on the pulse - 2021 - #4 - zara larsson, epica, julien baker, genesis owusu, sg lewis

So this is weird: I don’t think there’s been an episode of this series where I’ve really liked as many albums in one go! A solid half of this list is great, and given that it’s felt like 2021 has started slow, this was a lot of fun to explore - so no wasting time, let’s get On The Pulse!

Mac Leaphart - Music City Joke - Okay, so it’s been too long since I’ve talked about indie country, so here we have a singer-songwriter whose vocal delivery reminds me of a much more hoarse BJ Barham or maybe a bit of Gabe Lee and a wry pen that’s already earned some comparisons to the late John Prine, but with a more traditional honky tonk palette with plenty of pedal steel and piano instead of rougher Americana. He’s been active across the last decade, but after hearing about the acclaim for his newest project, I first checked out his 2015 project and found a lot to like. So going into this album… I have to say, I enjoyed this a lot! Yeah, this is a palette of stripped back honky tonk country you’ve heard plenty of times before, but there’s a lot of rickety texture in the percussion and acoustics, the bass line is well balanced, and the fiddle, harmonica and pedal steel keen at precisely the right frequency to add melodic foundation and not overwhelm the mix. But what punches above for Leaphart is the writing, which has the deft cleverness to paint the scene with nuggets of wit - like how the former drinker cusses out Leaphart for drinking but never seems to acknowledge there are deeper issues to why he’s not happy on ‘Blame It On The Bottle’, or his self-deprecating exhaustion trying to make in Nashville on the title track, which flows really well into the wistful questions of ‘That Train’ - but feel heartfelt all the same, like how ‘The Same Thing’ seems to start as the dejected ‘saw an ex across the way’ song but then lets a woman’s backing voice slip in and allows the nuance to show how she’s moved on and how her new partner sees something different and just as valid. Or take ‘Window From The Sky’, which is interesting because it expands on the metaphor of a bird stuck inside who can’t see the window to get out and then drills into how a friend of his could be much the same in his hard times, or how he questions his own instincts… until maybe he hits rock bottom and just has to plow through, a struggle for which he’s not sympathetic, especially when you get to a cut like ‘Every Day’ where from the third person he tells the story of a couple where she’s working and burning out trying to support her husband’s artistic dreams, and it’s kind of heartbreaking not to see him do more - might be third person to avoid autobiography, but the anxiety rings true. Now I do think ‘Honey, Shake!’ plays for screwball antics in more ways than one and that didn’t quite stick, mostly because Leaphart can’t quite sell it… but I have to be honest, the entire album is worth it for ‘Ballad of Bob Yamaha or a Simple Plea in C Major’, which is a song written from the perspective of an old guitar and it’s just goddamn amazing in its low-key wit. And as such… yeah, solid 8/10, just great indie country, highly recommended.

For Your Health - In Spite Of - okay, more screamo… this time from the more ragged, wonky post-hardcore/mathcore set for which I’ve got a mixed track record. Anyway, they dropped an EP in 2019, a split with Shin Guard that same year, and now with this solo full-length… can I get away with just saying this is not for me, whatsoever? I’m not going to deny that there’s technical complexity in the shrieking guitar leads and drumwork and how often this’ll slip into brighter post-hardcore sections that often feel like they’re screaming for air - not helped by the vocalist’s howled vocals and underwhelming clean singing buried midway back in the mix - but it’s one of those cases where the cacophonous and cluttered mix means that any attempt at pummelling groove or truly striking melody, or indeed any attempt at atmosphere, is completely sucked away, not helped by bass that has presence but inconsistent punch, some weirdly muddy drums, and no attempt to let a texture or tune really cut through. Have to be honest, it just kind of washes over me without much distinctive or memorable impact - not a good sign when that’s the primary mode of the project - so I have to go to the content… and well, the poetry has some welcome flair and I like the anti-capitalist, very online streak that slips through a few cuts that puts you in the mind of a very specific demented stripe of mid-2000s LiveJournal and MySpace, but most of it circles the sort of self-flagellating emo material that you find yourself wishing hit harder than it does. Again, I get the distinctive impression this’ll work better for a very different audience - I like a bit more tune and refinement in the screamo that works for me, and while I get the appeal, it didn’t quite click. strong 5/10

