Table of Contents:
- Animal Collective – Time Skiffs
- Arcade Fire – WE
- Arctic Monkeys – The Car
- Beach House – Once Twice Melody
- Black Country, New Road – Ants From Up There
- black midi – Hellfire
- Charli xcx – CRASH
- Jack White – Fear of the Dawn
- Jack White – Entering Heaven Alive
- Kendrick Lamar – Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers
- The Mars Volta – The Mars Volta
- MGMT – 11•11•11
- Muse – Will of the People
- Porcupine Tree – CLOSURE / CONTINUATION
- Pusha T – It’s Almost Dry
- The Smile – A Light for Attracting Attention
Animal Collective – Time Skiffs
AnCo (somewhat) bounces back, 6 years after the abysmal Painting With.
On Animal Collective’s last proper album, Painting With, the band sounded like what they must sound like to people that hate Animal Collective. That album was annoying, hyperactive and downright grating. Gone were the Beach Boys-on-acid vocal melodies and psychedelic experimentation, in was some of the most annoying call-and-response singing I’ve ever heard in my life. The album also dove in too deep into the pools of pop convention and worst of all, it was far worse than the disappointing Centipede Hz., which followed their magnum opus, Merriweather Post Pavilion. And just like that, Animal Collective went from being Pitchfork indie darlings to a washed up and irrelevant band.
So, does Time Skiffs make up for the lost time? No, not really. It’s a lot better than anything else they’ve done in a decade (which isn’t saying a lot), but it’s lacking that bite that made albums like Strawberry Jam or MPP such classics. This album strikes a better balance of accessibility and stronger songwriting, but it fails to experiment too much or have much to say. It is a better album than their past few LPs (including the soundtrack album, Tangerine Reef), but that bar was quite low.
Time Skiffs is good, but it just isn’t enough of a comeback to make up for a decade of irrelevancy.
7/10
Arcade Fire – WE
Arcade Fire works with Nigel Godrich.
After the slightly disappointing (but not entirely bad) Everything Now, Arcade Fire returns with a record closer to the high quality they were once known for on the Nigel Godrich (Radiohead) produced, WE. While it may not reach the lyrical heights of their first four albums, the music itself sounds like the next logical step for the band (following the path set by Reflektor) and mostly avoids the criticisms of Everything Now.
Age of Anxiety I sets up the album with some melodramatic piano, whereas Age of Anxiety II (Rabbit Hole) is a Reflektor style dance song. The Lightning I, II (one track, assuming you have the CD) harkens back to Arcade Fire’s indie days and is a glorious triumph of a song. The epic End of the Empire I-IV is probably the closest they band has come to prog rock. Unconditional II (Race and Religion) has an appearance from the legendary Peter Gabriel. The title track is a sparse acoustic track that sounds somewhat similar to Led-Zeppelin’s Tangerine. The only song that somewhat misses is Unconditional I (Lookout Kid), which recalls some of the silliness of EN, but is not bad enough to bring the rest of the album down.
My only other gripe with WE is some of the lyricism, with some perplexingly bad lyrics, like “Hardy har har, Chinese throwing star”, “Born into the abyss, new phone, who’s this?” and “We unsubscribe, fuck season five”, all which sound like the type of satirical, on-the-nose lyricism of Everything Now. Perhaps these lyrics weren’t meant to be taken at face value, but they are still a far cry from the masterful, emotional lyricism of an album like Funeral.
WE is a return to form after the somewhat disappointing Everything Now and though it’s held back only by some weak lyrics in parts, musically, it’s great. Overall, WE is still a big step in the right direction for Arcade Fire.
9/10
Arctic Monkeys – The Car
The Monkeys go orchestral on this lush and beautiful album.
On Arctic Monkeys’ seventh album, they successfully reinvent themselves once more, creating a beautiful work of art in the process. James Ford returns as producer, continuing to be the bands’ own George Martin/Nigel Godrich and unofficial fifth member.
Opener There’d Better Be a Mirrorball is one of the strangest lead singles by the band, but also one of the most elegant songs they’ve ever recorded — it’s like an audition for a Bond theme. Arctic Monkeys go funky on I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am, which has some killer harmonies and wah guitar, as does the soulful Jet Skis on the Moat. The ominous, synth driven and confrontational Sculptures of Anything Goes makes one yearn for the band to do a full-on electronic album and has Alex Turner asking the listener if their mother still thinks of him, as well as lyrics about a rare Nintendo DS game called City Life 09. The majestic Body Paint sounds Beatles-esque and has a similarly powerful outro to their previous album’s, Four Out of Five. The title track is a moody acoustic track, with an excellent guitar solo. Big Ideas is grandiose and beautiful. Hello You has drummer Matt Helders playing keyboards. Mr. Schwartz takes a detour into bossanova. Perfect Sense is a closer with instrumentation reminiscent to that of The Beach Boys’ magnum opus, Pet Sounds.
