on the pulse - 2021 - #6 - ajr, rod wave, 24kgoldn, evanescence, xiu xiu, tigers jaw

Yeah, I know this week is a little late… holiday weekend, other side projects, a few too many livestreams, we all know the deal. But given there are plenty of acts that might spark controversy here, let’s get On The Pulse!

Tigers Jaw - I Won’t Care How You Remember Me - Well, about time I got to this band. I’ve been hearing the name Tigers Jaw since the breakthrough of the most recent wave of emo in the 2010s, that they were one of the bands chugging building out that sound earlier than most at the end of the 2000s. That meant they never caught the wave of buzz for the acts that came later, and going through their catalog now… well, I kind of get why? Their early material was pretty solid if a little lacking in explosive firepower, but then they signed to a major label and half the band quit and they even got Will Yip on production for their 2017 project… and I’m not sure that was enough to salvage a project with even less punch that’s now missing some of the ragged subtle complexities in the arrangements. But okay, that was the first album with the new lineup, maybe second time’s the charm? Well, not really - yes, Will Yip’s production keeps things crisp and well-balanced and Tigers Jaw has enough modern sheen to the lead melodies to help it sound consistently pleasant and approachable… but my god, this might be some of the most toothless emo I’ve heard in awhile. I think part of this is that our lead singers who don’t bring any interplay or intensity to the table and the production isn’t really designed to accentuate vulnerability or intimacy or tension, and while I appreciate the occasional bit of bass growl or that snarled solo on ‘Lemon Mouth’, it doesn’t help any hooks pop - and when you have this level of polish, isn’t that what you want? And it doesn’t help matters when the writing doesn’t have much in the way of detail or flair either - I get making an album about aspiration, growth, and moving beyond pain and trauma however you can when there’s no easy answers, but a lot of the emotions and scenes that Tigers Jaw paint feel small; the emotions curdle as relationships fail in slow motion or conflicts simmer just out of frame with all too much overthinking, which doesn’t really match production and compositions that feel way more immediate. What it reminds me most of is the sanitized, alternative-adjacent brand of emo that broke alongside Jimmy Eat World in the late 90s and early 2000s… and I’m sorry, the few acts I liked from this era had sharper writing and hooks than this. Light 6/10, there’s an audience for this, and I just don’t think I’m it. At least it ends well.

Citizen - Life In Your Glass World - So here’s a weird thing: I heard the first singles from this new Citizen album on Bandcamp, was generally interested, and put them on my personal backlog… then I discovered a lot of critics getting excited about the album independently and that got me curious to dig more. And strangely, my expectations dropped considerably after going into their back catalog - on their first three albums, you could tell Citizen was falling into a heavier, smokier brand of emo with some post-punk and alt-rock elements, with some rather flagrant influences from Brand New, but given their second album was a complete dud for me and I didn’t love their other two albums before this, I had worries about this new project. And… well, I remember why I liked the singles, because this is a considerable change-up for Citizen and I’d argue that’s a positive! Not only did the guitars pick up more jagged distortion, but the bass grooves got thicker, some oily synths slid in, and at least on a compositional level the album is sliding towards the dance punk side of new wave. Now you could argue the band swapped out their Brand New influences for The Strokes, Bloc Party, a bit of Silversun Pickups, or at least pulling from a very specific early 2000s post-punk revival tone, but it helps that Citizen isn’t trying to be as cool - the conflicted relationship songs are more raw and aggressive, where the melancholy of previous projects is stretched into much rougher points of tension, with both partners in the relationships trying to choke back words that all cut too deeply. It’s just a shame that the band cannot keep up the momentum after the opening wallop of the first two songs, and while ‘Call Your Bluff’ and ‘Black and Red’ were solid efforts, between the disgusting synths slathered all over ‘Fight Beat’, and how the album began to feel a little sterile and too heavily beholden to its influences, and how the writing begins to feel a little bereft of detail and I’m thinking that La Dispute touched a lot of similar themes with way more visceral depth on Panorama… Look, it’s probably the most I’ve liked a Citizen album and I do think this is good, I get the hype, which is why I’m giving it a 7/10… but man, I wish it went off a bit harder.