Danny L Harle - Harlecore - …you know, I guess I’m not surprised this wound up on my docket - another tentative stab towards the blurry intersection between the PC Music crew and hyperpop, the full-length debut of one of their founding members after a pretty expansive production catalog including a lot with Caroline Polachek, his last project was in 2017 so there’s got to be some anticipation behind this… and am I the only one kind of underwhelmed? Maybe it’s just the fact that when I first got into electronic music I listened to a lot of trance, but to me this reminds me way too much of the blown out, squonking techno eurodance fusions you’d normally catch in the 2000s that were trying a little too hard for arena bombast and presence without the distinctive crescendos or melodies to really help these moments transcend, not helped by the hyperpop tendency to let the metallic gloss and shuddering texture overwhelm the technicolor experience. And if you want a lot of aggressive smash cuts that brand of high-energy techno, full of chipmunked vocals and whirling energy, with only a few ambient moments to catch a breath, this will probably satisfy, and even for me there’s something about those super-crisp synths splashing everywhere that’s hard to dislike. But that said, there were parts of this album where it felt so beholden to its influences where I found myself wishing for a bit more of that uniquely warped PC Music sound - it feels weirdly safe and oddly a bit retro in the ground it’s covering, which doesn’t really help it stand out as much as you’d hope. Granted, when you have MC Boing doing a very specific demented callback to Crazy Frog-era dance music and DJ Mayhem doing his blown out squonking… thing, that does feel a bit more contemporary, but given how short many of these songs feel, I’m left feeling they could have expanded a few of these pieces, given them a bit more meat, even if that’s tempting fate calling back to the utterly bloated Eurodance projects of the era. So for me… solid 6/10, I did want to like this a bit more, but it feels like a proper debut with the seeds for more planted here. Also, ‘Car Song’ slaps.

SG Lewis - times - I’m a little surprised folks are looking for my opinion on this. SG Lewis is one of those somewhat anonymous pop singer/producers who can cultivate an okay blissed-out vibe and some alright grooves, but the songs I found memorable from him in 2019 had guest features. Anyway, this is his formal solo debut album and… I have to be honest, while I do think it’s an expanded and more likable and textured approach to SG Lewis’ sound, there’s a part of me that still thinks this sounds a little more anonymous than I would like, or at the very least dependent on his guest features. Yes, the gentle bassy burble midway between vintage house and nu-disco is well-balanced and features more organic percussion texture to compliment the keyboard splashes, it very quickly slides into the background and it’s tough to pin down why. Part of it might be the lack of any truly excellent hooks outside of maybe ‘Heartbreak On The Dance Floor’ with Frances that seems like it’s interpolating parts of Erasure’s ‘Always’ on the pre-chorus - which you might all recognize more from Robot Unicorn Attack - but I think more of it has to do with the guest star personalities shining through to the point that it seems like SG Lewis is giving them remixes of songs they would have already made instead of a synthesis of producer and artist, and that’s not counting when he sounds completely anonymous as a singer himself. So when we get Rhye on the opening song, it sounds like a brighter and bouncier version of a cut Rhye would have had on that last album, or how ‘One More’ is pulling from exactly the same retro disco and funk that Nile Rodgers has been making for decades - same with Robyn and Channel Tres, although with ‘Feed The Fire’ Lucky Daye just sounds like he’d do exactly the same thing on a Kaytranada song, which at least would have a bit more character. Overall, it’s likable and fun enough… but I also know I’m going to forget this in record time, and for this brand of electronic music, even if the vibes are there, that’s an issue. Solid 6/10, wish more of this had stuck for me.

Genesis Owusu - Smiling With No Teeth - Am I the only one who thinks this came right the hell out of nowhere? Granted, the Kirin J. Callinan co-sign does help and I guess if you’re in Australia this debut might have had more popular groundswell, but when I started seeing the critical acclaim and attention thrown this way, I was very curious what we could be getting with this. And… to be honest, this is the sort of warped blur of genres that it’s tricky to immediately pin down what you’re dealing with - I’ve seen this classified as both neo-soul and experimental hip-hop, the latter of which has to be from that MC Ride-esque tone that he opened the album with - and I’m not sure it fits within either; nor would I call him the Australian Andre 3000, whose brand of genre-bending was on a silkier wavelength. If anything, it reminds me more of the slippery, synth-inflected approach to funk we saw from Childish Gambino on “Awaken, My Love!” five years ago, although maybe leaning a little heavier on 80s funk and R&B - especially from Prince - with his sharper choice in grooves and more theatrical edges. And that’s also reflected in his occasionally off-beat, wonky delivery in both rapping and crooning, his keen sense of humour balanced with sharp social commentary, and how he leaps across genres with aplomb, even dabbling in synthpunk and pretty convincingly too! Hell, even though this is very much a debut in that it feels a bit scattered and still feeling out his style, and as such it does run a little long, there’s so much variety and potential on display that the production balances incredibly well that I have to give him props! And the parallel also somewhat extends to the content, where Genesis Owusu centers two ‘black dog’ characters within himself, containing the depression and vices for which he’s tempted even if it only ever give him hollow victories, and the outward forces of racism that carry as much weight, adding the subtext that as a Black man he will be framed at his worst, especially if any of it can be sold for cold success. Fortunately, pretty early in the process of the album he shows how he can explore and accept these darker impulses but also control them - Kirin J. Callinan’s wry presence and self-awareness can definitely be felt in the writing - while making some very sharp observations about how as a minority he’s held up as representative while white folks are allowed to just be individuals… balanced with moments where he just claps back and the righteousness has legit punch, especially as by the end he’s still trudging forward. Overall, from the layers of the concept to just how textured and flavourful the album is, this was a debut for the ages - absolutely terrific album, solid 8/10, happy I got to it.

