Sunday Summary (2/4/24)

February 4, 2024 Zack Free

Every Sunday, the Free Review highlights the most significant releases of the week. This week, we tackle new albums from the Vijay Iyer Trio, Meth Math, and Future Islands, as well as tracks from Nicki Minaj, Usher, and Burial.

Albums

Vijay Iyer Trio Compassion

Fresh off the stunning success of last year’s gorgeous, ambient Love In Exile, Vijay Iyer returns to his jazz roots on Compassion. It’s his first album with bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer Tyshawn Sorey since 2021’s epic Uneasy, one of the century’s best jazz records and a resolutely political statement on societal unrest. The trio’s new album is lighter, both thematically and sonically, turning its attention from tension to resolution. It results in some of the pianist’s most inspired and colorful pieces to date; despite their foreboding titles, “Maelstrom” and “Tempest” display a playful synergy between the musicians, games of tag that highlight each player’s unique sound and perspective. These are also some of Iyer’s most creative compositions - the title of “Ghostrumental” is likely a tribute to Ghostface Killah, and the song’s lurching motif sounds like something out a nineties RZA production. The more delicate moments on the record are equally as spellbinding; solo piano number “It Goes” is masterfully restrained, and the trio’s take on Stevie Wonder’s “Overjoyed” is breathtakingly beautiful. The title track, “Compassion,” might be the best song here, a lush, contemplative number that recalls the deep spirituality of Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. It’s warm and enveloping, a masterclass in evocative free jazz, and a reach for the empathy and compassion we all need right now. B-

Meth Math Chupetones

Hyperpop and experimental reggaetón have evolved in parallel over the last decade, but their collision has rarely been highlighted. There are predecessors to the sound explored on Meth Math’s debut LP - see Arca’s collaboration with the late SOPHIE on 2020’s “La Chíqui” or the works of Sega Bodega - but the Mexican trio is still delving in relatively uncharted waters. Chupetones provides the year’s first great hyperpop record, a marvelously creative effort that draws from trance, synth-pop, and deconstructed reggaetón. Meth Math play in the innards of these genres with gleeful abandon, embracing a hi-NRG pulse on “Abducida” and industrial-level distortion on “Pócima.” The most fascinating aspect of the album might be the way that they bend reggaetón’s traditional dembow beat into unfamiliar shapes - they speed it up on “Mermelhada” and screw it down on “Myspace” until it’s almost unrecognizable. They emerge with some stunning moments on the way - high point “Cyberia” is a light speed rave excursion that whizzes by in streaks of neon, and “Capullo” is a featherweight synth ballad that recalls Grimes’ 2015 masterpiece Art Angels. Meth Math have plenty of room to evolve, but on Chupetones, they offer a promising debut that forges ahead into unexplored territory. C

Future Islands People Who Aren’t There Anymore

Since their 2014 breakthrough, Future Islands has remained one of indie pop’s most consistent bands, for better or worse. Over the last decade, they’ve released three albums, including this year’s People Who Aren’t There Anymore, each one a solid entry in their growing catalogue of epic, arena-ready synth-pop. Their new album sticks adamantly to their formula - the twinkling synths, the New Order-style bass lines, and, of course, frontman Samuel Herring’s massive choruses. Herring is still one of the genre’s most captivating performers; the intensity captured in their live performances (and famously on David Letterman’s The Late Show) comes through on every record, his voice an undeniable force. People is spotlessly polished, groomed with the keen touch of a major pop record, but it doesn’t detract from the music’s power. Instead, the album features some of the band’s best songs and performances to date - “The Tower” and “The Fight” are powerful, anthemic tunes that deliver on the promise of 2014’s flawless “Seasons (Waiting on You).” All that said, Future Islands’ sound has become predictable, drawing from the same pallet of sounds that they always have, and there’s nothing that feels new here. The music doesn’t sound stale or reductive, but it’s familiar to a fault; perhaps that’s also Future Island’s greatest strength, an immediately identifiable act in a genre that often lends itself to facelessness. People certainly lives up to that promise, a true-to-form effort in a discography full of them. C-

Tracks

Nicki Minaj “Big Foot”

There was a time in which Nicki Minaj could bulldoze her rivals without breaking a sweat - see her swipes at Lil Kim on “Roman’s Revenge” or, even more enjoyably, the hilarious “Tragedy.” But times have changed; in recent years, the rapper has become spiteful, seemingly obsessed with tearing down her female contemporaries. Last Friday, Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion dropped the scathing “HISS,” a stinging diss track that set its sights, among others, on Minaj. Its severity wasn’t unwarranted - Megan had been the punching bag for rappers including Drake and Minaj for too long not to warrant a serious response. Nicki takes the low road on “Big Foot,” her hasty response to “HISS.” There’s nothing creative or clever about her bars here, which are petty at best and heinous at worst. The “bigfoot” nickname for Megan is lazy, a knock on her imposing height, and the track contains none of the zany humor that made her early diss tracks so entertaining. She references the Tory Lanez incident several times (he was convicted of shooting Megan in the foot last year), riffs on Megan’s alleged alcohol abuse, and accuses her of selling her body to make progress in her career. Most unforgivably, she teases Megan about the death of her mother, a bitter retort that suggests Nicki is scraping the bottom of the barrel for mud to fling. In the lineage of contemporary diss records, “Bigfoot” is more “The Warning” than “The Story of Adidon,” an immature mess of a response that showcases Nicki at an absolute low, artistically and personally.

