Amph What Album Did You Just Hear?

That album holds up. Still a beast of a record.

 

I just picked it up a few days ago.

While not a metal head, i've always had an appreciation of blues-metal and was surprised to see how how steeped in the blues Sabbath are on this record.

In fact, it's like a down tuned version of Led Zeppelin 1. Love it.

 

Admit That It’s Christmas (You’ve Got To) (2003) – The Zest of Yore

Just to get it out of the way, this isn’t a Christmas album. It’s the debut EP from The Zest of Yore and it is titled for the one Christmas song that’s on the album. I guess if you’re doing an EP and, of course, that might be the only thing you ever get to do, you would put your Christmas song on the EP, but I’m not sure why you’d name the EP after it. I don’t know; maybe it means your EP gets put out for sale every year instead of just once, but what about when people buy it expecting a Christmas album and then get pissed that it isn’t? Well, I’ll assume the calculus on all that has been done by people connected with the band. Anyway, this is a solid, really fun EP. It’s got eight songs and clocks in at right about twenty-two minutes, so that should give you an indication of the song length. They’re short, poppy and energetic. Nothing here is going to set the world on fire, but some of the lyrics are sharp and witty. I particularly liked Kid Gloves Come Off, where the singer finally unleashes his true opinions on a friend, and I’ll Do the Thinking, which has a great pop melody. And, well, hey, that Christmas song is actually pretty good. 3 stars.

tl;dr – band’s debut EP isn’t a Christmas album, but it is a fun, energetic collection of likable songs. 3 stars.

 

master of reality is where it's at, maaaan.

 

Dirty Computer (2018) – Janelle Monae

If you got the deluxe bonus edition of Monae’s last album, The Electric Lady, it was a double album, clocking in at over eighty minutes long. This one, on the other hand, is forty-eight minutes and what would be an average running time for another artist feels like a brisk and breezy album from Monae. I’m in the kind of reverse position to the one I’m usually in where I lament long albums and praise short ones; The Electric Lady is one of the few double albums that I wouldn’t cut anything from, one of the rare doubles that I think is absolutely perfect. So, I was kind of shocked to see the relatively short running time on this record. And what this does give this album is more focus. Gone, and unmissed at least on my part, is the rock opera narrative of Cindi Mayweather, but the set of songs here is uniformly strong.

This album is very much a reaction to Trump’s America, I think, though Monae never says the word Trump on the album. A lot of the themes and ideas here were already part of Monae’s consciousness: sex-positivity, powerful women, etc. But those things feel more revolutionary than they already did with Trump as president and she makes the connections between these things more explicit. Screwed kind of plays as a bit of a battle cry for one of the big philosophies of this record: reclaiming selfhood & power through sexual freedom. “You ****** the world up now,” one of the main hooks proclaims, “We’ll **** it all back down.” That intense sexuality is all over this album as on the Prince influenced (and apparently partially produced) Way You Make Me Feel which is Monae in her “hardest working woman in show business” mode, howling like James Brown with sexual desire. The beautiful title track, which is drenched in gorgeous Brian Wilson harmonies, is a romantic, swooning ode to selfhood. Pynk, which features Grimes, is a strange, sexy synth piece dedicated to . . . well, you know. Monae exudes serious sexuality on this album, more so than on her others, I’d say. She doesn’t lose any of the cool panache and swagger that makes her so compelling, but there’s a new, sexy energy that’s very welcome. The music is just rollicking, funky, inspiring, beautiful and as varied as it always is with Monae. There’s a flawless musicianship with her sound and an immaculate production, but instead of those things making the music sound too pristine or studied, it just brings a precision to the energy and this album never fails to satisfy on the musical front, even as it delves deep on the lyrical front.

