Tag Archives for A-

Grimes – “Miss Anthropocene”

(Photo credit: Time)

Grade: A-

Key Tracks: “4ÆM,” “My Name Is Dark”

Hey! Hi! Hello! I’m still alive and paying for this domain – and although I haven’t had time to maintain this blog in a few years, I want to try to start again! I’m sure my [REDACTED NUMBER] followers will be delighted 🙂

(Review originally published on thefilteredlens.com)

A lot has changed since the release of Grimes’ last album, 2015’s untouchable “Art Angels.” The album’s mix of bouncy and eerie pop melodies rocketed the already-rising Grimes into a much bigger light, and placed near the top of seemingly every year-end list (overshadowed solely by “To Pimp a Butterfly”). In that time she’s come as close to a household name as someone who makes eclectic dream-pop would, all the while testing some fans and hyping up others with her surprise romance with Tesla/Space-X epic bacon dudebro Elon Musk. My opinion of her has soured, deeply, but my opinion of her music hasn’t. It’s difficult to weight the two against each other for her new album, but it’s a stellar album nonetheless.

From a sheer musical standpoint, “Miss Anthropocene” is a big departure from the conventional structures of “Art Angels,” and is more aligned with her older work. It’s a smart attempt to try and re-couple with the section of fans that didn’t approve of the last album’s conventionality. A majority of the songs across “Anthropocene” have a much more atmospheric tone, with sweeping synth and distant, largely indecipherable vocals and lyrics. At the same time, she ropes in some elements of nu-metal, much akin to the recent Poppy heel turn. The album’s only real bop is the excellent “4ÆM,” which punctures the format by adding some breakbeats.

Thematically, “Anthropocene” takes on a much darker tone than its predecessor (which wasn’t exactly a glimmer of hope, itself). The album follows a goddess of climate change who, very literally, wants to watch the world burn. Various songs address various apocalypses (think King Gizz’s “Murder of the Universe”) from climate change (“So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth”) to opiate addiction (“Delete Forever”). It’s a lofty ambition for someone who’s career was at a bit of a crossroads, and she pulls it off masterfully well. Some of the album’s slowest tracks, like “New Gods” and “Before the Fever,” don’t exactly demand immediate replays. But on the context of a full album, they highlight songs like the rapid “4ÆM” and the euphoric closer “IDORU” remarkably.

If Grimes is attempting to reconnect with her older roots here – and she may not be, but “Anthropocene” is similar to older releases like “Halfaxa” – then there is a contradictory elephant in the room. Grimes got her start in witch house, although she never felt fully encompassed in the genre. Witch house bands are inherently anti-technology, with some choosing unsearchable names like oOoOO and ///▲▲▲\\\. “Anthropocene” isn’t a witch house album, but the roots are still there, and the sentimentality is present. Early single “We Appreciate Power” (left off the album but available on deluxe versions) is sung from the POV of an AI propaganda machine. It’s a powerful message (and a great song). But it is easily misconstrued because of the POV as being some kind of pro-techno-fascist nightmare, and it’s telling that it isn’t immediately apparent that Grimes meant otherwise. Her coupling with Elon Musk, our era’s most worryingly successful techno-fascist, deems a lot of the album’s genuine concerns either contradictory or irrelevant. Not to mention, her faux-edgy Tumblr aesthetics feel a lot sillier this time around, with song titles like “Delete Forever” and “My Name is Dark” and lyrics like (seriously) “So we party when the sun goes low / Imminent annihilation sounds so dope.” I watched the film “Snowpiercer” for the first time last night (inspired by “Parasite,” not by this album) and knowing how Musk is developing super-transportation and accumulating ungodly personal wealth amidst a likely catastrophic climate crisis, it felt….on the nose. This, uh, musk, is extremely difficult to shake off while listening to “Anthropocene.”

That said, if you can look past that, or if you’re a fan of Musk and this partnership, then this still an incredible record. Glorifying and horrifying, Grimes plays to all of her own strengths. The album is almost devoid of bangers like “Kill V. Maim,” but as good as that song is, it never felt like Grimes’s comfort zone. From the eerily quiet intro “So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth” to the sonic vaccuum of “My Name is Dark” to the unexpectedly sweet finale, “Anthropocene” is a well-rounded and satisfying that, like her previous albums, is bound to get better with each listen. There is a lot to pick apart, especially in the urgency of some of the lyrics. But even just as a sonic experience, it feels miles ahead of “Art Angels” in scope and ambition, even in the quiet moments. I wasn’t sure what direction Grimes would take after “Angels,” but she really sticks the landing.

