#Album Reviews

[escapingpurgatory]

Preacher's Daughter Review

I relistened to this album a week or so ago and became inspired to write a review of each song as well as the album as a whole. I wrote this in my notebook, but I wanted to type it out and post it here! I'm gonna do this song by song, then an overall review and rating of the album. Let's begin!

Family Tree (Intro)

A very beautiful and mellow start to the album. I find the lyrics most beautiful, as well as hard hitting. At the beginning of the album, Ethel's father, a preacher, dies. This helps set up the majority of the album. One lyric I love is when Ethel is talking about her father saying "You know I raised you better than this." My rating for the track is an 8/10.

American Teenager

God, I love this song... My favorite part about the track is the guitar parts. That shit sends me FLYING. I love when she says "It's just not my year." Multiple times throughout the song. The whole chorus in general is just so gooddd... Every part of the track is truly perfect, I also love, love, LOVE the ending. When she repeats "For me" multiple times, it's so perfect, it just draws you in. This track is a solid 10/10.

A House In Nebraska

This song is absolutely SOUL CRUSHING. Like, holy shit... This song represents how Ethel was so in love with Will, and was devastated when he left her. She repeatedly talks about loneliness throughout the track, really proving the point I made previously. My favorite line from this song is "Your mama calls me sometimes to see if I'm doing well, and I lie to her and say that I'm doing fine, when really I'd kill myself to hold you one more time." Aside from the lyrics, the actual music is so fuckin' breathtaking. Another perfect 10/10 track.

Western Nights

This song is really interesting, and I sometimes feel like people overlook it. Ethel falls in love with a man named Logan, who uses crime to support himself and Ethel. I find the trope of love and crime to be really cool, and very in place in the album. The whole "bad boy" shtick is fitting for Ethel's rebellious treck away from home starting in the sixth track. My favorite line from this one is "I'd hold the gun if you asked me to, but if you love me like you say you do, would you ask me to?" This one is a good 7.5/10 from me.

Family Tree

Meant to reflect on Ethel's relationship with Logan after is death in a shootout, this track is very beautiful. She ultimately finds similarities with loving such a violent man to her relationship with her family. Along with being in love with the entire chorus, my favorite line is "I've killed before and I'll kill again, take the noose off, wrap it tight around my hand." Back to the chorus, I find it so hauntingly beautiful. I love this track, 9/10.

Hard Times

Yet another devastating track from the album. This song is about the molestation of Ethel from a young age by her father, Joseph. As we know, he died at the beginning of the album. He began doing this when Ethel was 9, up until the time of his death when Ethel is 20. The idea that a "man of god" could commit such vile, disgusting acts should be eye-opening for some people. My favorite line from this track happens to be from the final verse of the song, "I'm tired of you, still tied to me, too tired to move, too tired to leave." This song marks the beginning of Ethel going on the run. Beautiful and disturbing, 8.5/10.

Thoroughfare

One of my favorite tracks on the album, it documents Ethel meeting Isaiah in Texas and travelling west to California with him. On the way there, Ethel and Isaiah develop a mutual attraction. As soon as they reach the coast, they start a relationship. Ethel was kidnapped, but since she had seemed to have developed Stockholm syndrome, she didn't see it as such. This song has a very country feel, but I absolutely love it nonetheless. This was actually the first song of Hayden's that I'd heard. The lyrics are beautiful and represent blossoming love, but it quicky turns sinister. I can't even choose my favorite line because I love every single part of it! This is a 100/10.

Gibson Girl

After Isaiah and Ethel have been out west together for a while, the relationship turns abusive. They both fall into drug addiction which leads to Isaiah convincing Ethel to become a prostitute to help pay for more drugs. She begins to see her mental health deteriorate, along with her sense of who she is. Ethel talks about her struggles with her mental health and the prostitution throughout the song. My favorite line from this song is "Obsession with the money, addicted to the drugs, says he's in love with my body, that's why he's fucking it up." It's sad hearing and thinking about how pieces of who she was fading away. Solid 8/10.

