- American Football – American Football (LP4)
- Charli xcx – Wuthering Heights
- Foo Fighters – Your Favorite Toy
- JPEGMAFIA – EXPERIMENTAL RAP
- Kim Gordon – PLAY ME
- Muse – The Wow! Signal
- My New Band Believe – My New Band Believe
- Nine Inch Nails & Boys Noize – Nine Inch Noize
- Sublime – Until the Sun Explodes
- U2 – Days of Ash
- U2 – Easter Lily
- Ye – BULLY
- Ye – BULLY – DELUXE
- YHWH Nailgun – Magazine
American Football – American Football (LP4)
American Football releases their fourth self-titled album.
On American Football (LP4), the band continues to experiment with dream pop, while also refining the post-rock/math rock/midwest emo sound that they defined with their seminal 1999 debut. And like their previous albums, vocalist Mike Kinsella’s lyrics are depressing as hell, with time only resulting in more pain and emotional turmoil.
Man Overboard opens the album with Mike Kinsella singing of hopelessness over top of some impressive math rock drumming from Steve Lamos — it’s a devastating opener, setting a depressing tone, but that’s nothing new for American Football. Turnstiles’ Brandon Yates appears on the bleak, Cure-like No Feeling. The One With the Piano pays homage to a track from their debut and is as appropriately-named as that one was (despite there being prominent trumpet throughout as well). The 8-minute lead single Bad Moons is the centrepiece of the album, where Mike Kinsella laments of the darkness that encapsulated him in the fallout of a failing marriage, with cousin Nate Kinsella’s melancholic bass providing the pulse to a man who seems otherwise ready to embrace the eternal light. The album ends with No Soul to Save, which feels like Mike Kinsella addressing his fans, confessing that he is too far gone to be healed, like he’s accepted the pain of heartbreak and has found some sort of solace in his sorrows.
Some may argue that Mike Kinsella’s vocals and lyrics are a little too indulgent in melodramatic self-pity and despair, but this is midwest emo after all, so it’s like asking why water is wet; one thing for certain is that American Football makes some of the most gut-wrenching music I’ve ever heard and this further exploration of post-rock was nothing short of captivating.
Where LP2 failed to differ too much from their debut, LP4 feels like more of a progression from its own predecessor, with the band moving further away from their guitar-centric sound towards something more atmospheric and ethereal.
Music: 4/5
Artwork: 4/5
Charli xcx – Wuthering Heights
Charli experiments with an orchestra on this brilliant and ambitious film soundtrack.
Released as the soundtrack to the newest film adaptation of Emily Brontë’s famous and controversial work, Wuthering Heights sees Charli xcx experimenting with orchestral instruments and noise on this compelling work, which is so much more than just a mere soundtrack.
The opening track, the gothic and haunting House, which features spoken-word vocals from John Cale of The Velvet Underground, minimal instrumentation and a distorted industrial climax, was an incredibly bold choice for a single, let alone the first single since Charli xcx’s critically and commercially successful BRAT era, only two years prior. This song sees a surreal combination of two musicians whom are separated by half a century of age, and from different generations and completely opposing ends of the musical spectrum, but sees Charli thinking outside of the box of pop confines by having sought out a collaboration with such an artist in the first place, seeking a sound that was both elegant and brutal (as John Cale had described VU). Considering John Cale’s production work with the late German chanteuse Nico and with New York City punk rocker Patti Smith (on her seminal 1976 album, Horses), he’s had a legacy of working well with women.
Chains of Love was a slightly more conventional single that followed House only a few days later, but is no less rich or exquisite. Wall of Sound is appropriately-titled, with a wall of strings that push up against Charli’s vocals. Dying for You and its delayed synth intro feel like something Kate Bush would have made in the 1980s. Altars is a grandiose romantic ballad with a sensual drum beat. Eyes of the World sees an appearance from singer/actress Sky Ferreira. Funny Mouth is an dramatic closer, with some intense industrial flourishes.