Midnight Odyssey - Biolume Part 2: The Golden Orb - So we have a few metal albums in a row this week, and this is going to be one that might seem tougher to talk about; a one man Australian atmospheric black metal project that’s been going for about a decade that leans heavily on doom elements… which unfortunately means nearly every Midnight Odyssey album runs around two hours. And I mean, they started off as pretty potent textural experiences even if I can argue the grooves are undercooked, but I wasn’t really a fan of the vocals and I’m not sure there’s enough to the melodies consistently to really justify the length even if you’re leaning on ambient tendencies. That said, their 2015 album Shards Of Silver Fade was pretty excellent and while the first Biolume album probably leaned heavier on the synths than I would expect, it was really good as well, so what did we get here? Well, we got a Midnight Odyssey album alright… but I’m not even sure in good conscience I could completely call this black metal. Now to be fair you could hear evidence of this shift on the first Biolume, with the riffs slowing down, but now I’d argue this is closer to doom or even classic heavy metal, especially in the guitar tones, the analog synths, the more robust arranged folk and borderline symphonic elements, and with the cleaner vocals. And I’m not at all sure it’s for the better, because while it’s a cliche that Midnight Odyssey albums run long, the reason it’s so noticeable here is because for as much atmosphere and melodic motifs as this has, there’s not nearly as much dynamics or groove, with the drums sounding even thinner and flimsier than normal, especially the snare. And to be fair, I’m not sure there’s enough in the content to really elevate it either - where the first Biolume album focused on finding or creating one’s own light in the darkest of spaces, this one is all about the sort of light that’s searing, burning, purifying and destroying in its heat and intensity. Not an uncommon metaphor even beyond its mythological origins - there’s a Swans parallel here in more ways than one, even if I’d say there’s a heavier lean on ancient Greek mythology - but I won’t deny that it’s potent, especially looped into a loose story of an old, primeval titan who cannot flee this primal force, framing a symbolic conflict between the old world and the eternal cycle driving the new. But in leaning into it, there’s a pomposity to this project where I’m just not convinced these arrangements can bear the weight or sell the epic power of it all. I think the Sun will wind up setting on this one - strong 6/10, I get it if this is your thing, but I wasn’t sold here.

Mare Cognitum - Solar Paroxysm - So technically I’ve already talked about Mare Cognitum once before, the slightly more accessible one-man atmospheric black metal act with a knack for spacey tones that teamed up with Spectral Lore for their behemoth release last year where the songs were a shade bit stickier even if he didn’t quite experiment as much. So going into his solo releases over the 2010s, I found a lot I really liked, in terms of sheer melodic swell and atmosphere, but I did find myself wishing the grooves were a bit stronger, or on a textural or content level Mare Cognitum would take that next leap into true greatness I heard snippets with Spectral Lore. And thus here… yeah, this is closer to the stuff I like, with huge gleaming melodies erupting across clouds of tremolo riffing and blastbeats where it’s almost bright enough to obscure how the drums and grooves don’t quite have the consistent texture or impact they really could, even if the intensity is there and the guitar solos are just insane, especially on ‘Antaresian’ and ‘Luminous Accretion’. And the content suits that roaring intensity - in the face of a dying world, this is the moment where the album seeks to look beyond the frigid brink to preserve some knowledge, which is not an uncommon theme in space-themed metal with environmentalist subtext… until this album starts going into the category of ‘weird cosmic shit’, featuring parallel universes, energy transformation into the birth of stars, and alien mutation into something more galactic and mind-melting, which by the end almost put me in mind of the last Tomb Mold album, especially in its imagery. That being said, I’d argue this is a more ‘solid’ album than transcendent - the five tracks here are all good but rarely stellar or showcasing a level of dynamics to really give a sense of scale, a little more sonic diversity couldn’t hurt. So… solid 7/10, I did enjoy this, but I do think it’s a little shy of greatness.

