072
Releases
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04
07 08
Deafheaven Ordinary Corrupt Human Love ANTI- Records
Gorillaz The Now Now Parlophone Records
REVIEWS
Nobody expected Gorillaz to follow up last year’s Humanz quite as quick as this. Depending on your perspective, it might be no bad thing. Humanz was a divisive record, a chaotic mish-mash of styles that sounded very much as if it was designed to soundtrack the current political climate. But perhaps that also felt like a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth, with its all-star cast of collaborators coming at the cost of any real sense of cohesion. The Now Now is a different beast entirely. For a start, there are just two tracks with guest appearances: George Benson pops up on opener Humility, while Snoop Dogg and Jamie Principle help out on Hollywood. If you found the rolling, noisy drama of Humanz to be heavy going, you’ll likely love The Now Now. Mainly rooted in funk, tonally it’s a world away from Gorillaz’s last album. The blissed-out likes of Tranz and Kansas sound like the summer, perhaps unsurprisingly given that Damon Albarn has indicated that the album was written to provide fresh material for upcoming festival headline slots. Albarn himself is on playful, melodic form, often smothering his vocals with reverb (see: Magic City, especially). There’s always the sense that a stripped-back Gorillaz is one that’s not quite firing on all cylinders. After all, their collaborations have always been a crucial part of their make-up. But The Now Now is irresistibly chilled and the perfect palate cleanser a year on from Humanz's end-of-days disarray. !
Joe Goggins
08
The Internet Hive Mind Columbia Records Hive Mind feels as though it begins mid-thought. The chunky bassline of Come Together sweeps you up and then a chorus of voices emerges before giving way for a phrase that rises above: "I can’t be sure". But actually, more than anything else, this record feels very sure of itself. Hive Mind is a smooth, clever consolidation of what The Internet – which originated as an Odd Future “side project” – were already doing well, and what they’re now doing better than ever. Though moods may dip and dive, The Internet’s sound is confident and polished, proving they’re a band of accomplished solo artists that work even better together. Hive Mind is a smooth continuation on the band’s Grammy-nominated debut Ego Death. There are, of course, standout tracks, like Come Over, with its crunchy electric guitar and dirty promises, but the real strength of Hive Mind is the way it, and the band, comes together. A brilliant, electric album to keep you dancing through the summer. !
Mikaella Clements
Since their 2013 breakthrough record Sunbather, California metal band Deafheaven have occupied a strange space in the genre’s lore – they’re too visceral for the majority of the indie crowd, yet too well-dressed for the heavy music purists. Their stunning, evocative take on shoegazey metal captured hearts while still not quite attaining full crossover, and alienated a bunch of unholier-than-thou black metal bores in the process. Deafheaven’s fourth record, Ordinary Corrupt Human Love, is more than worthy of the wider acclaim that Sunbather (and its follow-up, 2015’s New Bermuda) looked set to garner. A sprawling opus of glacial post-rock passages and searing black metal extremity, Ordinary Corrupt Human Love thrives in its heel-turn approach to genre. Where New Bermuda channelled the group’s passion for Britpop into something more melodically impactful, Ordinary Corrupt Human Love takes a different tack, embracing the orchestral elements of Deafheaven’s instrumental makeup. Night People, a collaboration with goth rock artist Chelsea Wolfe, is surely the first metal track fit for the Proms. The most impressive confluence is not in the record’s sonics, however, but in its thematics. Clarke’s scorched vocal wraps its way around lovelorn poetry worthy of timelessness, the romantic lyrical intimacy of Glint a particular highlight. It’s a captivating contrast – one that questions the very nature of human emotion and its expression, and pins Ordinary Corrupt Human Love as a masterpiece of both the beautiful and the bleak. !
Tom Connick
Kanye West ye G.O.O.D Music / Def Jam “I thought about killing you,” Kanye West says on a track of the same name and, for a moment, one feels tempted to say the same in return. Over the past year and a half, West has given his fans plenty of reasons to want to give him a good shake. Though he gained disingenuous favour with the online alt-right and others orbiting that loosely knit cabal of Breitbartian psycho-conservatives, mostly Kanye found himself at odds with his fans over his endorsement of Donald Trump. Genius is neither perfect nor pretty, as West’s audience have come to know and grudgingly accept. Yet the disappointment of his alignment with someone perceived as hostile and toxic towards African Americans, Latinx people, and women – to name but a few of the American president’s apparent targets – led many to actually dread the release of new music by one of their favourite rappers. May they find more than the cold comfort that comes with ye; Lord knows they deserve better. Refracted through the picturesque luxury of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the ultralight beam that carried him through The Life of Pablo seems to have considerably dimmed. In its place lie sonic fossils of his past accomplishments, thematic and musical husks of material he’s already harvested. No Mistakes attempts a Bound 2 rebound but misses the net, while Yikes tries to titillate with psychedelic chatter before revealing itself as more of his bored hedonism. The less said about the lyrics to All Mine, the better. West’s lack of engagement with the statements and affiliations that followed the 2016 election and carried into the lead-up to ye contributes significantly to its status as a minor work in a major discography. He deserves some credit, perhaps, for using some space here to speak frankly if fleetingly about the mental health issues he struggles with. The discount store t-shirt slogan scrawled on the cover – I HATE BEING BI-POLAR IT’S AWESOME – threatens to diminish that seriousness, but in truth West does more damage on that front by mixing in irrational sexism with the confessionals. Violent Crimes fixates oddly on the wrong aspects of his daughter’s inevitable growing up, prattling on about her future body while stumbling through the tired realisation that women are, in fact, people. ye’s stream-of-consciousness string of ideas doesn’t suit West’s maturing genius. With a project this short, the distance between discovery of female humanity by way of his fatherhood and sophomoric references to sexual fantasies lack sufficient sunlight between them. This isn’t the brilliant artistic conflation of the carnal and the political we all experienced on Yeezus. Instead, ye suffers from a dearth of profundity, the artist spinning his wheels in the lap of Wyoming wealth, hoping nobody will notice he’s run of out ideas. !
Gary Suarez
Bodega Endless Scroll Rough Trade Records Pop culture is potent, and Bodega know it. The Brooklyn band’s album Endless Scroll is a smart, self-referential critique of 21st-century life, with all its Pokémon, expensive smoothies and, of course, endless scrolling. It's also smart enough to suggest they’ll last longer than yesterday’s meme; the type of falling apart, arty postpunk delivered with a raised eyebrow and an eye on the indie dancefloor that we all love. Songs bounce with a cynical but confident swagger that the likes of Pavement, Wire, early Liars and Parquet Courts have done so well. Endless Scroll is packed full of acerbic bon mots on the quickly vanishing gap between our online and offline selves. On opener How Did This Happen!? lead singer Ben Hozie lets us know, “Your playlist knows you better than your closest lover,” while on Bookmarks it’s the “same clicks to the same sites every day”. There’s also a song called Jack In Titanic where Hozie tells us of his admiration for Leonardo Dicaprio’s ill-fated hero. But even though Endless Scroll shows us we’re all internet addicted, validationchasing zombies, it also makes you feel alive – that’s the surest sign that Bodega have really captured the zeitgeist. !
Danny Wright