Charli promised that her next album would be the anti-BRAT — and this does fit the description, as the instrumentation on Wuthering Heights is primarily vintage, rustic and a little bit industrial, so it doesn’t feel much at all like BRAT, though it does still feel 100% like Charli. There are still flavours of 1980s revivalism throughout the album, and no other song gets quite as dark and strange as House, but this is far more experimental than most pop artists would ever dream of being. If Charli’s goal was to make an album that was both elegant and brutal, I’d say she succeeded. Every track here was immaculate and theatrical and I love seeing pop artists be this adventurous and unpredictable.
Charli xcx’s Wuthering Heights works very well as a standalone album, something many soundtracks fail to do, and while I’m yet to see this music in the context of the film, I can still say that this has the potential to become one of the memorable film soundtracks of all time — that’s how great it is.
Music: 4.5/5
Artwork: 4/5
Foo Fighters – Your Favorite Toy
Foo Fighters are back with some carefree garage rock.
Three years after the pain and loss of But Here We Are (a late career triumph) and a highly publicized marital affair, Dave Grohl & friends are back, but the emotion, sincerity and experimentation of its predecessor are nowhere to be found here.
Compared to But Here We Are‘s sound, which was a mixture of the band’s typical post-grunge sound, along with some shoegaze elements, Your Favorite Toy harkens back to the Foo’s early days, sounding far less polished and more raw than most of the band’s input from the past ten years.
Caught in the Echo is a energized, punkish opener, though its chorus sounds a bit too similar to their 2014 track, The Feast and the Famine — still, it’s a reliable enough Foo banger. Of All People is continues with the garage rock/punk sound of early Foo Fighters. The title track feels a bit like a rawer take on the dance rock sound of a Medicine at Midnight track like Making a Fire and also incorporates backing vocals from one of Grohl’s daughters (though it’s Harper this time, not Violet). Unconditional is somewhat reminiscent of 80s R.E.M. Child Actor‘s refrain of “turn the cameras off” is a bit too repetitive. The heavy and metallic lead single, Asking for a Friend, closes off the album, and is the closest to this album’s definitive Foo Fighters song.
Considering that Your Favorite Toy is the band’s 12th album and is more than 30 years into the band’s career, it’s a fairly safe and album, largely absent of the emotional impact or heartfelt songwriting of But Here We Are. It would have been nice to see Dave Grohl address his affair, crafting another inspired album from the remorse and regret, but a raw and concise batch of garage rock is far from the worst thing the Foos have ever done either.
Music: 3.5/5
Artwork: 2.5/5
JPEGMAFIA – EXPERIMENTAL RAP
JPEGMAFIA gets experimental.
Named after JPEGMAFIA’s self-proclaimed claim to the experimental rap throne, EXPERIMENTAL RAP takes the rap metal of I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU and adds in some new sounds, like gospel and dubstep.
Lead single babygirl uses a sample in a similar way to Run the Jewel’s Close Your Eyes (And Count to Fuck), but cranks up the overall heaviness. Burning Hammer, TSAR BOMBA and The Ghost of Emmett Till are some of the heaviest songs on the album, with the former being one of the album’s most experimental tracks and the latter containing a drum sample from The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Little Miss Lover. Mask On is a banger. No Strippers in Heaven and Bridges on Fire are soulful R&B slow jams, the latter of which features previous collaborator, Buzzy Lee (Steven Spielberg’s daughter — yes, that Steven Spielberg).
Meet the Dealers, $ (Money), head and The First Amendment all incorporate dubstep and even though it’s not my preferred EDM subgenre, it’s a minor enough influence on the greater album and is mostly well-executed where it is used. The twisted instrumental of head sounds like Death Grips circa Niggas on the Moon. The 1st amendment shows Peggy flexing his freedom of speech over some dubstep, with lyrics alluding to Charlie Kirk’s assassination, but then again, when did rappers ever care about being politically correct? Regardless, it might just be the nadir of EXPERIMENTAL RAP, and is definitely a skip. You will always lose money chasing women, but you will never lose women chasing money is a gentle guitar outro.
