Welcome to my first ongoing segment on this blog: Muse-ick!
muse1
/mjuːz/
noun
A source of inspiration, especially in an artistic sense.
ick
/ɪk/
INFORMAL•NORTH AMERICAN
exclamation
A sticky or gooey substance.
Basically this is where I will be going headfirst into the slimey mess that is our favourite new music! Now that we're a quarter into the new decade I thought I'd give some reviews on some albums and singles of this quarter, most good, some a little bit less good.
ALBUMS/EPs
Haim - The Steps
As the years have gone on, Haim have progressively got more 70s sounding, with easy-going drums and twangy riffs, accompanied with sister Danielle Haim's effortless cool-girl vocals. If only we could still go outside, this would be great beach trip music. If I'm correct in saying, Haim's 4 track EP The Steps is a chunk of what will be their new album Women In Music Part III (or WIMPII, lol). It features already released singles Now I'm in It and and Summer Girl, along with new tracks The Steps and Hallelujah. I'm in love with The Steps - a lighthearted ballad about trying to make it work in a dysfunctional relationship. For some reason Hallelujah gave me counterculture folk rock vibes such as with Fleetwood Mac or Carol King. This is the kind of song you hear and think, hey, life's not too bad. The whole new sound oozes a mix of tough femme energy in a 70s daze.Denzel Curry/Kenny Beats - UNLOCKED
I only have good things to say about this album. Although I have only been following Denzel since Triple J jumped on him in 2018, I can't reflect on his work as a whole, but holy moly I'm devoted now. The smooth, nostalgic production of Kenny Beats mixed with Denzel's assertive and passionate rap style is collaborative genius. The album was made in 3 days with 6 solid songs, and then Kenny took some of the unused recordings to make intro Track 01, and interlude Track07. From what I can grasp, the album takes sentimental inspiration from old-school hiphop and mixes it with our new technological age to create something different. The whole project makes me feel like I'm living in the grimy, neon lit streets of New York, full of fast changes and even faster-evolving music. Cosmic is especially magnificent, living up to its name in a sense that it feels like an extraterrestrial acid trip condensed into a song. DIET and Take it Back are the most high-energy songs of the album, and I'd definitely recommend if you want to go hard at the gym or just hype yourself up for an event.
Also, can we talk about the fact that instead of just making a music video for one song, these two made a music video for the WHOLE ALBUM?? I guess thats the pro of having a 17-minute-long album, if only it were longer.
Grimes - Miss Anthropocene
I tried really hard to review this, but I don't think Grimes can be contained in a review. She's on her own level, and I don't know what that level is, but it's good. I recommend listening to Delete Forever, Violence, and We Appreciate Power before going diving into the rest of the album. Darkseid was the main reason I felt I couldn't confidently talk about this album, because it starts out sounding like a standard hypebeast track, and then there's shouting in Japanese with feature PAN's voice heavily dipped in synth. Leave your rationality at home before you dive into this cyber goddess' work.Tame Impala - The Slow Rush
As someone who's repped Kevin Parker since I first started growing an identity, I will always have a lot to say about Tame Impala. A producer for a handful of mega-stars and a popular sample muse for the likes of A$AP Rocky and Rihanna, The Slow Rush was always going to be a hard album for KP to live up to, especially with it's predecessor of 5 years - Currents - more than any other previous work. The Slow Rush was given the theme of time, mostly in the context of romantic relationships and personal growth, but also to losing a loved one, as Kevin opens up about losing his dad to cancer on Posthumous Forgiveness. Personally, I believe The Slow Rush is Tame's most different album in sound by far, although there is still somehow that signature sound that creeps in - the synths and falsetto voice of KP will forever be a staple to good music. This album felt more disco-pop than anything else, an upbeat project with plenty of flare to dance to, especially on tracks Breathe Deeper, Is it True and Lost In Yesterday. The updated Borderline is a million times better than its original single track, and provides a fuller and funkier sound. Not to dump on TSR, but it's probably my least favourite of all Tame albums, yet I'm not denying that it's still worth the listen.La Roux - Supervision
You bet La Roux came out with her first album in 6 years, and you bet I jumped on that shit immediately. Although La Roux has always been a bit of a retro dancepop artist, this album sounded heavily 80s inspired, with drum machines, funky basslines, and a ton of synth. Not denying, it did have it's standouts, but overall the album was a bit tedious. A lot of the riffs sounded very similar, and the style may have been a bit too 80s, making the project feel overdone. International Woman of Leisure is one of the 3 singles of the album, and I have skipped this song at every listen. A lot of the songs felt like fill-ins, 3 minute hollow tracks with no real grip. Guillible Fool is such a good song, but just too repetitive, especially with the almost 2 minute long fade-out at the end. Automatic Driver and Do You Feel save the album, with the classic La Roux sound we loved growing up done in a way that's unique and something new yet not forced. Sorry La Roux, I love you but I needed more!Christine and The Queens - La Vita Nuova
