whether these 20-minute projects can be considered albums or merely EPs, with my opinion being that if the artist wants the audience to view the work as a cohesive album, as opposed to an EP of more disparate songs, then length doesn't particularly matter. This cohesion is certainly the case with 'ye', where all of the songs stay focused around similar themes of Kanye's struggles with fame and the bi-polar referenced on the cover. The two best songs on the album, 'Yikes' and 'Ghost Town' even both share spooky titles, the latter ending with one of the catchiest hooks of the year. West's rapping is up to the standard we've come to expect from his legendary discography, and despite what pitchfork may say I believe this stands up as another great album from Yeezus himself. 8.1/10

ALBUM OF THE MONTH(S) - Kids See Ghosts - Kids See Ghosts

Oof they don't make 'em like this anymore. 'Kids See Ghosts' is the kind of ground-breaking, borderless experimental album that feels like it's juggling about 10 genres at once yet manages to blend them into spooky, visceral and ultimately transcendental music. From the terrififying backing vocals of opener 'Feel the Love' to the power of 'Reborn' and the beautiful finale 'Cudi montage', this is a project sure to go down in musical history. It's so purely good and unique that I can see it having a long life online and if any album deserves to it's this one. 9.5/10

March 2018 album reviews

XXXTENTACION - ?

'17' was one of the worst albums that I heard last year, and so this new project '?' wasn't something I was eagerly anticipating. As it is, it's a little better than '17', but has many of the same problems that made that album so unbearable. This time round there are some spots with more trap-influence and with a sense of humour, like 'infinity (888)' with Joey Bada$$ and even some of the more emo leaning tracks are OK this time around, like 'NUMB', which benefits from having more elements than the rest of the borderline unlistenable acoustic guitar led tracks like 'ALONE, PART 3' and 'Pain = BESTFRIEND', where XXX's grading sad-boy voice meanders over basic melodies making something that is both too depressing to enjoy yet too annoying to soothe any actual depression. Worst of all is the baffling decision to include 'i don't even speak spanish lol' which is a generic piece of latin pop, that despite the songs title, has no semblance of irony or subversion. It's good enough to probably not end up on any of my end-of-year lists, but I would recommend that anyone who thinks this is peak emo go listen to American Football or Sunny Day Real Estate. 3.3/10

The Voidz - Virtue

As a fan f the Strokes' last EP, I was eagerly anticipating 'Virtue' by Julian Casablancas' side-project The Voidz, who have typically made much more experimental and ambitious music than The Strokes, and this project is no exception. Although there are hints of the Strokes to be found on the opening 'Leave It In My Dreams', the album quickly goes beserk into a pile of wobbly synths and hindi-style vocals on 'QYURRYUS', and this mad mix of colourful sounds continues on highlights such as 'One of the Ones', 'Permanent High School' and 'My Friend The Walls'. At 55 minutes this album could have been refined a little more - 'Wink' sits obsolete in the middle of the tracklist - but the album is varied enough to stop it getting boring, and the final two tracks are two of my favourites on the LP. 8.3/10

The Weeknd - My Dear Melancholy

The musical equivalent of a bread sandwich. 3.5/10






Jack White - Boarding House Reach

Surely one of the craziest rock albums to come from an established artist in the past few years, 'Boarding House Reach' reverses the downward trajectory of Jack White's career by fusing his typical garage rock with funk, electronic music and gospel. 'Corporation' and 'Connected By Love' are some of the most insane and fun songs of his solo career so far, and the more straightforward 'Over and Over and Over' has the best snarling riff I've heard this year. It's far from a perfect album - the latter portion of the album, while still good, isn't at the same standard as the rest - but it's proof that artists don't have to slowly release diminishing albums as they get older. 8.5/10

Mount Eerie - Now Only

Last year's 'A Crow Looked At Me' was one of my favourite albums of the year, and stands as one of the most heart-breaking and depressing albums ever made, as it detailed Phil Elverum coping with the death of his wife to cancer. 'Now Only' is similarly depressing for the most part, but the songs are much longer and more orchestrated this time. While it is a very depressing album, there are glimpses of light this time, primarily on the title track which is the only song within this album and 'A Crow Looked At Me' to have a chorus, and one which is strangely upbeat at that. This project will definitely be appreciated by fans of Sun Kil Moon, but as much as I see this album as vital and likely something which wasn't created to be enjoyed, I do find it less powerful than 'A Crow Looked At Me'. The longer songs can become jading in a way that the short fragments of his previous album didn't, and the nature of the album makes it difficult to return to. It'll probably be the most depressing album of the year though. 7.9/10