~By Andrew McNally

St. Vincent – “MASSEDUCTION”

(Photo Credit: Northern Transmissions)

Grade: A

Key Tracks: “Pills,” “Sugarboy,” “Young Lover”

Annie Clark has big shoes to fill. Her last album, 2014’s “St. Vincent,” was consistently ranked among the best albums of the year, a busy year. The album saw her rise from indie darling touring the festival circuit to playing the season finale of “SNL” and winning a semi-surprise Best Alternative Album at the Grammy’s (ironically, presumed winner Beck also released a new album this week). After all that, “St. Vincent” is my favorite album. Like, ever. All-time. Has been for three years. So “MASSEDUCTION” has high hurdles to clear and, to our baited breaths, it jumps over those hurdles in every way that Annie Clark can think of.

Don’t let opening track “Hang On Me” and lead single “New York” fool you – this is a big album. At 13 tracks and 41 minutes, it packs a whole boxer’s array of punches. Although the opening song is inexplicably lackluster, the album kicks into high gear with the guitar-heavy satire “Pills.” The track’s fuzzy, chomping guitar sounds like an “Actor” lost cut. One of the album’s few disappointments is that this is really the only track where Clark lets loose on guitar, something she still does a little infrequently. But when the album that follows is as good as it is, it’s hardly even missed.

Other standout tracks include “Sugarboy,” with a super catchy and choppy beat that’s sure to rip through audiences in her live show. “Happy Birthday, Johnny” is a slight ballad with some unexpected country slide-guitar, stuck right in the middle of the album. “Savior” is a funky and sexy pop song, but one that includes industrial elements (although he doesn’t have a songwriting credit, the album was co-produced by Jack Antonoff, who cowrote and produced a similar, excellent song on Lorde’s album earlier this year). “Fear The Future” hits super hard after the emotional but slight “New York,” with a deafening sound and incredibly anxious lyrics. “Young Lover,” the tenth track, seems like the beginning of the wind-down as, frankly, the song’s first section is dull. But it transforms into a full-bloomed vocal track, the best of the album and one of the best in Clark’s discography. The album’s final song “Smoking Section” is a satisfying conclusion, with Clark repeating “it’s not the end.” The song’s title and placement might be a reference to David Sedaris’s classic essay “The Smoking Section” – let us not forget that Clark’s debut contained references to “Arrested Development” and MAD Magazine.

“MASSEDUCTION” is not without fault, of course. There are rare moments of downtime, in tracks like “Hang On Me,” “Slow Disco,” and, to a lesser extent, the title track. There is also a palpable lack of guitar wizardry. Although Clark’s guitar pops up throughout, the album generally lacks the riffs designed to pummel live audiences to their core. It’s a confounding stylistic choice for someone who is becoming known as one of the best live acts. Still, audiences haven’t seen these songs performed yet, so who’s to say what Clark has planned (also, she’s just free to record whatever she wants, maybe she’s just tired of guitar).

Although not her best overall, this album stands as easily the most cohesive record in the St. Vincent discography. It has the fewest amount of skippable tracks (there’s only two that I’d even consider and I’ve *just* listened to it), it has everything from anxious noise about the future to industrial-funk to genuinely beautiful ballads to satire about the medical industry. I’ve written (in a few places, extensively, sorry) about the impact that Clark’s 2012 collaborative album with David Byrne, “Love This Giant,” seemed to have on her confidence as a performer. That newfound confidence shines throughout this entire record, front (back?) and foremost with that album cover. Clark has always been an interesting songwriter, but this album continues her trend of pushing listeners out of their comfort zone with the frequent genre changes and occasionally uncomfortable lyrics.

This album is a borderline-masterpiece, if not one outright. Although it lacks specifically-standout songs like all of her other albums (“Rattlesnake” & “Birth In Reverse,” “Cruel” & “Surgeon,” “The Neighbors” & “Marrow,” “Now, Now” & “Your Lips Are Red), it works as a huge cohesive unit that really doesn’t have much time to cut. It’s a challenging pop album, asking the listener to accept satire, sorrow and directly sexual lyrics amidst their catchy music. This album feels like all of the highs, lows and middles that Clark has been living since and possibly before her last album. This album was likely going to be the one that people really judged Clark on. Her last album is, for all intents and purposes, a breakthrough – so the eye was on what she would do with the exposure. And if this album is what Clark can do under the pressure, then it’s safe to say we’re welcoming in a new legend.

-By Andrew McNally

Susanne Sundfør – “Songs For People In Trouble”

(Photo credit: last.fm)

Grade: A-

Key Tracks: “The Sound of War,” “Undercover”

Susanne Sundfør, more than most people in music, understands the concept of a human voice as an instrument. She also clearly understands that she possesses one of the most operatic and resounding singing voices around, which she uses on full display on her sixth album. Her previous two works, 2012’s “The Silicone Veil” and 2015’s “Ten Love Songs” used heavy doses of strings and synth to create rich, dichotomous harmonies that played equally off her beautiful and sometimes pained vocals. On this album, though, she lets her voice create part of the harmony rather than acting as the knife that splits those harmonies apart. The album is much, much softer, often consisting of just Sundfør’s vocals and acoustic guitar, with an occasional wind instrument.