Usher “Ruin (feat. Pheelz)”

He’s influenced generations of R&B crooners and pop stars alike, but there’s no mistaking anyone for Usher. On “Ruin,” the best single yet from his upcoming album, Coming Home, his voice is in peak form, a delicate but unwavering force that floats weightlessly above the track’s Afrobeats arrangement. The track sounds effortless, less tedious than last year’s “Good Good,” and less understated than his The Color Purple contribution, “Risk It All.” It recalls some of his slow-burning career highlights, such as “You Got It Bad” and “Burn,” his heartbreak palpable, his performance moving and skillful. The lyrics are razor-sharp, like daggers to the heart - “you broke me and took your time with it,” he sings, “…you ruined me for everybody.” “Ruin” reminds us that, even three decades into his career, Usher is one of R&B’s greats, an unrivaled talent that is able to tug at your heartstrings like nobody else.

Burial “Dreamfear / Boy Sent From Above”

Each new release from Burial feels like contact from a far away friend, lovingly constructed and carefully timed. In the years since his creative breakthrough, 2007’s acclaimed Untrue, the enigmatic UK musician has dropped dual singles at a steady but unhurried pace. This year’s “Dreamfear” and “Boy Sent from Above” are two of his best songs to date, heartfelt dedications to nineties breakbeat that recall his high watermark, 2014’s Rival Dealer EP. That record represented a transformation in Burial’s art, a dynamic collection of suites that were designed to inspire, adding a sense of gentle kindness to a body of work that was once intimidatingly dark. He still paints in greyscale - his signature vocal mutilations and dank, ambient synths create an insulated, often suffocating atmosphere. But his most recent duo of tracks feel decidedly triumphant, a shift from last year’s stark, ambient cut “Unknown Summer.” The early work of iconic trio the Prodigy is a clear reference point - the stuttering vocal chops, the surging breakbeats, and the massive synth lines point determinedly to their 1992 debut, Experience. But the songs here breathe new life into their source material, coloring outside its lines with exuberance. In the final minutes of “Boy Sent from Above,” the song layers itself into a mountainous rave stunner, the most exhilarating, adrenaline-pumping music Burial has ever made. It’s the kind of left turn that has kept the musician’s work fresh and exciting for almost two decades, a massive artistic statement that should tide us over until we hear from him again.

Sunday Summary (1/28/24) + Bonus Reviews

January 28, 2024 Zack Free

Every Sunday, the Free Review highlights the most significant releases of the week. This week, we tackle new albums from The Smile, Astrid Sonne, and evilgiane, as well as tracks from Justin Timberlake, Megan Thee Stallion, and Ice Spice. In addition, we’ve included some reviews from January that haven’t appeared in the Sunday Summary.

Albums

The Smile Wall of Eyes

On their 2022 album, A Light for Attracting Attention, The Smile showcased a thrilling new direction for some of music’s most consistent innovators. Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, along with percussionist Tom Skinner, have kept the Radiohead flame alive in the eight years since the band’s A Moon Shaped Pool, bending their existing sound into knottier, proggier shapes. The Smile’s sophomore effort, Wall of Eyes, feels like a companion piece to their debut, and Greenwood has admitted that the album’s songs were hewn together from the same “backlog of ideas” formulated during the COVID lockdowns. But it differs in key ways; Wall forgoes the moments of bruising post-punk (Light’s “You Will Never Work In Television Again”) in favor of subtler, more dynamic arrangements, and its compositions feel looser and more experimental. It’s a softer, less confrontational body of work, with less to prove - Light, while terrific, bore the weight of Radiohead’s legacy, tussling with its unfair but inevitable baggage. The wider range offered here results in some jaw-dropping evolutions - “Friend of a Friend” marries seventies soft rock to shuffling jazz, and closer “You Know Me!” features one of Yorke’s most delicate performances and Greenwood’s most intricate, dramatic arrangements. But the album’s shining moment is the penultimate, ten-minute epic “Bending Hectic,” their best song to date - its gorgeous composition sounds like an update on Radiohead’s In Rainbows, but in its final stretch, it combusts into a Sabbath-esque blast of doom metal. It suggests that, even three decades into their career, Yorke and Greenwood still have some tricks up their sleeves, and Wall of Eyes stands as some of their best work to date. B+