Young Fathers - Cocoa Sugar

I wanted to like this album more than I did, it has an annoying mix of some of my favourite songs of the year so far - the chilling 'Toy' and the uplifting 'In My View' - but buried within impenetrable and formless tracks like 'Fee Fi' and 'Wire'. Overall it's still a good album and an interesting listen, but I can't help but feel like it could have been one of the best albums of the year. 6.8/10

American Pleasure Club - A Whole F**king Lifetime Of This

I've never been the biggest fan of Teen Suicide, and their rebranding as American Pleasure Club hasn't really changed this, although I would say that this album is still decent. The more emo-leaning songs here are the best ones, like 'this is heaven & id die for it' and 'new years eve', with some other more experimental stuff like 'just a mistake' also being fairly interesting. Unfortunately these moments are bogged down by some unmemorable tracks - closer 'the sun was in my eyes' and a bunch of very short songs which act as interludes - and the downright bad 'sycamore', which combines a lofi-hip hip aesthetic with muffled vocals and irritating pitch shifting. 6.3/10

Lil Yachty - Lil Boat 2

I didn't dislike 'Teenage Emotions' as much as many did, but I'm less enamoured by this new mixtape. it has some highlights, like the opener 'SELF-MADE', but then a whole load of boring and/or repetitive 'trap bangers', which are devoid of anything which made him appealing to begin with. The 6 track stretch between the title track and 'she ready' are brain numbingly identical in sound, while 'FLEX', 'POP OUT' and 'WHOLE lotta GUAP' are repetitive to the point of getting jading. While there are a few good songs on here, it is ultimately a depressing and generic experience. 3.4/10

Remo Drive - Pop Music EP

After releasing one of my favourite albums of last year, 'Greatest Hits', I was hoping that the pop-emo band would release something equally great as a follow up, and unfortunately this 'Pop Music EP' is a disappointment. 'Blue Ribbon' sounds like a B-side from 'Greatest Hits' with cleaner production that makes it sound quite generic. 'Song of the Summer' is better but still feels like a B-side. Most dissappointing is the re-recording of 'Heartstrings', which is far inferior to the raw, lo-fi original. 4.7/10

Andrew W.K - You’re Not alone

I was blown away by this thing on my first listen, having zero expectation of this being good, and after that first listen I was convinced this would be in my top 5 albums of the year, but on multiple listenings it's not quite as good as I first thought. Every song is so bombastic that it can get a little jading, but in general I'm still in awe of this album. 'Ever Again', 'The Devil's On Your Side' and 'Music Is Worth Living For' are exemplary of what makes Andrew's album so enjoyable, they have such a pure quantity of guitars, pianos and vocals in each song that they can't help but sound epic. The lyrics are largely about partying (and I would expect nothing else from the man), but there is enough variety to make even the biggest party-phobe smile. 8.3/10

Superorganism - Superorganism

This album grew on me a fair bit from my first listen, and while I initially thought it was an average indie-pop album, I now see it as something which is not only an interesting and fun listen, but something which is futuristic. Combining the sample-heavy nature of hip-hop and electronic music but adding in elements of pop and indie and all covered with the deadpan, jaded vocals of the lead singer. The singles are the best songs here - 'Something For Your M.I.N.D' and 'Everybody Wants To Be Famous', but the rest of the tracklist holds up well, especially 'It's All Good' and the title/self-titled track. 7.2/10

ALBUM OF THE MONTH: Anna Von Hausswolff - Dead Magic

I wasn't sure what I was in for when I first saw the unsettling album cover to 'Dead Magic' by Swedish musician Anna Von HaussWolff, but after a month of listening to it, I believe that the cover is a good summation of the sound of this record. 5 tracks and 50 minutes long, 'Dead Magic' is filled with tension and dread brought on by long droning organs and vocals which are alternately chanted softly in a ghost-like fashion or growled explosively as on standout track 'The Mysterious Vanishing of Electra'. It's also a very unique project, sounding unlike anything I've quite heard before. The ominous organ drones remind me of Swans work this decade, but while an album like 'To Be Kind' is dirty and frantic, this is a more orchestral, fear-filled affair, as if the listener is being slowly brought through a huge Swedish forest towards something terrifying which we never see but we can hear getting closer and closer... Surely one of the most atmospheric and thrillingly unsettling experiences of the year. 9.1/10