Although the album does have some prominent features, many tracks are just Sundfør, accompanying herself on guitar or piano (often acoustic guitar). Acoustic guitar is an instrument that has felt intentionally left out of her music on prior albums, so the immediacy of it on “Trouble” signals the shift in sound, as well as working as an ode to her natural talent.

As expected, the lyrics are often dark and planted in the concepts of personal issues, relationships and conflicts dying unresolved. More so on “Trouble” than on past albums, it’s easy to let Sundfør’s voice wash over as a separate instrument, to disregard the words for the emotion they’re reflecting. The album’s softer tone also brings out the true qualities in her vocals – she doesn’t have to overpower any instruments, she’s just belting because she feels the song requires. The only track where this doesn’t necessarily apply is lead single “Undercover,” a track that has the instrumentation and vocals build together rather than separate, and where Sundfør sounds even bigger than she does elsewhere. It’s the album’s best example of a ‘put your headphones on and get lost in it’ type song, akin to “Accelerate.”

In many respects, “Songs For People In Trouble” is the polar opposite (and answer to) “Ten Love Songs” (a personal favorite album of mine). “Trouble” only allows itself to go off the rails twice, on “The Sound of War” and it’s immediate follow-up, the title track. “War” starts as innocently as many of the album’s other tracks, gorgeous and soft, before giving way to a more drone finale. The title track cements the album at the halfway point, and it’s first half is spoken-word poetry performed by Andres Roberts and avant-garde.

The album does twist its way into the final song (and second single), “Mountaineers,” which has the only actual official feature, a bold duet with John Grant. It’s a song that is as inquisitive as it is engaging, and doesn’t feature Sundfør until a ways in. But, in keeping with traditions of ending her albums on big, bold notes (check “Your Prelude” and “Insects,” songs with enormous sound to them), the song feels like driftwood caught in the rest of the album’s waves. Even for the album, it’s a complicated and risky song, one that pays off more with each listen.

“Trouble” is standout, tempered pop, accentuated by touches of music that only occasionally become heavy touches. Sundfør again uses her voice as an instrument, dominating songs like “Reincarnation” while stepping aside for things like an extended flute solo in “No One Believes in Love Anymore.” Although the sound is almost jarringly different from her more recent works, it recaptures the leveled sound of her earlier career without losing any of the ambition and emotional haunting of her more synth-based songs. “Trouble” is quiet and daring, another ten song collection that leaves the listener cold, a little shaken but still asking for so much more.

Lorde – “Melodrama”

Photo Credit: Genius

Grade: A-

Key Tracks: “Green Light,” “Hard Feelings/Loveless,” “Perfect Places”

The first album from New Zealand singer Lorde, 2014’s wonderful instant classic “Pure Heroine,” was a bit of an anomaly. Lorde’s lyrics shadowed the fact that she was literally a teenager – they coupled the life of suburbia with the dreams of luxuries she heard about in Drake and Kanye songs. But musically, the album couldn’t have been further from what a bored teenaged pop singer usually creates. The album was a quiet blast of minimalism, with short, mild songs more in the realm of The xx than anything else. It was a refreshing turn for a young singer. But it also left people wondering whether her follow-up would try to replicate the style, or whether Lorde would grow her music.

Unsurprisingly, Lorde grew. The album’s opening track and lead single, “Green Light,” is a tongue-in-cheek look at this. The opening line, “I do my make-up in somebody else’s car,” could easily come out of a Lorde parody song, and is sung over faint piano. But within a minute the song does literally grow into a big, extremely danceable pop song. This album, in certain ways, could not sound more different than “Heroine.” While Lorde sounded comfortable in that album’s small sound, here she often sounds like she’s trying to free herself from a restraint (often successfully). “Green Light” lacks a breakdown because Lorde sings over it at the same volume she was already going at. On this album she has both more range and more bite. On “Writer in the Dark” she coolly sings “I love you till my breathing stops / I love you till you call the cops on me” over two menacingly out-of-tune piano notes. On “The Louvre,” she surrounds herself with the most orchestral music she’s made, which makes the painful quietness of immediate follow-up “Liability” all the more real.

But the best example of this newfound, punching-up attitude is found on the first half of “Hard Feelings/Loveless.” The “Hard Feelings” portion of the song expands into industrial territory – yes, industrial territory. Lorde’s vocals completely disappear for a noisy interlude that wouldn’t have felt out of place on “Pretty Hate Machine.” It’s a real punch in the gut to hear it halfway into a pop album. It’s worth noting that Lorde worked with Jack Antonoff on this album, a man who isn’t new to elevating female singers and pushing them in new directions. The album, as a whole, is far more musical than before. There are multiple songs with instrumental fade-outs and moments where Lorde gives way to the music behind her. She’s not hidden, though – she still dominates every song in her own ways.

