Music Reviews, 8/26/19
It's been awhile, and for two reasons. One: I've spent the last month listening to the 520 plus songs I nominated for the "Top 100 Songs Of The Decade" list I'm putting out in December. Making that list was hard: a lot of painful, shocking cuts were made and listening to anything else in-between would have been a fool's errand pitted up against literally the best music of the last ten years.
Number two: I hit the wall with new releases by the 4th of July. 140 was more than my brain could hold and I needed a break, maybe until 2020. I feel a bit refreshed after taking a month off though, so it isn't as dire as it seems. Let's peep some new shit, shall we:
Mark Ronson "Late Night Feelings" * and 1/2
I respect Mark Ronson for not remaking "Uptown Funk", for going in a different direction and updating his nostalgia-based approach to...the 80's I guess, but this album is boring as dirt. 80's nostalgia's been strip mined. There's nothing left. But that's not the main problem with Late Night Feelings: it's the tepid, numb, drunk attempts at having some late night feelings that clumsily (or completely fail to) convey what the emotions are. Everything's subdued to the point of soporiphia.
There are a few songs that rise above the dreck: the title track (ironically) (feat. Lykke Li) manages to set a tone that is never lived up to again. "Truth" (feat. Alicia Keys & The Last Artful, Dodgr) manages to put some life in this thing and "Nothing Breaks Like A Heart" is the second-best thing Miley Cyrus has ever done. It's so good it makes me wish she had more songs I could stand. Other than that, "Pieces Of Us" (w/ King Princess) is the only other song to even write home about. A real disappointment considering Ronson's previous track record, and especially since two of the three songs I liked were the lead-in singles.
Monstercat "Instinct, Vol. 3" **
Not nearly as good as 30: Finale that I reviewed...oh God, that was two and a half years ago already (yikes)... Finale had not only a united through line but a lot more bangers-per-capita. Instinct Vol. 3 has a lot more variety, but it goes into a lot of poppy electronica that has been severely dated in the four short years since a lot of this would've been popular. Still liked a few in passing: The opener's fine, "Eden" starts plodding but explodes on the drop, "Lost In Space" has Arabic(?) rapping, but the best one was "Rendezvous" by Laslo (which has drum & bass rhythm if you wanna talk dated...). And that's really where the comp kicks into high gear: I liked eight out of the last ten. On a 40 song set. Most of that 40 is largely inoffensive background mush to fill the void, but fifteen to eighteen of them rose above the mediocre muck. Not the worst.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard "Infest The Rats' Nest" *** and 1/2
Good. I needed something to wreck faces with. It's guttural. It's washed out in lo-fi, fuzz and muddiness. Some albums would be doomed to failure by that, but King Giz do it in a way that gives it more teeth. And if you're part of the brigade of rich fucks destroying this planet because it gets you off, they have a set of jaws to cure your priapism.
"Planet B" I was familiar with already, having been released before their previous album even came out back in April (which was a breezy, boogey-woogey blues affair that devolved into electronica at the end to symbolize the co-opting of nature by technology...or something). If you aren't familiar, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard has done 15 albums since 2011, and they're usually in different genres each time. They've done garage rock, prog, folk, microtonal music, improvisational jazz, a hint of electronic, blues and now thrash, and that's basically just the last three years.
Anyway, "Planet B" is a ferocious ball of teeth and talons, frustratedly growling "You can't eat money, you fucks!" (not an actual lyric, but that's the sentiment). "THERE IS NO PLANET B". This is it. And it won't "be" for much longer (the Amazon is being deliberately destroyed as we speak). (Side note: I coulda swore the last lyric in the song is "Baby Jesus shits himself", but it's "Baby Jesus sheds a tear".)
Songs like "Mars For The Rich", "Superbug" and "Self-Immolate" are snarling rebukes of the "Eh, throw money at the problem until it goes away" solutions to climate change, antibiotic-resistant medicines (and the lack of actual "care" provided by for profit Health Care) and the seeming dissatisfaction humanity has with not going all the way with bringing about the apocalypse.
There is a problem with this album though, and it's the "Venusian" suite ("Venusian 1", "Perihelion" and "Venusian 2"). Not only does it take the topics out of the grounded reality and anger of the other songs by switching to Sci-Fi space shit ("Mars For The Rich" could at least be a metaphor), but it actively undermines them by ending "Venusian 1" with the line "There IS a Planet V". That took me out of it, but the rest of the second half of the album turns out to be one long concept. The humans make it to Venus, get burned alive, then another ship (Venusian 2) crashes into the habitat or...something (even after reading the Genius annotations I'm still foggy and don't much care), the humans all want to die and then the last song is embracing Hell and Hell embracing them in turn. "Venusian 1", "Perihelion" and "Venusian 2" aren't bad, but they detract from the experience by adding a fantastical bent to an otherwise grounded experience, and this album would have been much more of a punch in the face without them. As a six song EP, Infest The Rats' Nest would hit a lot harder.
But still, there isn't a song on here I hated. King Giz plays thrash metal with the aggression the genre's progenitors exhibited back when they were young and hungry. Definitely worth a listen if you need to bang your head (or vent about our inability to reign in planet-killing greed).
Slipknot "We Are Not Your Kind" ***
It's...a Slipknot record. There's not much else to say about it, other than I think this is their third best album behind Volume 3 and the self-titled. It's more about the creepy, almost Halloweeny atmosphere than its predecessors, but it's also not really that remarkable. Good not great, with not much distinguishing characteristics to write home about.
Except overstaying its welcome by considerable margins. The last three tracks (all of which are over six minutes) don't need to be there at all. One of them is a bunch of noise with about 90 seconds of music in it. It's the longest song on the album. Come on, dudes. I was with you until then.