This album’s aesthetic seems quite influenced by Ye, particularly his VULTURES era (JPEGMAFIA had 4 production credits on VULTURES 1) and there’s even a song called Since I Met Ye, two singles, ¥ (Yen) and $ (Money) (¥$ was the name that Ye and Ty Dolla $ign used for their collaboration) and Lights, which interpolates Ye’s All of the Lights. There’s also Ye-like gospel interludes His Will and One Day It Will Be Over, as well as the theatrical War Over Land, Degenerate’s Prayer and Pop this Heat, which all implement gospel choirs into their compositions. And like with VULTURES 1 and 2, EXPERIMENTAL RAP is getting hated-on by most of the internet.
The only real criticism I can think of with EXPERIMENTAL RAP is to do with the rapping itself. JPEGMAFIA is more renown as a producer than a rapper, but he has shown impressive vocal range and ability over the years, even dating back to the Devon Hendryx days, but here, he barely sings and all his rap flows feel like repeated triplets, with little to no variation, just speed. It’s not bad, but it’s not something I ever noticed on his previous albums.
A grand album that lives up to its name, only hindered by the high benchmarks set by JPEGMAFIA’s previous works and a relatively weak rap game, but make no mistake, this is still a fantastic album with Peggy’s usual magic touch.
Music: 4.25/5
Artwork: 4/5
Kim Gordon – PLAY ME
Kim Gordon continues to be the hippest septuagenarian in music.
After fully immersing herself in the trap instrumentals of The Collective, Kim Gordon and returning producer Justin Raisen are back with perhaps her best sounding batch of songs yet.
Much like its predecessor, PLAY ME revolves around criticisms of technology, particularly the recent A.I. push (DIRTY TECH, BLACK OUT) and though detractors of The Collective may write the lyricism off as curmudgeonly, the hysteria and anxieties surrounding technology (and the resulting human redundancy) are more valid than ever.
The title track starts the album off feeling like some sort of dystopian, sci-fi blaxploitation film, making for a riveting opener. The Sonic Youth reminiscent lead single NOT TODAY is a blend of post-punk, dream pop and krautrock; GIRL WITH A LOOK has a similar dreamy instrumental. Dave Grohl provides the beats on the bizarre BUSY BEE. The ire of SUBCON seems to be directed towards a certain tech-obsessed billionaire, criticizing his short-sighted ambitions to have the elite abandon Earth for the substantially less-inhabitable Mars (“You wanna go to Mars and then what?”); then there’s POST EMPIRE which seems to target a particular western world leader. NAIL BITER is full of fuzzed-out, bass.
My one criticism with PLAY ME is BYEBYE25!, a 2025 remake of the opener from 2024’s The Collective, which changes the lyrics to reflect major and controversial topics of that year. It would make more sense to have left it as a non-album single, but seeing as I liked it the first time around (and it still bangs here), then its inclusion isn’t too big of an issue.
Although I preferred The Collective‘s more experimental and overall psychedelic production, PLAY ME refines the admittedly rough edges and abandons the density of that album’s dark sound, making for what’s probably her most rounded (and relatively accessible) solo album yet.
PLAY ME is short at just under 30 minutes and it isn’t as bold or challenging as The Collective was, but this is still an excellent work from the veteran alternative rocker. I was a fan of Kim Gordon long before she went solo, but I still never expected the bassist of Sonic Youth to be one of my favourite major artists of the 2020s and yet, here we are.
Music: 4.25/5
Artwork: 3/5
Muse – The Wow! Signal
Muse releases their best album in 20 years.
Despite maintaining their reputation as one of the greatest modern live acts in rock, it’s an understatement to say that Muse has been on a creative and critical decline for the past two decades in terms of entire album experiences. Fortunately, something has awakened within Matt Bellamy and The Wow! Signal is easily the band’s most exciting and consistent work since 2006’s Black Holes and Revelations.
