This week is so good for new releases!!! So many exclamation marks!!! I’m so excited!!!
Son Lux – Bones
This new album is very good. I can feel it in my chest, which is usually my criteria for good music. Granted, I loved the older albums just a tiny bit more–m while this is new, it’s still good, but it’s different, it’s ever-so-slightly more experimental than their other stuff. However, I have to throw endless shout-outs to the amazing percussion work that Son Lux does. The star of this album is the beats, not the lyrics, and it’s easy to tell I can feel this album, songs like “This Time” and even “Change is Everything,” vibrate entirely through me and transfer to my desk. I’m writing this as I’m listening to it again– I can sort of concentrate on the words but I don’t really know what I’m saying, as it’s all feeling, sound, feeling. “I Am The Others” is a gorgeous track– slower, calmer, with roaring in the background, lovely sounding vocals, emotional ties, mixing water drips with it as well as the rest of the album, like I’m throwing all my favourite spices together in a ceramic sink and somehow, I made something magical.
Rating: 8/10
Desaparecidos – Payola
This is my favourite album of the week. From the opening chords, I got emotional and torn up– it sounds so much like what I used to like, but better. “The Left Is Right” is such a good opener. Conor Oberst does it again– harder this time, different from Bright Eyes but still cutting just as deep. Payola is a gorgeous record. Since their reunion, the band’s been doing so good. I admit it– I was attracted to the cover of this album. And god, it was worth it. I can’t think of any song I don’t like on this album– everything flows perfectly, like a Menzingers recording on repeat so it seems never-ending, a perfect mix of despair and excitement.
Rating: 9/10
Bully – Feels Like
Bully is raw, rough, original old indie sounds fronted by the incredible vocals of Alicia Bognanno, that sounds so familiar, and yet, at the same time, almost new. It’s been a while since I heard anything so classic and unique, and I am digging it in every way it is possible to dig a new album. Yeah, I’ve been on the hunt for new music too– while the stylizations of the new Shamir and the new Major Lazer album have kept me satisfied lately, this Bully album is really what I was looking for all along. Nothing wrong with a little (or a lot) of electro-nouveau every now and then (or all the time), but good old-fashioned garage rock is extremely satisfying. It’s dynamic, exciting. This album sets the tone for a lot of things I want to do this summer, but I think it’ll be great winter listening too. You know how some music is divided by seasons? This seems season-less.
Rating: 8/10
