on the pulse - 2020 - week 31 - trapped in limbo

This might be the longest episode of On The Pulse I’ve assembled to date - somehow I got through eleven albums here, and yet the bizarre thing is that I was able to get ahead of my writing pretty quickly, so either I was organized and on top of things for once, or these albums were just easier to write about. Anyway, let’s not waste time, because there’s a lot here On The Pulse!

Hail Spirit Noir - Eden In Reverse - It’s funny, I had a plan to cover this a while back, even with the beginnings of a review and everything… and then it literally took so long for the lyrics to come out that I dropped the project from my schedule. But now it’s back and to discuss Hail Spirit Noir… and the first question is pinning down what they even are. Hailing from Macedonia, on the surface they’re a particularly weird blur of melodic black metal with vintage psychedelic prog rock… and what’s more alarming is how tuneful and genuinely sticky a lot of their material is… providing you can get past the goofier clean singing. Honestly, I kind of dug how on 2016’s Mayhem In Blue they brought in some surf rock guitar passages and a distinctly late 60s / early 70s brand of psychedelia to augment their demented energy. And it’s a shame they don’t really have that to the same degree here, as Hail Spirit Noir basically chose to ditch even more of their black metal elements for a thicker baritone and a more late 70s, early 80s analog synth-accented progressive approach. This is where the inevitable Opeth comparisons might leap to the forefront; but thankfully Hail Spirit Noir has kept enough burly tunefulness and a synth palette that owes a bit more to an act like Ayreon with a mix that gives the kickdrums and bass some echoing menace while the guitars and synth still have real flair. That said, this is an album I’ve been listening to for more than a few weeks, and I keep coming back to the feeling I should like this way more than I do - part of this comes with the black metal passages only really showing up on ‘The First Ape On New Earth’, some of it comes from weirdly inconsistent drum production, and then there’s the feeling for as psychedelic and “weird” as this album is trying to be, in both sound, delivery, and content, there’s something a little too measured about it. The vocals are always very sober, and while the arc of the album is neat - starting from the human ideas of evolution and science in a mad chase backwards through time and all knowledge to uncover the roots of a god, only to be savagely smacked back by human frailty and the ineffable omnipotence at the core - this isn’t an unfamiliar set of themes in black metal or prog metal; In The Woods… did something very similar on Pure. I definitely think if you can get into this brand of prog flush with analog tones, you’ll like this album… but it doesn’t have the momentum or punch of Mayhem In Blue and at the end just leaves me a bit cold. strong 6/10, check it out if you’re curious.

Fontaines D.C. - A Hero’s Death - So this is one of those acts I’m actually a little pleased I’ll have a chance to discuss - the Patron who requested it dropped out, but someone actually re-added it, so Fontaines D.C…. they fall into some interesting territory, kind of reminiscent of the more refined and polished post-punk you got in the early-to-mid 80s, with splashes of new wave in sharper song construction, but Fontaines D.C. keeping a lot of that hard-edged Irish political angle that helped their debut Dogrel to be pretty damn good. Whereas I find their sophomore album a bit tougher to gauge - it’s darker, a little rougher, certainly more dreary and less catchy as it doubles down on a greyscale post-punk tone which matches the desperation of the band now trying to claw away from falling into isolation and despair in the face of newfound success they weren’t expecting. What I appreciate about Fontaines D.C. is that they’re at least trying to be optimistic in their fight, and while the suffocating clouds of distorted guitars seem purpose-built to suck all of that away, I like how the group walks the tightrope of wanting to buck against the system… but also highlight the very real social and psychological consequences that come with it, which aren’t that far removed from a similar loneliness that can occur in succeeding under capitalism when you’re burning the candles at both ends. But I like that Fontaines D.C. get how much that complicated emotionality matters, and that gives it a core I like… that’s desperately fighting against a sound with oddly thin drums that wants to make it more dreary and less interesting. Which, yes, is the point, and I still think the dynamic bass and guitarwork can make for some cool tones if you like this brand of retro post-punk, but I don’t think it always flatters their strongest tunes and can make the album feel like a bit less distinct than Dogrel was - you’ve heard these smoked out tones in post-punk before, and I’m not quite hearing the shining hooks or sheer intensity to knock this into a different tier. Still very good… but it’s not quite great, so strong 7/10; if you’re into smart, emotionally-driven post-punk, this’ll be up your alley.