Ptolamaea

Wow. This song is phenomenal... It represents a hallucination Ethel has while on drugs. She envisions Isaiah as a demon which represents her finally realizing the kind of man he is, as well as his intentions. She has this hallucination after Isaiah uses physical violence towards her. This song is so haunting, when the climax of the song hits, it's like my soul leaves my body. That being said, my favorite "line" of the song is the scream itself. It's the perfect representation of feeling trapped and wanting to be released. This is another fuckin' 100/10, hands down.

August Underground

The first of the two back-to-back instrumental tracks on the album, August Underground represents Isaiah taking Ethel to a house in northern California and ultimately murdering her. Another beautiful track off the album, but in a melancholy way. 9.5/10. This track leads to...

PART 2 ⬇️

[damonalbarn]

The Ballad of Darren - Major Albums Reviews

METACRITIC

Louder than War 5/5 ★

Clash Music 9/10 ★

Rolling Stone UK 4/5 ★

Record Collector Magazine 4/5 ★

UNCUT 8/10 ★

NME 4/5 ★

DIY Magazine 4/5 ★

Classic Pop 4/5 ★

MOJO 4/5 ★

The Skinny 4/5 ★

Music Connection 8/10 ★

The List 4/5 ★

The Upcoming 5/5 ★

Unilad 5/5 ★

Riot Mag 10/10 ★

Gigwise 9/10 ★

Load and Quiet 7/10 ★

Gigslutz 5/5 ★

The Rock Revival 5/5 ★

Slant Magazine 4/5 ★

Narc Magazine  4/5 ★

The Quietus 8/10 ★

Concrete Islands

The Mancunion (track by track review)

Wall Street Journal 

Cult Following 

Arctic Reviews

Ultimate Classic Rock

Yahoo

[vinyl-connection]

DARK PLEASURES

It’s a striking opening line to the first song on your first album: “I’ve been waiting for a guide to come and take me by the hand”. Searching, yearning for direction, for counsel. The song is called “Disorder”, a one-word summary of the singer’s internal state. A plea for human contact: take my hand. Please. Welcome to the dark electro pop of Joy Division. Welcome to their first album, 1979’s…

[o-the-mts]

50 Years, 50 Albums (1976): The Wild Tchoupitoulas

I will turn 50 in November of this year, so my project for 2023 will be to listen to and review one album from each year of my life, 1973 to 2022.  The only qualification is that it has to be an album I’ve not reviewed previously.  1976 Top Grossing Albums of 1976: Hotel California – Eagles Songs in the Key of Life – Stevie Wonder Frampton Comes Alive – Peter Frampton Wings at the Speed of…

[gothmusiclatinamerica]

Today’s video is on the 2023 release Visi​ó​n Tr​á​gica by San José, Costa Rica-based deathrock act Angustia Espiritual.

[luuurien]

Young Fathers - Heavy Heavy

(Neo-Psychedelia, Art Pop, Neo-Soul)

Short and euphoric bursts of neo-psych combined with African spirituals and the communal power of gospel, Heavy Heavy is both Young Father’s densest album to date and their most agile. These explosive pop songs bring a life to their music like never before.