Astrid Sonne Great Doubt

On her third album, violist and electronic musician Astrid Sonne makes experimental music that is accessible as it is difficult to define. Great Doubt is the Copenhagen musician’s most pop-forward effort to date, bringing her voice to the front of the mix, emphasizing song-craft as much as atmosphere. Her artful use of dissonance and intimate, closed-mic’d vocals recalls the work of art pop innovator Tirzah, though her viola adds a uniquely organic touch to the album’s trip-hop influenced drums and woozy synth pads. The lyrics here are simple and concise, but she turns single phrases into hypnotic refrains - “you look at me / do you wanna have a baby?”, she sings plaintively on “Do you wanna.” She remains most talented at composition; centerpiece “Boost” is an instrumental piece that sounds like breakbeat stripped down to its essentials, and “Overture” is an expert piece of scene-building that creates its own, almost unbearably pretty, microcosm of sound. But closer “Say you love me” puts all the pieces together, resulting in the album’s best, most fully realized moment. It’s gorgeous, tender, and forward-thinking, an encapsulation of Great Doubt’s unique vision. C

evilgiane #HEAVENSGATE VOL. 1

New York collective Surf Gang is responsible for some of the decade’s brightest, lushest trap music, largely due to the work of producer and founder evilgiane, who produces the bulk of their work. On his debut album, #HEAVENSGATE VOL. 1, the musician offers a sampler of the group’s artistry and aesthetic, an enjoyable smattering of technicolor trap cuts that highlight the producer’s array of styles. Much of his work is informed by the music of Pi’erre Bourne, whose crayon box arsenal of synths is clearly a guiding force here, but he also stretches into early Aphex Twin-style electronic on “WHAT SHE’S HAVING” and rage rap on “PAP SHIESTY.” While some of the sonic elements bleed together over the album’s duration, the project’s biggest drawback is the interchangeable nature of Surf Gang’s seemingly bottomless roster. Despite standout verses from house musicians Harto Falión and Slimesito, the best moments on the album belong to borrowed guests such as Rx Papi, Anycia, and 03 Greedo, the latter of whom steals the show twice over on “SIP SIP” and “BEEN DA WAVE.” Otherwise, VOL. 1 runs more or less on autopilot, resulting in a satisfying if slightly one-dimensional listen. C-

Tracks

Justin Timberlake “Selfish”

Justin Timberlake’s fall from grace has been a sad spectacle. From increased criticism over his relationship to Janet Jackson’s commercial exile to the toxic, misogynistic behavior highlighted in Britney Spears’s auto-biography, the once-superstar has found his demons coming back to haunt him and his public image. There’s also Man of the Woods, his shockingly awful 2018 album that sent him spiraling down from the critical acclaim he once garnered with ease. His comeback single, “Selfish,” is a soft return to the kind of saccharine balladry that has scored him some of most treasured hits. But as the hard reset its intended to be, it misses the mark in more ways than one. Judging from the title alone, one might assume that “Selfish” would’ve been a confessional, an attempt at redemption from the depths of public scrutiny. It’s not - “Selfish” is spectacularly run-of-the-mill, and the singer’s jealous desire for ownership over a love interest registers as toxic rather than romantic. Musically, it’s inoffensive; the production is smooth and glossy, JT’s harmonies thick and mellifluous. But it’s hard not to color its relative emptiness with the ghosts of his past, and “Selfish” ends up being a strained plea from the void that his legacy has left him.

Megan Thee Stallion “HISS”

This is Megan Thee Stallion’s world, and don’t forget it - after turning inward on the introspective “Cobra,” Meg sets her sights back on the industry. “HISS”, the second single from her upcoming album, is three minutes of unbridled energy, packed to the gills with killer one-liners (“my pussy so famous might get managed by Kris Jenner next”). She remains one of hip hop’s sharpest spitters, and reminds her contemporaries here that, throughout her commercial success, she’s still an expert battle emcee; she fires shots at Nicki Minaj, Drake, and the now-incarcerated Tory Lanez, and she hits every target with acuity. The track can be as exhausting as it is exhilarating - it’s engineered at eleven, an assault on the eardrums that doesn’t let up for a moment, and Meg’s voice overpowers the instrumental from LilJuMadeDaBeat. But as a testimony to her undeniable presence, it works in spades. “HISS” might be Megan the Stallion’s best song since 2021’s “Thot Shit,” an eviscerating diss record, and a welcome return to the peak of her game.

Ice Spice “Think U the Shit (Fart)”

On the lead single from her upcoming project Y2K!, Bronx rapper Ice Spice stays true to her brand, delivering another Jersey club-adjacent banger that highlights her charisma and her penchant for the ridiculous. The song’s anchoring line - “think you the shit, bitch? / you ain’t even a fart” - isn’t necessarily funny or clever, but Spice sells the energy behind it. She deviates slightly from the understated cool she’s known best for, dialing up the aggression over RIOTUSA’s booming production; “I got my foot on they necks, I can’t let up / she all on the floor, tell her get up,” Spice raps, her trademark flow still infectious as it’s ever been. The song should be an exercise in diminishing returns - Spice’s artistry hasn’t evolved a great deal since she broke through with “Munch (Feelin’ You)” in 2022. But instead, “Think U the Shit” is another victory lap from an artist who just can’t seem to lose. In the two days since its release, the track has racked up almost two million plays, a feat for any song, let alone one with the word “fart” in its title. Why change the formula if it works this well?