Jaye Jayle - Prisyn - If I describe the sound of this act, it might make you want to check him out immediately: a goth-country act that pulls heavily on post-punk and no wave with his quaking baritone, the sort of material that would play in a haunted, abandoned graveyard in the middle of a desert. And I’ll admit the atmosphere was enough to rope me in with Jaye Jayle, but going into his third album I wanted to get a deeper sense of what was actually being done with that atmosphere. Sadly, he hasn’t really stuck with the country tones, instead embracing increasingly colder synths and electronics and pulling together a vocal delivery and cadence that owes way more to Nick Cave than he lets on. So okay, maybe something closer to the early, post-punk Nick Cave years, meeting the more surreal stuff he’s doing now? Well, not really, because it falls into the weird place of not quite being surreal enough to be unsettling or thought-provoking, but also not having enough of a textural edge or crescendo to intimidate - indeed, I’d argue the oddly crunchy drum machines are awkwardly placed alongside the oily synths and the vocals, which more often than not fade into the background. And I don’t think the writing is all that great - it feels like a second or third draft would really flesh out the no wave passages beyond a mantra, and while the theme on the surface seems intriguing - more a prison of one’s own mind than anything in a forbidding, haunted world - take a step back and many of these scenes feel kind of disconnected, isolated spats of weirdness from when he’s travelled around the world. ‘Blueberries’ is probably the weirdest moment, but even that metaphor surrounding a trade of ‘a cloud of ageless skin’ feels more trying to be provocative in its passing exchange of song rather than coming by it naturally, which contributes to an album trying really hard to be moody and creepy, but ultimately doesn’t even wind up all that oblique or ominous. I’ll be honest, I like the country-leaning projects more, but this was at least somewhat interesting for what it was, just felt weirdly abbreviated and thin, and didn’t quite coalesce, so… strong 5/10, but there will be an audience for this.

Stand Atlantic - Pink Elephant - So it’s a bad sign when the most I remember about your pop punk act is that your frontwoman vaguely sounds like one of those super-polished teenage boys that fronted the pop punk wave of the mid-2000s… and your sound is just as forgettable from that era. I said this back in my Neck Deep review a few weeks ago, but acts like this are completely tedious to review, because not only did I grow up with the genuine article, I actually grew up, where many of these bands feel perpetually adolescent and rarely have the distinctive hooks or punch or writing to stand out. And Stand Atlantic is absolutely in that pile - I found their debut utterly interchangeable, and now their sophomore album… well, it’s got a bit more personality, but mostly through choices I find really frustrating. I’d say it reminds me a little of Waterparks in their pop elements, but Waterparks could at least craft a dynamic or magnetic hook, whereas Stand Atlantic sound like they cribbed their synth mixing and vocal compression from the late 2000s - and that’s not a compliment, the vocal mixing is by far the worst part of this album. What’s crazy is that you’d think by going so often to chunky riffs and sharper percussion - they even sneak a trap hi-hat onto ‘Silk & Satin’ - that they’d have a more defined low end bass groove, but too many of these songs wind up really stiff and overblown, without any sort of melodic contrast or development to really drive a strong crescendo or even help individual cuts stand out! Honestly, I kind of feel bad for frontwoman Bonnie Fraiser trying to holler through this, but truth be told she’s not a particularly dynamic performer herself, which means that amidst all the teenage angst there’s not much in the way of cutting or distinctive detail, and very little of the bouncy major chord pop punk matched it. It leads to a project that’s full force way too often, but missing any sort of impact, either thanks to a lacking low end, a singer clawing through vocal overproduction, ugly synths that add nothing, and writing that doesn’t match the tone. All of which leads to a mess. 4/10