But probably the most shocking track is the finale, Americans. In a world of toxic patriotism, Monae does the unthinkable. She creates a straight ahead reclamation of America as an idea and an identity. She’s laying claim to her own America, an America that’s bigger and better than the small-minded ideas of the country that some have. In a time when Americanism is associated more and more with bigots, thugs and idiots, Monae wants her audience to remember that it’s our America too. We will overcome, she’s saying; we will stand up and fight and if those fools think they can take OUR country, they’re wrong. It’s a powerful vision and a fist-pumping anthem that just really works for me. There’s something really wonderful about her putting it right after I’m Afraid, the most vulnerable and haunted track on the album. It’s a one-two punch that hits the listener right where they are. Yes, I feel the fear too, she’s saying, but rise up with me anyway and we will have victory. The album ends with the line “Please sign your name on the dotted line.” Monae’s righteous army is taking volunteers. Well, I’m with her as always; hopefully you are too. If you haven’t gotten into the groove with Monae before now, give Dirty Computer a spin. And then step right up. 4 stars.

tl;dr – sexy, compelling, high-energy record is another pure triumph for Monae; lyrically intense, musically perfect . . . this is what you call visceral. 4 stars.

 

Well, you might have figured this out with the above review, but I'm doing a little project connected with the Grammies. I'd like to try to hear all of the Album of the Year nominees before the ceremony. When the nominees came out, I'd already heard and reviewed Golden Hour by Kacey Musgraves and I had heard, but not reviewed, Dirty Computer. Anyway, I'll list them below and if anyone wants to join in, that would be great. It would be fun to have some actual discussion about some of these.

beerbongs & bentleys - Post Malone
Black Panther: The Album, Music From & Inspired By - Various Artists
By the Way, I Forgive You - Brandi Carlile
Dirty Computer - Janelle Monae
Golden Hour - Kacey Musgraves
H.E.R. - H.E.R.
Invasion of Privacy - Cardi B
Scorpion - Drake

So far, I've given both Dirty Computer and Golden Hour 4 stars, so there's some good stuff here. I'm listening to beerbongs & bentleys now and, well, it's predictably awful, so there's also some crap, but what are you gonna do?

 

That voice is legit, dude. No shame. I'm not really a fan of that "style" of music either, but Nat King Cole elevates everything he touches. And his phrasing, man. That's great stuff.



The Holy Single (1995) – Kristin Hersh

I was really intrigued by the concept behind this project. Kristin Hersh is more famous for her work with the band Throwing Muses than for her solo work, I think, but this is a really interesting idea. I’d call it more an EP than a single, which is why I’m reviewing it. Anyway, the concept is that Hersh covers four religious songs in a mostly stripped down acoustic style. She covers Big Star’s Jesus Christ, the Carter Family’s Can the Circle Be Unbroken? and the old standard Amazing Grace. The fourth song is one of her own compositions from her time with Throwing Muses, Sinkhole, which tells the tale of a suddenly appearing sinkhole so large that the small town it afflicts views it as an apocalyptic judgment from God for their sin. Amazing Grace is the only misstep here; she changes the melody to put her own spin on it, but the joy of some of these old songs that everyone knows is the melody as much as it is the words, so it really doesn’t work. Her work on the other songs is really, really good though. Sinkhole is a great song that I really loved and she sings Jesus Christ and Can the Circle Be Unbroken? with real sincerity, like a true believer. I don’t think she was, or is, but her sincerity sells the songs perfectly. I really like the idea of putting out an EP that has such a strong conceptual foundation and mixes personal songs with standards and, at under fifteen minutes, it’s a CD that I listened to several times and, yes, sang along with on the standards. I suppose we can call Jesus Christ a standard now? Anyway, I really, really loved this little CD and I figure to hold on to it. Seems like an evergreen and a nice breezy listen. 4 stars.

tl;dr – highly conceptual EP is short, breezy and a pure pleasure as Hersh puts her own spin on singles and strips down the sound for one of her own songs. 4 stars.