The Car feels like a continuation of 2018’s Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino, despite a general change in style and concept; where that album was a neo-psychedelic, sci-fi, lounge rock album about a hotel and casino on the moon, The Car is grounded on Earth, feeling more personal than TBH+C did. Here, Alex Turner swaps out the characters he portrayed on that album with himself, but these past two albums still have far more in common with each other than the rest of their discography — you still have Alex Turner doing his Bowie-like crooning voice, singing strange but witty lyrics and increasingly blurring the lines between his side-project The Last Shadow Puppets and Arctic Monkeys.
Because of the resemblance to Alex Turner’s side project, a lot of fans were unhappy with this direction and felt like this should have been a Last Shadow Puppets album instead, but a large group of vocal Arctic Monkeys fans have been notoriously difficult to please since the band’s first two albums, constantly criticizing the many left turns of the band. That very sense of adventure and unpredictability is what has made Arctic Monkeys such a fascinating band that has outlived many of its peers — you never know what’s going to come next and despite the risk-taking, the band always delivers.
The Car is one of my favourite albums of the decade so far and has me impatiently awaiting the next chapter in the band’s story.
10/10
Beach House – Once Twice Melody
Beach House releases a double album.
Beach House continues to make some of the most serene dream pop imaginable on their first double album, arriving four years after their last album, 7.
The title track is one of the band’s best songs yet. Songs like Superstar and Runaway sound like they could have been on the soundtrack to the 2011 Ryan Gosling film Drive. Pink Funeral is dreamy as a lullaby. ESP is otherworldly and ethereal. Modern Love Stories wraps the album up nicely with a neat little bow.
Like every Beach House album before, the band doesn’t really change up their sound very much, but they excel at this type of music and have a formula that works, so if it ain’t broke…
8/10
Black Country, New Road – Ants From Up There
The Windmill scene band gets even more ambitious on their sophomore album.
Where Black Country, New Road’s debut album, For the First Time, had a generally darker atmosphere, Ants From Up There feels more rustic in sound and sanguine in tone. Instead of rehashing a similar sound, the band evolves on their sophomore record and creates a masterpiece that’s arguably better than its predecessor.
A Zappa-esque intro leads off into the violin-barrage of Chaos Space Marine. Concorde is a waltz that could have easily come off as schmaltzy, but is instead earnest, genuine and downright beautiful. Good Will Hunting (named after the classic Ben Affleck/Matt Damon/Robin Williams film) has a memorable Billie Eilish-referencing chorus and could have easily been a single, though it wasn’t. Snow Globes and Basketball Shoes are the longest songs on the album and are slow-building epics that may require patience, but are ultimately rewarding should you be able to allow them to unfold before you, like flowers blooming in the springtime.
One of the best things about Ants From Up There is how different it feels from its predecessor, but still feels like the same band. While I do prefer their debut (if I had a gun to my head and had to choose), I’d argue that AFUT is the more accomplished record of the two. This is a monumental album that is deserving of all the praise it has gotten.
10/10
black midi – Hellfire
black midi releases their final album (for now).
Expanding upon the chaotic jazz of the previous year’s Cavalcade, Hellfire sees black midi get even crazier with their brand of demented prog rock, as evident by songs like Sugar/Tzu, Welcome to Hell and Dangerous Liaisons, the latter of which also blends in some of the sensuality of previous songs like Marlene Dietrich. There are also country stylings that adorn songs like Still, The Defence and 27 Questions, showing a mix of both anarchy and bliss.
While Hellfire shares a lot in common with its predecessor, it’s just as good as that album was and is a hell of a way for the band to bow out.
9/10
Charli xcx – CRASH
Charli releases a more traditional pop album, foregoing her usual experimentation.
After releasing her best album yet with how i’m feeling now, an album that balanced both hooks and experimental production, Charli xcx releases CRASH, her most conventional project since her first two albums (at least relatively-speaking). Although it foregoes much of the experimentation, it’s still an album ripe with accomplished pop, sublime production and hooks galore.
