Album Reviews
Taylor Swift Honors Her Own Vision on Fearless (Taylor’s Version): Review
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-04-09T21:50:09+00:00“>April 9, 2021 | 5:50pm ET The Lowdown: “For years I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my work,” Taylor Swift wrote in a 2019 social media post after her longtime label, Big Machine, sold her master recordings without her consent. Swift had been unable to gain control of her first six albums through contract negotiations, and then Scooter Braun, who’d demonstrated public enmity with the singer-songwriter, was collecting the checks. (Braun’s company has since sold the masters to Shamrock Holdings for $300 million.) What’s one of the world’s brightest superstars and the preeminent pop poet of a generation to do? The answer: Do it all again. Swift has begun to re-...
Godspeed You! Black Emperor Charge Forward into the Unknown on G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END: Review
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-04-07T16:31:02+00:00“>April 7, 2021 | 12:31pm ET Editor’s Note: Our review looks at the physical version of this release, which consists of four total tracks — two long, two shorter. On many streaming services, the longer tracks have been broken down into a total of eight tracks. The actual music remains the same. The Lowdown: Godspeed You! Black Emperor have always played at being impenetrable. The Montreal post-rock cooperative give their albums and songs difficult, often poetic names (Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress, “[…+The Buildings They Are Sleeping Now]”), and the group would much rather hide in the shadows of large, projected images at their live shows than drink in the sp...
Demi Lovato Rises Again on Dancing with the Devil…The Art of Starting Over: Review
The Lowdown: With a voice as big as the sky, it’s hard to figure out where to go first — but that’s not going to stop Demi Lovato from trying. It never has. Dancing with the Devil…The Art of Starting Over is the seventh full-length album from the child actress turned teen phenomenon turned pop star and arrives almost four years after 2017’s often sultry, R&B-infused Tell Me You Love Me. Her discography has effectively captured many parts of the rollercoaster she has endured: even in her earliest efforts, Don’t Forget and Here We Go Again, her vocal prowess is undeniable. (Demi Lovato could still put out a great pop-punk album if she were to so choose.) She is a remarkably gifted natural vocalist. Lovato has also had a lion’s share of trials and tribulations, almost all of which have un...
Artist of the Month serpentwithfeet’s DEACON Is a Bountiful Collage of Love and Care: Review
The Lowdown: Serpentwithfeet first gained attention in 2016 with his EP blisters, and then more broadly in 2018, when his debut album, soil , earned praise for its complex and subtle portrayals of love. Born Josiah Wise, he grew up in a religious family and sang in the church choir, and the influences of classical and gospel have long made themselves known in his music. DEACON isn’t quite a departure, but it is a move forward into more expansive territory; the sound serpent has taken on feels like it can accommodate more, and indeed, it does. DEACON is full of songs that wrap around the listener, showing in full resolution serpent’s expertise in using his music not only to portray love, but to extend it. [embedded content] The Good: The influence of religion feels present again here; along...
Justin Bieber Gets Too Woke for His Own Good on Justice: Review
The Lowdown: After an unfortunate misstep with Changes, released last year just before lockdown, Justin Bieber found himself, once again, at a sharp crossroads: carry on writing meme-able nonsense for lyrics, or put forth something that makes better use of the large production budget his label shells out. Fortunately, on Justice, he chose the latter. Unfortunately, if ever there was an example of the needle tipping too far, this is it. While Justice steps away from the lyrical fallacies of its predecessor, for an album that is much more expansive and explorative, the record has way too much nonsense surrounding it. If at any point you begin to wonder why the first voice on a song about submitting sexually to his wife is not Bieber, but civil rights leader and martyr Dr. Martin Luther King ...
Lana Del Rey Strips Back the Glamour on the Charming Chemtrails over the Country Club: Review
The Lowdown: In 2019, Lana Del Rey released Norman Fucking Rockwell! to critical acclaim, an album that integrated her long-running motifs of allusive Americana, melancholy femininity, and seedy glamor with more memorable melodies and legibility – a full execution of the vision she’d been expressing since 2012. Now, on Chemtrails over the Country Club, the singer-songwriter and pop icon continues to weave sharp referential lyrics with atmospheric set-pieces. The album is a cohesive extension of NFR!, but the sound is more overtly connected to California country-folk, built around shimmering guitars and gentle pianos. She teams up with Nashville artist Nikki Lane while name-checking her forebears Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Stevie Nicks, and Tammy Wynette. Del Rey still addresses tragic ...