February Album reviews

Justin Timberlake - Man Of The Woods

This album is getting totally roasted by critics, and for the most part it deserves it, although I will also say that I don't think this is an outright awful project overall. Some parts are undeniably bad: the pretentious interludes, 'Supplies' (Along with it's music video) and the uncomfortable 'Sauce' - but most of the stuff here is just uninteresting. It's hard to imagine anyone particularly hating or liking 'The Hard Stuff' or 'Flannel' or the just-as-boring-as-the-title-suggests 'Livin' Off The Land' and 'Breeze Off The Pond'. There are even a few songs I enjoy here, the title track is a mid-tier Timberlake song and 'Filthy' is an incredibly brave if unfitting and awkward choice for the opening track. Even the more pop-country leaning 'Young Man' and 'Say Something' are pleasant enough. Hell, one of my biggest problems with JT in general is mostly absent here, as the songs don't climb into tedious 7-minute plus runtimes. So maybe not as bad as people are making it out to be, but no classic. 4.4/10

Dream Wife - Dream Wife

It seems Dream Wife have released a fairly average power pop album which has been favourably compared to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but I don't hear it. Nobody could argue anything on here is as good as 'Maps', but discounting this unfair comparison (Which is almost entirely because both bands are fronted by women and in the same genre), 'Dream Wife' is an album which would be better if it didn't sound like so many British 'Saviours of rock' from the 2010s as the music press tries to sell second-rate indie music to a fanbase which has moved on. Absolutely nothing is wrong with this album, it's just not what indie rock needs, and sounds like it could have come out about 10 years ago. 5.2/10

Rich Brian - Amen

Formerly known as Rich Chigga, Rich Brian is a trap-rapper that makes music which could only have come out in 2018, with lyrics heavily focused on internet culture and production which exemplifies the mish-mash of genres that my generation has been exposed to thanks to streaming. The production is the most appealing aspect of 'Amen', with songs like 'Cold' having a soundscape juicier than the majority of trap. Unfortunately despite having some great singles this album is ultimately held back by the lyrics, which aside from several lines every song, are the typical trap topics of sex ('Kitty'), flexing ('Occupied') and haters ('Enemies'). 6.3/10

Hookworms - Microshift

This is one of the most ambitious and surreal rock albums I've found so far this year. With strong influences from The Flaming Lips and Animal Collective (Specifically 'Merriweather Post Pavilion', with 'The Soft Season' sounding like an outtake from that very album), this is largely still a very original album. Filled with synth interludes and lengthy compositions, this would usually not be a particularly accessible album, but the melodies are so captivating. 7.9/10




TDE - Black Panther Soundtrack

Surprisingly cohesive, and I do quite like 'All The Stars' (Basically by SZA) and 'I Am' (Basically by Jorja Smith), but Kendrick is largely disappointing and FUTURE's god-awful falsetto on 'King's Dead' is one of the worst things i've heard all year. (Also the film was fairly average). 5.8/10







MGMT - Little Dark Age 

I was really hoping that 'Little dark age'  would live up to the 80s-drenched single of the same name, and it definitely has. Nothing on here even really sounds much like the song 'Little Dark Age' other than gothic synthpop anthem 'One Thing Left To Try', but all of the songs are linked by a fun-filled homage to the electronic side of the 80s, from the glorious silliness of 'She Works Out Too Much' and 'Me and Michael' to the morbidly twisted 'When You Die', with it's bendy, quirky riffs and expletive lyrics. It's not perfect, and while no track is below average the LP is certainly front loaded with it's four best songs being the first four tracks, but it's hard to complain when the closer 'Hand It Over' rolls in. 8.5/10

The Wombats - Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life

I have a love-hate relationship with The Wombats, and much of their material teeters on an awkward line between great and awful. I can't stand the twee cheesiness of 'Let's Dance To Joy Division', yet I've been playing 'Be Your Shadow' since it was released in 2015. This new album sadly falls mainly onto the twee cheesy side of things and I can't get behind it. The synthpop of their last album has been swapped out for an awkward combination of post-punk and pop that works alright on 'Lemon to a Knife Fight' but usually falls flat. The lyrics try desperately to be smart, especially shown on 'Turn', and it ends up becoming cringe-worthy. 4.5/10


U.S Girls - In a Poem Unlimited
This is a really weird album, and it mixes funk, pop, electronica and rock together in a way I haven't really heard before, and it works fantastically well. Opener 'Velvet 4 Sale' has jazzy wah-guitars, crackling synthesisers, horns and layers of vocals, all underpinned by a disco beat, and while some tracks follow this formula ('Rage Of Plastics'), others go in the complete other direction, like the electric storm of 'Incidental Boogie'. The production is also great, with the different elements being brought together with cohesion while maintaining breathing space in the mix. Difficult to classify in genre but easy to categorise in quality. 8.4/10