The title track is probably the first thing to make car crashes sexy since the controversial 1996 David Cronenberg film of the same name. Christine and the Queens features on the deliciously 80s, New Shapes. The synths in Good Ones bring to mind Eurythmic’s Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This). Baby sounds a bit like the late 2000s Britney Spears track, Toxic. Charli seems disgusted by love on Yuck.
CRASH produced six singles (Good Ones, New Shapes, Beg for You, Baby, Every Rule, Used to Know Me), but any song here had the potential to have been one. The album may lack the experimentation that made her last album such a masterpiece and indulges a bit too much in 1980s revivalism, but this is still superb pop that few of Charli’s contemporaries can match.
8.5/10
Jack White – Fear of the Dawn
Jack White releases an all electric album.
Jack White continues with the experimentation of Boarding House Reach, but refines it, tones it down a bit and gives it more of a hard rock edge this time. As all the acoustic songs were put on Entering Heaven Alive (which released a few months later), this album is nothing but electrified rock songs throughout — no ballads or acoustic songs in sight, just experimental hard rock.
Out of the gate, Taking Me Back is a welcome return to Jack White’s more straightforward rock n roll that was only teased on Boarding House Reach, though it still has plenty of electronics to accentuate it. The title track is quite possibly the heaviest thing he’s released on any of his solo albums, bringing to mind metal-adjacent White Stripes songs, like Little Cream Soda. Hi-De-Ho features Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest and is one of the most bizarre songs that Jack White has made in any of his many projects and it’s all the better for it. The White Raven is a fuzzed-out rocker with gospel vocals. What’s the Trick? is a classic Jack White blues rock exercise. Dusk is a rather pointless 30 second interlude and Into the Twilight feel like a Boarding House Reach leftover. Eosophobia has a reggae sound and plenty of cool guitar work, though I’m not sure a reprise was necessary. The moody, downtempo Shedding My Velvet closes the album off.
Fear of the Dawn is Jack White’s most consistent and exciting solo album since his debut, Blunderbuss. Unlike on Boarding House Reach, where the experimentation sometimes felt forced, it feels more organic here. Overall, Fear of the Dawn is an excellent rock record with very few misses and lots of great riffs.
9/10
Jack White – Entering Heaven Alive
Jack White releases an all acoustic album.
Following the all electric Fear of the Dawn, Entering Heaven Alive is the all acoustic companion, though it slightly falls short when compared to its predecessor.
Entering Heaven Alive is somewhat of a mixed bag when compared to the more consistent Fear of the Dawn, though songs like A Tip From Me to You, If I Die Tomorrow and A Madman from Manhattan are all strong. On the contrary, tracks like, the campy Queen of the Bees is one of the worst songs Jack White has released on a solo record and the old-timey Taking Me Back (Gently) is vastly inferior to the version found on Fear of the Dawn.
Though Entering Heaven Alive is not as consistent as Fear of the Dawn was, it still makes for a pleasant companion piece to that album and still has that Jack White charm to it.
7/10
Trivia: Entering Heaven Alive is the only solo Jack White album that does not have any blue on its cover.
Kendrick Lamar – Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers
Kendrick Lamar confronts his inner demons and generational trauma on his first double album.
Split up into two halves, The Big Steppers (side 1) and Mr. Morale (side 2), Kendrick Lamar gets extra introspective on his fifth album, crafting his most intimate work yet, as well as one of the most unique sounding rap albums I’ve ever heard. Where Kendrick’s previous albums revolved around his relationship with different environments at different levels (his neighbourhood, city, country and world), this time everything goes from macro to micro, as Kendrick opens up about himself, his family and his inner demons more than ever before.
The opener, United in Grief, has a brilliantly jarring beat, accompanied by piano. N95 gets confrontational, using covid masks as an analogy. Worldwide Steppers has another cool, unconventional beat. Die Hard is a beautiful pop track that uses a similar template set by previous songs, like LOVE. and LOYALTY. Father Time has Kendrick opening up about his daddy issues and how important having a male role model is — it’s up to parents to break the cycle of abuse from continuing on into the next generation and in this case, Kendrick’s decisions will impact his own son for the rest of his life. We Cry Together is an experimental, avant garde track where a heated, profanity-fuelled argument between a couple acts as the song’s vocals. Silent Hill (named after the survival horror video game) has one of Kendrick’s moodiest instrumentals. Mr. Morale is one of the album’s bangers, opening with a sample of a youtuber criticizing the Dallas Cowboys. Auntie Diaries deals with the transsexualism of a family member in a non-preachy, nor offensive way and Mother I Sober features the always beautiful Beth Gibbons of Portishead.