Lil Keed - Trapped On Cleveland 3 - I’m honestly surprised I don’t get more trap mixtapes that show up on my schedule. I mean, I can repeat a lot of what I would normally say about one to another week after week and you wouldn’t miss much, and Lil Keed is a prime example of that. I’ve been vaguely aware of this guy for a bit through his ties to Young Thug’s label and 300, but I haven’t had anything to say about him because I haven’t heard what’s made him distinctive or interesting in terms of flow or sound… and on this hour-long mixtape-as-studio-album, we got pretty much the same. What’s frustrating is that he imitates a lot of Young Thug’s more frustrating elements - empty flexing and brand name porn passing as content, forced rhymes, swampy bass mixing against bleeping synths, washed out guitars and thin trap drum machines, not nearly enough ideas to sustain a stream-trolling nineteen song album - but few of the parts that make Thugger distinctive, like the organic yowls and completely over the top subject matter - hell, when he tries to make his sex rhymes over the top, it just gets juvenile or kind of gross. And while I’m sure the audience won’t care if it bangs, how many distinctive hooks are we actually getting here, especially in comparison with the newer crop like Roddy Ricch who’ll switch up his flow more, or even Lil Baby trying to mature. So this is where I’d go to the guest appearances or just find the scattered bangers that somehow manage to work… well, outside of Young Thug and Gunna sounding like they’d rather be anywhere else and Lil Baby sleepwalking through his verse, I actually think Travis Scott of all people kind of snapped on the ‘Wavy’ remix and Future did what he needed to on ‘Zaza’. And outside of that… ‘Cold World’ is okay off the howling guitars, I think the closer ‘Here’ has a solid humid vibe with the more textured percussion, and the thicker cushion of synth behind ‘Heartbreaker’ is a more distinctive and potent trap banger than anything Lil Keed has ever made - maybe a bit more basic, but it’s got personality and colour, it stands out! The rest, though… you’ve heard more than a few albums like this over the past five years, this doesn’t stand out and it’s not good to boot. Light 4/10

The Microphones - Microphones in 2020 - look, I’ve tried with Phil Elverum’s music more than once at this point. I’ve tried with Mount Eerie, I’ve tried with his black metal projects, and now going back to his seminal lo-fi records from the late 90s… his work once again does very little for me. Sure, there are some okay textures and guitar passages, but he’s a flat vocal presence for me and I was even less gripped by his content - it’s clear he’s grown as a songwriter, but it makes those early projects just not stand out; it’s not like going back to old lo-fi Mountain Goats albums where the writing consistently punched above. Well, now Elverum called back The Microphones for a single, forty-plus minute song for this “album”… and to the surprise of nobody, it’s a bit tough to talk about. I’ll say this, the way I tend to judge a ‘single song’ project is similar to how I judge a long take in a movie - you’re making a statement by not cutting away, so how a song like this uses negative space and transitions and crescendos matters, especially if you’re trying to cultivate any sense of tension or hold the audience’s interest. And while you could argue this song becomes melodically stale somewhere in the first six minutes of acoustics before any vocals, there’s enough splashes of piano, ragged electric guitar, hits of drums, and even some elongated distortion to at least mark time within the piece; not so much multiple movements so much as points to snap you back awake. And that’s part of the appeal of the song as well - it’s meditative and faded and urging your mind to wander amidst its discomforting intimacy, leave you few options but yearning for Elverum’s voice and writing… which is not a good sign that I’m only interested in one of those things. I said this back when I reviewed Mount Eerie, but I don’t find Elverum engaging as a singer in any of his delivery - he’s flat, not particularly expressive, the few bits of multi-tracking don’t add much, and he doesn’t have a unique cadence or flair in his free verse that’ll draw you towards the eccentricities. So it’s all the more frustrating going through the actual content here and realizing that Elverum’s larger point is to observe the disordered chaos of life, the cycles only assigned meaning by their repetition, scrabble through past events and old songs to find fragments of truth and tranquility, which he does see in odd, ramshackle sequences - cuts from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, an old Mayhem song, the primal force of the weather, even fragments of words from Microphones sets amidst the feedback. Nothing ever has been quite learned, wisdom has come through repetition and observation and the great absurdity of trying to capture a moment in time - which means this album isn’t so much wistful or nostalgic as capturing interchangeable nuggets of time, but it’s only the moment that has ultimately ever mattered. In another comparison with film, it reminds me a lot of the existentialist themes that Richard Linklater was exploring on Waking Light… but the truth about this brand of observational writing is that if you’re not captivated by the revelatory moments, or impressed by their flattening, it’ll leave you distant. And as I see and get the appeal, I’m once again on the outside looking in with this one - just not for me, which is why I’m giving this a solid 6/10, and a quote from an Ayreon song ‘The Sixth Extinction’ from 01011001, sung by the late Steve Lee: ‘The meaning of life is to give life meaning’… and that’s a moment of transcendence I can replay.