6ix9ine - DAY69

I have absolutely no idea what to think about DAY69, or 6ix9ine in general. His brand of trap is fairly unique, shouting abrasive curses over moody beats, but gets tiring quickly since most of the songs sound identical (Including having one song twice on the tracklist), even if they are entertaining. The mixtape is weighed down with two posse cuts, 'RONDO' and 'KEKE' which are fine, but sound completely separate from the rest of the material. Also, 6ix9ine could have at least removed the 'SCUUUMM GAAANG' intro from most of these tracks so nobody has to hear it 8 times in a row. 4.0/10

Car Seat Headrest - Twin Fantasy - ALBUM OF THE MONTH

I was heavily biased towards loving this album before it came out, the original 'Twin Fantasy', released in late 2011 is probably within my top 5 albums of all time. It's amazing then that I actually like this cleaner, updated version more than the original. This 2018 version takes everything great about the original - the songwriting, the lyrics and how uniquely and brilliantly interconnected the whole album is - and improves the major issue I had with the album, the ultra lo-fi production. Along the way there are a few moments I love in the original which have been lost, such as the intro to 'Cute Thing', the outro to 'Nervous Young Inhumans' (Which is otherwise soooooo much better on the 2018 version) and the 'Thank God for the little things, then f*ck God that they're little things' line in 'Beach Life-in-Death', but I can sacrifice these moments for the new moments that we get. 'High To Death' is  improved so much it sounds like a brand new song, the new outro to 'Twin Fantasy (Those Boys)' is shockingly romantic (Like most of the album), and with a massively improved mix 'Bodys' can finally live-up to its potential as maybe the best indie-rock anthem of the decade. Best of all are the improvements made to the 13 and 16 minute-long 'Beach Life-In-Death' and 'Famous Prophets (Stars)', the former benefiting from an increased variety of guitar sounds that stop the song getting as jading as the previous version could occasionally get, and the latter being transformed from a middling cut to one of the best songs on the album by a newly added outro which reaches a climactic high. This will almost undoubtedly be my album of the year and also has a real chance of being my favourite album of the decade. 10/10

January album reviews

This year I want to improve the quality of my music writing so it's more than just using the same adjectives over and over again, and to do this I'm going to try and write a small review for every newly released album I hear at the end of each month. This is something that will undoubtedly get harder as the year goes along, as barely anything is released in January and Spring compared to Autumn, but hey, we'll see how it goes. The albums will be listed chronologically other than my 'album of the month' which will be at the end.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Gumboot Soup

The absolute madmen actually released 5 albums in 2017, and they were all pretty great, with 'Gumboot Soup' actually being one of the best ones. The compilation-style approach to the tracklist feels refreshing considering the last 8 Gizz albums have all been concept albums to some extent, and some of their best songs yet are on this - 'The Great Chain of Being' is monstruos, and 'Superposition' sounds like a drive down a tunnel at night. Not to mention that the chilled out 'Last Oasis' and 'Beginner's Luck' are some of the best summer tunes of the year so far (Although it'll be a while before I can properly utilise them). 8.0/10

Jeff Rosenstock - POST.

'WORRY' by Jeff Rosenstock is easily one of my favourite albums of the 2010s, and following it up was always going to be difficult, and 'POST.' has given us a 'Room On Fire' situation, with an album which is still generally great but is significantly less good than it's predecessor, leaving me with the feeling it will get overlooked in time. 'USA' is maybe the best song here, along with 'TV Stars', and the shorter punch of 'Yr Throat' and 'All This Useless Energy' stand up well to 'WORRY', but the album as a whole feels surprisingly short. The 5 minute ambient outro is a major reason why, but the other issue is that 'Beating my Head Against The Wall', 'Powerlessness' and 'Melba' all sound like songs Jeff has already done better. Still, even below-average Jeff is better than almost every pop-punk band. 7.5/10

They Might Be Giants - I Like Fun

2017 was the year I really got into American oddballs They Might Be Giants, and as such I was somewhat excited for 'I Like Fun', as despite having a career that has been going on for over 30 years they are remarkably consistent, and although their recent material lacks the reckless fun from their first five or so releases, it's still pretty great. 'I Like Fun' carries this on, and although it feels only several frustrating steps away from greatness, it's definitely one of their most concise, cohesive and dark albums. TMBG have always dealt with death as a subject matter in their songs, and that is the same here, with opener 'Let's Get This Over With' and closer 'Last Wave' maybe being the best examples of this, but the real standouts are the bizarre title track - which I hated on first listen but has grown on me since, it sounds like pretty much nothing I've ever heard, like a sci-fi soundtrack with brass and extended drum rolls - and especially 'When The Lights Come On', which ranks as maybe the most sincerely sad TMBG song ever created. 7.0/10