Death From Above 1979 - Is 4 Lovers - let’s slip back towards rock for a bit here… and this is a band that’s been on my docket to check out for a while, a Canadian two piece out of Toronto who exploded in the 2000s with a noisy, horny but whip-smart brand of hardcore dance punk with insanely chunky riffs and a blunt howl that would be ripped off wholesale by plenty of sneering rock acts to follow them. The funny thing is that after that explosive and critically acclaimed 2004 debut, the band seemingly broke up out of disinterest… and then reformed a decade later to crank out more albums with roughly the same formula and really just some variance in production - I get what they were trying to beef up the sound on Outrage Is Now!, but man, it’s missing the bite. This is their fourth album overall and… well, the surface analysis is that it sure is another Death From Above 1979 album and thankfully steered away from the chunkier approach on Outrage Is Now!, but something is still missing from recapturing the magic of their debut, and I’m still not quite sure what it is. I think some of it might just be the mix placement of the percussion which is more programmed and prominent opposite the buzzy guitars that don’t quite have the same full depth of tone. It feels flatter and a little less dynamic, leaving the distorted vocals fighting for air against fizzier drums and drum machines and guitars that just feel a shade more sickly, which feels like a bit of an overcorrection off the burly crunch of the last album. If anything it feels like the drums were yanked from something closer to late 90s dance rock, and once you flip into that heady vibe it does have some potent moments on cuts like ‘One + One’, the mutated surf rock of ‘Totally Wiped Out’ exploring a parallel between getting lost at sea and lost online, and the ‘N.Y.C. Power Elite’ one-two punch, although that more have to do with taking the piss out of those who believe their money give them moral superiority but also are ‘just like everyone else’… until the grisly moment when they face the brutal reality we all must hit. But that undercurrent of ‘romantic’ nihilism can’t help but bleed into political cuts like ‘Glass Homes’, and given this is where the album slows considerably towards more filmy synths and keyboards, and why am I getting a mid-period Strokes vibe that feels increasingly limp? Yes, I can appreciate a plea for more substance, find what’s real outside of bad systems and re-examine half-formed history, but there’s a dejected feel to Sebastien Grainger’s Muse-esque crooning by the end that can’t really pull itself out the minor-key murk, where it almost seems like they don’t believe things can really change. It just hits such a sour note for the ending that leaves me liking this a lot less than I wanted to, and with this production… strong 6/10, man, for as much as there’s some potent moments, as a whole this feels like it undercut itself.

Xiu Xiu - OH NO - this might be the only Xiu Xiu record where it’s possible for me to talk about it in short form, and if you want a reason why, go check out my review of Girl With Basket Of Fruit back in 2019: an album of duets that might be some of Jamie Stewart’s most accessible and tuneful work in a while. This is one of those cases where you can tell Stewart is at least trying to meet many of his collaborators halfway instead of dragging them directly into his mangled blur of warped, liquid abrasion, but I’ve often been of the opinion that this act’s tuneful side could lend structure and resonance to their transgressive edge… and as such, I was pleasantly surprised how much I really dug this! Part of this I feel is linked to a shift in themes - where so much of Xiu Xiu’s previous albums wallowed in transgressive nihilism, expecting the worst of people and knowing exactly how much you’ll tolerate before seeking a visceral exit, this is an album that still embraces the swooning melodrama of these relationship scenes but with the understanding of just how much they need each other - and when you pair it with some self-referential touches to old Xiu Xiu material, it’s an interesting bit of recontextualization that can rekindle some of that old romance that I loved across albums like Fabulous Muscles. Granted, said romance is shamelessly horny and kinky - emphasis on ‘shameless’, but after so long isolated and with all of the evidence from old family trauma and the modern cruelties of the world, it feels less like provocation for its own sake and more ‘just let me have this, have something real’, which is a vulnerability that even seems to spook him a little bit. Granted, given that it’s Xiu Xiu some of the language and contorted compositional choices are built for messy ambiguity, which Stewart has outright admitted - the closing poem springs to mind, as does the nightmarish keening all over ‘It Bothers Me All The Time’ - but in this context of fractured, searching experimental pop, the taste clicks better… and it also helps that many of these experiments just land way better for me. Part of this is the absolutely stunning production from Angela Seo, Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier and avant-garde artist Lawrence English who do a masterful job shaping soundscapes that feel as climatic and percussive as they do fractured and intimate, from the rickety classical shudders of ‘The Grifters’ with Haley Fohr or ‘I Dream of Someone Else Entirely’ with Owen Pallett, to the dead-eyed gothic nightmare of ‘Fuzz Gong Fight’ and a cover of The Cure’s ‘One Hundred Years’ with Chelsea Wolfe, from the shambling haunt of ‘A Classic Screw’ to the kooky energy of the title track and ‘Rumpus Room’ with Angus Andrew of Liars, both of which have the exact sense of ‘humour’ you’d expect. And hell, with songs like ‘I Cannot Resist’ with Drab Majesty, ‘Saint Dymphna’ with Twin Shadow, ‘Knock Out’ with Alice Bag, and ‘A Bottle Of Rum’ with Liz Harris, we probably have some of the most earnest and straightforward “pop” songs Xiu Xiu has ever made, and they’ve got a ragged magic that I couldn’t help but love. So yeah, I thought this wound up pretty great - probably a more accessible version of Xiu Xiu than the diehard fans love, but you know, if you’re looking for a jump-on point outside of Fabulous Muscles… 8/10, you should check this out!