 

Beerbongs & Bentleys (2018) – Post Malone

Okay, so I guess this album broke some records and got a nomination for Album of the Year at the Grammies and other such accolades. Well, guess what. It’s awful. Like really bad. Let me just run down a couple of things. First off, this album has EIGHTEEN songs on it. EIGHTEEN. That’s ridiculous. The best track on this album is track fourteen. Fourteen. I mean, I don’t like it when artists burn the two or three best songs in the first couple of tracks (*cough*Disclosure*cough*), but let’s not wait until track fourteen either. I mean, not that you should get to track fourteen anyway, but if you’re going to, don’t make listeners slog through thirteen bad songs to get to the good one. Seriously. But see, when you have eighteen tracks on an album, you’re implying that these songs are all SO GOOD that you can’t bear to cut even one. I’d cut a solid fourteen, honestly. This eighteen song album should be an EP.

Because, look, the songs are bad. The music itself is uninspired and repetitive. For reasons I won’t go into, I was looking at this CD inside a laptop music player and I suddenly realized that almost all of the tracks start with the same kind of sad synth thing and then the beat drops somewhere in the 1:00 to 1:10 range. Structurally, these songs are all the same. The song writing is even worse, honestly. Zack & Codeine is, get this, a joke track based on how sweet life is on codeine and how that sounds like The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. I’m not kidding. At one point, he drops the astoundingly awful lyric, “Ain’t seen her face, but she got beautiful boobies.” Listen, you use “boobies” unironically, just get the **** out.

There are a couple of good songs. I mean, it would be quite an achievement to have eighteen songs on an album and none of them be good, right? The big single, Rockstar, is dark and catchy. Stay is a really surprising song based around the acoustic guitar, an instrument that I don’t think appears anywhere else on this album, which means that it sounds like nothing else on the album and that’s a good thing, given how samey a lot of this is. It’s a really nice ballad and it has a beautiful instrumental section. The best track is Same Bitches, a mournful lament about how our narrator has been in L.A. so long that he sees the same girls at every party he goes to. It then turns into a kind of existential lament about how all party girls seem the same, do the same things, dress the same, go the same places. It’s the one track with a little depth and some complicated emotions. Psycho is pretty good too. Anyway, it’s got a few good tracks, buried among the mix of sound-alike downers. But not nearly enough. Shave eight tracks off this album, take a second pass at the lyrics and maybe you’ve got something. Man oh man, what a stinker. 1 star.

tl;dr – far too long, musically uninspired, lyrically idiotic; you’ll find a couple of good songs here if you look, but why bother? 1 star.

 

I've always liked the idea of this album and, admittedly, it has grown on me in areas. But...still not quite.

 

The Smashing Pumpkins - Rotten Apples

 

File that one alongside Oasis' The Masterplan for best B-Sides compilation.

 

sharon van etten, remind me tomorrow

really digging this album. i told you everything, jupiter 4, and hands are my 3 standout tracks but there's lots of other goodness in there too. recommended

 

Black Panther: The Album (2018) – Kendrick Lamar

If I’m gon’ die for you
If I’m gon’ kill for you
Then I’ll spill this blood for you

These kinds of “inspired by” soundtracks for hit films are more often than not basically just cash grabs. In a way, this album has the same journey as the Black Panther film in the way that uses a very familiar pop vehicle (the “soundtrack” album in this case, the blockbuster comic book film in the other) in order to create a surprisingly thoughtful and emotional masterpiece. I guess the question is whether we view this as a “various artists” compilation or just a Kendrick album with a lot of guests. I, for one, definitely view it as a Kendrick album; I’ll talk about a couple of reasons here shortly, but it is worth noting that, though he isn’t credited on every track, he does in fact appear on every track. The connections to the film itself are . . . minimal. Most of the explicit references to the film are in the form of someone intoning dramatically “I am T’Challa” or “I am Killmonger” at either the beginning or ending of a track, which leads to a couple of unfortunately hilarious moments. At the start of Paramedic, a really great track, by the way, someone menacingly growls, “I am Killmonger,” and immediately after that Zacari quietly croons, “Nobody’s perfect.” Well, I’ll take that to heart in a couple of ways and forgive the album some of its clunky moments. And I suppose I’ll also forgive Blood in the Water, which is an absolutely dreadful track, the only song here that isn’t great in my opinion. But anyway, I certainly call this a Kendrick album first and foremost.