The Dark Forest opens the album with a galloping spaghetti western rhythm, reminiscent of Knights of Cydonia. Nightshift Superstar is a nu-disco song, not unlike something Dua Lipa or Tame Impala might have made in recent years, with Matt Bellamy singing in a falsetto. Cryogen’s riff feels like a spiritual successor to Plug-In Baby and is one of the most satisfying things Muse has done in years. Be With You is a pop ballad that starts with church organs, before going to the more familiar synthpop territory of their past couple of albums. Hexagons is a mini-epic, full of the Origin of Symmetry-type synth passages and progressive virtuosity. Unravelling sees Muse venture into djent and as it was the album’s first single, it signalled a return to the heavier sound that 2000s Muse fans have been sorely missing. The Sickness in You & I is another metal-coded rocker and sees a return of Matt Bellamy’s falsetto from earlier on the record. It took ten albums, but Hush sees Muse’s first feature, with Ellie Goulding providing vocals alongside Bellamy on another track with a killer guitar riff and a memorable chorus. Space Debris sees the over-the-top trio chill out for a bit, before a more characteristic bombastic outro to close off the album.
Even if some of this album’s best moments can feel like a callback to earlier classics, The Wow! Signal doesn’t feel regressive and is without a doubt the strongest, most consistent and thoroughly enjoyable album that Muse has released since the mid 2000s.
Music: 4.5/5
Artwork: 3.5/5
My New Band Believe – My New Band Believe
The ex-black midi bassist/vocalist/multi-instrumentalist’s new band.
After his ex-bandmate Geordie Greep had released one of the best albums of 2024 with The New Sound, the bar was set high for any new musical endeavours from the band’s other members. Morgan Simpson went on to join Invariance, releasing Wish You Well in 2025 and Cameron Picton formed My New Band Believe, whose debut album is full of orchestral whimsy and top-tier acoustic guitar playing.
Target Practice is a pleasant chamber folk opener that abruptly leads into In the Blink of an Eye, which recalls the psychedelic folk of a song like Led Zeppelin’s Friends. Heart of Darkness is an 8-minute epic with twisting rhythms and an atmospheric outro that wouldn’t feel out of place on a King Crimson record. Love Story‘s sweet and romantic balladry contrasts with the perverted lust of Geordie Greep’s The New Sound — both perspectives different sides of the same coin, both driven by desire. Actress is another epic that never loses momentum or suspense over it’s 8 and a half minute runtime. One Night is similar to the opener, loosely bookending the album.
My New Band Believe is yet another fantastic off-shoot from the short-lived black midi, with Cameron Picton giving Geordie Greep a run for his money. This album shows just how crucial Cameron Picton was to his previous band’s sound and that there was obviously too much songwriting talent in that band for them to last.
Music: 4/5
Artwork: 3/5
Nine Inch Nails & Boys Noize – Nine Inch Noize
Nine Inch Nails x Boys Noize
Having recently worked with electronic artist Boys Noize on Tron Ares and its remix album Tron Ares: Divergence, as well as touring with him on their powerhouse Peel It Back tour (I was lucky to have seen it twice), a full collaboration with Nine Inch Nails seemed inevitable at this point.
Nine Inch Noize is unconventional, as it isn’t quite a remix album, nor is it a live album or even a studio album, but a bit of all three, consisting of no original songs, but rather techno-heavy/rave-friendly remixes of various Nine Inch Nails songs from across the band’s career, as well as a couple covers. The tracklist includes some of the more obvious choices for an album like this, with Closer, Heresy, Copy of a and Came Back Haunted. There are a few deeper cuts like Vessel, The Warning and Me, I’m Not (all from Year Zero), She’s Gone Away (from Not the Actual Events) and the band’s recent Tron: Ares soundtrack hit, As Alive as You Need Me to Be. There is also Parasite from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ side project How to Destroy Angels and a Soft Cell cover, Memorabilia. There are no songs from Pretty Hate Machine, but that album was already more dance-oriented and electronic than the band’s later work, so it would have been a fairly pointless exercise.
I wouldn’t say any of the songs here are superior to their original counterparts, but they still do them justice by bringing out new dimensions in them by swapping out the headbanging for dancing. I’m not typically fond of remix albums, but this was a cohesive and consistent project.
Music: 3.75/5
Artwork: 3/5
Sublime – Until the Sun Explodes
Jakob Nowell’s tribute to his father’s legacy.