☆☆☆☆

Young Fathers’ music has always been steeped in the power of connection, but never quite like Heavy Heavy. The trio’s multiracial makeup and embrace of both African musical tradition and their own futuristic blend of soul, hip-hop, glossy electronica and bombastic pop has made them one of the United Kingdom’s most compelling groups, willing to be a bit abrasive in order for their ideas to come across as vibrant as possible (see their sophomore release White Men Are Black Men Too or cuts from Cocoa Sugar like Turn or Picking You as examples), but Heavy Heavy rejects that angst in favor of an album that embraces spontaneity and joy, expanding on those elements of spirituals and gospel for a potent 30-minute album of absolute energy and emotional release. In places, Heavy Heavy is pointed in its politics, but it’s always in service of the communal heart of the album, about how people come together to celebrate one another and transcend that pain, thickly laid on the ears but delicate in its goals. The album is overwhelming with momentum, Young Fathers offering simple affirmations in their lyrics that grow into magnificent, transformative moments of pure feeling be it joyous or sad or furious, Heavy Heavy built to “...expel all {they} needed to expel.” By turning away from the slow-burn songcraft and linear R&B of their previous projects and towards short bursts of energy that convey so much in the span of just three minutes, Heavy Heavy makes its half hour of music some of the most transcendent of the year. Unburdened by the tension Cocoa Sugar used to make its statements on diasporic life and political discord within the U.K., Heavy Heavy manages its bigger ideas without having to be as direct in their delivery. Album single and opener Rice touches upon the exploitation of African land and resources (“We are mining / I am golden / You're not finding what we're holding”) without losing sight of the power solidarity with others holds, the explosive chanting of “These hands can heal” halfway through trading struggle for ecstatic resistance, and later highlights I Saw and Sink or Swim contrasting their own social commentary - Brexit for the former and drug dependence for the latter - with bombastic choruses and euphoric mantras. It’s often about the atmosphere of the songs more than anything else, but it works for Heavy Heavy because of how alive everything Young Fathers’ is doing is: the way Drum so vividly conjures the experience of sharing space with others through its playful songwriting and Kayus Bankole’s beautiful verse in Yoruba, or how Ululation hands vocal duties over to close friend Tapiwa Mambo for a heavenly embrace of everything a voice can do, with lush pianos and noisy synth pads sitting under her sturdy Shona singing of gratitude and hope. They don’t need to say much because the music connects with you in ways that language can’t do on its own, Tell Somebody’s gentle ambient pop swelling into a gargantuan finish where the band’s simple ask for honesty lands with desperation and heartache while the hefty groove and soft piano leads in Holy Moly embody the spontaneity and tension in its writing, Heavy Heavy as much about what Young Fathers are saying as it is how important the compositions are in making their intentions clear. Without the power and rich colors behind their writing, these songs wouldn’t be able to immerse you so deeply. The constant intensity of Heavy Heavy does lead the album to be a bit inconclusive, never quite finding stability by the time Be Your Lady comes to close things out, but more often than not the maddening pace of Heavy Heavy prevents it from coming undone. A few select tracks, Geronimo and Shoot Me Down try opening up the music to create a tender midsection, but they’re unable to resolve because of it, coming to life and fading away without grabbing your attention quite as swiftly as the rest of the songs, but the compromise between the ebb and flow of the songs is something Young Fathers generally balance quite well, Tell Somebody able to act as a comedown between the buoyant Drum and dreamy centerpiece Geronimo while the trilogy of Ululation, Sink or Swim and Holy Moly work together to give the final half of the album one more peak before it comes to a close. Young Fathers have never been afraid to experiment with their form, and Heavy Heavy reaps mighty rewards from their willingness to let the music guide itself, letting Rice wander about its handclap rhythms and plucky electronics before rushing into one final chorus that ensures the album kicks off on a delightful note. Though its restlessness can occasionally be a disadvantage, so much of Heavy Heavy’s power comes from always letting their creativity guide them without trying to direct it in only one direction. Heavy Heavy is about feeling, and not once is there a moment where the light of Young Fathers’ music is dimmed. Every song is glowing and expertly crafted, designed to move along with and sweep you into the band’s world of dizzying emotion. Without one specific goal in mind, Heavy Heavy touches on all sorts of ideas while cradling them in the ideals of communal warmth and connection letting you dance to the band’s volcanic pop and feel whatever it makes you feel - excitement, nervousness, sadness - anything goes here, and it makes Heavy Heavy one of the easiest to love albums in recent memory.  It ends quickly, but that means their offer to be fearless in expressing your deepest desires is always open. There’s always the opportunity to come to Heavy Heavy and let all your energy out in one fell swoop, Young Fathers achieving the universal understanding of one another their music has always strived for in one tightly-packed, always delightful listen. The transcendence of Young Fathers has never been so powerful and liberating.

