on the pulse - 2020 - week 27 - rumors of black waterfalls

This week wound up both busy and contentious - a lot to say, once again, but I hope some folks take to heart the message I’m looking to get across in these reviews, which might encompass more layers than you might think. Got all that? Good, so let’s get On The Pulse!

Rannoch - Reflections Upon Darkness - So this has been on my schedule for a while - it’s been a bit of an effort to get the lyrics properly - and I’ll admit once again that death metal, even on the prog side, doesn’t usually tend to be my thing. But I also checked out Rannoch’s 2013 debut and found it pretty solid - the guitarwork was really impressive, the more guttural passages balanced out well, and while it ran long and still wasn’t really my thing, I got the appeal. And so seven years later - well, five years later, there was an EP in 2015 - we got this follow-up, and… well, I still hear the appeal even if again it’s not quite my thing. I will say it leans more on more atmospheric acoustic and piano progressive pieces to augment the atmosphere and it can feel a bit hit-and-miss how well the transitions back to the seething riffs or the truly impressive soloing will work, but I’d argue Rannoch hits a good balance between wallowing in the raw, brutal filth of death metal and more refined prog soundcraft, especially with the arranged touches and the ability to still deliver a lot of intensity - as someone who isn’t always the biggest death metal fan, I appreciated the melodic complexity of those passages in juxtaposition, even if I can tell that ‘The Hanged Man’ can sound a bit forced for whatever passes for crossover in death metal. What certainly is not accessible is the second half of this project, which follows off the vaguely suicidal impulses to plumb the darkness with an extended interpolation of Lord Byron’s 1816 apocalyptic poem ‘Darkness’, split into seven parts with more lush arranged swells, symphonic backing vocals to lead into even more pummelling progressive death metal with bright solos and some questionable transitions. And by the end, while I do find this a potent listen with some great basslines, without truly gripping content or a textured melodic structure that feels more distinct, I just wind up a bit distant from what is a very solid album. Ergo for me… light 7/10, but I know death metal fans will appreciate this a fair bit more.

Grim Grieves - Sound Waves - This is the sort of review I don’t like making. Not because this is inaccessible or difficult material - it’s basically a pretty brief selection of accessible instrumental hip-hop with one song with vocals - but because it sounds bland and mediocre, and that’s not something I like highlighting for producers who sound like they’re just getting started. But I did get a confirmation Grim Grieves was okay with me covering this, so here we go: this sounds like something I could get in your average beat pack or from a YouTube tutorial, and not one that attracts a ton of attention. And I say ‘beat pack’ because a lot of these pieces feel like just the bare minimum: there’s not much in the way of blending melodies or consistent sounding percussion, the drum machines as a whole sound really thin, the melodies we do get are often very barebones and muted on keys or guitar, and while there’s the occasional touch of warmer texture or slightly rougher groove, without samples or much of a distinctive tune, this becomes background music but not in a way that produces much of a vibe. ‘Flying’ is a good example - I actually liked that lo-fi clatter and bass touch, but then we get some really glassy clicks and it doesn’t match with anything; similar case with how the flutes and guitar are actually decently balanced on ‘Gently Calling You’… and the trap percussion sounds seedy and dropped on top; a better example might be ‘My Kingdom’ with the middle-eastern inspired melody, but that sticks out like a sore thumb here and doesn’t match anything else. And that’s not counting how canned the vocal production sounds on ‘Yesterday’ with clumsy multi-tracking not helping a very basic flow. Hell, the most distinct part of these is the nasal audio watermark that isn’t just obtrusive and mood-breaking, it’s actively obnoxious - and that kind of leads to my biggest problem: if the only element that’s artistically distinct compromises the vibe, it can’t be good. So to me, this is a strong 4/10 and a note of caution to up-and-coming producers and artists - and friends of such - who put their projects on my schedule: ask what makes your material distinct and stand out, and work on refining that rather than sending me the earliest draft… because I can tell the difference.