Arriving 30 years after the death of Bradley Nowell and the release of Sublime’s self-titled final album, Until the Sun Explodes features Jakob Nowell filling-in for his father on this heartfelt tribute and thank you to man to him. Accompanying Jakob Nowell are the two surviving members of Sublime, Bud Gaugh (drums) and Eric Wilson (bass), making this the closest thing possible to having the original Sublime lineup.
The opening track Ensada was released as a single last year and did away with any doubt that Jakob would be unworthy of standing in his dad’s shoes — in fact, it’s almost uncanny how similar he sounds to his father; you have to remind yourself that it’s 2026 and not 1996. Trey’s Song features H.R. of the legendary hardcore punk band Bad Brains. Casino Toarmina is a delicate acoustic folk detour. 247-369 is a punky number similar to 40oz. to Freedom‘s We’re Only Gonna Die for Our Arrogance, with Come Again being reminiscent of that album’s opener, Waiting for My Ruca. The three Maybe Partying Will Help songs are musique concrète-style interludes that unfortunately don’t amount to much. Thanx Again is the spiritual successor to Sublime’s debut’s grateful closing track, Thanks.
From the artwork, which references the iconic cover of Sublime’s 1992 debut album, 40oz. to Freedom, to the influential blend of ska punk and reggae, the Sublime of Until the Sun Explodes feels no less genuine than the version that Bradley Nowell had left behind in ’96. It may not contain a hit like What I Got or something as classic as Date Rape or Smoke Two Joints, but I’m certain that this album would have made Bradley proud.
A poetic epilogue to one of the greatest musical losses of the 1990s and a beautiful example of the connection between a son and his father.
Music: 3.75/5
Artwork: 5/5
U2 – Days of Ash
U2 sounds (somewhat) inspired again.
The Days Of Ash EP is the first collection of new music from U2 since 2017’s Songs of Experience (2023’s Songs of Surrender was just forty pointless remakes of several of the band’s greatest songs). Inspired by increasingly worsening geo-political tensions, wars and unpredictable world leaders, Bono feels the most inspired that he’s sounded in over two decades here. Days of Ash sounds like U2 trying to recapture the protest-powered proto-punk of 1983’s War, but it comes off as U2 trying to recapture War as sexagenarians — regardless, the effort is noble.
American Obituary is a decent, politically-charged opener (if not a little cheesy), with the following two tracks also being fairly good songs (The Tears of Things, Song of the Future). Wildpiece is a 1+ minute long interlude with spoken word vocals and feels random on such a short project. Yours Eternally features the eternally bland and milquetoast Ed Sheeran, but is better than you’d expect.
U2 will never relive the artistic or commercial glories of their nearly perfect body of work between 1980-1993, but they don’t have to — all people want is a half-decent new U2 album and while this is only an EP, it feels like a step in the right direction.
Music: 3/5
Artwork: 2/5
U2 – Easter Lily
U2 releases their second EP of the year.
Following February’s Days Of Ash, U2 is back again with an improved collection of songs and their best work in a long time, recalling the post-punk sound of their first few records.
Tracks like, Song for Hal, In a Life and Scars have that post-punk feel and guitar tone from The Edge, which made their 1980s work so seminal. Resurrection Song and Easter Parade give the album’s title (and release date) some credence and comes as no surprise, as U2 has always been a Christian rock band after all (see, October). The only skip on the EP is COEXIST (I Will Bless the Lord at All Times?), which drones on far too long and is a bit dull compared to the previous tracks, though the experimentation is commendable.
While it won’t rival anything from Boy, War or even the fairly underrated October, this return to their post-punk roots makes for one of the more enjoyable U2 projects that they’ve released in a long time, despite how regressive that may sound. The cover is also an improvement over the one from the Days of Ash.
Music: 3.5/5
Artwork: 3/5
Ye – BULLY
Haw-haw!
After a year of his worst controversies yet, including the releases of the now unavailable and extremely controversial singles WW3, COUSINS and HEIL HITLER (all from the unreleased WW3 / CUCK / IN A PERFECT WORLD album), and his use of A.I. to finish his vocals on recent projects like VULTURES 2 and DONDA 2, BULLY is finally here, following several work-in-progress iterations and half a dozen delays from March 2025 to March 2026.