This was the longest wait between Kendrick Lamar’s albums (5 years, 4 if you count the Black Panther OST), though it was definitely worth the long wait. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is one of the greatest albums of the decade and is yet another master work by the Compton poet, full of introspective reflection and naked vulnerability.
10/10
Trivia: Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers won Best Rap Album at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards.
The Mars Volta – The Mars Volta
The Mars Volta reinvents themselves as a pop band.
It had been 10 years since The Mars Volta’s last album, Noctourniquet, and in the time between then, Omar Rodríguez-López and Cedric Bixler-Zavala had reformed At the Drive-In and released that band’s first album in 17 years. It wasn’t a very successful reunion, despite the album being surprisingly good and the band broke up again soon after, though it opened the door for a Mars Volta reunion, which finally happened in 2022.
Instead of the progressive hijinx they were known for in the 2000s, the band’s eponymous album is well-produced and expertly-performed pop music with a Latin touch. The production here is really good — in fact, it might be one of their best-sounding albums yet, but musically, it’s rather neutered when compared to their original body of work, completely devoid of the boldness and kinetic chaos that the group achieved in their prime.
I’m not against reinventions and I understand wanting to achieve commercial success and accessibility, but The Mars Volta got rid of everything they did so well in the past on this record and focus too much on Cedric’s vocals and a general sense of convention. As any other band, this might have been a great record, but as a TMV album, this is not what fans waited a decade for and it simply bored me.
6/10
MGMT – 11•11•11
MGMT releases an album recorded 11 years earlier.
Recorded on November 11, 2011, 11•11•11 is a one-off live recording of all original material that was not released until exactly 11 years later. Having been commissioned to write music for a particular art installation in a museum, 11•11•11 is the sound of MGMT challenging themselves as artists and mostly succeeding. There are several interludes and most of the songs are instrumentals, but this is the sound of a band at its most adventurous and abstract.
Invocation is dark and almost Flaming Lips-like, which is no surprise given the two bands’ then recent work together (Worm Mountain) and their shared producer, Dave Fridmann. Whistling Through the Graveyard and Forest Elf both bring to mind the childlike whimsy of late 1960s Beach Boys and Beatles. The nine-minute-long Tell It to Me Like It Is is truly entrancing, as are I Am Not Your Home and Unfriend, which are all spaced-out and psychedelic. Who’s Counting is also quite fantastic.
It makes you wonder how this would have been received had it been released in 2011, but it was very MGMT to wait to release it exactly 11 years after its recording date.
7/10
Muse – Will of the People
Muse continues their fight against the powers that be on this mixed bag of an album.
Where 2018’s Simulation Theory was already testing the loyalty of Muse’s fanbase, Will of the People does the band no favours, with another of Muse’s weakest albums yet.
The title track is basically just Marilyn Manson’s The Beautiful People with different lyrics. The anti-authoritarian anthem Compliance is one of the better tracks here, though the choice of synthesizers used on it are a bit questionable. Liberation has that Queen bombast that’s so embedded into Muse’s DNA by now. At times, Won’t Stand Down is one of the best songs here, but at other times, it sounds too similar to that god-awful SAIL! song by Awolnation. Ghosts (How Can I Move On), Verona and Euphoria are rather run-of-the-mill ballads. The heaviness of We Are Fucking Fucked is welcome, though the chorus sounds rather juvenile. Those Dracula synths and that vocoder voice make You Make Me Feel Like It’s Halloween a bitter pill to swallow. Kill or Be Killed is the closest to a Muse classic here.
Muse still puts on one of the best live shows and Matt Bellamy’s politically-charged lyrics are still meaningful in an increasingly dystopian world, but overall, Will of the People feels like a continuation of their fall from grace.
5/10
Porcupine Tree – CLOSURE / CONTINUATION
Porcupine Tree returns after 13 years.
Within the time between Porcupine Tree’s last album, The Incident, and CLOSURE/CONTINUATION, Steven Wilson had released five more solo albums, with his fanbase growing with every release, going from cult hero to one of the torchbearers of modern alt rock. During that time, Porcupine Tree had become more and more respected by both prog and metal fans alike, with many of their albums being held in high regard, reaching the upper echelons of prog rock. There was an increasing demand for Wilson to revive PT, though it seemed unlikely to ever happen, especially considering the moderate success of his solo career. Then, in late 2021, Harridan came out as a lead single and blew away any doubts about whether a reunion would be a good idea or not.