Bonus Reviews

Here is an assortment of album assessments that didn’t quite make the cut of the Sunday Review, but are nonetheless worth a listen.

03 Greedo Project T-Pain

Since 03 Greedo’s release from prison last year - he was granted parole in 2022 after serving over four years of a twenty-year sentence - the L.A. legend has quietly released four projects, including his fifth studio album, Halfway There. But the well-deserved buzz stirred up by stellar releases such as 2018’s The Wolf of Grape Street or his pre-lockup swan song, God Level, has steadily diminished since his incarceration, one of modern hip hop’s great injustices. However, on Project T-Pain, a full-length collaboration with producer Dnyc3 that was recorded prior to the rapper’s imprisonment, he takes us back to his peak era, his double cup overflowing with raw energy and untarnished potential. The mixtape has been circulating for years among diehard fans, but its official release marks the first backdated project to emerge since his release, a pristinely preserved time capsule that allows the listener to relive his legendary pre-prison run. It’s a more explicitly R&B-oriented effort than any of his previous works, and it conjures the idea of its namesake, T-Pain, if raised on a steady diet of promethazine and marijuana smoke. But there’s no mistaking Greedo’s trademarks; his gurgling timbre, his ingenious punchlines, and understated melodicism are all present in spades. If anything, the mixtape’s mastery of style and skill calls to mind the best works of Lil Wayne, another legend whose ultimate potential lives tragically in the shadow of his incarceration. C+

Benny the Butcher Everybody Can’t Go

Since signing with New York collective Griselda in 2014, Benny the Butcher has become one of underground hip hop’s steadiest, most compelling voices, dropping album after album of masterfully gritty, street-wise rap. On his major label debut, Everybody Can’t Go, he enters the mainstream on his own terms. The production here is split between contributions from Hit-Boy and the Alchemist, avoiding the litany of production credits one might’ve expected from the Butcher’s highest profile effort to date. Hit-Boy draws from the boom-bap revival he’s showcased on recent efforts with Nas, a high definition rendering of a rougher, less polished sound. But his production often sounds at odds with Benny’s merciless, cold-blooded flow; the Alchemist’s work, by contrast, highlights his chemistry with the Butcher, and his work here compliments the rapper’s flow and aesthetic more readily (see the stunning, multi-part “TMVTL”). The album also features some quality guest appearances - Lil Wayne shines on “Big Dog,” and Armani Caesar, the only woman to appear on the project, is a perfect foil on “Buffalo Kitchen Club.” But Benny runs the show here, and he approaches every track with teeth bared, reaffirming his status as one of New York’s most consistent and gifted emcees. He’s at the top of his game on opener “Jermanie’s Graduation,” tying decades of experience in the trap to his own mother’s battle with addiction - “teary-eyed and gullible, I lived it / with a mother who struggled through addiction / I know every side of drug abuse.” He sounds bigger than life on “BRON,” and menacing on team get-together “Griselda Express,” exploring the full spectrum of his skills as a rapper. In the realm of mainstream street rap crossovers, Everybody Can’t Go is a success; even if it sacrifices some of his edge for brighter, poppier concessions, Benny the Butcher is playing the game by his own rules. C

**Fake Shore Drive, Bruiser Brigade • 2024**

Bruiser Wolf My Story Got Stories

Perhaps the most intriguing figure to emerge from Danny Brown’s Bruiser Brigade since Brown himself, Bruiser Wolf has an off-kilter flow and wild humor that give his music an affable, conversational quality, even when he’s poring through the perils of life in the trap. His vocal stylings are reminiscent of West Coast legend E-40, if significantly wilier, and his selection of beats is immaculate (see the marvelous, glitched-soul production on “Waiting in the Lobby” or the sumptuous, silken sample on lead single “Dope Boy”). My Story Got Stories is only the rapper’s second full-length effort, following 2021’s Dope Game Stupid, but at the age of 42, he effervesces with the confidence of a legend, his lyrical abilities dripping with experience (“my first toy was a scale / I had no choice!”). Most of his lines are accented with a cartoonish sense of urgency that makes every phrase sound like it was written with an exclamation point at its end (“they ain’t eatin’ / they hangry!”), and most of the guest artists here mirror his energy. Labelmates Danny Brown and Zelooperz appear on the zany “2 Bad,” and the eternally under-appreciated Trinidad James pops up on “I Was Taught To.” The record’s best track, “Crack Cocaine,” features a turn from Chicago rapper Chris Crack, a rapper as emphatic and witty as Wolf, and his greatest foil here. But there are few artists making hip hop this grimly hilarious, and My Story Got Stories is an excellent distillation of Bruiser Wolf’s unique formula. C+