[kulturado]

The Story: Sunday Reviews: Every Picture Tells a Story by Rod Stewart

The Writer: Tal Rosenburg

[onestowatch]

Ethel Cain Reckons With Love, Violence, and Religion in Debut Album ‘Preacher’s Daughter’

Photo: Helen Kirbo

Indie darling Ethel Cain has finally released her long-awaited debut album Preacher's Daughter. The evocative album sees Cain leave all of herself in the album's powerful choruses, focusing on her relationship with her mother, herself, and what it means to leave your home behind for good. On her journey, Cain grapples with love, violence, religion, and the way the three intersect.

The record opens with "Family Tree (Intro)," a vintage recording of a Southern preacher, whose identity is a topic of conjecture among fans, evangelizing the significance of the mother as an icon. The monologue sets the stage for the 13-track epic, set in 1991 and detailing the protagonist's troubled relationship with religion, her former lover, her father (the titular preacher, a beloved community member even a decade after his death), and her eventual kidnapping and murder. The record then transitions to "American Teenager," Cain's third and final single for this album cycle. The track is a solidarity anthem reminiscent of classic arena rock with spiraling guitar cries and blood-pumping drums straight out of the '80s. 

"A House In Nebraska" is a slow, resonant ballad with cinematic, overwhelming imagery. Cain thinks of her ex-lover, Willoughby Tucker, who left town before the events of the record. She reflects on the good times they shared and longs for him to come home. She visits the abandoned house they would spend time in and imagine as their own, somewhere far away from their hometown of Shady Grove, Alabama. The crashing piano chords, echoing toms, and choir of guitars penetrate the atmosphere as Cain relays the story of herself and a mysterious partner's short lives and the horrors they endure. The pain seeps through Cain's vocal tone and is just as compelling as the narrative's bombastic instrumentation. The final minute of the nearly eight-minute ballad is where the guitar solo starts, swaying powerfully with sharpness and rhythmic capacity reminiscent of timeworn rock stars.

"Western Nights" offers sonic commentary on the tumultuous relationship with the anonymous partner, with the singer committing to stand by them through anything, no matter the desperation and fear she feels and how little she has left to give to a counterpart so unstable. "Family Tree" embodies a slow-burning intensity as Cain reveals the deadly agency her persona wields, sowing strife within a complicated family network marked by violence on all fronts. "Hard Times" expands on that familial strife, with Cain admitting to fearing how desperately she wants to emulate the fatherly powers in her life who brought her harm. "Thoroughfare" is a refreshing country-inspired epic. The track switches it up by replacing the intensity of electric guitars with sweeping vocals, reverberating drums, acoustic guitars, and harmonica later in the song, creating a sonic collage that only becomes more intoxicating to listen to when the tambourine and scat-led jam session closes the nine-minute song out.

"Gibson Girl," which is a reference to Charles Dana Gibson and the women he famously drew, examines sexuality and how patriarchal systems can lead to self-worth issues. She sings, "You wanna fuck me right now / You wanna see me on my knees / You wanna rip these clothes off / And hurt me." The song balances an sultry and haunting atmosphere, sharing how Cain has now arrived in California with Isaiah, a character she met and became attracted to in the previous track. He begins to pimp her out in the back of strip clubs and feed her drugs regularly, resulting in her losing sense of reality. 

On "Ptolemaea," the record's heaviest track, Cain begins to hallucinate and confronts the darkness she feels surrounding her. After the thrashing and gut-punching climax, the record breaks into two distinct, back-to-back instrumental compositions. "August Underground" is a doom-ambient track featuring humming, low-register guitars, and alluring vocalizations. "Televangelism" features pearlescent piano melodies, echoing as if they're being played in a chasmal church and soundtracking Cain's ascension into Heaven. Unfortunately, the experience is interrupted as the sound of a tape hissing grows and overtakes the song, casting a shade of artificiality on the otherwise celestial composition.