Julien Baker - Little Oblivions - I feel like I’ve been adjacent to the rise of Julien Baker for the past four or five years now - she was on the 2016 Touche Amore album, she really seemed to get traction in 2017 with Turn Out The Lights, I’d just never had the chance to hear her material, and now that I have… you know, I mentioned this briefly when I covered Phoebe Bridgers last year and I’ve been talking about it with friends, I just tend to have way more luck with indie singer-songwriters when they’re coming from country rather than acoustic folk, often thanks to a great sense of lyrical detail and not a default to a very specific husky timbre. I’m not saying her first two albums are bad - her first album had some evocative and subtly raw moments, her second album expanded the sound considerably and I find most of her writing around mental health struggles solid enough if not always as potent as I wish it would be - but like with Bridgers, I wasn’t over the moon with her originally. And now with this album… honestly, I’m more torn on this than I want to be. Little Oblivions continues the arc from Turn Out The Lights sonically, in that the album feels more percussive and expansive and closer to a style and tone in indie folk rock that had a run in the early 2010s for which I can have mixed opinions, but I think my larger question is whether it compliments Baker’s delivery and content. And in the former case, I’m not sure it does - her raspier delivery doesn’t quite have the power or foundation to match the scale of this production palette, and thus to compensate they either nestle her belting further back in the mix - which doesn’t happen nearly enough - or it feels like the fluttery, post-rock adjacent guitars, weirdly filmy cymbals and blocky percussion, the ugly gauze of any synth integration, and any sense of pulsating groove was washed out and stuck behind buttery layers of reverb, and suddenly it feels like a bunch of old indie rock frustrations from the past decade are right back again. I’m not denying it can produce the appearance of heft, but it feels weirdly flat without more dynamics, lacking the coursing swell and texture it’s trying to deliver, and considering that once again the biggest strength is Baker’s writing, I’m not sure this approach flatters any sense of intimacy, or amplifies the raw emotional gutpunch in the content; I might think ‘Ringside’ feels painfully clunky in both its percussion line and mixing, but at least the guitar had a bit more jangling edge! So this is where your album has to be saved by the writing… and I don’t deny that there’s a certain rawness in hitting the painful points of depression, substance abuse, and just outright abuse, self or otherwise, in many of these songs, and there are potent moments, especially in how she emphasizes the performative elements of modern Christianity that can nevertheless serve as a balm for those who crave it. But on some level, this reminds me of that Smith Street Band album from last year where the relentlessly downbeat atmosphere where she seems like she’s replaying her trauma on repeat might be well-constructed, but the lack of greater variance makes it feel a bit flat overall, and I’m less likely to go back to it - the light draws attention to the darkness, and given the arrangements or delivery don’t really amplify that light, the album just winds up feeling middle of the road to me. Ergo, light 6/10 - I absolutely get why this is getting so much critical acclaim, but even beyond indie country writers I’ve heard these tones and subject matter explored with more power and detail, and this is just okay as the result.