Marika Hackman Big Sigh

There’s always been a storm encroaching at the edges of Marika Hackman’s music, even when her brightest arrangements have betrayed its presence, like on 2017’s excellent I’m Not Your Man. She embraces the darkness on her fourth studio effort, Big Sigh, which she’s called the “hardest album” she’s ever had to create. The record was written and recorded in the wake of the COVID-19 lockdowns, a period during which lurking existential terror was impossible to escape, and Hackman lets her demons write the songs for her here. She likens her struggle with anxiety to living with an “abusive partner” on “No Caffeine,” and finds herself stagnant in the shadow of a “difficult past relationship” on “Hanging.” But Big Sigh sounds like the fullest realization of her talent to date - its lyrics are like open wounds, its arrangements soaked in blood. The production, assisted by longtime collaborator Charlie Andrew, is textured and crisp, wrestling between stark beauty (solo piano interlude “The Lonely House”) and sky-scraping maximalism (the final minute of the title track), and Hackman plays almost every instrument here herself. It’s the most emotionally acute, sonically enveloping music of Hackman’s career, an unsparing look at the thoughts we try hardest to outrun. C

Ms. Boogie The Breakdown

Brooklyn rapper Ms. Boogie has been releasing music for over a decade, but the first album under her new moniker is a major step forward, an often harrowing confessional on life as a trans sex worker. Her writing and flow are spectacular throughout The Breakdown, and the production is a bracingly left-field take on her hometown’s Brooklyn drill. But the real appeal is the vulnerability she brings to the songs here; centerpiece “Hustler” is a stunning account of personal growth in the face of abuse and crumbling relationships. In the song’s outro, she recounts an interaction with a client who ends up calling the police on her, ending with a troubling revelation - “he’s ashamed,” she whispers as her voice carries into the ether, and it’s heartbreaking. The Breakdown is a confident, but delicate, breakthrough for the rapper that aches with experience, a deeply personal work that details a lifestyle our society often chooses to ignore. C

Sunday Summary (1/21/24)

January 21, 2024 Zack Free

Every Sunday, the Free Review highlights the most significant releases of the week. This week, we tackle new albums from Sleater-Kinney and Green Day, as well as tracks from Adrainne Lenker; Jlin & Philip Glass; Faye Webster & Lil Yachty; and Kim Gordon.

Albums

Sleater-Kinney Little Rope

Indie rock legends Sleater-Kinney have spent the last five years finding their footing, acclimating to the modern soundscape and readjusting after internal collapse. Little Rope is the band’s best album since their 2015 comeback album, No Cities to Love, and a marked improvement over Path of Wellness, their first record after the departure of founding member and drummer Janet Weiss. The record is perhaps their darkest, informed by the specter of an ailing society and the death of Carrie Brownstein’s mother and stepfather in a car accident last year. It exists miles apart from their “riot grrrl” origins or the visceral thrash of 2005’s temporary swan song The Woods, but it’s raw in a way that their music hasn’t been in almost two decades.

While the band’s own production on Wellness felt brittle, John Congleton’s work here is crisp and bold, painting the songs here in dark, muted colors while maintaining their punch. The two remaining founding members are also in peak form - it’s truly refreshing to hear Corin Tucker’s banshee wail unleash in the early moments of “Hell,” and Carrie Brownstein’s snotty swagger come alive on the pulverizing “Needlessy Wild.” New member Angie Boylan’s drumming is serviceable, even if it lacks the violence of Weiss’s legendary work on records like Dig Me Out and One Beat. But the arrangements on tracks like “Hunt You Down” and “Six Mistakes” feel like successful, more modern interpretations of the band’s existing sound.

Little Rope is an emotional rollercoaster, showcasing some of the band’s best and most evocative songwriting. “Hell” is a dank, foreboding opener that summons the essence of the world that’s crumbling around us - “hell is desperation,” Tucker sings, “any young man with a gun” - and “Say It Like You Mean It” is a touching, sprawling power ballad that begs for gentleness in the face of unforgiving loss. Explosive closer “Untidy Creature” is thrillingly defiant, pulsing with the ecstatic energy the band is known best for - “you built a cage, but your measurement’s wrong,” Tucker sings, “’cause I’ll find a way and I’ll pick your lock.”

Sleater-Kinney are a different band than they were a decade or three ago, but Tucker and Brownstein make use of their existing, unbending chemistry to create a record that sounds both modern and nostalgic. Little Rope is a powerful, career-reviving album that gives hope to their future as a duo, and showcases their unbreakable strength as a unit in the midst of emotional turmoil. C+

Green Day Saviors

At this point in their thirty-plus year career, one pretty much knows what to expect from Green Day. They’re a pop punk institution, a legacy band that’s too big to fail, comfortable enough not to push themselves in new or challenging directions. Predictably, their fourteenth album, Saviors, offers little in the way of ingenuity - it’s not necessarily a bad album, but it’s not all that different from anything they’ve put out over the last two decades.