The album's second-to-last track, "Sun Bleaches Flies," is another power ballad where Cain laments her detachment from faith and community. She contemplates how she will fight the demons that have stained her existence and how she will rescue herself from the pain of the past and present. Cain ultimately makes peace with her death and reflects on her life, family, and the man she never stopped loving, Willoughby. The journey finally ends on an unbearable sad note with "Strangers." After being murdered and cannibalized by Isaiah, Cain says her final goodbye to her mother from beyond the grave. She sings, "When my mother sees me on the side / Of a milk carton in Winn-Dixie's dairy aisle / She'll cry and wait up for me." Over splendid guitar riffs and moody cymbal crashes, she asks listeners, "Am I making you feel sick?"

Preacher's Daughter is a laborious achievement, demonstrating Cain's innovation and mastery for bringing contrasting elements of ambient, slowcore, classic rock, sexuality, violence, and religion into one epic package. The record is musically inventive and emotionally shuddering, producing a crater-deep impact that commands your attention.

Listen to Preacher’s Daughter below:

[greensparty]

Album Reviews: Jimi Hendrix Experience "Hollywood Bowl: August 18, 1967" / Scream "DC Special"

Jimi Hendrix Hollywood Bowl: August 18, 1967

Another year, another Jimi Hendrix Experience release just before the holiday season! Since beginning this blog, I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing loads of Hendrix albums including the posthumous album Both Sides of the Sky, the 50th anniversary Deluxe Edition of Electric Ladyland, the 50th anniversary re-release of his live album Band of Gypsys, his live box set Songs for Groovy Children: The Fillmore East Concerts, the live album and movie Live in Maui, 2021’s Record Store Day release Paris ‘67, and last year's Los Angeles Forum: April 26, 1969. This week Legacy is releasing a never-before-released (or bootlegged) live album of the Jimi Hendrix Experience's concert at Hollywood Bowl just before they became famous with Hollywood Bowl: August 18, 1967.

album cover

At this concert, the Experience were opening for The Mamas and the Papas. Attendees were mainly there to see the headliners. Jimi Hendrix Experience's debut album Are You Experienced would be released in the U.S. five days later on August 23, 1967 (it had been released in the U.K. on May 5, 1967). By this point, the band had played a legendary show at the Monterey Pop Festival and opened for The Monkees. This is literally the moment just before they got famous. The trio were bigger than the sum of their parts: Hendrix on guitar, Noel Redding on bass, and Mitch Mitchell on drums. There were quite a few songs from Are You Experienced, but there are also loads of covers including favorites by The Beatles (“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”), Howlin’ Wolf (“Killing Floor”), Bob Dylan (“Like a Rolling Stone”), The Troggs (“Wild Thing”) and Muddy Waters (“Catfish Blues”). A live album would pretty much be enough to please a lot of fans, but this one is cool because it's not some overly-bootlegged concert so there's a sense of discovery, but also the covers make this feel like you're getting something new and different. There's nothing like hearing a band the very second they became famous and here it is!

For info on Jimi Hendrix Experience

4 out of 5 stars

Scream DC Special

Bursting out the DC hardcore punk scene in the 80s was the legendary Scream. The Reagan administration gave the Washington DC punk community quite a bit to rant about in the 80s and Scream were among the biggest of that whole scene, along with Fugazi, Bad Brains and Henry Rollins (the list, of course, goes on). In my friend Scott Crawford's 2014 documentary Salad Days about the DC punk scene in the 80s, he interviewed multiple members of Scream. Singer Pete Stahl and his brother / guitarist Franz Stahl, bassist Skeeter Thompson were a tight knit unit with original drummer Kent Stax. After Stax left the band in 1986, his replacement was teenage drummer Dave Grohl, who truly brought it. I was a big fan of the band's albums No More Censorship and Fumble and I have them in my record collection. After the band broke up (as we all know), Grohl joined Nirvana and brought that punk energy he honed in Scream to the masses. The Fumble album had been recorded in 1989 but was finally released in 1993. There were a few reunions here and there and Grohl has continued to work with the members of Scream (i.e. Franz was in Foo Fighters from 1997-1999). In 2009, the original lineup of Scream reunited and they even recorded with Stax on drums at Grohl's Studio 606 for an EP. But we haven't actually had a studio album from Scream since Fumble, which was 30 years ago. This week, Dischord Records is releasing DC Special featuring the original lineup. In September Stax died at age 61, making this his final album with Scream.