Camila Cabello - Camila

This sounds exactly like what I expect a pop album by a girl-group member gone single to sound like, with a focused grouped tracklist of well-made but ultimately dishonest and bland pop music. 4.3/10

CupcakKe - Ephorize

I first heard CupcakKe ultra-explicit brand of hip-hop on Charli XCX's 'Lip Gloss', and 'Ephorize' is pretty much everything a fan of that could want, with clever innuendos and hilarious wordplay that relates mainly to sex, genitalia or 'stylin on the haters'. Luckily there's enough variety in the production and moods of these tracks that this album never gets boring or overly obnoxious, and other than several annoyances - the contemporary EDM instrumental of 'Post Pic' is a drag near the end of the album - but standouts 'Cartoons' and 'Cinnamon Toast Crunch' make up for it. 7.8/10

Fall Out Boy - MANIA

Oh God. This album is so bad it makes me regret how negatively I reviewed 'One More Light' by Linkin Park last year, because this is worse. Even if we pretend that the failed attempts to copy mainstream EDM and pop trends on 'YOUNG AND MENACE' and 'HOLD ME TIGHT OR DON'T'  are the greatest songs ever written, the tinny, overcompressed production is some of the worst I have ever heard, every song seems to have been finished and then turned up so high before being released that every song has become a solid block of hissing, bombastic noise. I have never like Fall Out Boy much beyond some early singles, but this is such a step down that it honestly makes 'Raditude' look like 'Pet Sounds'. 2.0/10 

Tune-Yards - i can feel you creeping into my private life

All I can say is that I don't particularly enjoy this album, the vocal-heavy style is so saccharine yet lacking in much actual catchiness or excitement, resulting in an album that feels longer than it's runtime, and becomes quite irritating. Some of the lyrical themes about cultural appropriation also rubbed me up the wrong way, and the self-flagellating 'Colonizer' seems like it was created purely out of guilt, and comes across poorly because it is a song that apologises for using african music influences while also exhibiting them. That said, this album is at least quite unique and some of the singles are well crafted. 5.5/10 

Jpegmafia - Veteran

The strangest and most experimental album I heard in January was 'Veteran' by Jpegmafia, an album so odd that even when the songs themselves might have few memorable hooks, there are enough unique production choices that it's constantly entertaining, with keyboard clicks edited to sound like trap-inspired snares and a beat made up of what I can only describe as mouth sounds on 'Rock N Roll is Dead'. 7.7/10

Migos - Culture II

This album is not only physically difficult to get through with it's frankly shocking 1 hour 45 minute, 24 song runtime, but it feels even longer due to about half the songs being so indistinguishable and boring that I can't even remember what they sound like by looking at the track name. My first listen to this was spent mainly browsing the internet because I was so bored out my mind by about 3 in every 4 tracks. My album of the month is another long, many-tracked album, but at least it has the decency to make the songs sound different, and feels like an artistic statement rather than a cynical way to get more streams, which 'Culture II' undoubtedly is. That said, the good material here is impressive, with 'Narcos', 'Stir-Fry' and the surprisingly depressing 'Gang Gang' standing out. 4.7/10

RAT BOY - CIVIL DISORDER

Something about RAT BOY really ticks me off, his voice irritates me, how derivative of Jamie T and britpop-era Blur he is annoys me and his personality seems simultaneously uninteresting and non-genuine. CIVIL DISORDER (written in all caps of course.) is his worst project yet, from the cringing lack of self awareness of  'SLAVE TO THE SYSTEM' (maybe the most generic song about revolution since 'Edge of A Revolution' by Nickelback in 2013), to the early 2010s pop-rap chorus of 'BE MY ANIME' complete with trap-flavoured hi-hats. Urgh. 3.5/10

Craig David - The Time is Now

I'm not sure if Craig David has ever made an album that could be considered particularly good, and ''The Time Is Now' is no exception, with Craig David's buttery smooth voice making little impact over increasingly tropical-house inspired instrumentals, with the KAYTRANADA produced 'Live In the Moment' being far better than anything else here. 4.6/10