Evanescence - The Bitter Truth - Well, this has been long in coming. Because for years now I’ve been dancing around the fact that growing up as a fan of symphonic metal, I never liked Evanescence, and I’m still not a fan to this day. And I think some folks are expecting a big rant, but the truth is way more simple: in an era where Nightwish, Epica, Within Temptation, and so many of their peers were ascending worldwide, in the U.S. and Canada we were stuck with the watered-down, ‘accessible’ version of symphonic metal where not only did they not stack up with their peers in Europe, their albums have aged worse than I expected. Yes, Amy Lee could really sing and they could occasionally structure a decent hook and ‘My Immortal’ is a solid ballad, but could they have dynamic production worth two shits, or a single consistent album that rose to the level of at least Once or The Silent Force? Now to be fair, if this was your gateway band into metal, I can’t get angry at that… but there were better gateways that didn’t have adequate U.S. distribution, and Evanescence became a cliche alarmingly fast, not helped by the music just not having the character to rise above it. So now nine years away from their last album of original material that had the great misfortune to be released the same year as The Unforgiving and Imaginaerum, how’s the new project? Well… okay, credit to the band for taking themselves out of the symphonic metal conversation, because this project isn’t even close to that - but that’s not saying is good at all. If anything, it reminds of the overcompressed, programmed, percussion-heavy approach that Code Orange had from last year that was metallic and sterile and buries any actual tune and I’m not even surprised to see Nick Raskulinecz show up as the producer again! I get trying to put forward a contemporary sound, but this is trend-hopping of a different stripe and somehow even worse - how does it flatter Amy Lee’s vocals if she’s buried halfway back, fighting against an ugly mix where the flat riffs and glitch effects are clipping the mix or you get that high-frequency keening synth on top of ‘Wasted on You’ and has painfully limited melodic support; this band’s sense of dynamics were always terrible but now they can’t even get any swell to work with, and it doesn’t help any hooks stand out! Now the band did have a lot of trouble with their old label Wind-Up surrounding interference with albums and not paying royalties, and I discovered that a significant chunk of these songs were started back around 2010 before getting axed from the self-titled album for ‘not being good enough’, and you get the impression that Amy Lee’s been wanting to go in a more electronically enhanced direction for a while now… but if you’re doing that, why go for a producer who’s going to make you sound like diet Code Orange but worse, it doesn’t help accentuate your lyrical points about industry independence which is the most frequent reference point! And while we’re on lyrics… I’m not against hitting the rock bottom, facing harsh reality and asking hard questions of yourself, and then using that as inspiration to climb out of it, but you’d think the poetry would have taken a few steps forward since Fallen to not feel so basic? Yes, I get the power of picking up so many women of modern rock and metal on ‘Use Your Voice’ - it’s probably one of the best songs on the album as a result, even if you can’t make out individual tones - but even then it’s a song that operates in broad strokes and doesn’t have the interplay or novelty of a ‘Paradise’ that Within Temptation cut with Tarja back in 2013. Either that or ‘Far From Heaven’ are the strongest moments… but isn’t that ironic, that the symphonic power ballad with the least overproduction winds up as one of the best here? Look, I’ve made my peace with my frustrations with Evanescence years ago, but even away from that, there’s nothing to excuse the godawful production and writing that shows just how little this band has been allowed to evolve. I didn’t even know how it was possible for me to be disappointed with this… but I am. light 4/10