album cover

With the Fumble album it felt like the band was really evolving. The punk sound was there, but there was also a post-punk sound coming through. With all of their collective outside projects, i.e. Franz in Foo Fighters and DYS, Pete and Franz in Wool, Pete in Goatsnake and Earthlings?, Skeeter's solo work, etc - this band is way more than just an 80s punk band. This album incorporates a lot more styles and even some melodic tendencies. It's a nice full circle moment that this album got recorded with Stax before he died and that Grohl made a guest appearance. There's loads of other DC punk veterans appearing here including Dischord Records founder and Fugazi / Minor Threat singer Ian MacKaye. This is album is a treat for fans and enough to make you want to, well, scream!

For info on Scream

4 out of 5 stars

[heidismagblog]

[electricarmchair]

After Party Reviews and Comments

Thanks to everyone who listened and commented on my 7th album After Party, released independently to all streaming platforms on March 3 2023. I worked hard on the album for months writing, recording, mixing, mastering, re-recording and battling self-doubt.

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I have been working on some exciting things:

- I finished the illustrated lyric book for After Party, over 100 pages. My first book - I started animating the music videos for the album. Animations for the 16 songs will create a short film

- I am halfway through producing and finishing the 8th album The Grunge

- I made my first art print. I can print, sign and sell my art to anyone interested in supporting or getting some awesome art/ gift ideas.

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Thank you for all the support! Send me an album review and I will publish it in the lyric book ~

--

@electricarmchair @haikuprajna

[vinyl-connection]

REALITY BITES

For many music fans around the globe, the death of David Bowie in January 2016 left a gaping chasm in the rock world. No more new studio albums from one of popular music’s most restless creative spirits; no more tours, no more shifts of direction, no more jump-cut personas. David—and all his identities—were gone, leaving us bereft. One of the unforeseen yet probably inevitable outcomes of Bowie’s…

[o-the-mts]

Album of the Month, Year-End Lists edition

As opposed to my usual Album of the Months posts where I review albums released in the previous month, I went back to listen to a lot of albums I had missed over the course of the year. I perused various end of year Best of 2023 lists from the New York Times, NPR, Paste, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and  Stereogum,  and I reviewed a handful I think are worth checking out. I’m also including a review…

[plasticine]

Evil’s Forest (2010) by mothy

★★★★★

favorite track: 円尾坂の仕立屋- Enbizaka no Shitateya

robots💖 some very iconic tracks and some of my fave ever; moonlit bear, the Tailor of Enbizaka, The Lunacy of Duke Venomania.. haunting album.

Stereotype A (1999) by Cibo Matto

★★★★★      

favorite track: Sci-fi Wasabi, Moonchild

It’s like music to my ears. Everyone should listen 2 this album.

薔薇の聖堂- Bara no Seidou (2000) by Malice Mizer

★★★★★  

favorite track: 真夜中に交わした約束- Mayonaka ni Kawashita Yakusoku

Klaha’s voice is so stunning, gothic Malice Mizer. You can hear Mana Sama’s melodies growth towards Moi dix Mois’. I could listen to organs and choirs for hours but if you’re not into that wow is this album not for you.