This isn’t at all to denigrate the stellar ensemble he’s assembled here, some of whom, in my opinion, actually do their best work here. The Ways, for instance, is a slow, mumbled ballad with Khalid and Swae Lee and honestly, I think I’d take this over Khalid’s big hit, Location. Jorja Smith does a lovely neo-soul ballad called I Am. The crushing bass of Opps, with Vince Staples & Yugen Blaklok, just barrels out of the speakers at you like a mack truck and Paramedic, previously mentioned, is a unflinching, menacing “I dare you to start something” song from SOB X RBE, a group I’d never heard before. Everybody is on top of their game here really; even James Blake doesn’t ruin King’s Dead, a ferocious triple-threat rap battle with Future, Jay Rock & Kendrick.

But viewing it as a Kendrick album gives this record a lot of weight that I think it deserves. I’m on record as far as Lamar’s last album, the stark, terrifying, nihilistic Damn. I think it’s one of the greatest rap albums ever and if this one doesn’t get anywhere near that high, it’s still a very obvious outgrowth of Damn. On that record, Lamar was dealing with a kind of spiritual desolation and the damnation of the title was both literal and figurative. On Black Panther, Lamar is working toward spiritual healing. As I’ve said, there are dark tracks here and they’re great, but the album also features some really lovely music that seems dedicated to locating beauty. The Kendrick/SZA track, All the Stars, is a beautiful anthem of hope and resilience and the aforementioned I Am is confident and determined. And there are, not one, but two tracks that have the word Redemption right there in the title. Mozzy & Reason contribute an ode to the stages of life we all move through that features a gorgeous vocal line and some wonderful vocals in South African from Sjava; it’s a melancholy, but ultimately uplifting track. And the album has one of the best closing tracks I’ve encountered in a very long time. On Damn, Kendrick returned again and again to the refrain of “Nobody pray for me.” It was both a declaration of fact and a bitter demand, an acknowledgement that no one cares and a hopeless sentiment that they’d be wasting their breath if they did. Black Panther ends on a track titled Pray for Me and it’s a strong contender for best track on the record. The Weeknd gives what I honestly think is one of his very finest, if not his very finest, vocal performance; he gets the notes right and the melody is soaring, but it’s also one of his most emotional performances and as the album moves to its close, we’re left with these wordless ululations that are really raw and beautiful. Ultimately, Black Panther ranges far and wide; the artists come from all over and the songs run the emotional gamut. This isn’t just the best song-based soundtrack of the year; it’s one of the best of all time. 4 stars.

tl;dr – the driving creative force of Kendrick Lamar marshals an impressive array of artists to create a stirring, near-perfect collaborative album; runs the emotional gamut & hits a home run too. 4 stars.

 

Blacker than Black Panther.

 

By the Way I Forgive You (2018) – Brandi Carlile

There are reasons that a body stays in motion
But at the moment, only demons come to mind.