Eyehategod’s A History of Nomadic Behavior Delivers a Fresh Batch of Potent Sludge: Review
The Lowdown: Few myths have been beaten into the ground as badly as the adage that rock ‘n’ roll is supposed to represent danger. Within metal specifically, cultivating a dark aura is so par for the course that it’s actually one of the safest routes artists can take. Nevertheless, when the New Orleans sludgecore outfit Eyehategod roared their way to prominence in the ‘90s with albums like In the Name of Suffering and Dopesick, the woefulness that pervaded their music came from a genuine place. Where the majority of their peers tended toward exaggerated expressions of anger, Eyehategod’s forays into addiction, mental illness, and despair didn’t come across as an affectation, but as a raw glimpse into the human condition that cut all the way to the bone. Eyehategod didn’t need to draw from t...
IAN SWEET Finds Her Breath on the Revealing Show Me How You Disappear: Review
The Lowdown: How do you turn introspection into propulsive pop? How can deep reflection push a person into new patterns? These questions weave the eclectic tapestry of Show Me How You Disappear, the third album from IAN SWEET, the now-solo indie-rock project from singer-songwriter Jilian Medford. The collection sparked during the time Medford, 27, spent in an outpatient therapy program for anxiety just before the pandemic, and the songs’ inventive, textured pop marks her best release to date. [embedded content] The Good: The album opens with a momentary squall, the first track, “My Favorite Cloud”, expanding into a Flaming Lips-esque garble that sounds like a sentient modem drowning, before it’s pierced by Medford’s high, filtered voice: “My psychic told me I’d die/ ’Cause I’d forget to br...
Nick Cave & Warren Ellis Offer a Tender Glimpse of Hope on the Beautiful Carnage: Review
The Lowdown: In 1997, Nick Cave sang about a “Kingdom” whose light was so bright that “All the world’s darkness can’t swallow up/ A single spark.” On The Boatman’s Call, Cave yearned for this kingdom through a mist of tears born from what he’d later call “a convergence of events that felt so calamitous at the time that I could not find a way to write about anything else.” In the midst of a similarly calamitous convergence of events in 2020 — when it felt impossible to think on anything but widespread sickness, white supremacy, and the fractured state of our society — Cave found himself drawn yet again to the pursuit of this kingdom of light. Carnage, Cave’s new record alongside longtime Bad Seed and soundtrack collaborator Warren Ellis, beautifully and devastatingly documents their pursuit...
Melvins Celebrate 1983 Lineup on Noisy Riff Fest Working with God: Review
The Lowdown: At this point in their lengthy career, the Melvins are out to entertain themselves as much as their audience. This has included fruitful solo projects from founding members Buzz Osborne and drummer Dale Crover, as well as alternate versions of the band itself such as Melvins Lite and Melvins 1983 — the latter being a modern take on an early Melvins lineup. The “Melvins 1983” lineup is featured on the new album Working with God, with Osborne on vocals and guitar, Crover on bass, and original drummer Mike Dillard back in the fold. The LP is the trio’s second album in this format, and like the first, it sees the Melvins reveling in copious riffage and lowbrow humor. After all, they were teenagers when they formed the band. The Good: Technically, the band’s 1983 lineup includ...
Hayley Williams Lays It Bare on Intimate Sophomore Record FLOWERS for VASES / descansos: Review
The Lowdown: Hayley Williams has never been afraid to use her voice. Since exploding onto the pop-punk scene in 2004 as the frontwoman of Paramore, her name has been synonymous with expansive, acrobatic vocals. She’s also not afraid to use her voice in another sense, though — ask anyone in Nashville and you hear some variation of it: “Hayley Williams is a real one.” Since being discovered at just 14 and spending the majority of her life in the spotlight, she’s become a confident voice in music, present in conversations around mental health and aligning herself with groups like Teens4Equality. On her sophomore solo effort, FLOWERS for VASES / descansos, that growth is reflected more personally and intimately than ever before. She strips it all down: every part of the record was written and ...
John Carpenter’s Lost Themes III Haunts With Urgency: Review
The Lowdown: Six years after returning to the synthesizer for 2015’s Lost Themes, the Master of Horror is back for more with its second sequel: Lost Themes III: Alive After Death. Once again, John Carpenter is working alongside his son Cody Carpenter and his godson Daniel Davies, a collaboration that’s only grown stronger with time. “We understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses, how to communicate without words, and the process is easier now than it was in the beginning,” Carpenter has stated in press releases leading up to its release, adding: “We’ve matured.” That growth is evident in all 10 tracks of his latest opus, and the tagline is thus: John Carpenter is back, and this time we’re ready. The Good: Synths and piano have forever been the easiest flexes for Carpenter. He didn’t ...