BDRMM - Bedroom - …well, this is some post-punk inspired shoegaze/dream pop obviously cribbing from the Jesus & Mary Chain and Slowdive alright? Not saying that’s a bad thing - I mostly like both of those acts - but it’s the sort of project that will coast on familiar texture rather than do anything distinct or interesting, especially in the song structure where we’re seriously lacking any sort of hooks or a vocal presence that doesn’t sound like a husky wisp. And that’s assuming the songs just don’t lose all direction midway through, which happens a little too often on the back half of the album. And when songs can feel as underwritten, basic, and vaguely sour in their emo-leaning pretensions as they do, it becomes rapidly apparent this is a project coasting on momentum and atmosphere, and while the latter rarely falters, the former often does, especially when the rounded, underlying grooves start meandering, a problem when I’d argue the basslines and hazy guitars are the best parts of the album. But let’s be honest: if you know dream pop or shoegaze or post-punk, this is mid-tier across the board and would have been forgotten in the genres’ prime, and it certainnly doesn’t give me much to talk about. light 5/10, if you like this sound you’ll probably find this passable, but likely not memorable.

Will Wood - The Normal Album - I’m going to cover this at length to make a point surrounding a specific aesthetic in music that only works for me in extremely limited cases: screwball, quasi-dark vaudeville, highly theatrical, cabaret- or carnival-esque music, where the point is to be super zany and manic until it tips into outright darkness. I’ll be blunt: I get the appeal - I grew up in the mid-2000s, this was an aesthetic worked to death in pop rock and emo - but it so rarely works for me these days that I can count the number of albums where it clicked on one hand, often because it’s trying to overcompensate for slapdash writing going for cheap shock, or really bad production that can’t nail the atmosphere, or how it can sound like schtick that’s not as witty or fun as it wants to be. And I specified “aesthetic”, not genre, because I’ve seen this from pop to country to more than I’d prefer in metal, and why when I started listening to Will Wood, he had an uphill battle to win me over, even before I heard the Weird Al Yankovic-esque exaggerated manic delivery. And I’ll admit while self-ish was fine enough and occasionally had decent lyrical moments, it still had enough that vibe to test my patience and thus I didn’t have high expectations for this. And here’s the thing: I get this is an obvious satire - obvious because deconstructing the repressed, chipper plasticity of 50s culture has been done to death since the 70s and if you’re not into the aesthetic and stylism I described, I’m not sure how much of this will resonate. But Will Wood is not just doing that, because I’m not sure layers of detached nihilism can get away from how he throws himself into the transmedicalist/transtrender debate on ‘I/Me/Myself’, which he himself has described as a critique of ‘problematic proponents co-opting the gender identity movement and spaces for those genuinely very deeply oppressed and abused’ - but then he ends the song by literally saying ‘all identites are equally invalid’, and to me any real point seems missed. And then there’s the entire midsection focusing on mental health, where by the end it seems incoherent: you don’t want people to find identity within their mental illness as you think some are shopping for a diagnosis, but you also don’t want them to find normality within pharmaceuticals, because you’ve been taking the piss out of ‘conformity’ the entire project with lines like ‘the things that make you special are the things that make you strange’ before we end on the most basic ‘we’re all going to die anyway’ nihilistic sentiments… which kind of flies in the face of all the subtext of not wanting people to falsely co-opt mental illness or gender identity if you’re just going to blow it all off anyway. And I’m not sure any of this fits well with the manic performativity of this style, even if you are being subversive about it - which is a shame because when you get to the compositions themselves, this might be Will Wood’s most tolerable album, in that he’ll occasionally slow down, use a slightly less exaggerated tone, and provide a little more balance across the album so it doesn’t give me a splitting headache. Granted, the forced Frankie Valli impression he keeps doing, which was followed by a gargling cackle on the opener, and his falsetto on the next two songs, especially when it’s paired with touches of ska, and the entire mix has this forced chintziness and strangely white-washed lack of groove that has the mastering of an off-Broadway musical… Look, the only songs I found tolerable was the warped lullaby of ‘…well, better than the alternative’ - which even still has some of the ugliest drum machines and ukulele I’ve heard in a while - and the piano work and Spanish guitar on ‘Black Box Warrior - OKULTRA’ is manic but by not exploding immediately can build its atmosphere… until the horns drop in and the spoken word kills any momentum. That’s probably my biggest problem with this beyond the confused nihilism - there’s so much obvious flopsweat in the overwritten lyrics and delivery that I can’t appreciate the impressive playing or any attempt at atmosphere, and the more I grasped what this was actually doing, the less I liked it. In other words, a light 4/10 because I know this sound works for some people and I get the appeal, but the content and delivery means I’m never going to touch this again - not at all fun, next!