It’s the band’s first album to be produced by longtime collaborator Rob Cavallo since 2013’s ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, ¡Tré! trilogy, and their first release since 2020’s Father of All Motherfuckers, a dad rock record that is truly not as bad as its reputation would suggest (in fact, it might be their lowest stakes, highest return album since their formative years). On Saviors, they make a soft return to their specific brand of protest music, but the songs are too polished to facilitate the pseudo-political message they’re attempting to sell.

The album’s strengths and weaknesses are apparent in its opening number, “The American Dream is Killing Me.” The cut is immediately reminiscent of the title track from American Idiot, the record that pulled them back from the nearing edge of obscurity (after 2000’s commercial flop, but underrated artistic success, Warning) and made them into America’s biggest rock band. That record funneled W. Bush-era tensions and Iraq War anxiety into a massive, half-cocked rock opera that worked best as a stand-alone piece, outside of its shoddily constructed context. Billie Joe Armstrong has never been a master wordsmith, and the band’s attempts at social commentary have always been a bit on-the-nose; “The American Dream is Killing Me” struggles for the same reason that American Idiot did, even if its punk-lite production goes down pretty smoothly.

The album’s mid-tempo plod and bright, hissing sheen become exhausting by its first ballad “Goodnight Adeline,” which doesn’t quite reach the emotional peak it aims for. The slow-burning “Suzie Chapstick” works better, despite the lyric “will I ever see your face again / not just photos from an Instagram,” the diction of which sounds very much like it’s coming from a man in his forties struggling to reckon with a very online culture. Much more painful is “Strange Days are Here to Stay,” a song which deadpans the lyrics “grandma’s on the fentanyl” and “everyone is racist and the Uber’s running late,” all the while cribbing the arrangement from Dookie’s “Basket Case.”

There are several highlights; “Look Ma, No Brains!” is a solid, if obsessively polished, imitation of their early work, and “Bobby Sox” is an anthemic love song with a decent amount of bite. The brief, furious “Living in the ‘20s” is the most successful song in its vein here, a Sex Pistols-type barn-burner that sounds truly fed up, even if some its lyrical clichés are similarly difficult to digest. Unfortunately, the genuinely touching “Father to a Son,” a lament on raising a child in a dying society, is undercut by crawling closing number “Fancy Sauce,” which bastardizes a lyric from “Smells Like Teenage Spirit” and contends that “we all die young someday.”

In a lot of ways, Saviors is like comfort food for the Green Day fan - it’s safe, familiar, and (occasionally) satisfying, the sound of a band exploring the same pallet they have for decades. It won’t make any new disciples of nonbelievers, and it will likely scratch an obligatory itch for the diehards. It’s a vaguely political statement that fits squarely into the Green Day template, and perhaps that’s all we can hope for. D

Tracks

Adrianne Lenker “Sadness as a Gift”

Big Thief frontwoman Adrianne Lenker has developed as a solo artist in parallel with the continuing evolution of her band. “Sadness as a Gift,” the second single from her upcoming album, Bright Future, incorporates a country influence that she’s explored with Big Thief on tracks like Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You’s opener, “Change.” But it’s a remarkable shift from December’s “Ruined,” a fragile piano ballad that sounded fundamentally broken and spiritually defeated. “Sadness,” in turn, feels remarkably empowering; it’s a break-up song that finds acceptance through the world’s all-encompassing beauty. “We could see the sadness as a gift” she sings, “and still feel too heavy to hold” - it’s an embrace of emotional complexity, sorrowful but unbroken. Lenker is an expert at mining for these in-between spaces, finding enchantment in the everyday and sadness in its most intricate details. Alone or in collaboration with her band, she’s a tremendous force, and “Sadness as a Gift” is one of her most aching, affecting songs to date.

Jlin & Philip Glass “The Precision of Infinity”

The joining of footwork trailblazer and minimalist icon Philip Glass makes immediate sense. Both artists have found the ecstasy in-between the art of repetition, Jlin’s in evolving symphonies of bass and immaculately syncopated percussion, and Glass’s in the blissful overlap of melody and rhythm. Their first collaboration, “The Precision of Infinity” is perfectly titled - the interplay between Glass’s gorgeous, artfully offbeat piano work and Jlin’s jittery backbone feels like it reaches into forever, even at a relatively brief four mintues and thirty-nine seconds. It registers as landmark work for both artists, more than an intriguing curio, a fleeting moment of brilliance that speaks to decades of evolution in the field of avant-garde music.

**Secretly Canadian, Dead Oceans • 2024**

Faye Webster & Lil Yachty “Lego Ring”

Faye Webster is a singular presence in indie rock, an alt-country singer-songwriter from Atlanta that somehow manages to fold her hometown’s deep hip hop heritage into her music without missing a beat. “Lego Ring,” the most recent single from her upcoming album, Underdressed at the Symphony, is a duet with Lil Yachty, an artist whose recent music has also straddled the line between indie rock and hip hop in unpredictable ways. The song displays a real chemistry between the two artists, who sing in gorgeous harmony, Yachty utilizing his now characteristic Auto-Tune wobble effect. The whole affair buzzes with infatuation, a love song that exists in its own unique crevice of contemporary music.

