on the pulse - 2021 - #9 - weezer, morray, gojira, dodie, iceage, shelley FKA DRAM

Why does this week feel like me taking care of business for which everyone has moved on? Maybe it’s because I’ve struggled a bit to find truly great albums the past few episodes - or the fact that I’m staring down that J. Cole project next on the docket - but before we get to that, let’s get On The Pulse!

Cadence Weapon - Parallel World - Okay, where to start with this guy? The odd thing with Cadence Weapon is that when he broke through in 2006, trying to force an marriage between wordy but clever underground flows and glitchy electro-pop and house, even if I wasn’t really a fan of the messy fusion it was a cool experiment. And it was one that he would proceed to water down for the next few releases until the electronic elements were more an accent to a pretty smart and forward-thinking rapper to fit with along with updates for a more contemporary sound, not one of his distinguishing factors, which when I covered his single ‘SENNA’ several months back on IGTV had left me intrigued but underwhelmed. Granted, his material has picked up some refinement, and thus with his newest project… well, it’s interesting. If you’re looking for a project that’s probably closest in quality to Cadence Weapon’s debut it is this one, as this time his brand of stripped-back, clattering hip-hop full of slick synth gurgles and paranoid edges feels probably closest to the fusion from which he started, only this time the creeping dread of the modern and distinctly Canadian dystopia for people of colour that he describes feels considerably more pointed. You can almost argue that in returning to a sound just adjacent to his roots it’s more like hip-hop is now back to catching up with him, but I also hear parallels to the more stripped back material the Doomtree collective and Aesop Rock put out the past five years, and that’s not counting the grime influence that he’s now outright embracing. And it helps his bars highlighting the corporate greed, surveillance, gentrification, and barely veiled systemic racism fits this futuristic tone effectively, especially in how directly he frames the scenes as distinctly Canadian from references Justin Trudeau’s blackface incidences to the utter failures of local Ontario governments to address their community’s needs throughout the pandemic. And I’ll admit that hits harder than some of the more bruising braggadocious tracks… and this is where I run into a smattering of issues. For one, as an MC Cadence Weapon doesn’t have a super distinctive vocal tone or presence, and you can tell he’s underplaying on a fair few songs here and relying on rougher production to add his edge - when Backxwash shows up on ‘Ghost’ she pretty much takes over the entire song - and given how spare, blocky and minimal a lot of this production is, I’m often left searching for more developed and distinctive melodies or hooks, especially on a project that clocks under a half hour. Paired with some iffy bass mixing on a few cuts and the feel that a little more space and atmosphere could have helped the synth palette breathe a bit, and I’m still not totally onboard with Cadence Weapon, but this was solid, on the upswing and close to his best thus far so… 7/10, if anything I described is up your alley, give it a listen.

Cicada The Burrower - Corpseflower - Alright, this is another one-person black metal project, this time leaning on some cleaner, slower prog metal tendencies… and I’ll say this after a quick exploration of the back catalog, I wasn’t initially impressed, mostly courtesy of some muddy mixing that left some admittedly decent melodies stuck in the murk - and while it might have been intentional on The Great Nothing, it just didn’t leave me with much to work with. And really, it’s easy to place this new album in similar territory - the mixing still feels muddy, leaving any of the riffs with an edge struggling to land true impact in comparison with the more liquid, wheedling rollick in the guitar and bass that seems closer to something out of post-hardcore or a darker era of early 2000s progressive rock, to say nothing of about half of the snares and kickdrums sounding suffocated. Now again, I understand why this was done in order to accent the prettier melodies, give the album a bit more tunefulness, and indeed the reason I’m reviewing this at all is because those liquid guitar leads have a legit sweet texture that was pretty magnetic, especially when blended with pianos on the title track… which would all be fine if it also didn’t kneecap the dynamics that leave the raw black metal elements underpowered, or clash awkwardly with any vocals that are trying for a little more visceral presence be they clean, screams or growls. But it’s worth noting that there are only vocals on three of the five songs here, which takes us to the content… and the arc and themes of the album surround how our artist has come out as a trans woman, as faith flickers and fades in the face of a newly realized gender experience entangled with visceral depression in what it represents for her now, especially in a black metal space. Now these themes are not really new if you’ve been listening to trans artists in multiple genres - Backxwash’s album in particular from last year - but I’m not about to deny that being trans in a black metal space is both pretty new and could be legit dangerous, and let’s be real, it’s not like black metal can’t also be very one-note when it comes to themes and content, so I appreciate an artist taking a slightly different tack and it does add some personal, emotive weight. That, combined with the guitar work really is what makes this project worth hearing, especially clocking around a half hour, so even if I think this has issues in execution, it’s still intriguing enough to check out. So yeah, solid 6/10, give it a shot.