24kGoldn - El Dorado - I think going into this album expectations had to be set - I wasn’t expecting anything beyond disposable, sugary pop trap with a bunch of good hooks and questionable production, especially given that 24kGoldn’s 2019 breakthrough EP was comfortably in this territory. Hell, if I just got another ‘Mood’ or ‘City Of Angels’ I’d be pleased. And here’s the thing: I’ve heard a lot of trap over the past few years and I won’t deny that 24kGoldn makes some impressively empty flexing pop trap - the “relationships” are as disposable as the brand names… and yet bizarrely I found myself liking more of this than I expected! A big part of this is that unlike so much dour, faux-serious music in this lane, 24kGoldn actually seems like he’s having fun revelling in the immature shallowness of it all, with enough self-awareness to be aware of how some real consequences can slip into the picture if he continues too long in this pipeline but he’s going to have fun while he’s here - violence is not part of the conversation, the hedonism is the point, and he’s leaning into his natural charisma and knack for surprisingly sticky melodies and hooks, it’s the reason why despite being one of the big guest features, Future should not be anywhere near this! It’s one of the reasons 24kGoldn can hop into pop rock-adjacent major chord structures and it feels more natural - even if you can absolutely tell he’s trying to recapture the ‘Mood’ magic multiple times on songs like ‘Coco’ with DaBaby and they don’t have the same magic. And that leads to the larger issue with this album: I get that the content is disposable, but that doesn’t mean so much of the production had to sound as budget as it does: the bass and vocal mixing is slapdash and inconsistent, the drum machines sound pretty cheap overall, and when you get moments that try to be more serious and honest, 24kGoldn can’t sell much of it and the production is of no help whatsoever, although ‘Don’t Sleep’ was a vailant effort. And even with that, it’s hard to ignore how some of the back-and-forth pissiness in the drama songs lose their lustre on the back half of the album where I’m left thinking that somehow Post Malone sells this better, especially with the swamped out guitar. Overall… yeah, for what it is, I enjoyed it, even if it’s shallow as hell. 6/10, if you’re curious.

Rod Wave - SoulFly - So I’ve been behind Rod Wave as a breakthrough talent for a decent bit now, which is one reason I really wanted this album to be at least an improvement over Pray 4 Love last year, which showed so much promise but had a lot of frustrating elements in production and song construction that prevented the potential from really blazing through. Granted, going for nineteen songs and nearly an hour of run time had me a bit worried, especially if this could be going down the stream-trolling route. And going through this album, it’s the sort of project that shows me improvements around the edges but not the big step forward that I was hoping Rod Wave was going to take. Yes, the production is better overall - although ‘Pillz & Billz’ and ‘Richer’ with Polo G has some really rough bass mixing and in the latter case is exactly what you don’t want with your only collaboration on the album - and I’d argue Rod Wave is bringing a bit more detail courtesy of some of the sampling and some of the content, but you could very easily argue he’s just repeating the same formula over and over across this album, a guitar-driven melody that backs up his soulful delivery on songs that all feel a little undercooked when it comes to structure - a second chorus or a bridge would add more dimension and detail, or at least help me think some of these are more than first drafts, and it probably should have been cut in half as a result. Granted, if there was more thought to a few of these songs, someone might have pointed out how wonky it feels for the samples on ‘Don’t Forget’ - which are from the late Pimp C and aren’t even original if you know the Benny the Butcher song that uses the same passage - pleading for more real content instead of flexing and violence opposite songs that go straight into that territory, and it leaves me thinking Rod Wave is starting to hit his limits across the board - when folks start complaining about social media, it’s a sign he’s starting to run dry. I’m not going to deny that the baseline formula is very agreeable, and Rod Wave has the charisma and presence to sell it… but the best moments are when he does a little more - I’ve already talked about ‘Street Runner’ and ‘Tombstone’ on Billboard BREAKDOWN, but I like the guitar rollick on ‘All I Got’ and the swaggering hook of ‘Invisible Scar’ was solid too. But beyond that… even though the tone is likable, for nearly an hour it did get repetitive. 6/10, there just needs to be more.