Big $ilky- Big $ilky Vol. 1 & 2 - Okay, so there’s a deceptive amount of context I want to provide before discussing these two short projects, which I’m grouping together out of convenience and because I can easily touch on my points of critique for both pieces. So, this duo is two women, the younger Angel Davanport from Minneapolis, the older and more well known Chicago MC Psalm One, who actually has a pretty extensive catalog I explored. And I know this will come across as unduly harsh, but I think I appreciated Psalm One’s influence and place within Chicago hip-hop continuity more than I liked a lot of her music - she’s a really good and expressive rapper and on average makes interesting content, but I find a lot of her albums inconsistent in both structure and production. Now in recent years she’s embraced hard-hitting, trap-adjacent beats, which are a good fit for her provocative bars, and with this… man, I wish I liked it more. If I’m going to draw a contrast, Angel Davanport is the more methodical and precise MC while Psalm One has bigger personality even if with her shorter verses and lethargic delivery it doesn’t always translate - and from what I can tell a lot of production - and I’m not going to deny they have chemistry… but the trap-leaning beats are often very barebones and both projects pick up the Psalm One problem of feeling undercooked, especially with the shorter songs on Vol. 1. And considering both MCs are pretty straightforward in their poetry, you start asking what sets them apart beyond a lot of sexual openness and hard left-wing politics, which come up the most on the second disk and reads like my Twitter timeline, for better and worse. And I find myself wishing there was more layers and development to amplify what they have - Angel makes a Run The Jewels reference on Vol 2 and I can hear it in style if not intensity or quality - and I’m not sure songs that go smaller without introspection really win me over - example, the closer of Vol. 1 , ‘RPRCHX IZ DED’; referring to their last group, and even with them coming out on top, it feels small-time and bitter to cut this as a closer, not helped by how it gets brought up again alongside Twitter beef on ‘The Soft Block’. Or let me put it like this: if I’m going to underground hip-hop I’m expecting a level of insight or intensity the mainstream wouldn’t provide, and when Psalm One makes the claim that everyone ain’t that woke - which is true, as again, I’m in agreement with the vast majority of politics expressed her - I’d like to hear a followthrough beyond a circumspect reference to current events which we’re getting already. Again, this is a duo with real potential and Angel Davanport won me over on intensity and construction alone here, but as it is… 6/10, it’s a step shy of getting there, at least for me.

Cloud Nothings - The Black Hole Understands - Full disclosure, I wanted to cover this last week, but I had a bit of a time getting a hold of the lyrics properly, but while I’m generally a bit less enthusiastic when Cloud Nothings go for breezier pop punk instead of their heavier, sharper side of indie rock, I figured in a time like this, it could be a worthwhile listen. And… remember when Cloud Nothings did that project with Wavves where the most common description of it was ‘effortless’, and you couldn’t quite tell whether that was a compliment or not? Yeah, this is in that category for me, and even as someone who is tolerant of Cloud Nothings going for a breezier tone, this is incredibly lightweight and inessential from them - and no, I’m not asking for another round of Attack On Memory or Last Building Burning, but this is flimsy as hell! Dylan Baldi’s vocals are probably what annoyed me the most here - he sounds either fried or purposefully trying to not sing loudly in a vague callback to a certain stripe of 90s indie, and it hurts any sense of presence he might have. But maybe that was the point: the entire album sounds like it’s calling back to a softer stripe of indie rock that was prevalent from the late 80s to the mid-90s with some of the guitar and bass interplay, and maybe it’s not fair to Baldi or drummer Jayson Gerycz that they’re working with a cleaner, more stripped-back setup… but there are three issues with that. One, the drum mixing is really inconsistent, especially with the filmy cymbals pickup, two, even if you’re making an indie pastiche the limited presence and hooks of these songs wouldn’t have stood out even at the time - it’s the BDRMM issue all over again. But finally, for as nakedly depressed and self-flagellating in relationships as these songs are, it’s a weirdly discombobulating listen when you consider how jaunty these tunes are - more just blissfully accepting of everything going wrong and only the black hole understands and even in messy times like this where acceptance might help, this does not resonate for me whatsoever. But at the end of the day… i’ll be honest, this is more forgettable than bad, and I won’t even call it that - it’s more niche to a certain demographic that likes a very specific stripe of indie rock, and songs like ‘A Weird Interaction’, ‘A Slient Reaction’, and ‘Memory Of Regret’ do hit a specific awkward college rock understatement that work fine enough. So… strong 5/10, I can see this maybe finding a audience.