Origami Angel - Gami Gang - Okay, so this is a Midwestern emo act that picked up some hype and even a bit of critical acclaim off their 2019 debut, and going back to it… yeah, this is pretty fun stuff! Definitely closer to the pop punk side when it comes to melody, vocals, and a fair amount of content, if only for as cheery as it is, but the technical complexity in the compositions put it a cut above and wound up pretty damn enjoyable. Now granted, I did have some concerns about the new album given that it had double the number of tracks at twenty and the buzz was suggesting it was a bit of a step down… and yeah, it is, although pinning down why is a little messier. If anything it feels caught between the more adolescent pop punk vibe and the technical complexity of the emo they sprung from, a balancing act pushed even harder over a longer runtime that somehow finds itself lacking the huge, bright guitar hooks of the former and the emotive depth of the latter - a shame, because somewhere along the way it seems like a lot of the interesting basslines disappeared too! And that mystifies me - once again self-produced with the same engineer as in 2019, you think this would have been something they’ve have thought to keep intact, but this project just doesn’t have grooves as nervy or potent despite the lead guitar line being as chunky as ever, and over a longer runtime losing those low-end dynamics means the tracks start running together and fast, which doesn’t help Ryland Heagy’s voice pick up power, especially when this duo tries for hardcore, or any of the glass beach-esque synth flourishes to remotely work, or the sampled interludes across the album feel profound. Now granted, looking for this to be ‘profound’ is completely missing the point - the feel of the project is more scattered, overwritten snapshots of teenage exuberance, little relatable moments of love or depression or insecurity peppered with enough relatable details to immerse oneself, the emo soundtrack to your high school arc, so if the album meanders or goes on odd detours, that’s all the more reflective of that confused experience, right? Well, I won’t deny it can make for a pretty immersive experience, but I’m not always sure it’s a memorable one. Still pretty damn decent, though - solid 6/10, understand that it’s targeting a younger demo and will probably resonate more there.

Manchester Orchestra - The Million Masks Of God - I swear, half of my job on this show is going through utterly middle-of-the-road indie rock shoveled out by so many bands across the 2000s that wind up getting critical acclaim because it’s followed by ‘no really, these bands helped influence the midwestern emo scene you like now, right?’ Apparently folks didn’t get the memo that giving me more of the same year after year can kill your affection for a sound in record time, but alright, Manchester Orchestra… okay, imagine the intersection between mid-2000s Deathcab For Cutie with your bog-standard guitar-driven indie rock that around 2017 decided to swap out some of the tasteful Conor Oberst worship for more multi-tracked anthemic swell because this is a band that has always had more broad exuberance than they knew what to do with, so fuck subtlety - and I’ll be damned if it didn’t kind of work on A Black Mile To The Surface. It wasn’t great - Deaf Havana’s alt-rock project from the same year had a similar desaturated palette and it had a muscle that Manchester Orchestra has never quite nailed - but it left me curious enough to check this out and… yeah, I get the hype with this one. Now let’s make this clear, there are still issues here that hold this band back from greatness - the buzzy, programmed drum machines that feel a bit too loud and gauzy synths that crop up too often don’t help, the production palette still feels very monochromatic and reverb-saturated and it makes the project feel heavier and bleaker than it can conceivably back up, and there’s something about Andy Hull’s vocal timbre when multi-tracked that reminds me of Mumford & Sons, for better and worse especially given the more intimate dynamics of the album where such a presentation doesn’t always resonate. And that strikes me as a little odd when you consider just how much of this band’s content has revolved around family on the past two records, the last one being a concept album with its emotional roots in a family feud, whereas this one is more scattered by necessity, staring in the face of death - lead guitarist Robert McDowell’s father passed away during recording - and broken connections you’re desperate to repair, so it swivels back to trying to build, repair or maintain the family bonds we have now - you can clearly tell this project was written in the wake of lockdown during a pandemic, where even more potent insecurity rides up to the forefront in the face of Hull becoming a parent and feeling the weight of explaining or protecting his child from an inexplicable world. But I think that helps the desperate, haunted edge of the album - the album has a sickly grind that nevertheless can claw together legit swell thanks to some dreamy acoustic passages, really well-balanced coursing grooves and terrific hooks on songs like ‘Angel of Death’, ‘Telepath’, especially ‘Let It Storm’, and the explosive bridges of ‘Bed Head’ and ‘Obstacle’. In short, I was legit surprised how much I really liked this album - I’m reminded of how well the rock-solid compositional instincts and good writing from Deaf Havana overcame some dodgy production and surprised me in 2017… so for now it’s a light 8/10 and a strong recommendation; let’s see how much more it grows on me.

