Black Country, New Road - For the first time [2021]

The following that Black Country, New Road have cultivated may seem a bit odd out of context, because For the first time is their debut album. The band is not popular in a pop sense, and their music isn’t designed to get them there. However, BC, NR has already made a dent in their niche off the back of two stellar singles and rapturous live shows in England. The opening track, "Instrumental", makes it easy to see why - it's hard not to long for a live show in the age of coronavirus lockdowns when hearing musicianship this good.

Tricot - 真っ黒 (Makkuro) [2020]

Tricot is an extremely consistent band. Outside of "危なくなく無い街へ" a pop-ballad track that surprisingly lacks the main drawing elements of the rock group, Makkuro does not do much in the way of pushing further into the poppier territory that 3 flirted with. While "危なくなく無い街へ" stands out as the album's nadir, thankfully nothing else on the tracklist resembles it. The entire album is high quality overall, but the first half of Makkuro has the band pushing their math-rock sound to new heights. 

Pink Siifu - NEGRO [2020]

Pink Siifu has a great range of talent. There is the mellowness of his previous solo album, Ensley, and then there is Negro. The two projects are extraordinarily different, but an analysis of his discography reveals relevant precedent. The artist embraced abrasive hardcore punk in 2018 on Fuck Demo, a four-track EP that contains tracks featured here. On Negro, Siifu leaves the smooth hip-hop pastures of Ensley for radical noise. The album is a fierce evolution in sound and structure. Siifu's voice is filled with furious energy - and the indignation is justified. Negro is a record that rages against the violence of systemic racism.

King Krule - Man Alive [2020]

Man Alive continues the melancholy present in much of The Ooz, but here King Krule feels much more desolate. Sparse darkness and a sense of longing permeate throughout the entire tracklist. The two singles, which are both album highlights, are almost polar opposites. On "(Don’t Let the Dragon) Draag On", Krule feels apathetic and depressive, whereas "Alone, Omen 3", offers the listener a surprising dose of hazy sunshine via some of the Englishman's best writing.

Sleater-Kinney - The Center Won't Hold [2019]

On January 8, 2019, Sleater-Kinney hit the indie-rock world with the shock announcement that they were recording a new album. The news came by way of a picture that included the band - Corin Tucker, Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss - and St. Vincent (Annie Clark), who was listed as the record's producer. The inclusion of Clark, an artist that is part of the generation of indie-rock listeners that were deeply influenced by Sleater-Kinney, in a way felt like things coming full circle. The teachers were going to benefit from how they inspired the student.

Black Midi - Schlagenheim [2019]

Geordie Greep (guitar, vocals), Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin (guitar, vocals), Cameron Picton (bass, vocals) and Morgan Simpson (drums) are Black Midi - a London-based rock band that many international fans stumbled across by way of a scintillating 2018 KEXP live session. The band's visceral yet complex nature was startling, especially considering the fact that each member looked like they could be in high school. Moments of their sound invited classification, but the disparate nature of the whole seemed to ask the listener to do away with concrete labels entirely. For rock aficionados hell-bent on labels, one could say noise-rock, post-punk and math-rock each have a sizeable steak in whatever people feel like calling Schlagenheim. With the impressive nature of the KEXP session and the Black Midi's already much hyped live reputation in the London scene, the question was always going to be whether they could deliver in a studio session - Schlagenheim answers that with an emphatic yes. 

Idles - Joy as an Act of Resistance [2018]

In the short time between their debut and their sophomore effort, Joe Talbot (vocals, lyrics), Adam Devonshire (bass), Mark Bowen (guitar), Lee Kiernan (guitar) and Jon Beavis (drums) have already managed to expand their post-punk sound. The fire is still there - a two guitar propelled attack anchored by a rapid rhythm section - but Joy as an Act of Resistance is not as consistently relentless as its predecessor, Brutalism. However, this should not be read as a negative - the change in Joy has brought a wider emotional range to the band, with Talbot sounding better than ever.

Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool [2016]

Radiohead knocked it out of the park when choosing the two singles, "Burn The Witch" and "Daydreaming". Outside of the context of this album, they are both quite stellar, and in the case of "Daydreaming", hypnotically beautiful. Aside from that, a listen to this record reveals that these two songs were probably the two most effective, in terms of being a near-perfect teaser trailer for this album. The songs that introduced the public to A Moon Shaped Pool didn't give away too little or too much - they revealed just enough.

Esperanza Spalding - Emily's D+Evolution [2016]

Published on Pretty Much Amazing

This is an album of firsts for Esperanza Spalding. Emily’s D+Evolution is her first album of almost all original compositions (the only cover here is “I Want It Now”, from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) and her first album on which she has embraced a heavier, often guitar based sound. As a result, despite her past forays into classically influenced territory (Chamber Music Society) and mixes of jazz and soul elements with a pop sensibility (Radio Music Society), this is arguably her first album that runs a serious risk of alienating some of her fan base. I could be wrong (what do I know really?), but with the singles of her last (and highest selling) album being the pop-soul of “Black Gold” and a cover of a Michael Jackson classic (“I Can't Help It”) it is pretty easy to see how someone who hasn't paid that much attention to her artistic evolution since 2012 (the singles from D+Evolution are not chart topping hits, after all) could find this album, opening with some dark keys that lead into some heavy guitar playing that has more in common with a Cream record than her past efforts, more than a bit surprising.

David Bowie - Blackstar [2016]

For those who processed the record directly before or after his death, it will be impossible to separate Bowie’s death from the analysis of Blackstar. One could argue that it’s nearly impossible to find a similar situation in music history. That situation would have to have the following five key factors:

(1) The artist is aware that he will probably die soon and decides to record an album 

(2) The album produced contains songs that musically have a dark and foreboding atmosphere 

(3) There are blatant references to death and mortality, lyrically and visually throughout the project (the "Lazarus" video speaks for itself)

(4) The public did not know that the artist had the illness which caused his death.

It is sadly appropriate that Bowie, a one of a kind artist, would exit this earth artistically in such unique circumstances. To dedicate your life to art is one thing, but to use the possibility of your death as something that fuels your art is something else entirely.

David Bowie - Low [1977]

Low is arguably Bowie’s greatest and most daring achievement. The Thin White Duke had just dropped Station to Station in 76’, which is, in comparison to this record, an amazing, but relatively straightforward, rock masterpiece. Take out the epic krautrock title track are what exactly is the listener left with on Station to Station? The remaining album is something that comes off as very American, despite the fact that Bowie himself is English. To be fair, this isn’t exactly the biggest surprise as it was recorded in Los Angeles, with a band that was majority American. Of the five songs not named “Station to Station”, two of them in particular are clearly groovy and more importantly, a bit soulful. “Stay” and “Golden Years” sport rhythms that make the fact that Bowie, an English rock star, was the first white man on Soul Train (despite his awkward Soul Train performance) significantly less surprising. Overall, the title track aside, Station to Station was a very warm, and arguably, American record, which is what makes the entire aesthetic of Low all the more surprising and intriguing, even when analyzing it decades after the fact.

Pink Floyd - The Piper At the Gates of Dawn [1967]

If your first experience with Pink Floyd was through their 70s progressive rock run, there is a high possibility that you will not initially like this album. Obviously the core members, minus Gilmore, are here, but the Syd Barrett led Floyd was essentially a completely different band. Weird, psychedelic and arguably genre-defining are three words that could be used to describe The Piper At the Gates of Dawn.