Margo Price - That’s How Rumors Get Started - I don’t know why I haven’t talked much about Margo Price… until I remember I have contentious opinions about her work in alternative country and then it snaps into focus. You’d think her material would be an easy sell for me: she’s apparently incredible live, she’s a singer-songwriter in Nashville who’ll take political risks in her content, especially on her second album, she seems to have good taste, originally signed to Jack White’s label… and it just does not translate on her albums. And for once, it’s actually really easy to point out why: the booming, bass heavy but washed out mixes just don’t flatter her thinner vocal timbre, which creates the bizarre feeling of a live recording where she’s struggling to center herself that just doesn’t reflect how she sounds live - in fact, I’d argue her vocal mixing as a whole is a mess. And when you start digging into her writing, I’m just not impressed, especially in comparison with a lot of her peers - especially for the political stuff, the power and precision just isn’t there. It hasn’t matched her hype machine for a while now, and when critics have fallen head over heels for her material… look, there’s way more indie country that could deserve the overwrought coverage. In any case, it’s now three years later, a label change and a recording trip in L.A. for this new album, and… well, at first given that I know Sturgill Simpson produced this project, I was a bit surprised that what we got was some piano-accented and serviceable 80s-inspired country… and then the bricked out guitars slid in by the third song and I’m not surprised anymore. But it’s not like the main problems have gone away - if you thought Price sounded thin and unsupported on her first two projecs it’s even worse when she tries to muster soulful, sultry presence in a classic rock vein and doesn’t have the fullness of timbre or mix placement to pull it off - she’s not someone like Alice Wallace would can pull off that timbre, especially with this mixing, she’d arguably need production closer to Lindi Ortega or Karen Jonas… but it’s not like dabbling with a rock edge gives her material any sense of firepower. That’s the odd thing about the mix - you can tell Simpson wanted to amp things up but he didn’t compromise that bad vocal mix, so any guitars that could really explode feel muffled and we wind up with a lot of the same rote, colourless tones she’s always had. And I’ll be blunt: the content is not saving this album because again, it just feels thin, especially all the back-and-forth relationship cuts that run together and could very well stand as a metaphor for the country music industry - hell, I’d argue ‘Stone Me’ is most thuddingly on the nose there. But there’s a righteous fury you can pick up from most anti-Nashville songs and the feeling here is more sour grapes… which is kind of a shame because I actually kind of like the emotional nuance in examining why someone goes back to bad relationships. Unfortunately, there’s still not much to the writing, and it’s not a good sign when her most descriptively clever song ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ is your standard calling out Hollywood phoniness song - I didn’t like it when Will Toledo did it this year, and he landed more punches than Price did. Look, I was lukewarm on Margo Price before, and now three projects in with no signs of change and existing issues only seeming to get worse, I can’t recommend this. 5/10, just for the fans.