“Melodrama” might be the most appropriately-titled album of the year. While it is taken from a song, the whole album has an umbrella of melodrama to it. Lorde, now 20, seems stuck in the same lyrical ennui that birthed her first album. But here she is more direct while also more unhinged. Gone are the references to diamonds and luxury, the metaphors and vocal inspirations taken from other genres (except the way Lorde sings the chorus in the excellent “The Louvre”) She’s bored in relationships, counting the days until it ends. She’s alone in clubs, sometimes by choice and sometimes not. “Melodrama,” even more than “Heroine,” shows the personal troubles and misunderstood complexity of being a young woman. And although she may be native to New Zealand, the general ‘stuck’ feeling throughout wouldn’t sound out of place coming from a Midwestern act. Many of the album’s songs could easily be translated into the music of a young but learned country singer.

Lorde’s growth as a singer is completely natural on this album, and it isn’t even necessarily a growth that would usually be called “maturity.” Her image was so well solidified on “Heroine” and it came off so earnestly that this album feels more like a reaction, rather than a separate entity. And on a bigger and simpler note, it also proves that Lorde isn’t going to be a one-off (not that we were particularly worried). “Melodrama” is a surprisingly well-rounded package, one that highlights and intensifies the emotions she had already conquered, while also pushing her volume and ambition levels far past what listeners were used to. A week removed from Katy Perry’s disastrous push into new ground, we get the album we might deserve – a pop singer pushing herself to the edge of her capabilities without intentionally going overboard.

-By Andrew McNally

Roger Waters – “Is This the Life We Really Want?”

(Photo Credit: JamBase)Grade: A-

Key Tracks: “Picture That” “Is This the Life We Really Want?”

It feels dishonest to talk about the solo works of Pink Floyd members and compare them to “The Wall,” but in this case, Roger Waters might want us to do that. This album is reminiscent of that behemoth in many ways, most obviously in a political sense. Waters hasn’t released an album in nearly a quarter of a century, and for a while he seemed more than content doing tours of both his own work and Pink Floyd’s. But in the age where fascism has seen a sudden, scarily impressive rebound, Waters followed closely behind.

People talk about Pink Floyd’s politics, but it’s still often obscured by (clouds) talk about the more avant-garde, experimental music that dominated their discography. Still, their tenth and eleventh albums, “Animals” and “The Wall,” feel eerily relevant in 2017 (“Animals,” as it happens, turns 40 this year). “Animals” is easily the bleakest album the band put out, a deeply anti-fascist album with a famously grayscale cover and extremely long, grinding songs. “The Wall,” as we know, is a much more cinematic album (and literally a movie), but hardly less political. Both albums were rooted in anti-authoritarianism, something Pink Floyd did even more than other classic rock bands.

Waters exploits the albums’ best qualities for his new work, wonderfully titled “Is This the Life We Really Want?.” Waters, even more than most musicians, is not shy about his personal politics, and they are on full, angry display across the album’s twelve tracks. Even the opener, “When We Were Young,” is miserable in its worldview. “I’m still ugly, you’re still fat,” a man says flatly to an unknown listener. “Was it our parents who made us this way, or was it God? Fuck it.”

Waters goes past the point of being blunt and gets downright confrontational on the album. The best example to go back to is “Mother,” from “The Wall.” That song includes direct lines like “Mother, should I trust the government?” Musically, much of this album resembles that song – airy guitar, strings, a lot of acoustic elements. The music is not nearly as urgent and frantic as the lyrics, which turns out to be effective, because it comes off as more honest and less theatrical. Waters’ voice also sounds similar to that era, almost like he’s been frozen in time. His sort of powerful-whisper thing is still front and center, only sometimes allowing itself to grow huge.

Again, to drive this home, this is the fiercest political work we’ve seen since the Trump campaign started, and I’m not forgetting YG’s song “Fuck Donald Trump.” This album is absolutely littered with profanity and extremely specific references to all of the world’s current ailments. Nowhere is this as direct as on the title track, which has a set of lyrics that go: “Fear keeps us all in line / fear of all those foreigners, fear of all their crimes / is this the life we really want?” Soon after, he sings, “every time a Russian bride is advertised for sale / every time a journalist is left to rot in jail / every time a young girl’s life is casually spent / and every time a nincompoop becomes the president / every time someone dies reaching for their keys / and every time Greenland falls into the fucking sea.” The whole song is a direct message to those who are blind or ignorant to the problems in the world. The song also opens with a brief Trump audioclip. Sure, calling Trump a “nincompoop” ranks down with Kendrick Lamar’s “Trump is a chump” as a pretty low-level insult, but it still gets the job done. And it’s okay, because on the equally great “Picture That,” he sings “picture a shithouse with no fucking drains / picture a leader with no fucking brains.” While not directly about Trump, he’s absolutely one of the potential ‘leader’s mentioned.