Kim Gordon “BYE BYE”

Ex-Sonic Youth icon Kim Gordon managed to breathe new life into her music on 2019’s No Home Record, an album that saw her layering her trademark deadpan over twisting art rock arrangements in unfamiliar ways. On “BYE BYE,” the first taste of her upcoming record, The Collective, continues her singular evolution, this time finding the blistering common ground between rage rap and noise rock squalor. It somehow succeeds - the marriage of rap and rock has always required a cautious balance as not to fall into retro cheese or nu-metal unholiness, but Gordon misses these pitfalls by ignoring them altogether. Blistering 808s coexist with screeching guitars, and Gordon’s voice sounds un-aging and ever mesmerizing. Her itemization of what sounds like a list of travel necessities feels like a twist on the materialism essential to trap music’s aesthetic. But where that genre often hyper-fixates on the glamor of jewelry and cars, Gordon’s comes across as hilariously mundane: “contact solution, mascara, lip mask, eye mask, ear plugs, travel shampoo, conditioner.” It’s funny, and it’s supposed to be funny, but Gordon makes it all sound dead serious, toying with elements that should be at odds until they make perfect sense together.

Sunday Summary (1/14/24)

January 14, 2024 Zack Free

Every Sunday, the Free Review will highlight the most significant releases of the week. This week, we tackle new albums from Kali Uchis, 21 Savage, and Kid Cudi, as well as tracks from Ariana Grande; Lil Nas X; and Waxahatchee & MJ Lenderman.

Albums

Kali Uchis ORQUÍDEAS

On her second album in less than a year, Colombian-American songstress Kali Uchis captures lightning in a bottle. ORQUÍDEAS (“orchids” in English) is a sister album of sorts to last year’s Red Moon in Venus, a more buoyant amalgamation of her previous record’s velvety soul that incorporates elements of Latin pop, reggaetón, dance-pop, and disco, all with a spectacularly light touch and forward-thinking vision. While her vocal abilities and sonic arsenal have grown with each successive release, she’s on a real run here; Uchis’ recent discography shows the artist settling into her place as one of music’s most intriguing tastemakers. She indulges in bubbly synth-pop on “Perdiste,” settles into bolero on “Te Mata,” and glides over a slinky dembow groove on “Diosa.” The features are creative and immaculately placed; “Igual Que Un Ángel” finds chemistry with corridos tumbados superstar Peso Pluma, and centerpiece “Muñekita” recruits both King of Dembow El Alfa and City Girls’ JT to splendid results. While the record maintains a fizzing energy throughout, its latter half is particularly mind-blowing, bending decades of Latin music into thrilling, idiosyncratic shapes. She flexes a swaggering rap flow on “Labios Mordidos,” and straddles a shape-shifting merengue arrangement on closer “Dame Beso // Muévete.” But none of the album’s moving parts sound out of place, patched together by Uchis’ eclectic ambitions and stellar voice. On Red Moon, she proved herself one of modern R&B’s greats - on ORQUÍDEAS, she sets her sights on the entire game. B

21 Savage american dream

In the eight years since his breakthrough, Atlanta rapper 21 Savage has become one of trap music’s true underdogs, a distinct talent with a subtle hand and steady work ethic that give him a sneaky advantage over his contemporaries. His third solo record, american dream, is a compelling argument for his increasing prevalence; few rappers are capable of balancing menace and humor, street-wise instinct and blistering insight, as he is. dream doubles as a soundtrack for Savage’s upcoming biopic, scheduled for release later this year, but it stands up on its own as a landmark in his discography. It’s his most consistent project to date, if not quite as eclectic as 2018’s i am > i was or as concise as 2016’s Savage Mode, structured with the mindful sequencing and thematic gravity of a motion picture film. The production is tasteful and restrained, fitting razor-edged trap percussion between syrupy nineties R&B and dust-caked soul, and Savage conforms to its smooth, subdued pallet. The record’s biggest drawback is its lack in dynamic variability, a quality that allows the more streamlined, slow jam adjacent cuts to bleed into each other, especially towards the album’s close. But its highlights display some of the rapper’s finest performances to date; early standout “redrum” is bug-eyed and cold-blooded, and “letter to my brudda” is marvelously introspective and rich with detail. Even if the album scans at times as overly concerned with its own perceived maturity, american dream is a sturdy effort that suggests 21 Savage is growing in stature and ability with every triumph. C-