Dodie - Build A Problem - This is one of those indie folk pop acts for whom I’ve been hearing a decent amount of hype from certain circles… but let’s be real, I hear ‘hype’ for new acts like this every other day, it takes something special to really grab me, I’ve said this before. So I went back to the EPs that got the hype and… okay, putting aside the fact that there’s some obvious parallels to the more twee and accessible side of indie pop from the late 2000s and early 2010s, I will say the writing, production, and compositional instincts from dodie were a notable cut above, hitting that resonance that I kept wishing clicked a bit more consistently from Phoebe Bridgers last year. So I actually walked in with some expectations for this album… and yeah, it’s pretty damn good, but unfortunately I’m just not head-over-heels for this one, and I don’t think Phoebe Bridgers is the right comparison at all. Between the very hushed delivery with very delicate multi-tracking - that only breaks for a bigger, swelling crescendo which draw parallels to that indie pop era I referenced before - minimalist approach to padded percussion with more texture, and very thin acoustics, I’m more reminded to someone meeting midway between Billie Eilish and Laura Marling, the latter especially with the rich and legit beautiful swells of strings. And that’s the thing: there are moments on this project that are so achingly pretty that they’re extremely hard to dislike - the remake of ‘When’, the outro of ‘Sorry’ where she captures that relief of an apology landing, the quiet bit of self-assurance on ‘Rainbow’, even the tryst on ‘Four Tequilas Down’ is just romantic enough to work. But that’s where this album gets interesting: as much as it’s about self-realization, there’s also enough prodding, transgressive moments where Dodie haltingly bucks against her own instincts or societal expectations of her, and there’s a distinctive sense of humanity whenever she acts out of emotion for all the wrong reasons that I can really see connecting. But I do have two issues, the first being that on her EPs there was a slightly stronger pop sensibility that feels pulled back considerably this time - the instrumentals are certainly warm and well-arranged and subtle but almost to a fault, where a song like ‘Hate Myself’ sees her straining against passive aggressive partners and it’s probably the most lively cut here! And that approach definitely extends to the writing - there’s definitely nuance between the lines, but the lines themselves are often so blunt that I found myself looking for a bit more robust poetry to paint the scene, with ‘When’ as the best example and ‘Cool Girl’ being the worst; I’ve heard this arc a few times now, and Dodie comes across a little too timid to sell it, Tove Lo was more convincing. Ultimately I wind up circling back to having heard a lot of singer-songwriters play in this territory before especially in this past decade, and I’m just concerned there isn’t enough here to stand out longer, so light 7/10 - definitely good, I want to hear where she goes from here.

Gojira - Fortitude - Now here’s an act that I probably should have first reviewed way before now… even if my only real opportunity to have done so would have been with Magma back in 2016, but here we are: the long-running progressive groove metal act with elements of sludge and death metal… and one with which I’ve got a complicated relationship. You can argue that Gojira was one of the acts coming out of the 2000s that pushed the groove-over-melody, increasingly compressed approach to prog metal that the genre would drive into the ground in the 2010s; not djent, but certainly adjacent to it. and given that the band consistently had production issues especially over-compression even on their ‘classic’ albums, it’s a band that I think I appreciate way more than I like them. Or maybe one that I like more in small doses - despite some overlong and occasionally samey-sounding albums, they’ve certainly got some crushing and impressive songs I like, and the persistent environmental themes in their material is a nice feature, and From Mars To Sirius is a great album. I also think it’s worth noting that since signing to Roadrunner their material has certainly gotten more hook-driven and accessible - to a point - and that’s divided a lot of folks… and I can’t promise my opinion here will be any less divisive, because while I think this is a pretty decent album, I’m not over the moon about it. Once again this is a band that feels torn between its - and Roadrunner’s - desire to be more anthemic and radio-friendly, but also to crank out complicated prog metal passages that highlight while there are hooks here, I wouldn’t call them stellar, especially if we’re comparing them to their heavyweight peers like Baroness and Mastodon. And while the guitarwork in both rhythm and lead is excellent, I still think the percussion can sound canned and metallic, which only highlights this is another metal band that struggles with dynamics. And I also somewhat agree with the criticisms that in going for broader sloganeering this album can feel a bit shallow in comparison with their more complex work, but I’d argue it’s not as steep of a falloff - Gojira has been painting in broad strokes for a while and at least the hooks are getting better. I will say I appreciate the development of the ‘hold firm’ themes on this album, especially when tied into environmentalism and how sometimes civil disobedience is necessary for a just cause, and this band is pretty populist in their framing, but this feels like an album caught between a tunefulness that would put their hooks over the top or a heaviness to make those riffs truly powerful, so we wind up with less of both and it’s a bit less interesting as a result. Ergo… very solid 6/10, I hear the appeal, but this band has never really been for me - I don’t quite think it’s as some have made it, that’s all.