A couple days prior to the final release date of March 27, some vinyl and CD copies of BULLY were sold early, leading to near-instant fan outrage on social media due to the preservation of the A.I. vocals that fans have been complaining about since the previous year, as well as a wave of order cancellations. This led to Ye responding on X with an updated tracklist and the reassurance of no A.I. vocals on an updated album soon to be released. Why would Ye hide the fact that the physical albums sold in shops would still have outdated versions of the songs and A.I. vocals, when listeners are inevitably going to find out and make a fuss about it? Or was the physical release the album that Ye wanted, with the digital release being closer to the one that the fans wanted? Was this some sort of performance art to release two different versions of the same album on different mediums? Is Ye just trying to maximize the album’s sales by having people buy multiple versions of the album? Is this just the result of Ye making last minute changes to an album that was already manufactured? Or is it all of the above? God only knows.
As for the bully concept, maybe it’s about how the media bullied Ye into becoming the villain that they’ve been saying he was since the president Trump handshake/M.A.G.A. hat/”slavery is a choice” controversies in 2018. Despite going non-secular and cleaning up his image, he was continuously ridiculed and mocked by the media, which was only exacerbated by his divorce and failed presidential run, so perhaps he was just giving the people what they wanted him to be? Instead of the profanity-free, Jesus-loving husband and father he was trying to be, he regressed to being profane and making “sinful” music, while also typing the most controversial things he could conjure up on Twitter. Perhaps he was showing that much of the world would continue to hate him, regardless of which one he was (a duality dating back to The Life of Pablo‘s album cover). And yet, for all the surrounding hysteria, BULLY is a rather tame album, devoid of almost anything remotely controversial, instead playing like a career retrospective, exploring the sounds that have spanned his impressive body of work — BULLY sounds like it was made for the fans, but that doesn’t mean it’s half-assed and uninteresting.
Compared to the 13 song tracklist found on physical copies, the digital version of BULLY has 18 tracks, with the new songs comprising of the first 8 songs (other than ALL THE LOVE), with the original BULLY album taking up the rest of the runtime, excluding MISSION CONTROL and the Can cover/reinterpretation LOSING YOUR MIND.
The new songs added to the front of the digital version of BULLY are all killer: Ye adds some harder, more industrial style Yeezus era bangers (KING, THIS A MUST), a Travis Scott feature with a James Brown sample from possibly the funniest interview of all time (FATHER), some chipmunk soul (PUNCH DRUNK, WHATEVER WORKS), a song with a Donda West voice sample (MAMA’S FAVORITE), a dark, Donda era-sounding track (SISTERS AND BROTHERS) and a handful of features absent from the physical album (Travis Scott, CeeLo Green, Peso Pluma, talkbox player André Troutman and Don Toliver, though the latter has since been removed).
PREACHER MAN is a drumless track, with a sped-up soul sample like that in Bound 2, but the lyrics are more boastful than horny here; BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is a similar style song, with seemingly last-minute, re-recorded Ye vocals on the digital album. I CAN’T WAIT interpolates You Can’t Hurry Love by The Supremes, before segueing into WHITE LINES, with an André Troutman recreation of a Stevie Wonder talkbox performance of The Carpenter’s Close to You, where Ye admits that he feels like a clone of himself, maybe referencing the fan theory that Ye was replaced with a clone in the early 2020s, or perhaps its introspective and earnest.
The title track starts with a recreation of The Simpsons‘ Nelson Muntz’ iconic haw-haw laugh rather than a proper sample (“shhh, you wanna get sued?”); the rest of the track uses a sample from a Bollywood track, with CeeLo Green adding an interesting hook on the digital version. Also on digital, Peso Pluma sings on the extended half Spanish/half English LAST BREATH, along with Ye, who re-recorded his vocals. ALL THE LOVE has an almost Graduation-like stadium grandiosity to it (an intro is added in the digital release) and while it’s missing the intro from the CUCK version of the song (GAS CHAMBERS), it’s still one of the best tracks on the album. There was originally a sample of French singer Pomme’s Soleil Soleil on HIGHS AND LOWS, though the sample wasn’t cleared, so they whipped up something else that sounds close enough.