Carlile’s music kind of stands at the intersection of folk, rock & country, I suppose; the Grammys considered it an Americana album, not that I know what that even means. Regardless of all that, it’s quite good. Carlile’s vocals are really emotionally raw and I’m really impressed by her range. I don’t mean the range of notes she can hit, but the range of genres she’s able to really nail with her voice. This album features raspy blues songs, straight-ahead rockers, quiet introspective songs and the occasional anthemic ballad and she pulls them all off with aplomb. The songs are variable, though there’s only one genuinely awful song on the record, the godawful Hold Out Your Hand. Others, like the cheesy inspirational ballad The Joke or the string-drenched weeper Party of One, are fine for what they are. But the album has a lot of great stuff on it too and there’s a four song run in the middle of the album that’s just insanely strong. The two best songs on the record are The Mother and Fulton County Jane Doe. The Mother is a song dedicated to Carlile’s youngest daughter and it’s a melancholy ode to all of the struggles of motherhood and the myriad joys that outweigh them. It’s the kind of song that could easily be saccharine, but Carlile’s lyrics are sharply witty and the melody is beautiful, so the song really lands with an emotional punch. Fulton County Jane Doe is a song inspired by a real murder victim that has remained unidentified in the decades since her body was discovered. It’s a heartfelt song and one that doesn’t fall into the despair you might expect. This isn’t the most consistent album, but when Carlile is on point, she’s really on point. Occasionally the lyrics are pedestrian and cliched, but when they’re not, they’re genuinely superlative. And Carlile is undeniably always totally committed so even some of the cliched lyrics work because of the strength of her soulful vocals. There’s a song or two to skip here, but there are songs that you’ll carry the rest of your life too. 3 ½ stars.

tl;dr – a somewhat inconsistent album has a couple of real stinkers, but also more than a couple real masterpieces; sharp lyrics and soulful vocals combine to create an often superlative record. 3 ½ stars.

 

All of My Life (2008) – Billy Eckstine

Billy Eckstine is a mostly forgotten pop vocalist of the 1940s and 1950s. You listen to this double disc set now and it’s easy to see why. He has the same basic aesthetic of someone like Nat King Cole, very smooth, somewhat jazzy. The problem is that he’s not the talent Cole was either vocally or instrumentally, so the material here is mainly forgettable. His voice is a pretty deep baritone and he has a kind of odd style of enunciation that I didn’t care for at all. There are a few songs here and there that work, like a really hot jazz take on Elvis Presley’s Love Me, a slow, string-drenched Blue Christmas and a jazzy tune called Grapevine that has the surprising line “I hear it through the grapevine.” Interesting to catch some of these early influences; he predates Elvis, so you reckon Elvis was hearing some of this music himself. Still, at two jam-packed discs, both over seventy-five minutes, things are eventually just really dull and wearying. Eckstine’s faded from the consciousness of even most music lovers; it should stay that way. 1 star.

tl;dr – bland, forgettable music from a bland, forgotten singer of the 40s and 50s; two jam-packed discs end up being wearying. 1 star.

 

Porcupine Tree - In Absentia

 

Gospel Soul Children (1996) – Gospel Soul Children

What you have here is one of the finest black gospel albums ever created. The Gospel Soul Children hail from New Orleans and that’s a hint for you. On this album, the choir sings a ton of old-school gospel hymns and some slightly more modern chorus based tunes. At around forty-five minutes, the album just breezes by, helped along by the fact that the majority of the tracks are delivered at a high tempo with that gospel back beat on the drums and the spry bass line propelling things along. There’s one song here I didn’t care for, a quite pretentious and syrupy version of The Lord’s Prayer, which features that bane of almost all music, the spoken word section. But just about every song here is great, whether it’s an a ccapella version of the old blues tune No Hiding Place, a soulful stripped down version of Down By the Riverside, a hopped up two minute romp through Leaning on the Everlasting Arms, called What a Fellowship here, or an epic eight minute breakdown of Is Your All on the Altar?, a brilliant opening. This album really is just phenomenal and if you’re not sold on the idea of gospel music, this is the album to sell you on it. Passionate, vibrant performances, high energy, a fantastic backing group of musicians . . . praise the Lord indeed. 4 stars.

tl;dr – anointed, spirited performances from this New Orleans gospel choir with a great backing band and high energy throughout; close to the pinnacle of black gospel music. 4 stars.

 

This album is just so good. The RHCP albums with John Frusciante are so much better than the others, IMO.