The album ends on a beautiful three-song suite that comes kind of out of left field, but works as an effective finale nonetheless. “Wait For Her” is an emotional pseudo-ballad centered around a heavy guitar crunch. The song transitions into “Oceans Apart,” a minute-long interlude that changes pitch and sheds most of the instruments, before bringing them all back in and returning to the central rhythm for closer “Part of Me Died.” Although Waters all but sheds the politics that infiltrate every other track, it’s still a beautiful addition. Otherwise, the album is all about the bleak state of the world today. “Smell the Roses” starts off sounding optimistic, before diverging into lyrics about terrorism ruining the world’s beauty.

I mentioned stylistic similarities to “The Wall,” and there’s definitely some easter eggs throughout that will please Floyd fans (like myself). “The Most Beautiful Girl” is one of the album’s lesser tracks, but it does feature Waters painfully sing “I’m coming home,” just as he did on “Hey You.” “Bird In A Gale,” one of the album’s most urgent tracks, has Waters repeat the word “floor” just like how David Gilmour repeated the word “stone” on “Dogs” back on the “Animals” album. “Déjà vu,” a brutally confrontational song, has the sound of a wall crashing in the middle. And, lastly, “Smell the Roses” has references to money and a rhythm similar to “Money.” Some or all of these may be unintentional, but when multiple major powers have descended into the world Floyd sang so strongly against on “Animals” and “The Wall,” it makes sense for Waters to pat himself on the back for the 40-years-early predictions. A lot of this album is “I told you so, now here’s what happened.” The album isn’t so much an emotional roller coaster as much as it is an abrupt freefall. The album is immediate, outright, furious, and downright necessary. It has more urgency and necessity than many of Pink Floyd’s albums, and even outranks some of them. Necessary times call for necessary measures, and sometimes, just like with A Tribe Called Quest last year, we have to call on the veterans to fully ground us. Waters is about as anti-Trump, anti-Brexit, anti-everything bad as they come, and this album is a lyrical ground-pounder that we need to level us in 2017.

-By Andrew McNally

Alicia Keys – “Here”

(Photo Credit: Consequence of Sound)

Grade: A-

Key Tracks: “The Gospel” “She Don’t Really Care_1 Luv”

It’s safe to say that usually, when you hear an Alicia Keys song, you know it’s an Alicia Keys song. She hasn’t changed her format much since 2001 – because she hasn’t had to. Be it 2001 or 2013, put Alicia behind a piano and let her sing and it’s worth a listen. Alicia Keys could sing the Articles of Confederation and it would sound incredible. Over five albums, Keys proved again and again that she is a vocal and musical powerhouse, and has dominated R&B and pop-crossover since the dawn of the century. But, as any casual fan has probably noticed, it was time for a change.

2016 has seen an absurd amount of black artists put out works that focus on the state of black America today, albeit loosely or directly; Keys joins ScHoolboy Q, Beyonce, YG, Kanye, Vince Staples, Young Thug, De La Soul, and even just today, Common, in releasing an album that focuses on what black America is going through right now. With Keys, it is obviously not as upfront as, say, ScHoolboy Q, but it hits harder than you would ever expect Alicia Keys to. The album’s front half is one long piece, with songs transitioning into skits and back, weaving through life as a black American.

Keys starts strong, after an intro, with “The Gospel,” an ode to growing up in New York. It’s a tough song. It starts off innocently enough, with just Keys and piano, before she starts rapping over rapid-fire drums. By all accounts, it never strays from being a Keys song, but couples that ‘sound’ with staccato drums and honest lyrics about a poor life. The follow-up, “Pawn It All,” complements the ‘universal’ of “The Gospel” with a personal story that still feels universal. In it, she sings “I would give you everything / Just to start my life over again,” which feels far more introspective, but still touches on a moment that most people have either experienced or at least felt. After “The Gospel,” it’s tough not to hear in terms of black Americans feeling despair at the current state.

The next two non-interludes are two very differing tracks, “Kill Your Mama,” easily the most abrasive song title in the Keys canon, and “She Don’t Really Care_1 Luv.” The former is a short track of just Keys and acoustic guitar, with some powerfully violent lyrics. The latter is a lengthy, winding song that makes a constant, casual reference to the Fugees amidst its loose feel. The track registers at over 6 minutes, and goes through rhythmic changes not necessarily common to the Alicia Keys songbook.