CIRCLES samples Huit Octobre 1971 by Cortex, which was sampled in 2004 on MF Doom’s track One Beer and originally featured Don Toliver, who has since been replaced by Ye. Fans seem up in arms over the changes from the version of CIRCLES previewed in 2025, though I actually like this new version, as there’s a greater difference from MF Doom’s use of the sample. DAMN no longer starts with the Nina Simone sample that was in the 2025 single version, though it’s better off without it; the version here is also more produced than the minimalistic version on the physical release.
The closing song on the physical edition of the CD, LOSING YOUR MIND, is practically identical to Can’s classic 1972 song Vitamin C (Ye had previously sampled Can’s Sing Swan Song on Graduation‘s Drunk and Hot Girls, so he’s clearly a fan), with Ye’s voice replacing the late Damo Suzuki, added modern production, and changing the chorus from “You’re losing your vitamin c” to “You’re losing your mind”. I initially wanted to hate LOSING YOUR MIND, as it comes off as lazy plagiarism, but perhaps there was a reason Ye chose this a the original closer — after all, he has been losing his mind for years, according to everybody around him. Or was this some sort of misplaced tribute to the late Suzuki? Despite the song’s bizarre nature, as someone who loves early Can, the sound of the instruments in LOSING YOUR MIND do sound great, far more vibrant than the most recent remaster I’ve heard of Vitamin C.
Comparing the two versions of BULLY, the physical release feels skeletal and barren compared to the digital edition, which makes it all the more baffling that it was even distributed to stores in this state. Maybe Ye was going for a cold and isolated sound like what he achieved on 808s & Heartbreak, and while I do understand if that was his original vision, the kitchen sink approach of the digital edition ultimately sounds far more fulfilling and suitably fragmented (even though it only ends up being 10 minutes longer).
Another of the most important changes that Ye made on the digital version was the inclusion of real vocals (re-recorded on songs like, BULLY, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and LAST BREATH), though the A.I. vocals have remained in some songs. Did Ye always plan to make BULLY with A.I.? Are the metal grills that have been adorned to his visage for the past couple of years (and part of the album’s marketing) simply an excuse for not rapping/singing, or are they a red herring, with Ye seeing the artistic potential of A.I. in music, not so different from his influential (but initially controversial) use of autotune on 2008’s 808s & Heartbreak? Seeing as the re-recorded real Ye vocals on the digital edition sound better (though they sound like they were done last minute and barely mixed or mastered), we know that Ye is still capable, so why else would he focus so much on A.I., especially when he knows how much people are resistant to it? Did Ye think that he can be an early adopter once again, being the first to release a major album (and a possibly acclaimed one at that, though unlikely) made with A.I.? Why not?
As far as I know, Ye is often canonized as the first major rapper to break away from the confines of the genre’s gangster roots, the pioneering producer of chipmunk soul, the first rapper to use autotune the way he did and the first major artist to make post-release changes to an album in real time (The Life of Pablo), so why is it so hard to fathom that he could use A.I. in an innovative way, rather than as a cheat? Again, I’m not a proponent of A.I., and perhaps I’m just playing the devil’s advocate, but did Ye have his reasons to experiment (with VULTURES 2 and DONDA 2 being tests), or was this simply due to a perceived laziness and avoidance from rapping?
Despite how you may feel about Ye’s use of A.I. on the physical version of BULLY, it doesn’t suggest that this album is simply the result of somebody typing in “create a Ye album” as a prompt for their A.I. model — the physical edition of BULLY is actually fairly interesting for what it is, with none of the A.I. vocals actually sounding that bad (and I’ve heard some awful A.I. voice recreations). Perhaps I’m biased towards Ye, though I try not to be; it’s not like I was always a fan, as his music still had to win me over once upon a time, which led me to be willing to tolerate his abrasive persona in the first place. Even if you strip away the man and the infamy, his albums each paint different sonic worlds, with no one album ever imitating the last; some of his works even border on challenging at times, which is extremely rare from such a mainstream artist, and he never refuses to explore the entire emotional spectrum from boasting and cussing to grieving and pleading. How is using A.I. any different from what he’s done with autotune? Or am I giving too much credit to someone who might not even have a method to their madness? However, none of that matters too much, as the digital version of BULLY is mostly devoid of the A.I. vocals that inhabits the entire physical edition of the album anyway.