My Morning Jacket - The Waterfall II - Oh, it looks like it’s that week where I just crap all over critical darlings of the indie set… although here’s a question: was My Morning Jacket ever considered a great band so much as an influential one? Yes, I can hear their creative DNA in so much reverb-soaked, country-adjacent folk and rock with a hint of vintage psychedelia that spilled across the 2010s, but I’m not going to claim a ton of it has been interesting after the sound is thoroughly overexposed - maybe more of it works in the jam band or festival environment, but I’ve never found the songwriting particularly good, the hooks and sound can be haphazard, and especially in their early years, their critically acclaimed projects all ran way too long. What’s all the more frustrating is that when they tried to get more spare and groovy in the second half of the 2000s, I was even less impressed - mostly because frontman Jim James’ falsetto could get really grating and the mixes could get really weedy and sour in oddly unappealing ways, but hey, in 2015 they made a slight return to the earnest swells of reverb-heavy indie rock on The Waterfall… and five years later, we got a sequel album. I’m not kidding: all of these songs are reportedly from those recording sessions years ago and only repackaged here, the intended long-overdue sequel, and of course it sounds exactly like you think it does! I technically could end the review right here and say, ‘it sounds like more of The Waterfall, but a little slower and stiffer in its 70s AM country/singer-songwriter affectation with too much falsetto, for God’s sake they opened the album with a song called ‘Spinning My Wheels’ and if that’s not a warning sign I don’t know what is’! Granted, that is part of the point - the song ‘Wasted’ here seems like it’s calling out nearly every song previous, which thematically circle around not getting the hint, backsliding into wishes for the past, a discomfort with present situations all going wrong… but when you get a snapshot of home everything becomes better again! But you still have to get through those songs that if I’m being charitable are often warm and well-mixed and the back half of the album is really pleasant… but it feels even more derivative now, between mid-70s AM rock schmaltz, willowy indie seeking to emulate it that’s short on groove, and the squonking layers of burbling synth and the occasional jagged spike of guitar that not only match with nothing but are tried and true indicators of discomfort. But I can say all of that and no My Morning Jacket fan will care - they’ve been doing it for over twenty years, they’re now very much back in their comfort zone, and while i hear the influence, I just wish the vibe was more consistent. 6/10, but not a jump-on point… pretty much just for the fans.

Brett Eldredge - Sunday Drive - I’ve heard a surprising amount of buzz for this project - and not because of any big single, but because Eldredge seemed like he was ditching mainstream Nashville for something more interesting, even recruiting producers who worked with Kacey Musgraves on Golden Hour and penning the majority of compositions himself. Now this was actually kind of exciting - Eldredge can be a unique and potent writer when he wants to be - and given how I’ve got a fondness for some of his more wild pivots, I was curious how this would turn out… and my God, I did not expect this at all. Let’s not mince words: this is Brett Eldredge’s best album to date, with a title track that will be in contention for the best songs of 2020, and probably the most complete example of a perennially underrated Nashville country artist able to cut loose and deliver something so strikingly great and unique since Randy Houser’s Magnolia. But it’s not playing to Americana or indeed anything like Musgraves’ psychedelic side - ‘Fall For Me’ is probably the closest example - so much as a borderline throwback country-soul album in the vein of Ray Charles’ country years - which makes sense when you remember how much Eldredge has idolized crooners of a much older generation but has a craggier vocal tone that you’d think wouldn’t imitate them well. And from there, he builds on his strengths effectively - the guitars and pianos are warm and rich, the arranged elements and horns are there but very tasteful, the grooves are refined, and there’s a mature, good-natured heft to Eldredge’s delivery and writing that’s just remarkably charming; I rarely say that an artist’s ‘soul-searching’ pays dividends in their art, but with Eldredge you can kind of tell it did! Now that’s not saying this is a perfect or transcendent project - I can tell a lot of folks are going to call this a bit too ‘adult-contemporary’, and I wish there were more songs that had the impact of the title track in the writing; there absolutely are standouts like the hopeful optimism of ‘Good Day’, the reflective side of ‘Crowd My Mind’ or ‘Gabrielle’, or just the storytelling of the bouncy ‘Magnolia’ or especially ‘Then You Do’, often backed by splashy acoustics or just a great hook. It highlights how when Brett Eldredge gets specific and adds that flair of detail, he can strike gold, and indeed, if he had brought a bit more of that detail to the most direct soul cuts, this could have been among the best country of 2020… but as it is, it’s still absolutely great and worth more attention that it’ll likely get. Very strong 8/10, a very big recommendation!