From this point on, it is safer to say we get some Keys standards, although she does spend the entire album coming out of her comfort zone. This album’s “Girl On Fire” is called “Girl Can’t Be Herself,” and is anchored by the excellent line, “When a girl can’t be herself no more, I just want to cry for the world.” Another highlight is “Work On It,” which uses the idea of background vocals in an energetic and catchy way.

Even with the album’s more “traditional” songs, there is a feeling of uncertainty, a feeling of change. It is painfully apparent that this is a different Alicia Keys – one ready to tackle social issues. I listened to this album on Spotify, where I had this album’s cover – of her, seemingly shirtless, an afro stretching past the frame, standing to the side, in the same shot as the cover of her last album, 2012’s “Girl On Fire,” where she stares straight, in a dress and straight hair, staring forwards. Both are black & white. It seems like Keys is making a reference to who she was in 2012, to note that that’s not who she is in 2016. This album really takes on a tremendous amount of weight, a weight not expected or asked of Keys, but a weight that so many black musicians are bearing in America right now. “Here” is a frank, diverse-yet-direct piece of political art from someone who has usually had the luxury of staying away. If Alicia Keys can’t help, who can?

-By Andrew McNally

Dinosaur, Jr. – “Give A Glimpse of What Yer Not”

(Photo Credit: Dinosaur Jr. bandcamp page)Grade: A-

Key Tracks: “Tiny,” “I Walk For Miles”

It’s taken a while, but it seems like Dinosaur Jr. are finally getting their due praise. On their new album, their 11th and their 7th with the original line-up, the Massachusetts rockers double down on what made them so influential in the first place. Yes, they’re the band that did “Feel the Pain” in 1994, but they still rock harder than most young bands do nowadays.

The band’s 2005 reunion was unexpected, to the point where people mentioned them in the same breath of the Smiths in bands that would never reunite. Since then, the band – in its original three-piece lineup – has maintained a consistency in songwriting, and has delivered a number of albums as intense and interesting as those released in the late 80’s. Although their first post-reunion album, “Beyond” set a high watermark, the albums they’ve released since – including “Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not,” have been nothing other than advertised – 40-odd minutes of great rock jams and crazy guitar solos.

Dinosaur Jr. is basically a template by this point. The best radio rock is. Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters – bands that have a “sound” and make songs that are interchangeable among decades, but still feel the urge to include some little unique tick in every track they can. And, truthfully, those bands might not have existed without Dinosaur Jr. They were deeply influential to grunge, but even more so to bands like Foo Fighters, who dominate the alt-rock hybrid radio stations today. Dinosaur Jr. are one of a few bands alongside the likes of Pixies, Mudhoney, Meat Puppets and Green River, among others, who influenced the grunge movement and had their own twilight after the fact. Well, Dinosaur Jr. are still going strong (as are Pixies, Mudhoney and Meat Puppets), and it would be easy to confuse “Glimpse” as an album that came in ’88.

The trio wastes no time getting to the point on the album – the opening and best track, “Goin Down,” starts with a quick second of amp feedback before getting right into one of the simplest and best riffs J. Mascis has written in years. The song transitions nicely into “Tiny,” by all means a catchy and great rock song that ends in a mess of feedback. The album gets somewhat inconsistent from there, but even at it’s dullest it’s still engaging. Tracks like “Good to Know” and “Lost All Day” aren’t particularly memorable, but still stand as great, fuzzy jams. And on the flipside, “I Walk For Miles” and “Knocked Around” both have tempo and mood changes that make them among some of the most memorable songs the band has ever recorded.

The lyrics to Dinosaur Jr. songs have never been typically interesting, and it’s fair to say that continues here. “I Walk For Miles” is also a lyrical highlight, with an ode to a friendship or relationship of some kind falling by the wayside. But even when the lyrics aren’t interesting, J. Mascis’s vocals continue to be. The chorus to opener “Goin Down” is sung straight even when the rhythm doesn’t fit with it. His vocals sound more strained than ever on “Tiny,” and forlorn on “I Walk For Miles.” Still, having Lou Barlow pop up twice on vocals – on tracks 5 and 11 – is a welcome relief, as Mascis’s voice can prove decisive over 5 or 6 songs.

Also, the guitar playing. Oh man. It’s no secret – that’s what makes Dinosaur Jr. great. Simple rhythms and fuzzy 70’s throwback melodies get wrecked by J. Mascis, who solos on what I believe is 10 out of the album’s 11 tracks. On Rolling Stone’s 2011 re-ranking of the 100 Greatest Guitarists, Mascis jumped in to the 88th spot, beating the likes of Carl Perkins, Springsteen, Thurston Moore and my favorite guitarist, Tom Verlaine. It’s noteworthy that in lieu of a third single, Dinosaur Jr. just put all of the guitar solos as one track online to stream in advance of the album. One great thing about Dinosaur Jr. is knowing that even if it’s one of the less interesting tracks, there’s still a killer solo coming up.