Ty Segall - Freedom's Goblin - ALBUM OF THE MONTH

Observe Migos, this is how to do a double album! I'm not particularly familiar with Ty Segall's work mainly because it's not on Spotify and I'm too lazy to seek it out, but after stumbling across a stream of the album on Stereogum a week before it's official release I was TOTALLY PSYCHED DUDE!! Opener 'Fanny' is a lesson in garage rock, while 'Rain' sounds like a lost Beatles track (Perhaps ironic due to the popular Beatles B-side of the same name.). There are several extended instrumental jams on both sides of the album which fall into the sweet spot of loose enough to be exciting but controlled enough not to become too alienating, demonstrated perfectly on the extended closing track 'And, Goodnight'. I'm generally not a fan of 'throwback rock' (The Black Keys for example), but this is such a fully-realised and timeless celebration of rock in it's many forms that I can't help but love it. It's not perfect - like all double albums it could probably be cut down to a single incredible disc, but the cuts made would be more painful here than on most albums of the same length. 8.8/10

Top 20 albums of 2017

It's the big one! This has been a bit delayed by the late release of BROCKHAMPTON's Saturation III, but I'll be damned if I miss out a great album. This has been another decent, if not outstanding year for music, but as with any year there was a fair share of great projects, so let's go though my favourite 20!

20. Sandy (Alex G) - Rocket

Despite having an awkward and sketchy artist name (and I thought it couldn't get worse than 'Car Seat Headrest'), Alex G produced a breezy, atmospheric album that is mainly folk but has some entertaining surprises. 'Sportstar' is a vocoded piano ballad, and comes right after the Death Grips-esque 'Brick'. This song in particular is at complete odds with the teenage emotion of 'Bobby' and 'Proud', but it means this album is never predictable, and all great.

19. Creeper - Eternity In Your Arms

Creeper is one of the more interesting bands to come out of the UK in the past few years, and seem ready to bring some bombast and theatrics back! 'Eternity in Your Arms' is a collection of 10 fittingly gothic tunes that follow a loose storyline, but the real appeal are the energy of 'Poison Pens' and 'Suzanne', the sing-along of 'Black Rain' and 'I Choose to Live' and the pure self-aware hilarity of 'Misery'. This is sure to be my go-to Halloween album for some time.

18. Sampha - Process

Few artists released albums so difficult to classify this year as Sampha. 'Plastic 100°' and 'Reverse Faults' make a good case for calling it electronic, 'Blood on Me' has the chorus of an alternative R&B song, but a surprisingly funky bassline in the verses, while the instant classic 'No-one Knows Me Like the Piano' is more of a singer-songwriter tune. Either way, this is an inspired, beautiful and textured debut. One mercury award later, I can't wait to see what Sampha does next.

17. St. Vincent - MASSEDUCTION

I'd never really been a fan of St. Vincent before 'MASSEDUCTION', as although I loved 'Birth in Reverse' something had always stopped me wanting to listen to her self-titled 2014 effort. This has changed things completely, and at this point the purposefully tacky cover art is burned into my brain. A pop concept album with a real brain, this is an album about romance in all it's forms, from the heartbreak of 'New York' and 'Slow Disco' to the fetishism of 'Saviour' and the title track, and all in an innovative synth/guitar sound. 

16. Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods

It's weird to think that one of my most-listened to and undoubtedly one of my most enjoyed albums of the year is a meme mashup album, but 'Mouth Moods' is so good it may just go down as one of the all-time best mashup albums. 'ACVC' and 'Smooth' are hilarious the first time you hear them, but later come to show how similar stylistically opposite songs can be. That's not to mention the 'meme collage' madness of 'The Starting Line' and 'Annoyed Grunt', which seem to introduce a new sample every few seconds. best of all though are where Cicierega edits songs to actively improve them, turning 'In the End' by Linkin Park into something that would fit onto the Mario Kart soundtrack and turning 'Wild Wild West' by Will Smith into an actual banger.


15. The Mountain Goats - Goths

I always love it when I leave an album feeling like I've learnt something, and 'Goths' delivers this in spades. The songs here tell intriguing and charming stories about the goth lifestyle, for which the band clearly has a great affection for. From the bombast of 'Rain in Soho' to the joy of 'Wear Black' and 'Unicorn Tolerance', this is a concept album that proves there are hundreds of dormant ideas for songs, and that you can make a compelling album about anything if this level of humour and melody is incorporated.