Kid Cudi INSANO

Fifteen years apart from his debut mixtape, Scott Mescudi remains one of hip hop’s great enigmas. His discography is long and varied, and his reputation has held up throughout its many peaks and valleys. But as a marginally gifted emcee with a fairly one-dimensional delivery, his influence has long outweighed the quality of his actual output. On his ninth solo effort, INSANO, he leans into his legacy, emerging with some of the most vital music of his career. His limitations as a performer are still glaringly evident (see opener “OFTEN I HAVE THESE DREAMZ,” which attempts to frame him as a better rapper than he actually is), and he spends large portions of the record cosplaying as artists that he’s inspired, such as Travis Scott and Lil Uzi Vert. There are also moments that directly harken back to his heyday, to unsatisfactory returns; “X & CUD” and “BLUE SKY” sound like they might’ve fit well on his major label debut, Man on the Moon: The End of Day, and they come across as explicit retreads rather than nostalgic callbacks. But there are plenty of standout moments that make INSANO his best work in well over a decade - he fits right into the pockets of the raucous beat on “A TALE OF A KNIGHT,” and he sounds lively and inspired on late album highlight “PORSCHE TOPLESS.” The production is strong throughout, and its versatility helps the album feel a lot more digestible than its hour-plus runtime might suggest. There are also some truly weird moments here that speak to the record’s eclectic pallet - “ELECTROWAVEBABY” is modern trap by way of Ace of Base’s “All That She Wants,” and the Pharrell-produced “AT THE PARTY” lurches forward at a woozy, disorienting pace. Though the record runs largely on auto-pilot, INSANO suggests that Cudi still has some tricks left in his bag, and that he’s making concrete steps towards honoring his own long shadow. D+

Tracks

Ariana Grande “yes, and?”

Add “yes, and?,” the first release from superstar Ariana Grande in over three years, to a long list of tabloid kiss-offs - see Britney’s “Piece of Me,” Madonna’s “Human Nature,” or a slew of late-era Michael Jackson tracks for notable examples. The track takes aim at the media with a pointed sauciness; “your business is yours and mine is mine,” she intones on the song’s bridge, “why do you care so much whose … I ride?” It’s likely a personal tipping point for an artist whose relationships have been scrutinized with microscopic intensity, but she straddles the line between outward animosity and self-empowerment with admirable grace. Grande’s vocals have always been her greatest strength, and the understated warmth of the performance here is the song’s selling point. But as a comeback single, the track falls short of its expected hype, a relatively slight but irresistibly bouncy slice of house-pop that lives in the shadow of her bigger, more urgent lead singles. Or perhaps that’s the point; by subverting expectations for what her big return should sound like, Grande has levitated right over the inescapable criticism.

Lil Nas X “J CHRIST”

Lil Nas X lives for the drama. Since his rise to fame with 2018’s country-rap sensation “Old Town Road,” the musician and internet personality has made his name pushing boundaries; whether he’s garnering controversy by evoking Satanist imagery or announcing his conversion from atheism to Christianity, he’s managed to stay relevant by riling up conservatives and his own faithful disciples alike. On his new single, “J CHRIST,” Nas X ushers in his third act as one of music’s most polarizing figures, flipping his apparent turn towards religiosity into a self-serving boast: “bitch, I’m back like J Christ.” The song itself plays things relatively safe; the instrumental, courtesy of French musician Gesaffelstein and Omar Fedi, is a less dynamic, more streamlined take on Mike Will Made It’s production for Kendrick Lamar’s 2017 comeback single, “HUMBLE,” and Nas X’s delivery echoes Lamar’s flow to the point of rote imitation. The music video is significantly more interesting than the tune itself, a recurring theme in the artist’s oeuvre, but even then, the provocative imagery utilized feels like a dull reworking of the those used in the video for “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” a much more artful exercise in stoking heated discourse. Predictably, the single has already worked Republicans and Christian musicians into a tizzy, but at its core, “J CHRIST” feels like an exercise in diminishing returns, a reminder that Lil Nas X’s music has always come second to his skill at stirring up an excitable public.

Waxahatchee & MJ Lenderman “Right Back to It”

On her glorious 2020 album, Saint Cloud, Katie Crutchfield embraced the country roots of her upbringing in Alabama, twisting the PJ Harvey-esque indie rock of previous efforts such as 2013’s Cerulean Salt into twangier, more melodic shapes. The lead single from her upcoming album, Tigers Blood, continues her foray into rootsier territory, this time with the assistance of rising alt-country darling MJ Lenderman. “Right Back to It” is just as gorgeous as any of the standout cuts from Saint Cloud, its lilting banjos and delicate harmonies caressing a story of jealousy and dependence. The lyrics are masterfully written and incredibly affecting - “I lose a bit of myself,” Crutchfield sings, “laying out egg shells” - and her vocals are powerful but discernibly pained. On her previous album, she addressed her struggles with alcoholism, and here, she redirects the lure of addiction towards a toxic relationship; “been yours for so long,” she sings on the chorus, “[I] come right back to it.” It’s a continuation of the journey she’s illustrated in aching detail, and it sounds open and strangely inviting as ever.