This might not go down as a classic Dinosaur Jr. album. But it is great, nearly every song is worthwhile. It serves as a testament to the bands duration, their influence, and their energy, that they’ve kept this act up for so many years now. While they might not be the most popular rock bands, they’re one of the most influential. Buy it, stream it, do whatever pleases you: just please listen to Dinosaur Jr.

-By Andrew McNally

No Man’s Valley – “Time Travel”

(Photo Credit: Jasper Hesselink)Grade: A-

Key Tracks: “Kill the Bees,” “The Wolves Are Coming”

After a successful five track EP in 2014, Dutch rock band No Man’s Valley are back with their first full-length. The album blends psych-rock with a throwback garage sound, into a murky and thundering work that shows its teeth, but values restraint all the same. The band, which consists of Jasper Hesselink on vocals, Christian Keijsers on guitar, Rob Perree on bass, Ruud Van Den Munckhof on organ and Dinand Claessens on drums (with all on backing vocals), provide a brief, tight album that extends the work on their earlier EP’s into broader, more stretched-out territory.

“Time Travel” is a fitting name for this album, for a few different reasons. One reason is that the band’s different sounds throughout the album feel reminiscent of the transitional period between garage rock and metal. Specifically, the album’s first three songs, “The Man Who Would Be King,” “Kill the Bees” and “Sinking the Lifeboat,” sound somewhat like long lost odes to Deep Purple. Deep Purple often mixed heavy guitar and organ to create a dense, tough sound. While they may have been doing it as a reaction to overly melodic rock n’ roll, the guys in No Man’s Valley are focused more on the brooding aspect. Songs with titles like “Sinking the Lifeboat” and “Love or Axe Murder” aren’t exactly subtle about their brooding qualities. The band retains a garage-rock sound throughout “Time Travel,” but one that sounds dragged through the Bauhaus songbook too.

There is a focus on cohesion throughout “Time Travel.” Often, as compared to garage rock, No Man’s Valley is working in unison. Sometimes it’s very harmonious and sometimes it’s not, but rarely is one element of the band intended to be more prominent or important than any others (while most garage rock is focused on volume, rather than full band unison – to each genre their own). The band roars through the title track, and sludges through the big finale, “Goon,” all in unison.

The album is centered around “The Wolves Are Coming,” the most energetic and vocal track, as well as a single the band released in 2014 that has climbed the charts in their native Netherlands. It’s another reason why “Time Travel” might be a fitting name, because the band is both showcasing where they’ve been, and how far they’ve come in those short years. The band give glimpses into their steady past with “Wolves,” and into their potential future with more balanced, psychedelic and heavy tracks. While it might only be a brief outing, “Time Travel” is a very cohesive and diverse record, that shows a band that still knows how to have fun in the studio. “Time Travel” proves that a throwback sound can still sound refreshing in 2016.

-By Andrew McNally

Radiohead – “A Moon Shaped Pool”

Grade: A

Key tracks: “Burn the Witch,” “Glass Eyes”

This review was originally posted at the filtered lens. 

By this point, we don’t really need to be reviewing Radiohead’s albums. Their last, 2011’s “The King of Limbs,” shocked audiences by getting a reception that was only pretty good, not great. Nothing noteworthy for other bands, but a huge misfire for them (and, personally, it’s one of my favorite RH albums). They’re a cultural institution, changing themselves and popular music with each release. They’ve done it again here, on their ninth album “A Moon Shaped Pool,” an album that balances emotions just as it balances its instrumentation.

The most immediate sound on the album is the alarming strings of opener and lead single “Burn the Witch.” It’s a very compact song, clocking in at 3:41, relatively short by the band’s standards. It has that catchy, staccato string rhythm that’s somewhat infectious, unexpected for a band that doesn’t exactly have the most whistle-able tunes. The second song and second single “Daydreaming,” hits the much more familiar other-end-of-the-spectrum, a 6+ minute haunting electro-ballad. It’s a gorgeous song, equally enthralling and terrifying. The two songs, released close together and playing back-to-back, are uniquely different in a way that doesn’t exactly work, and to have them kick off the album seems like it’s setting a path for an album of great songs but with a lacking cohesiveness.

This couldn’t be less of the case. Other reviewers have used the word “symphonic” to describe the album, and it settles into that kind of groove. The next four tracks – “Decks Dark,” “Desert Island Disk,” “Ful Stop,” and “Glass Eyes,” act as a massive (and excellent) suite. “Decks” transitions into “Desert,” and although the other songs aren’t connected, there is a real vulnerable and murky tone to the songs that draw the listener for quite a while (about 17 minutes, through the four songs). And just when that set starts to feel a little worn-in, they turn on a dime to the more rhythmic “Identikit,” one of a few songs they’ve recorded for the album after playing them live for years. It’s not an energetic track, but it feels like after the previous five.