14. King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard - Everything

A substantial amount of bands have only ever released four or less albums. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard released four significantly different concept albums in 2017 alone, with a fifth apparently planned to be released before the year is out. This could have gone totally wrong, but at the same time it's easy to see why it didn't. The saharan microtonal sounds of 'Flying Microtonal Banana' - my favourite of the four albums - are distinctly different from the end of the world psych-rock of the three-song 'Murder of The Universe', which is completely opposite from the chilled out jazz/funk of 'Sketches of Brunswick East', all of which seemed to lead up to the single song prog-rock masterwork that is 'Polygondawanaland', which was released for free with no copyright, allowing fans to use the music for whatever they want. Throughout 2017 King Gizz were a reliable source of music and memes with a clear love for their fanbase, and surely they deserve a break after LP 5!

13. Jens Lekman - Life Will See You Now

Hidden behind the terrible cover to 'Life Will See You Now' are the most upbeat, joyful pop songs of the year that helped brighten up a vaguely depressing summer. 'Festival Song' is probably the most cheerful song of the year, and it has competition from the groove of 'Wedding in Finistere', 'To Know Your Mission' and 'What's That Perfume That You Wear'. The rest of the tracklist pulls at the heartstrings with the aching perfection of 'How Can I Tell Him' and 'Our First Fight' to the surprisingly dark 'Postcard #17'.








12. King Krule - The OOZ

Out of everything released this year, this was the album that more than any other I was swallowed by. It's a bleak, depressing album that is filled with drowned, defeated passages that create an atmosphere of sadness so deep it's as if the narrator is converting the gritty English streets around him into an underwater chamber of isolation - 'Czech One', 'La Lune', 'The Cadet leaps' and the title track all build up tension, which eventually bursts into scrappy post-punk/jazz jams like 'Dum Surfer' and 'Emergency Blimp'. If you want to feel depression English-style just sit down and listen to this.






11. IDLES - Brutalism

If 'The OOZ' was depression English style, the this is anger English style! IDLES have such a raw punk energy, that you feel like you are being assaulted every time you listen threw it. Frontman Joe Talbot's vocals are maybe the most exciting I've heard in 2017, bile-filled and harsh on 'Well Done' and 'Mother' but surprisingly emotive on cuts like 'Slow Savage' and 'Exeter'. If you think punk is dead, this will revitalise your hopes, keeping the simplicity, raw production and energy of the classics but updating the song topics for the bleakness of modern-day England.







10. The Horrors - V

Another album that's easy to get lost in, 'V' presents a pitch black world of... well, horror. What really intrigues me about this project though are the lyrical themes of delusion in the digital world. 'Press Enter to Exit' and 'Point of No Reply' look at online extremism, while 'Something to Remember Me By', 'Ghost' and 'Machine' look at online ghosts, dead accounts of the gone. All in all, it's an exciting synth-driven album perfect for technophobic fans of 'Black Mirror'.









9. Kirin J. Callinan - Bravado

Few songs have brought me more joy this year than the ones on 'Bravado', which may also be the experimental album here despite it's pop stylings. This is an album where the creepy funk of 'Down 2 Hang' is followed by the pop rock of 'Live Each Day'. This is an album where pitch-shifted vocals from modern EDM are slotted into an 80s synthpop jam in 'S.A.D', and cowboy ballad 'Big Enough' turns into a call for World peace complete with a screeching cowboy drop. That's not to mention the title track 'Bravado', which is one of the most fitting and brilliant closing tracks of the year, summing up and explaining the face-pissing, dick-flashing persona Callinan adopts here. All this time, it was all bravado.



8. Remo Drive - Greatest Hits

Quor mate what you can say about Remo Drive that hasn't already been said by the man himself James Baker. Now everyone loves a some proper lads who can scream out a bit of emo while sill wearing minions shirts in their videos. You can see the influence from other bangers on this album with a wee hint of pinkerton and my name jeff rosenstock all mixin into this masterpiece. Whenever im alone in the house i like play all there songs together and scream out the few lyrics can make out. The instruments are mmmm nice with the drums going doon doon doon dun dun doon doon doon.. don don don at the start of your killing me and i cant talk about the rest of the instruments because im a drummer so i don't bother to listen to them. While im writing this im watching the cinema classic of pich perfect and i think an album of this caliber should have its own remake of pitch perfect with only this album and the live version of it and there demos before this being sung. That would be a classic movie. There is so much potential in the future albums and movies based around these three blokes and cant wait to see em boom up and become proper big boys in the music.

7. The Magnetic Fields - 50 Song Memoir

This album makes me feel old in the best possible way. Going through main architect Stephin Merritt's literal life story is incredibly entertaining, mainly because of how ordinary it seems. Nothing particularly strange happens, making this a joyful look at one normal man's history, from the cynical hilarity of 'Life Ain't All Bad' to the electric riffs of 'How to Play the Synthesiser' and 'Foxx and I'. The first half of the album is undeniably stronger than the second, but it's still full of highlights, like the goosebump inducing 'Fathers In The Clouds' and the heartbreaking 'Have You Seen It In The Snow'.