So that about raps it up. Tool's coming for us all, so abandon all hope, or whatever. It'll happen to all of us.
Number two: I hit the wall with new releases by the 4th of July. 140 was more than my brain could hold and I needed a break, maybe until 2020. I feel a bit refreshed after taking a month off though, so it isn't as dire as it seems. Let's peep some new shit, shall we:
Mark Ronson "Late Night Feelings" * and 1/2
I respect Mark Ronson for not remaking "Uptown Funk", for going in a different direction and updating his nostalgia-based approach to...the 80's I guess, but this album is boring as dirt. 80's nostalgia's been strip mined. There's nothing left. But that's not the main problem with Late Night Feelings: it's the tepid, numb, drunk attempts at having some late night feelings that clumsily (or completely fail to) convey what the emotions are. Everything's subdued to the point of soporiphia.
There are a few songs that rise above the dreck: the title track (ironically) (feat. Lykke Li) manages to set a tone that is never lived up to again. "Truth" (feat. Alicia Keys & The Last Artful, Dodgr) manages to put some life in this thing and "Nothing Breaks Like A Heart" is the second-best thing Miley Cyrus has ever done. It's so good it makes me wish she had more songs I could stand. Other than that, "Pieces Of Us" (w/ King Princess) is the only other song to even write home about. A real disappointment considering Ronson's previous track record, and especially since two of the three songs I liked were the lead-in singles.
Monstercat "Instinct, Vol. 3" **
Not nearly as good as 30: Finale that I reviewed...oh God, that was two and a half years ago already (yikes)... Finale had not only a united through line but a lot more bangers-per-capita. Instinct Vol. 3 has a lot more variety, but it goes into a lot of poppy electronica that has been severely dated in the four short years since a lot of this would've been popular. Still liked a few in passing: The opener's fine, "Eden" starts plodding but explodes on the drop, "Lost In Space" has Arabic(?) rapping, but the best one was "Rendezvous" by Laslo (which has drum & bass rhythm if you wanna talk dated...). And that's really where the comp kicks into high gear: I liked eight out of the last ten. On a 40 song set. Most of that 40 is largely inoffensive background mush to fill the void, but fifteen to eighteen of them rose above the mediocre muck. Not the worst.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard "Infest The Rats' Nest" *** and 1/2
Good. I needed something to wreck faces with. It's guttural. It's washed out in lo-fi, fuzz and muddiness. Some albums would be doomed to failure by that, but King Giz do it in a way that gives it more teeth. And if you're part of the brigade of rich fucks destroying this planet because it gets you off, they have a set of jaws to cure your priapism.
"Planet B" I was familiar with already, having been released before their previous album even came out back in April (which was a breezy, boogey-woogey blues affair that devolved into electronica at the end to symbolize the co-opting of nature by technology...or something). If you aren't familiar, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard has done 15 albums since 2011, and they're usually in different genres each time. They've done garage rock, prog, folk, microtonal music, improvisational jazz, a hint of electronic, blues and now thrash, and that's basically just the last three years.
Anyway, "Planet B" is a ferocious ball of teeth and talons, frustratedly growling "You can't eat money, you fucks!" (not an actual lyric, but that's the sentiment). "THERE IS NO PLANET B". This is it. And it won't "be" for much longer (the Amazon is being deliberately destroyed as we speak). (Side note: I coulda swore the last lyric in the song is "Baby Jesus shits himself", but it's "Baby Jesus sheds a tear".)
Songs like "Mars For The Rich", "Superbug" and "Self-Immolate" are snarling rebukes of the "Eh, throw money at the problem until it goes away" solutions to climate change, antibiotic-resistant medicines (and the lack of actual "care" provided by for profit Health Care) and the seeming dissatisfaction humanity has with not going all the way with bringing about the apocalypse.
There is a problem with this album though, and it's the "Venusian" suite ("Venusian 1", "Perihelion" and "Venusian 2"). Not only does it take the topics out of the grounded reality and anger of the other songs by switching to Sci-Fi space shit ("Mars For The Rich" could at least be a metaphor), but it actively undermines them by ending "Venusian 1" with the line "There IS a Planet V". That took me out of it, but the rest of the second half of the album turns out to be one long concept. The humans make it to Venus, get burned alive, then another ship (Venusian 2) crashes into the habitat or...something (even after reading the Genius annotations I'm still foggy and don't much care), the humans all want to die and then the last song is embracing Hell and Hell embracing them in turn. "Venusian 1", "Perihelion" and "Venusian 2" aren't bad, but they detract from the experience by adding a fantastical bent to an otherwise grounded experience, and this album would have been much more of a punch in the face without them. As a six song EP, Infest The Rats' Nest would hit a lot harder.
But still, there isn't a song on here I hated. King Giz plays thrash metal with the aggression the genre's progenitors exhibited back when they were young and hungry. Definitely worth a listen if you need to bang your head (or vent about our inability to reign in planet-killing greed).
Slipknot "We Are Not Your Kind" ***
It's...a Slipknot record. There's not much else to say about it, other than I think this is their third best album behind Volume 3 and the self-titled. It's more about the creepy, almost Halloweeny atmosphere than its predecessors, but it's also not really that remarkable. Good not great, with not much distinguishing characteristics to write home about.
Except overstaying its welcome by considerable margins. The last three tracks (all of which are over six minutes) don't need to be there at all. One of them is a bunch of noise with about 90 seconds of music in it. It's the longest song on the album. Come on, dudes. I was with you until then.
So that about raps it up. Tool's coming for us all, so abandon all hope, or whatever. It'll happen to all of us.
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