[reviewsbykarla]

my favorite albums of 2019

it's december 30th and you thought i forgot!! here are my favorite albums of 2019 organized by time of year they were significant in my life, with a few choice words on each. I spent a large part of the year listening back to older stuff and not particularly into anything new, but with fall came albums that defined the rest of my year. 2019 was a year of positive change for me and reaffirmed to me that with tragedy comes growth. don't forget it!

find an extensive playlist of my favorite songs from 2019 here: open.spotify.com/playlist/0ZgjOmyLpLFAp1xxEa0e5j

Assume Form by James Blake (January-March)

The song "I'll Come Too" was a topic of discussion for a while amongst me and my best music nerd friend. He thinks it's about someone finding true, lasting love. I think it's about the intensity of orgasm with someone you truly love. Thoughts?

Purple Mountains by Purple Mountains (July-August, December)

David Berman has always been an influential songwriter in my life. When I first heard this album, I felt so sad; It sounded like he had given up on life. When he committed suicide soon after its release, I couldn't bring myself to listen to this album again for months. It's so tragic, that sometimes death is the only thing that can give you life.

Immunity by Clairo (August-October)

I had low expectations for this album and I was completely surprised. The production quality is so high and the style of the album overall felt very original. Clairo is a really great lyricist able to write relatable songs and working with Rostam was a really good move on her part. While I loved the album and had it on non-stop repeat, her live show was the worst show I have ever seen in my entire life. I'm sorry.

Essentials by Erika de Casier (August-September)

This album is SO good. It slaps in all the right places and is reminiscent of 90s hip-hop r&b, but better. Listening to this is like walking through a candy shop and getting all of your favorite things.

House of Sugar by Alex G (September-December)

I love Alex G. Always have, always will. I genuinely think he is one of the greatest artists of my lifetime. This is his best album yet hands down. I can't even begin to tell you why, but please listen to it. Go birds.

Pang by Caroline Polachek (October-December)

Wow! Pang is a masterpiece. If I had to pick a #1 album of the year, it's Pang. Caroline Polachek wrote Pang coming out of her divorce. Each song hits hard lyrically, both simple and complex at the same time. The production is incredible and the album is as niche as it is accessible. The perfect album.

Iowa dream by Arthur Russell (November-December)

Arthur Russell was a genius. Towards the end of 2019 I was reverting back to my old folk-rock sensibilities, Iowa Dream coming out at the exact right time. I felt nostalgic, content, excited. Every song on this album is beautiful and touching. I hope there is more to come from Russell's thousands of unreleased recordings.

Information by Galcher Lustwerk (December)

This album is hot. Every track is thick with beats that make me feel like jello. Play this at the club and get close with that cutie you want to dance with.

Zdenka 2080 by Salami Rose Joe Louis (December)

I only recently found this album and I immediately fell in love with it. It's so beautiful, minimalist and slightly haunting. An experimental album of this variety always tugs at my heart strings, reinforces butterflies in my stomach, makes me want to swim in a lake at midnight under a starry sky with the person I love.

[luuurien]

Indigo De Souza - All of This Will End

(Indie Rock, Singer/Songwriter, Indie Pop)

With exceptionally raw songwriting packing an incredible amount of emotion, Indigo De Souza’s third album confronts toxic relationships and traumatic scars from her youth in a more direct fashion than ever before. Now knowing how she wants to be loved and refusing to let negative emotions sit inside her, All of This Will End’s explosive songcraft makes her music hit harder than ever.

☆☆☆☆☆

There’s a moment in All of This Will End where the power of Indigo De Souza’s music is more immediate than ever before. As the plush electronic drums and jangly guitars start up in The Water, you can feel the perspective shift to a snapshot of her past, comforting but with an awareness of being back in a more turbulent point in her life. It’s an effortlessly beautiful song, one that basks in the warmth of childhood innocence in an album where anger and desire tend to rule, and it’s this balance of resignation and rage Indigo De Souza’s third album perfects. Where her debut caught her in the midst of overwhelming darkness, and Any Shape You Take chronicled self-discovery and the rush of feeling every emotion that comes your way, All of This Will End seeks growth through purging all the feelings she’s been holding in, acidic indie rock where quick flashes of fury dance around intimate scenes of De Souza’s youth. It’s a fabulously dynamic album where De Souza’s exceptionally-pared down songwriting packs an incredible amount of emotion, committed performance and a new production team letting her music bounce between styles without having to bend her songwriting to it - the sound of these songs aims to compliment her earnest songwriting rather than force it to fit in a box. As quickly as the album comes to a close, every feeling of hers has been fully transferred to you.