6. Run The Jewels - RTJ 3

 'RTJ 2' was my favourite album of 2014, so I had high hopes for the follow up, and when this dropped on Christmas day last year it completely delivered. The album is thematically split between top-tier bangers like 'Stay G.O.L.D' and 'Legend Has It' and more politically charged tunes - '2100', 'Talk to Me' and the revolutionary closing track 'Kill Your Masters'. Best of all is the thought-provoking and gut-wrenching 'Thursday In the Danger Room', which is easily one of the best songs Killer Mike and El-P have ever made. Overall, this was a great way to start 2017, and it has been on repeat all year.







5. Father John Misty - Pure Comedy

2017 wasn't exactly the best year for humanity, and no album seemed to predict this better than 'Pure Comedy'. Almost every song here tackles a concept that is very recent, whether its name-dropping the oculus rift on 'Total Entertainment Forever' or looking at increasingly radical and divisive politics on 'Two Wildly Different Perspectives'. Many people (including myself) slated this as boring and pretentious when it first came out, but something compelled me to keep listening. What I found was a rare album that isn't afraid to tackle huge political and philosophical themes with some of the best lyrics of the year and a biting sense of humour, with music that grows on the listener each time they listen. Brilliant, although it can also give you existential dread.

4. Lorde - Melodrama

The pop concept album has been increasingly common thanks to megastars like Beyonce, but 'Melodrama' just might be the best we've got so far this decade. This is an album where every every track is outstanding, and 'Supercut', 'Writer in the Dark', 'Perfect Places', 'Liability', 'Homemade Dynamite' and 'The Louvre' are all classics, and the rest of the tracklist glues these tracks together remarkably well. This is a startlingly mature and nuanced look at what it's like to be a party-savvy but heartbroken teenager in 2017, yet it ultimately feels like this album will last much longer than just this year.






3. BROCKHAMPTON - SATURATION I, II and III

Slightly less prolific but more consistent than King Gizzard this year were BROCKHAMPTON who managed to produce 3 almost equally great albums in 2017. Saturation I is maybe the best of the 3, with 'STAR', 'GOLD' and 'MILK' all being some of my favourite songs of the year, but this can also be said of the sequels - 'JUNKY', 'SWAMP', 'QUEER' and 'SWEET' from sat II and 'BOOGIE', 'BLEACH' and 'HOTTIE' from Sat III. The sheer volume of great music they released this year is surely some kind of World record. Watching every artist in BROCKHAMPTON gradually improve over the three projects has been one of the most wholesome experiences of the year, and I hope that these boys keep up the hard work for 2018.



2. Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked at Me

It seems like every year I encounter a new 'Saddest album I've ever heard'. In 2015 it was 'Carrie & Lowell' by Sufjan Stevens, in 2016 it was 'Skeleton Tree' by Nick Cave and now it's 'A Crow Looked At Me' by Mount Eerie. This is the kind of album so powerful that it only needs to be listened to a single time, and after i initially checked it out from morbid curiosity it's haunted me. The minimally orchestrated lyrics are consistently soul-destroyingly sad from the first line to the last. That the album manages to find some kind of conclusion in 'Crow' is honestly amazing, and is what elevates this into something truly legendary.





1. Alex Cameron - Forced Witness

And yet, after all of the philosophical themes of 'Pure Comedy', the game-changing 'Melodrama' and the heart-breaking 'A Crow Looked at Me', my album of the year is an album about online dating. But I'll be damned if this isn't the catchiest, most enjoyable and ultimately thought-provoking album of 2017. The first thing you'll notice about Alex Cameron's masterpiece is it's brilliantly terrible cover art, which shows only a little indication of the character study the listener is about to embark upon. After my first few listens of this I was already sold on it as a great album, with every song being a glitzy, catchy take on soft-rock, but when I really dug into the lyrics the genius behind this became clear. The characters presented in 'Running Out of Luck', 'Candy May', 'Marlon Brando' and every other song here are not the hyper-macho stereotypes I first thought, but actually pathetic, creepy sketches of what extreme masculinity can lead some to. Whether it's the teenager stalking of 'StudMuffin96' or the online transactions presented in the hilarious 'Beautiful Eyes'. Every track on here is vitally important to it's concept and it's the most I've loved an album this whole year. Bring on 2018!