Deep Purple - Whoosh - Okay, I though after inFinite, Deep Purple was done - it was a great finale album, it did exactly what it needed to do to send the band off, and while I still like Now What?!?! a bit more, it was exactly as solid as it needed to be… so obviously we’ve got the encore coming with this. And… well, Deep Purple themselves described this as them just cutting loose even further, trying to lean more into their psychedelic and prog tendencies that have been coming out in the past ten years, but Now What?!?! is a high water mark for that sound that I’m not sure Whoosh really can beat, and like with inFinite it kind of feels overpolished, a little lacking in punch, and patchy outside of specific songs, especially in every keyboard choice outside of the organ. And really, it’s tough to say a lot more about a Deep Purple album at this stage: a heavier blues influence courtesy of the organs and grooves, you’re going to get a couple of cool solos and some decent hooks, and I definitely appreciate them covering ‘And The Address’, the opening instrumental of their debut album so maybe this is them coming full circle in this career encore? But that’s the weird thing about Whoosh! - it feels like a tacked-on encore that I’m not going to complain about, but they already had the finale vibe on their last album and this isn’t quite passing it, especially when their weirder experiments like ‘Step By Step’, ‘The Power Of The Moon‘, and ‘Man Alive’ are really not all that challenging or weird… even if I do think the spacey tones of the latter two are generally likable! And while lyrics have never mattered much to this group, you can also tell that Deep Purple is getting close to their cranky curmudgeon side and while the sarcasm of ‘Nothing At All’ kind of worked, songs like ‘No Need To Shout’ and ‘Drop The Weapon’ are the sort of undercooked attempts at saying something or just not wanting to hear anything that feel utterly tired. But then again, half of the band is in their 70s, and they still play really well - their legacy is long secured, and if they want to take another victory lap, that’s fine. It’s just less interesting than last time, so… strong 6/10.