With a new sound after the departure of Any Shape You Take bandmates Owen Stone and MJ Lenderman- an event that entirely shook De Souza after starting to feel that those people were the only people for {her}” - All of This Will End lovingly embraces the gauzy dance-pop and country twang pieces of Any Shape You Take hinted at never fully explored. Compare the album’s first two singles, Younger & Dumber and Smog, and you can find the intersection where the album’s two thematic paths cross. The former is a haunting country ballad built on a foundation of strummed acoustic guitar and warm piano, a direct conversation between De Souza and her younger self, how the abuse she endured in the past so deeply changed her into who she is today even if she knows she deserved none of it (“You came to hurt me in all the right places / Made me somebody / …I didn’t know better”). Smog exists back in that past, De Souza protected by moonlight as she escapes the pressures around her through carefree synthpop (“I want to face it head-on / But it’s so easy to turn it away / …I don’t know how to turn around if I’m not ready”). The rest of the songs fit largely into those two categories with De Souza’s perspectives on her past and present self always in the mix, the new doors opened up for her music making each one feel special and cared for, be it the heavy riffage and headphone-crushing percussion that manifests feelings of overwhelming insecurity in early highlight Wasting Your Time or the title track’s breezy indie rock where not having any answers allows her to love and take care of herself regardless of where she’s struggling (“There’s only love / There’s only moving through and trying your best / Sometimes it’s not enough / Who gives a fuck, all of this will end”); by providing many iterations of herself in All of This Will End, she makes an immensely comforting album in its ability to own all its emotions, letting you into her world and see her forgive and heal from her past without letting those who hurt her escape from accountability.

Her straightforward emotional storytelling works as well on short tracks as much as it does on the album’s two slow-burns, Not My Body and Younger & Dumber. Sequencing-wise, they take up an eight minute stretch at the album’s end that initially feels at odds with the brisk pace and urgent feel of the previous songs, still dealing with heavy emotion but choosing to wade in them, slow and reflective in ways her music rarely has been up to this point. De Souza’s songs have always been deeply attuned to her emotional states both euphoric and miserable, but there’s something fresh and cutting about the way she leans into the crushing midsection of Not My Body, letting the fourth between the two notes she sings in the first three lines of the final verse ascend quickly before slowly sliding down the final half of each line, her desperation to escape the physical limitations of her body coming to its breaking point before the last half of the song smoothly drifts out into a smoky alt-country sunset. These two extended moments of songcraft give even greater meaning to the songs before them: the panic attack at the center of Parking Lot is only two and a half minutes and Always’ gutting attempt to make sense of her father’s extended absence in her childhood are that much more important when it’s clear just how present and heavy those feelings are within her in each. All of This Will End doesn’t mind lingering, but it’s De Souza’s choosing of when to sit with feelings and when to let them pour out that the album earns such a beautiful sense of wholeness, content with not having a final answer as long as she’s moving forward into a better future.

Like her previous albums, All of This Will End deals with De Souza’s internal world and how devoting yourself to love both breaks and reconstructs you, but what has changed is how her existential dread now gives her a reason to go as big as possible, musical colors more vivid than ever and writing with a desire to do nothing but say exactly how she feels with nothing in between you and her. Her ease at describing feelings so simply without losing an edge to her writing is second to none, and her passionate performances that go from elated to terrified in the blink of an eye keep you right next to her throughout every moment. The core of De Souza’s music is in honesty and expressing every feeling without fear, and All of This Will End’s willingness to let every version of De Souza exist together gives every song the opportunity to pull you into her world for a bit, admire the beauty of it all, and move forward into the future alongside her. It may be short, but that makes cherishing every second that much more valuable.