Radiohead’s best albums have a real cohesiveness to them, and “A Moon Shaped Pool” is about as cohesive as they come. The biggest outlier is “Burn the Witch,” with a bursting energy not found anywhere else. A majority of the tracks are slow-burning ballads, to varying success, although most are sheer Radiohead brilliance. “Glass Eyes,” the shortest track, is also the most effective. Closing song “True Love Waits” is the same (and another song that Radiohead has been kicking around for years). The album shares a cohesiveness with “Kid A,” but without doing a retread of that album’s murky synths. There is a lot of synth here, but it’s a more spellbinding and complex use of them, and occasional strings and acoustic guitar work to fully complement the otherwise electro-heavy music.

As with some of Radiohead’s other albums, the lyrics don’t take a full priority. Between the importance placed on music, and Thom Yorke’s typically high-flying and jumbled vocals, the lyrics aren’t always the most discernible. Still, “Decks Dark” has a great line, “There’s a spacecraft blocking out the sky,” which complements the song’s spacey feel (that would feel in place on “OK Computer”).

This certainly isn’t one of Radiohead’s most accessible or immediately enjoyable albums. In fact, some of the tracks might not even sound great individually. This is an album meant to be consumed whole. Their last two albums, “In Rainbows” and “The King of Limbs,” had pop standouts that you could listen to and love immediately – this album is more of a grower. In time, it’ll go down as one the band’s best albums yet, but we have to give it time to get there. Trust me, give it the time.

-By Andrew McNally

Head Wound City – “A New Wave of Violence”

Grade: A

Key Tracks: “Head Wound City, USA,” “Scraper”

Let it be known: this is not a noisegrind album. When Head Wound City formed in 2005, they formed as a nosiegrind supergroup, consisting of Cody Votolato and Jordan Blilie of the Blood Brothers, Justin Pearson and Gabe Serbian of the Locust and, uh, Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, they formed as a fun side project who wrote and recorded an entire EP in a week. The resulting project, a self-titled work, wasn’t extraordinary, but was a breath of fresh air nonetheless. The EP, at seven songs, clocks in at only 9:38. That was released 11 years ago. Their unexpected reformation has given us a full-length, one born out of maturity. “A New Wave of Violence” is about as mature as anything in this genre can get.

Zinner’s songwriting credit on “Lemonade” be damned, he requested a Head Wound City reunion. And that reunion led to the idea of a full-length. But with members like Blilie and Pearson among the ranks, the desire to expand upon noisegrind must have been obvious. Some of the people responsible for the sub-genre’s growth in America didn’t want to be consumed by it. And with the overall silliness of noisegrind becoming overwhelming – Pearson and Serbian once played in Holy Molar, a band that sang almost exclusively about teeth – the member felt a need to play themselves out of it. So while this album is intense, by all means, it doesn’t really fit under any qualifications. And, in that way, it is purely gratifying.

The first sign that this wasn’t going to be a proper noisegrind album was the lead single, “Scraper.” For one thing, it’s 2:40. While still short, it’s about two minutes longer than a proper noisegrind song. And the song builds for about half its length, building into a big climax. The band hit all kinds of marks across the album, be it immediate intense pleasure (“I Wanna Be Your Original Sin”) or restrained hardcore punk (“Closed Casket”). They strive to make every song unique, and succeed unequivocally. “Palace of Love and Hate” might be a proper noisegrind song, but “Avalanche in Heaven” shows massive restraint. Hell, “Love Is Best,” is as grown-up as anything that might otherwise be radio-approachable.

But that’s not to say that they hold back. Blilie’s vocals are as intense as ever, and there a few times where he seems to be dubbed over himself – screaming and regular vocals. It’s disorienting. The band, collectively, makes a statement, that they don’t need to be as aggressive as humanly possible to get their point across. Members of the band, especially Pearson and Serbian, expressed a desire to move away from the comedic side of noisegrind. Their primary band, the Locust, is responsible for such song titles as “Skin Graft at Seventy-Five Miles Per Hour,” “Get Off the Cross, the Wood is Needed,” and, my favorite Locust song, “Nice Tranquil Thumb in Mouth.” There’s little humor here, instead replaced by a less intense but more hard-hitting intensity, a demand to cut the shit and get to work. And that they do. “A New Wave of Violence” is a collaborative effort, and it feels like one. It is maturity through forced innocence, volume through forced filtration. It doesn’t classify as any sub-sub-genre of rock or punk, instead choosing to exist as its own brutal being. And pardon my French, but holy shit, is it going to rip your skull apart.

-By Andrew McNally