The consistency of work for this LGBTQ+ icon is insane, and I can easily say that La Vita Nuova is a beautiful synth-driven, highly emotional body of work. The third project of Chris, and the first EP extends more into Christine's original heritage, with a mix of both English and French. Yes, I have no idea what most of the songs are about without the help of Genius.com, but just the accent is romantic. For me, I think the voice plays into more of a part of the instrumental than just words. La Vita Nuova itself translates to "The New Life" in Italian, which could be a subtle nod to the medieval text by Dante Alighieri (yes, I did my research) - a tale about the author's love and loss towards a muse, and individuality through crisis vs growth. There is an obvious suggestion of relationships gone toxic, with Christine mentioning a one-sided relationship through her melodies. The bass and synths in this project sound truly phenomenal when blasted through your car or earphones. Would 10/10 recommend this EP if you're learning to stay vulnerable after a tough time, which could be finally accepting letting go of a toxic friendship, or even throwing away a fuckboy. We've all got to do it sometime in life.Grouplove - Healer
Fair to say that Grouplove still sound exactly the same as they did back in the summers of the 2010s when you'd wear Supré and flower crowns unironically. They still sound like an indie meets pop-punk quirky summertime band. To be fair, who isn't still listening to Tongue Tied in 2020?? I feel like this album would be well-recieved by the 30-somethings that actually went through their dyed hair craft beer phases back when Grouplove was at their peak, and see less appeal for younger generations. It is somewhat refreshing to hear this kind of artsy pop again, such as on the tracks The Great Unknown, Deleter and Inside Out, but overall the album feels too late for what it is. If you're not big on indie, I'd give it a miss.King Krule - Man Alive!
I knew King Krule's Archy was talented, but I underestimated just how big of a fanbase he had until this album dropped and I saw it linked on every Instagram story of the cool kids I followed. It doesn't even feel like that long ago that The Ooz dropped in 2017, let alone Tumblr's favourite 6 Feet Beneath the Moon in 2013. Archy's recent work, Man Alive! gives off a new image of the King Krule sound. A lot of grunge in a lo-fi haze, while Archy's rugged crooner voice, as smooth as concrete, narrates the story. It look me a while to fully appreciate the project. At first it sounded rather lazy and thin in texture, with simple accompaniment and a cheaper sounding production. A few more listens had me really in the headspace of this concept. To me, Man Alive! sounds like an individual wandering aimlessly through a big and fast moving city, a part of the furniture, blending in as to be almost invisible. It was even stated in an NME review that the project "is lifted by Marshall's knack for hazy social observations and poetic metropolitan storytelling". I loved the cartoon imagery accompanied in Cellular's music video and across the album's Spotify presence as well, and felt it helped paint the concept. My personal favourite tracks were Perfecto Miserable and Energy Fleets.
The Weeknd - After Hours
Not to shit on this already heartbroken man, but it always takes me a while to get into Abel's albums. At first, I find them commercial and flavourless, then after a couple of turns it's a delicacy. I guess knowing that he's such a well-recieved artist as well puts a heavier burden on producing the same standard of work for listeners. Not denying, I actually really like the sound - I love the ballad-like 80s synth and heavy bass as seen on In Your Eyes and Blinding Lights. This album felt like the sibling of 2016's Starboy, with more upbeat tempos and Mr. stealyourgirl attitude. Abel really does know how to turn pain into profit.Childish Gambino - 03.15.20
Everything about this album felt ambiguous, from the lack of cover art to the numbers as song titles and not to mention Donald Glover dropping the album as a livestream at a random time without giving ANY notice. I was lucky to catch some of it under the link donaldgloverpresents.com, but was so shellshocked that I couldn't fully tune in. A few days later the official album dropped on streaming platforms under the title 03.15.20: the 15th March that month. This project gave me the same feeling as The Summer Pack - nostaglia for a highschool summer I'd never had - full of sunsets and glittering water on lakes and lying in the grass with a lover. This stood out the most on the song Time, which appears to reflect the uncertainty of moving forward, and the fear of developing tunnel vision. Yet at the same time, tracks such as Algorythm and 32.22 sounded more like Black Panther soundtrack assertion. Its evident that there is a lot of tribal and gospel inspiration, with Glover going ever-deeper into a soulful expression. There's a lot of speculation that this is the last Gambino album that Glover is dropping, but whos to say considering how many talents that man can fit into his schecule.San Cisco - Flaws
I feel like I've grown up with San Cisco in a sense. They've always been a classic Aussie band to fall back on. Flaws came as the most recent release of this article, and appears to tell the tale of a cracking relationship. If anything, this is a great album to help you see the red flags as told in the track Flaws, and let go, as heard in the chorus of 2nd track Reasons. The 3rd track Skin sounds like the guilt you get after leaving a broken relationship - the days, weeks, or even months after where you're left missing the what-could've-beens and the potential. The EP ends with Gone, which is pretty self-explanatory. You've gained acceptance as you know it's over. Skin and Reasons had already been released respectively as singles a few months prior, and triple J really took to these two. I even had a period where Reasons was played in my car on repeat for the start of March. Solid EP.