Cloud Nothings - The Shadow I Remember - So I kind of expected there to be more hype around this than I’ve seen - Cloud Nothings are getting back with Steve Albini on production, which led to one of the best indie rock albums of the 2010s in Attack On Memory, maybe this would be the sharp, explosive moment that the band has circled but never quite achieved since. But here’s the thing: the average listener, even in indie rock, is not going to pick up on differences in production the same way I will - to a lot of folks, it’s another Cloud Nothings album, all nervy basslines, tight riffs, and the increasingly brighter guitar tone only more evident with every layer you strip away. No, it’s not on the tier of Attack On Memory, but it at least is close to the tier with 2018’s often slept-on Last Building Burning, plus with Steve Albini providing a lot of that ragged, nervy engineering and commitment to production dynamics that made Attack On Memory so great, even if growth over the years means it can’t quite recapture 2012’s magic again. I think part of it is that Dylan Baldi’s limitations as a singer have just become more glaringly obvious with every passing album, where he might have some snide energy but is rarely ever placed to make his sharper hooks really cut through, and the few moments of limp multi-tracking or the female vocals added to ‘Nothing Without You’ just do not have enough, especially when the actual instrumentation and compositions are so strong otherwise! The funny thing is that, to my surprise, I actually think the content shows a progression from the rampant nihilism of the previous two projects, in asking the open question if you can move beyond and change from the darkness of your past - and how the hell are you even to do that - or are you just the same person at a different time, especially when you might be in a relationship and their movement might reflect yours, especially as love has a funny way of pushing things along? Hell, this album might have a few of the closest things to ‘love songs’ that Cloud Nothings have ever written, even if a song like ‘Only Light’ would have them wanting to rip apart space and time to create the vibe, or how he breaks apart the pseudo-religious desperation of ‘Open Rain’, but that sense of space and just being around those you love does feel increasingly relevant, especially given the previous year. I dunno, if denial was the underlying subtext of their 2020 album, this is acceptance and about the closest thing to earnestness this band has found in a long time, and I dug it a lot. light 8/10, even if you think you know what you’re getting, you’d probably dig it.

Jetty Bones - Push Back - This is the sort of artist for whom I built this series, who just has so much talent and such a defiantly unique but accessible approach to indie pop that I have to give them more exposure in aggregate. And there was a part of me that thought Jetty Bones could net a solo review for this full-length project, which expanded and varied her sound even further, bringing in contemporary splashes of trap and nu-disco and even a country-folk cut called ‘Dolly’ that sounds like it could fit alongside the best of Mumford & Sons. But at the core, Jetty Bones’ approach is exactly what I found so captivating when I found her accidentally on Bandcamp in 2019 with the - EP that produced one of my favourite songs of that year: a chipper, theatrical pop presence and approach almost overflowing with energy… all backing some really damn dark content with an emo approach to songwriting and detail. The juxtaposition is stark as hell, and I was a little concerned going into this how she would evolve or expand it… and it turns out she did so in the most obvious but effective way by expanding beyond the recovery narrative of her last project and giving more dimension to her stories. And the arc of the album is fascinating, because at first the songs talking about anxious, overthought relationships have a brand of wordiness where it almost becomes tough to follow what’s actually happening, the emotionality is so tangled… but then you realize that’s the point; it’s a push back. Maybe it’s deflection from the audience, but it’s more likely from herself, as the next chunk of the album is far more direct in exposing the alcohol abuse, loneliness, imposter syndrome, and rampant depression that doesn’t just shape her life, but the storytelling on the album. And it almost embraces metatext outright - on ‘Waking Up Exhausted’ you can tell it’s as much a break of the fourth wall as a drained confession that something is deeply wrong, to the point where the album’s final songs are outright suicidal, with ‘Bug Life’ containing voice mail snippets from friends and family and even herself stepping in to tug herself back from the brink; she still faces that daily struggle, but there’s enough there to keep going forward. Now all of that being said, if you feel some tonal whiplash or the feeling that the album is trying to cram a bit too much into its half-hour run time so the experiments feel a bit thin, I would understand - I loved the saxophone integration on a few cuts, but on ‘Bad Trip’ it just feels like there are a few missing lead vocal passages on the hook, which feel purposefully removed and I don’t think it works. So as a whole… no, there’s not a song here that’s on the tier of “better”, but definitely a few close to ‘The Rest of Them’, which was one of my favourite songs in 2019. And thus… yeah, Jetty Bones pushed herself back from the brink and delivered a great album. Light 8/10, highly recommended.