Glass Animals - Dreamland - I remember there being so much hype around Glass Animals back when I was getting request for them in 2016 - they were perceived as having such a unique sound and vibe, this dank, quasi-voyeuristic tone overladen with detail and psychedelic distortion… but going back to How To Be A Human Being four years later, not only does it not feel as weird or kooky thanks to a sonic palette that stripped away a lot of its atmosphere from the debut, but also because there’s an odd hollowness to their approach that just doesn’t stick, a lot of deflection in highlighting the unkempt weirdness of humanity, but not much commentary or punch beyond a surface-level reflection - which artists like Ariel Pink just do better at this point. But now on Dreamland.. well, it’s a lot of the same trick as last time, but somehow I like it significantly less now that he’s set his target on his own millennial nostalgia. Now let me stress that he’s about my age and there is overlap when it comes to late-90s/early-2000s nostalgia, going back to your childhood with adult eyes and realizing the plastic sheen wasn’t all it was cracked up to be - Rina Sawayama exposed some this on her debut this year… the problem is that frontman Dave Bayley gets to all the cultural detritus but very little of the insight… again. If anything it’s worse this time because his ‘husky Thom Yorke with vocal fry’ approach feels gummy and way too close in the mix - not helped by all the vocal filters which just sound tinny and gross - which is predominantly Californicated psychedelic textures left over from Kevin Parker and a blend of hip-hop and trap beats. I wish I was kidding on that part, but Denzel Curry shows up on ‘Tokyo Drifting’ and is easily the most dynamic part of the entire album, even if he can’t save the song! My problem is that this is the exact sort of project to make passing commentary on getting mired in nostalgia or trying way too hard to be cool, but then do it all anyway, and the motivations feel flimsy as hell. I’d argue the biggest thing that separates his kitschy overreliance on references from what AJR and Owl City got crucified was going for the humid, festival-ready monogenre, and yet if you don’t care about lyrics, I can see this being enough. What’s frustrating is that amidst the undercooked and frequently asinine writing and questionable vocals or how completely stupid 'Melon and the Coconut’ is, there are some decent grooves and slightly more grounded human scenes, especially on the back half of the project with cuts like ‘It’s All So Incredibly Loud’ - I wish there had been consistent focus there rather than the goopy psychedelia that just feels derivative and tedious, and I can’t help but hear an ugly twinge for a guy trying to do the ‘ironic’ hip-hop nod so often that one of the better songs ‘Your Love (Deja Vu)’ owes a lot to early Justin Timberlake. Glad we woke up from that dream - and we should probably leave this one behind too. Strong 3/10… and honestly, it kind of feels generous.

Amine - Limbo - I’ll be frank here: I kind of missed the boat with Amine in 2017 - I heard ‘Caroline’, I was lukewarm on it, I kind of got the impression his carefree flow and demeanor didn’t do enough to pave over some questionable writing, and I moved on - and while a lot of that is still true, I eventually went back to hear more and I found a decent bit I liked, mostly in that he was a more creative and ambitious writer and performer than I gave him credit, even if he did have a dickish streak right under the radar. So I’m happy I’m getting a chance to talk about him now, and… well, Limbo is a surprisingly apt title, because while you can tell Amine is a bit less carefree - the death of Kobe Bryant in particular you can tell hit him hard - it’s more because he’s in a weird transitional space but at least able to bring a bit more of his wit and creativity to bear. And that sense of missed expectations lead to some pretty sober songs on the back half of the album, from the tribute to his mom to how ‘Becky’ has him dump his white girlfriend who just isn’t making the effort to understand, to how we get the song where after the bragging of success he starts finding the little joys that he winds up enjoying more than the usual trappings of a successful rapper - that grapefruit skit on the end of ‘Fetus’ with Injury Reserve and his comedian friend Jak Knight was great. The other guests mostly acquit themselves well - I liked the shared verse from slowthai and Vince Staples, JID delivered again, Summer Walker has better chemistry with Amine than she has with most and she actually sounds pretty good against slightly rougher, organic if overmixed production… but granted, so does Amine, who chooses to sing a lot more and his vocal timbre is just textured and slightly off enough to work. If I have complaints, they come in some of the once again rough vocal mixing - I know the production is trying to have some of that organic textured feel with warmer samples, at least in comparison with the questionable trap pivots, but the vocals can still sound better - and how while this is taking steps towards maturity and deeper content like a flashier but moodier YBN Cordae, I’m not quite sure he got there while preserving all of the exuberance and wild hooks that made songs like ‘Wedding Crashers’. But to make the YBN Cordae comparison again, there’s enough thoughtful potential and eye for interesting production to make me intrigued, so… light 7/10. Not something I’ll revisit a lot, but this was a good listen.