AJR - OK Orchestra - I know for a fact that a bunch of you were expecting that I’d give this a solo review - hell, for the views it’d probably be worth it… but truth be told, as early as Neotheater I was exhausted of the AJR discourse, especially given how my issues with their sound and themes are well-documented - I was early to drive the bandwagon of rampant, profanity-rich disgust. So naturally the band had to go get an actual hit with ‘Bang!’, but if anything that might be worse - suddenly any fragment of “indie” cred that was always a sham evaporated in the hot sun, and not only did they gain more than a cult following, they got the ire of plenty of critics looking for an easy target - and I already gave them the cliffnotes on it twice over. So now… I’m just tired of the memes and the discourse and the fans who still want to engage with one of my ugliest reviews to date, both of the band and me, where I paradoxically swung around to hoping that this might at least not suck as much as the last two. And… it doesn’t - in fact, if I were to go out on a limb, I’d say this is AJR’s best project to date, or at least one that shows a bit of long-overdue progression and stabs at maturity that this band has been avoiding like the plague. That’s not saying it’s good - AJR remains one of the most shriekingly annoying bands operating today, where the production always feels lopsided and incapable of groove, very few of the instrumental tones have depth or warmth due to frenetic overmixing to create the shoddiest of vaudeville theatricality - everything about ‘Ordinaryish People’ hurts me, especially the baffling presence of the Blue Man Group on it - and there’s way too many chipmunked samples; in fact, I’d argue the vocal mixing is all over the place on this album. And you can tell that every creaking bit of experimentation probably should have been left on the cutting room floor, especially as this band remains the very poor man’s Jon Bellion, who really needs to drop a great solo album so he can show up everyone ripping him off with regularity. But this is a band that has some competence in song construction, and this is probably their most consistent project in that regard - even if the production aesthetic of the album gives me a migraine and their inclusion of gentrified hip-hop and ‘jazz’ elements piss me off on a base level, I can recognize better compositions when I hear them on cuts like ‘The Trick’, ‘World’s Smallest Violin’, and ‘Christmas In June’, most of which are indebted to an older era and the added strings occasionally support them well. Hell, ‘Adventure Is Out There’ with the harmonies and without Jack Met taking all the leads almost reminds me a bit of a mid-2000s Barenaked Ladies pastiche. But what I think went missed when I reviewed The Click and Neotheater was that my biggest issues with AJR were lyrical and thematic - the blinkered ignorance of their own privilege, their asinine pop culture references, the rampant shallowness and denial of agency in their own growth and commercial hackery - and make no mistake, a song like ‘3 O’Clock Things’ show their meandering late night thoughts on politics and society are at best shallow and painfully undercooked. But to their credit, this album is the closest they get to something real, where it exposes some of the roots of their stunted adolescence in their parents’ separation, a desperation to please people who don’t really matter in both family and friends, a nascent Peter Pan complex that explains how much they retreat to childlike language and framing, and the slow steps they are trying to take to find maturity, even if that’s a grayscale world for which they’re not ready. But that desperation shows AJR confronting actual stakes for once - a song like ‘The Trick’ hits the balance between earnest exuberance and just how much of it feels hollow when facing reality, and that gets to a core of something this band has rarely been able to sell effectively. So yes, the best moments of this album show growth… the problem is that whenever this band has tried to write around adult subject matter, even here, they’re still very much playing in the kiddie pool, and the arrested development lyrical framing where they share an obvious parallel in Melanie Martinez still crashes into the uncanny valley about as hard as she often does. So even though it’s their best… strong 3/10, let’s just move on.