Epica - Omega - I can’t tell you how high my expectations were for this - and believe it or not, it’s not just because I think by happenstance Epica has wound up as one of the most consistent symphonic metal acts who can be counted on a high level of quality, it’s also because so many of their peers from around the same era have really disappointed in recent years! Plus it’s been five years since their last full-length and I could use some metal with a lot of bombast and flavour and… wow, this might be among their best work! Now when I say that I do have to qualify it: the best of Epica is ‘great, but not classic’, which is where I put albums like The Divine Conspiracy, Design Your Universe, and The Quantum Enigma, and there are enough niggling issues with Omega that lets me put it alongside them: it’s a bit overwritten, the album runs a little long, you can argue it doesn’t have enough melodic variation from track to track and that means certain moments don’t pop as much as they could, and while there’s a lot of less of them, I at least notice the triggers in the drum kit that don’t give the kickdrums the punch they could have. But let’s be blunt: these are all trademark Epica issues, and where this album shines are the moments where they transcend it. Simone Simons is getting the benefit of the most vibrant and well-balanced production in modern symphonic metal, but she’s grown leaps and bounds as an expressive performer since the 2000s, and her versatility in both an operatic and more modern theatrical register makes her a perfect contrast to the sharper growls and screams. More to the point, Epica is expanding their sound as well - the orchestra is more robust, there are passages that pull from Middle Eastern and Indian music that feel less a lot less voyeuristic than when Nightwish tried it on Dark Passion Play - mostly because they actually collaborated with Zaher Zorgati, frontman of the Tunisian prog metal band Myrath - and then when we do get more synths you’re wondering why they didn’t use them more - finally a symphonic metal band with decent taste in synth tones that can balance the punishing riffs and balance out with real melody! But what about the content - Epica got a reputation as one of the smarter symphonic metal bands, and in this case they’re exploring finality and ‘endings’, blurring together gnostic apocrypha with more of a broad pseudo-spiritual edge than I was expecting, with the expected questions of sanity-breaking concepts that Epica have been drilling into for their past two albums, especially with the leap of faith that comes with exploring that brand of enlightenment. If you want to find that transcendence, presumably a certain worldly experience has to end, leaning into the theory of the Omega Point and its convergence of reason and spirituality that you can tell such a rationalist band like Epica is very tentative to explore… but given how humanity has been messing with the natural order and environment, it could be coming faster than they expected! At the very least some form of balance has be restored, and it’s interesting how Epica’s view is more forward-thinking and global in approaching it, while still maintaining some of that optimistic spirit that was genuinely invigorating on The Holographic Principle… even if like whenever this band goes high-concept, it can get clunky in passages. But still, this might be one of the best symphonic metal albums I’ve heard in years - Epica knocked this out of the park, strong 8/10, and if there’s a statement to the field, they made it.

Zara Larsson - Poster Girl - Did any of you even know this came out? Dead serious, I don’t know what the hell happened to Zara Larsson’s momentum coming out of the mid-2010s, but I heard very little hype for this release and I’m not sure why. I would normally point to singles underperforming but she was never a hitmaker stateside and ‘Ruin My Life’ did move units… in 2018. That did concern me a bit - but then I saw a list of cowriters and producers including Julia Michaels, Mattman & Robin, Marshmello, and the Monsters & Strangerz, basically for me a giant warning sign of what sort of c-list pop production and writing we were going to get. And Michaels was who really concerned me, because Zara Larsson is devil-may-care and strident and kind of capricious in her style and presentation, and none of those phrases remotely describe anything Julia Michaels has ever written! And as such… look, the issue with So Good was refinement - Zara Larsson has starpower and her 2014 debut proved with focus and refinement she had the pipes and charisma to back it up, but she’s never had a chance to drill in and refine her own approach, and when the hooks aren’t there, we wind up with a stretch of middling tracks that could be given to anyone - and Michaels’ writing doesn’t remotely fit. There’s not a hook here that’s better than ‘Lush Life’ or ‘Never Forget You’, the vocal mixing and mastering has somehow gotten worse - Zara Larsson has a bigger voice, it’s the Tove Lo problem of sloppy pickups all over again - you can tell Young Thug only took his verse for a quick paycheque, and I challenge anyone to pick out a distinctive or consistent instrumental sound that flatters or amplifies Larsson! If I were stretching, I’d say some of the metallic synths, blocky drums, and pitch-shifting might be a clumsy pull towards hyperpop, or maybe some of the fat bass grooves imply a retro-disco flourish like the title track that’s both trying and not to be a weed anthem, but in both cases you’ve stretch. The closer comparison is the desaturated, trap-adjacent pop of the late 2010s that struggled for any sense of colour and identity, with this being the last gasps of it. Maybe that’s the reason that Epic was struggling to ship this, that in 2021 it already sounds dated and derivative, and given the writing can’t even flatter Zara Larsson’s established personality or delivery - which is only inhibited by bad production - we’re stuck with her worst album, and a very obvious reason why you haven’t heard about it yet. 4/10, no recommendation