Marlowe - Marlowe 2 - I stand by 2018’s Marlowe is a pretty underrated hip-hop album: the textured kaleidoscope of samples that L’Orange provided gave just enough kooky energy to Solemn Brigham to ride effectively, and while the album did eventually feel like he was writing himself into a corner, throwing out as many tricks as he could to hold your attention, that was also kind of the thematic point. But enough critics had the feeling that Solemn Brigham could push himself beyond just great flows and into more content - which I have to wonder why they don’t bother with that critique for so many trap acts they’ll heap praise upon - so Marlowe 2 looked to be a tighter, more refined experience. And it is… but I also think it might be more of a lateral move than an outright improvement across the board, as I don’t quite love this as much as I was hoping I would. Partially because for Solemn Brigham taking more steps to expand and diversify his flows while keeping his careening, nasal flair, we’re still on a very similar arc to the first Marlowe project, where our frontman doubles down into a mad scientist/lone hustler mold and then leads you deeper as far as you might dare to go; I think he knows his greatest strength comes in technical showmanship in terms of flow and melody rather than storytelling or unique lyrical detail, but like with the first Marlowe album, he shows off more dimension surrounding that exasperated rat race, which leads to a sequel interlude where his carnival barker character gets all his exhibits repoed only for him to protest they really aren’t that special. But Brigham has three new tricks up his sleeve tied to his audience: the artifice works to help him and you feel something; it’s not like his hustle is that different than anyone else’s so why throw unneccesary judgements when you both could target that oppressive system, and most importantly, you followed him down this rabbit hole in the first place, and ergo you’re probably not far removed from where he is… so why not find a bit of solidarity in the weirdness, and there’s a nice bit of odd comfort in that! So okay, if there’s advancement here, why call this a lateral movement? Well, that might be tied to L’Orange, to my surprise: I said with the first Marlowe project that his sample-rich production had a tendency to overwhelm his collaborators - which I’ll admit has been my issue with his Jeremiah Jae projects - and thus I think he tried to pull back a bit… but he may have overcorrected here, as many of his samples feel a little more muffled and lacking the same wild kookiness of the first; I wanted Solemn Brigham to match L’Orange, not precisely meet in the middle. Ironically, I don’t feel this album is quite as colourful, and while there are great moments like the shuddering guitars of ‘Small Business’, the bassy roil with splashy horns on ‘Future Power Sources’, the Marlowe 1-esque ‘Sawdust Underground’, the terrific creaking bounce of ‘Same Team’, and a few of the wonkier interludes, I’m not quite sure they’ve hit the perfect balance point yet. As such… light 8/10, definitely recommended as some great hip-hop in a year that’s been pretty quiet on that front, but I think there’s still more room to grow here.

Luke Bryan - Born Here Live Here Die Here - Really, at this point after the past decade, is there much more to say about Luke Bryan, especially when he’s still sticking to a mostly “working” formula and hasn’t figured out the problems that been endemic on his albums for years now? This will be the fourth time I’ve reviewed his work, and while I can say this is probably one of his better projects in recent memory, it still has a lot of the rampant problems of the past few years. The percussion is clunky, often programmed, and over-emphasized in the mix - especially the filmy cymbals which just fill up all available space instead of melodic tone - the vocal mixing is inconsistent and often compressed, and while the mix is a bit warmer courtesy of more country tones and a fair amount of pedal steel, you still get the gummy or spacious synth mixing that’s chasing an atmosphere Dierks Bentley abandoned when it didn’t really work in 2016! And what gets distracting is the same issue that’s plagued his work for years: when he’s trying to double down on rustic, down-home sentiments that thrive off organic texture, the obvious overproduction emphasizing the artificial feels off, not helped by how jerky some of Bryan’s writing can be. And that’s kind of a shame because Bryan is still a pretty decent singer and the back half of this album is trying to incorporate some more sensitive and introspective moments, even if songs like ‘Build Me A Daddy’ are kind of heavy-handed in their sentimentality - I actually liked the more understated implications of ‘For a Boat’ a fair bit more. Granted, the writing is still mostly sliding towards forgettable mainstream country cliches, which leaves me in an odd position with Bryan: the album is considerably shorter than his past few and the singles run has been long, which gives me the impression this release feels more out of obligation than a major push, and yet for as successful as he’s been, you’d think he’d have the clout to be able to make the big artistic throw in the same way Brett Eldredge or Randy Houser have in recent years. As it is… it’s far from his worst, but man, I’ll forget this in record time. 5/10