Harridan is without a doubt the best song on C/C and was a wise choice for first single, despite its 8+ minute runtime, though the rest of the album can hold its own — it’s also one of PT’s best tracks in general. Of the New Day features many impressive time signature and chord changes, almost more-so than your typical PT song. Rats Return has one of Wilson’s best metal riffs. Herd culling is a fine song, though it doesn’t feel a bit repetitive by the end of it. Chimera’s Wreck is this album’s sprawling epic and a powerful closer. The bonus tracks are also great, particularly Love in the Past Tense.
While C/C doesn’t surpass the heights of the band’s work between 2002-2007, I think most fans would still be optimistic about a continuation after this.
8/10
Pusha T – It’s Almost Dry
Kanye West and Pharrell Williams split production duties for Pusha T.
Four years after Pusha T’s best solo album yet, DAYTONA, and the now legendary Drake diss track The Story of Adidon, comes It’s Almost Dry, which more than delivered on being another jewel in Pusha’s coke-laced crown. This time, instead of production being exclusively handled by West, the production duties were split halfway between him and longtime Pusha T collaborator, Pharrell Williams (who was integral to Clipse’s success) and despite this schism, the album feels cohesive as a project.
Brambleton and Let the Smokers Shine the Coupes begin the album with some of Pharrell’s best beats and compensate for that abomination that was Happy. Neck & Wrist features a semi-retired Jay-Z. As for West’s contributions, Dreamin’ of the Past samples a soulful cover of John Lennon’s Jealous Guy and Diet Coke is one of the finest instrumentals he’s crafted for Pusha T. The minimalistic Just So You Remember is another gem. I Pray For You features Pusha T’s brother and ex-Clipse partner, No Malice (formerly known as Malice).
It’s Almost Dry is an excellent rap record that’s up there with Clipse’ Hell Hath No Fury and DAYTONA.
10/10
The Smile – A Light for Attracting Attention
Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood make music together without the rest of their Radiohead bandmates.
It had already been six years since Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool (the longest gap between albums yet) and fans were getting anxious for a new album, but seemingly out of nowhere, from the ashes of the pandemic came The Smile, a side project featuring Radiohead’s two primary forces: Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood. Joined alongside them was Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner, who brings a jazzy edge to Thom and Jonny’s music, distinguishing it from Radiohead’s sound.
Produced by longtime Radiohead and Thom Yorke collaborator, Nigel Godrich, this may initially come off as Radiohead-lite, but upon listening to this album, you will see that The Smile and Radiohead are two very different beasts. Of course, there will be commonalities found amongst both groups, but this project allowed for Thom and Johnny to explore ideas that perhaps the rest of Radiohead weren’t keen on, such as math rock, post-punk and jazz fusion. As Thom and Johnny are the most prolific writers of the band (Thom with Atoms for Peace, his solo albums and soundtracks) and Jonny (with his award winning film scores), The Smile is where they can pump out as much material as they please without the usually drawn out Radiohead process, but this is by no means a quantity over quality situation.
The Same starts the album off with a clear sense of doom, bolstered by the uncertain times of the 2020s, with pandemics, social injustices and an increasingly wide divide between the wealthy elite and the common man. The Opposite is a jazzier number that showcases Tom Skinner’s jazz drumming abilities and proves why he was able to end up working with such esteemed artists. You Will Never Work in Television Again is one of the punkiest things Thom and Jonny have ever made together. Pana-Vision is led by the piano, though it differs vastly from something like, Pyramid Song. The Smoke and Thin Thing display The Smile’s penchant for math rock riffing, with Jonny Greenwood sounding fantastic as ever on the guitar; Thom Yorke’s bass playing is just as impressive. Speech Bubbles, Free in the Knowledge and Open the Floodgates provide some slowed down balladry for the project. At the end of the album, there’s the brilliantly titled We Don’t Know What Tomorrow Brings (a somewhat Street Spirit-like downtempo song), and the remarkable closer, Skrting on the Surface.
As much as I enjoyed Thom Yorke’s solo work and Atoms for Peace, this band has provided the essence of Radiohead more than either, and The Smile is essential for any fan of Radiohead.
10/10
FIN
Brett Nippard