Aside from all the associated drama and focusing on the thing that matters most (the music), BULLY is another great, varied, flawed masterpiece from modern rap’s most exciting, infamous and unpredictable figure, though I wouldn’t call it a comeback, as Ye was never really gone (at least not in the music zeitgeist). You can say that the album is scattershot, fragmented and sounds unfinished, with many songs barely reaching 2 minutes, and yet, like every previous Ye album before it, it’s a sonic mosaic with endless replayabilty. Sure, I’m probably rating this higher than most people are, but I’m not judging the album based on Ye’s public controversies (which exist outside of the album) and it’s still an album I keep returning to, despite its flaws.
Even though I think that WW3 / CUCK / IN A PERFECT WORLD was never intended to be released (it’s mostly Dave Blunts’ voice and songs) and was just some joke that went over everybody’s heads, I do still hope that 2025 was the peak of Ye’s infamy, so he can focus on music (and family) and have a My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy-level critical and public comeback, but it’s going to require him to stay on his meds, surround himself with the right people, take his time before releasing an unfinished album and delete X/Twitter.
Music: 4.25/5
Artwork: 5/5
Ye – BULLY – DELUXE
Ye finally updates BULLY and adds a couple new songs.
Shortly after the release of BULLY, there was promotion for a deluxe version of the album, but months past by with nothing; that was until the non-album single GEMINI SEASON released on Ye’s birthday with an announcement for BULLY – DELUXE and a release date of June 19. Better late than never, I suppose.
When BULLY first released back in March, the digital album was already an enjoyable project, though it was still held back by some flaws (SISTERS AND BROTHERS was mixed too low, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST‘s vocals sounded recorded last minute with an iPhone, some A.I. was left on the album) — fortunately, BULLY – DELUXE fixes all of these issues. Outside of most songs having updated mixes and the aforementioned changes, the sample in PUNCH DRUNK sounds quieter, but considering its the backbone of the song, it makes the entire song sound a bit too quiet compared to the rest of the album. Some of the songs that have re-recorded Ye vocals include ALL THE LOVE and THIS ONE HERE, there is a new album cover, there is a feature from Ms. Lauryn Hill on I CAN’T WAIT, a brand new track, featuring Don Toliver called OK and the return of MISSION CONTROL, which was previously a physical version exclusive.
Overall, all of the changes on BULLY- DELUXE help to realize most of BULLY‘s potential and makes for the definitive version of this album. It may have taken about four versions of the album to release, but BULLY finally sounds finished enough to appease fans, though it probably won’t win over any of Ye’s haters.
Music: 4.5/5
Artwork: 5/5
YHWH Nailgun – Magazine
The experimental post-industrial band releases an 11 minute album.
Following YHWH Nailgun’s debut, 45 Pounds, which was already taking liberties with the LP format with its breezy 20 minute runtime, the band has managed to cut down their sophomore album’s runtime in half to a paltry 11 minutes, making people question if you can even consider this a proper LP. Regardless of the semantics of what format Magazine is, it’s still one of the most interesting listening experiences I’ve had this year, even if you can finish it before your coffee cools down enough to drink.
Most of the songs on Magazine are barely a minute long, with the title track only being 35 seconds in length. Despite the fact that these songs tend to end before they even begin. they do still admittedly pack a lot of punch into them. There are no choruses, there are no verses, there isn’t really any structure at all, but there are so very interesting timbres and textures on display and some truly out-there time signatures. In terms of sound, I’d describe Magazine as Aztec music with industrial, math rock and post-rock flavours, with songs like Ghost of Love sounding like something from a carnival.
Had Magazine been released as an EP, I’m sure it would receive a warmer reception from those who are hung up on its ridiculously short length, and while the songs do resemble sketches more than traditional songs, there was still a lot to unfold in it’s 11 minute runtime.
Music: 4/5
Artwork: 4.5/5
FIN
Brett Nippard