SINGLES
Diddirri - Raw Stuff
If I'm being 100% transparent here, I had to go lie down for a good 10 minutes after I heard this song because it genuinely stopped me in my tracks. Australia's favourite sadboy, Diddirri has made what I'd say is one of his most beautiful pieces yet. I've cried to this piece, and it wasn't even on my sad boi hours playlist. That piano could give the Beatles a run for their money, and Didirri's vulnerable yet powerful voice soars beautifully among the simple instrumental of piano and strings.The song is an open letter to an old lover, one who's found another man. Somehow Diddirri manages to catch the essence of reflecting on the end of a relationship and the start of a new chapter. Life has some raw stuff, in other words, shit happens.Methyl Ethel - Majestic AF
I've found that Methyl Ethel is like wine. It's an acquired taste - something you have to try a few times before you really adore it. This single just didn't stand out a whole lot to me at first, perhaps it just slipped through the cracks of my playlist. But once you're going through a nervous breakdown, once you've been through some shit, then it really connects with you ("I don't know why I'm sad for no reason"). Majestic AF - what a great name - is a slowly evolving sound from it's predecessor album Triage, still containing those layered synths and untraditional double harmonic major scale. Gone from the days of Twilight Driving, Methyl Ethel has developed a darker and more existential sound - a looking glass in to the triumphs and downfalls of the human condition.The Strokes - Bad Decisions
I didn't think I'd hear a new Strokes song ever again, let alone see them on a setlist, but here we are with both. I'm a bit confused though - does this still mean the Voidz are around as well? Is Julian going to be a 2-band man? Anyways, it has literally been 7 YEARS since the last Strokes album Comedown Machine, and it is 100% confirmed that we are getting a new album -The New Abnormal - this year! The first and only new single of the album so far, Bad Decisions, has a 90s sounding guitar riff accompanied by Julian's iconic and slightly muffled vocals. The chorus sounds like the Strokes we grew up with, but the song as a whole is something reinvigorated. This sounds like the song you'd hear around the end of a coming of age day-in-the life movie, when all has been said and done and you're walking home in the afternoon thinking que sera, sera. I'm glad that the boys could come together again after all this time.Langva - If I Had To
Langva is probably the underdog of this entire list with only 4 tracks on Spotify and shy of 6300 listeners each month. This artist has a lot of potential, and maybe his newest single could be the start of something bigger. If I Had To just oozes psych-pop on vacation. It's so catchy and the production sounds amazing. For some reason it sounds like Miami Horror meets Tame Impala. The song seems to tell the tale of breakup regrets, but in an uptempo synth daydream that makes you forget the dude's heart is even broken.Thundercat - Dragonball Durag (w/ B side Black Qualls + Fair Chance)
It's refreshing to hear something new from Thundercat, and honestly this was unexpected. After releasing something as funky and dramatic yet fun as Drunk, it's a change of scenery to hear Dragonball Durag. Don't get me wrong, I've got good things to say, but following a 23 song full- length album with A and B side tracks felt.. kind of underwhelming. This one almost swept under the radar if it weren't for me checking out his Spotify page. As of recently, Thundercat has gone and turned this into a 3-single release with the addition of Fair Chance, so fingers crossed this quarantine is helping him churn out a new album for us. As for the songs, Thundercat remains that same level of toe-tapping shoulder bopping funk accompanied with light-hearted goofy lyrical storytelling. It was cool to see a collaboration with Steve Lacy on Black Qualls. Fair Chance felt more of a ballad, accompanied with Ty Dolla $ign and Lil B. It is what it is.
Gorillaz - Song Machine series
This is okay. Obviously you do get some amnesty after releasing stuff as great as DARE, Feel Good Inc and Dirty Harry, but yeah, this was average.The series featured mostly ad-lib tracks, which must be progressing the story of the Gorillaz cartoon universe. Momentary Bliss is violently British, which could be explained by the addition of big attitude Slowthai and punk band Slaves. It's actually not too bad though, reminds me of both skateboys and chavs - a big 'fuck you' to societal norms. Desole is... ehhh. Thats all I can really say about it. Overall there wasn't much of an impression left.Glass Animals - Your Love (Deja Vu)
God is this catchy. Even my brother who solely listens to rap and edm enjoyed the fuck out of this. Something about that woodwind accompanying melody mixed with the simple but heavy bass and snare mixed with Dave Bayley's cooler-than-you voice is just - ugh (in a good way). Along with last year's Tokyo Drifting, Your Love (Deja Vu) could be a stepstone on the way to a new album, hopefully in time for their Splendour in the Grass set.