It’s hard to know what to say about The War on Drugs at this point. Not only have they been one of the more ubiquitous bands in indie rock for the past decade, but most of their albums have been covered to some extent on this blog. Their signature sound, a potent mix of synthy soundscapes and thrillingly unchained guitar rock (trying really hard to avoid the term “heartland rock” here) feels both like it’s been somewhat influential but also hard to completely replicate. Maybe this is due to the dual amount of sonic precision and ambition that’s put into each album, while it feels as if Adam Granducial is putting as much of his emotional state into a War on Drugs album as he is his musical talents. Which would explain why we always have to wait 3 or 4 years for a new WOD album, which never feels that long considering each album has enough little nuggets of complexity to keep you relistening until the next one. Continue reading →

When I wrote some brief thoughts on Little Simz’s last album, two things I found striking about it was how nimble the rhymes were and how concise it was overall. This makes the UK rapper’s latest outing all the more impressive, since instead of playing to those same strengths, she’s gone in the complete other direction. Though the rhymes are still very strong this time around, they’re a lot more introspective (as the album’s title would indicate) while also meditating on all of the world’s ills, which just feel like they’re compounding year after year. Conversely, the album’s production is far more epic in scope, as is the running time, which runs about twice the length as Grey Area. Continue reading →

There really was no reason for me to sit on Brandi Carlile for so long. I had certainly known of her for a while, considering she’s been one of the Seattle area’s most beloved musical exports for the last decade or so. She’s even a frequent supporter of my favorite record store, while being the clear heir apparent to Neko Case, the Northwest’s other alt-country sort-of-superstar. But I suppose the alt-country space is a weird one to be in, as it’s an uphill battle trying to gain the more ardent country fans as well as those indie rock fans who will only occasionally listen to something with some twang in it. Yet somehow Carlile has managed to do both while racking up a slew of Grammys. Continue reading →

I’m still a fan of this album, but I feel like its moment came and went pretty quickly. Some of that may be due to the fact that Star-Crossed is decidedly one big bummer of an album, though I would argue it’s far more bittersweet than straight-up depressing. Also, the album kinda confirms that Kacey Musgraves has gotten to a level of cross-over success that few country singers get to, but she’s not Taylor Swift. She’s not using her cache as a singer-songwriter to invade the pop world with bangers that abandon the nuance and wit of her earlier work. Instead, she’s decided to use her strengths to use music as therapy to deconstruct the romance that led to her greatest achievement. Continue reading →

Like everything else in this bleak, mixed-up world, the year in music wasn’t quite as normal as we would’ve wanted. While 2021 didn’t see the kind of indefinite album postponements that marked last year, the year also had a weird imbalance in what music was released in 2021. Usually, the early Summer is the busiest time of year (at least for me) in terms of anticipated new albums coming out, and while there were a few of those this Summer, I actually found more music that I liked coming out in the other parts of the year.

The first half of 2021 wasn’t half bad, as I found plenty of albums enough to my liking worth writing about at the year’s mid-point. Meanwhile, there have been a flurry of albums to come out in the last month or two that I haven’t spent nearly as much time with. So once again, doing these short, stupidly-named yearly wrap-up reviews will hopefully give me more reason to catch up with some recent stand-outs while teeing us up for our end-of-year lists. Continue reading →