As the recording industry continues to get hacked into splinters by a rapidly changing media environment the powers that be resolutely refuse to understand, it’s reassuring to discover that an album can still arrive and truly, deeply matter. Granted, it would be myopic understatement to term Beyoncé’s Lemonade as simply an album. It is a full-on cross-media event, complete with an HBO special, an enormous world tour, and an expertly catalyzed supporting campaign of gossipy chatter and rash reaction think pieces. Delivered as a surprise, as Beyoncé is wont to do, the album is cunningly designed to capture attention, filled as it … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: Lemonade

It probably makes sense that Polly Jean Harvey has reach the point of full-on art installation, like Björk at MOMA. Disastrous as that particular exhibition may have been, it was indicative of a certain truth in the notion that the Icelandic performer in her overt and unyielding multifaceted creativity had reached the point where the standard progression of record and tour followed by another record and another no longer seemed sufficient. Similarly, when Harvey released the exemplary, transcendent Let England Shake, it really did seem that she’d come to a creative endpoint, exhausting all the possibilities of the album format. And … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: The Hope Six Demolition Project

On Silver Age, Bob Mould reclaimed his history after several years that could reasonably be characterized as messy (which doesn’t mean altogether bad, but his explorations sometimes verged on aimlessness). He followed that with Beauty & Ruin, expanding the scope of his productively nostalgic creativity to deliver music that sounded like every skipped stone ripple of his career gathered together to formulate something just new enough to turn heads anew. Now we come to Patch the Sky, which feels like the end of a trilogy. This time, Mould is settling into a comfortable mode, or as comfortable of a mode as his somewhat … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: Patch the Sky

Operating with the mixed blessing of a highly distinctive voice — in every sense of that word — Thao Nguyen could presumably get along all right taking an easier, less deliberatively disruptive course. She could probably make a string of records laden with relatively straightforward, folk-tinged rock songs and keep herself and her band, the Get Down Stay Down, in regular music biz work for some time. Instead, she ties composition into tricky knots, constantly seeking the challenging dynamic, as if enough effort in that direction will finally create the song that can surprise her in midstream. As a listener, it’s … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: A Man Alive

I adore the way Leave Me Alone, the debut album from Hinds, shuffles to life with a distinct slacker ease, as if it’s trying to establish a code of ripe sonic lassitude. Album opener “Garden” recalls some of the hollowed out retro rock of the Best Coast brigade from a couple years back, but with an added distancing from the rigidity of popcraft. With its trudging backbeat, rickety anti-harmonies, and guitar lines that sound like they’re being played by arms collapsing out of exhaustion, “Garden” is a call to arms from a band choosing not to raise their voice too … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: Leave Me Alone

(photo source) I really liked Visions, the album released by Grimes in 2012. But I also found it to be a little uneven, prone to digressions that didn’t quite spin into full-fledged, satisfying tracks. Peaks and valleys are to be expected (and the peaks were absolutely glorious), but it’s nice when the valleys are worth strolling through, too. Still, every indication was there that Grimes was poised to make an album that could be deemed great without reservation. All she needed to do was take another artistic step forward. Turns out that step I hoped for is more of a … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: Art Angels

(photo credit) Any question about whether Chvrches will be able to adequately follow up the arresting pop from their debut album, The Bones of What You Believe, is eradicated within the first seconds of the Swedish band’s sophomore release. Every Open Eye doesn’t roar to life or even explode into being. Instead, album opener “Never Ending Circles” simply is from the very beginning, as if a needle had been dropped square in the middle of a eternal pop epic. The track builds its extended chorus on a fantastic hook, but it feels deliriously as if it’s all hook, indeed hooks overlapping other hooks … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: Every Open Eye

Best as I can determine, the only significant flaw of Pageant Material, the new album from Kacey Musgraves, is that it seems to inspire a unstoppable fleet of music writer think pieces, the sort of essays that helplessly consider music only in the context of some imagined greater trend. It can’t simply be that her second album for Mercury Nashville is a splendid example of songcraft, warmly and wittily performed. It somehow has to provide entry to commentary of the very nature of modern country music, usually delivered with withering condescension by music writers who’ve probably not listened to more … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: Pageant Material

These Holly Miranda albums take time. After the 2004 debut release that she hawked at shows, the by-then former Jealous Girlfriend released a proper solo bow in 2010. That didn’t even have a quick turnaround time from studio to record store, with it sitting idly on the shelf until Miranda signed with XL Recordings in 2010. That pairing of artist and label wasn’t meant to last, though, and Miranda started working on her next album on her own, eventually connecting with Dangerbird Records. The result is technically her third album, and yet it bears her own name. Like all self-titled releases … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: Holly Miranda