Iceage - Seek Shelter - You know, I’ve been seeing a narrative brewing online among some critics that Iceage is one of those acts that is more of a critical darling than having any actual commercial groundswell, and thus they might be one of those bands that might be worth a sober second look to see if the hype has actually been worth it - you know, like Real Estate and Animal Collective and Open Mike Eagle; no, I’m not happy about that one either. And as someone who has routinely liked Iceage albums since Plowing Into The Field Of Love brought forth that cacophonous, Tender Prey-esque thunder in 2014 but hasn’t always been in a big hurry to revisit them, I went back to revisit their last two albums and… well, putting aside this is pretty much true for every experimental rock act and a lot of post-punk too, maybe there’s a bit of truth to it? Their sound has always had a lot of textural appeal and a few standout cuts every time, but maybe the shambling mess was a bit too beholden to its influences, or didn’t have the resonant hooks or writing to stick longer? Well, I wanted to test this hypothesis on Seek Shelter, especially as they now had added production from the frontman of cult rock band Spacemen 3 in Sonic Boom… and immediately, you can hear a shift. Now some of the groundwork had been laid by the more relaxed and accessible moments on Beyondless, but that crushing guttural cacophony has been eased back even further: Elias Rønnenfelt’s vocals are just as theatrical but he’s singing in a slightly higher register with a borderline Britpop sneer, an impression only accentuated by the guitars which remain as loud as ever across a mix where the blues, rockabilly, and even country influences on the grooves are even more pronounced. This is the farthest the band has bent away from post-punk and by extension some of that phenomenal atmosphere has been pulled away for something more accessible and ‘refined’ - if you can count some obvious early 70s Rolling Stones influence as refined, that is - and I’m just not sure that’s to Iceage’s benefit, especially as this sort of “restraint” doesn’t always flatter or amplify the grooves and hooks they do have. It gives me the uneasy feeling that the underlying compositions don’t quite have the same impact with the atmosphere peeled back… and some of that feels like a factor of the lyrics. A lot of critics have made the Nick Cave comparison with Iceage including myself, but on this album it feels less appropriate - when Cave stripped things back for his considerations of faith and weaving beauty out of ugliness - and vice versa - that was tied to narratives, whereas Iceage is way more impressionistic and fanciful, or even romantic. And again, this isn’t new from them, but with less atmosphere to rely upon, the more scattered approach to composition and lyrics can feel underweight - I don’t even have to point to Kyle Craft this time, Xiu Xiu’s album this year feels sharper across the board. That’s not saying there aren’t som potent moments - the flip of ‘Will The Circle Be Unbroken’ in the snarling deconstruction of ‘High & Hurt’, the harmonicas blasting over ‘Gold City’, the terrific groove on ‘Dear Saint Cecilia’ - but this is a less interesting version of Iceage, and it doesn’t quite wow me. 7/10… man, that next Kyle Craft album can’t come fast enough.

Morray - Street Sermons - I’ve been looking forward to talking about this guy since ‘Quicksand’ broke - someone stepping in a parallel lane to Rod Wave with tighter flows and a bit more refinement, and Morray seemed to have the pipes and presence to be worthy competition, especially as Rod Wave’s growth has only seemed to come in patches and isolated songs. And now having heard the whole thing here multiple times… well, I don’t think there’s a song here that’s better than ‘Street Runner’, but Morray has one hell of a debut here that does deserve a fair bit more attention and scrutiny, basically by presenting a considerably more polished approach to this sound. He’s a much more aggressive presence on the microphone, for one, and that translates into a level of technical control and poise that doesn’t quite feel as organically soulful but also has way more polish and focus, especially when it comes to storytelling and delivering stronger hooks. I still think the overall formula of liquid guitars and dreary keys behind the trap percussion could use more variation, and some of the drum machines here do sound a bit thin and cheap, but even here there’s a sense of consistent mastering, momentum and flow that gives individual songs more punch, so it doesn’t feel as one-note. And that also reflects Morray’s content, which might seem on first glance to fall into a lot of similar trap come-up narratives, but it has a different flavour than a lot of the downbeat, emo-adjacent trends in the genre - I’d say in content the parallel might be more Lil Baby than Rod Wave, but even then Morray has a fierce, desperate, borderline evangelical streak to how he frames his ethos of hard work to get out of the streets - and given the frankness in which he describes the poverty from where he came like on ‘Reflections’, I kind of get it. Now I will say it makes for a very distinctive tone to a breakup song like ‘Nothing Now’ - which might be one of the more layered but brutally effective trap kissoffs I’ve heard in awhile - but I will say that by the time this album settles into more paranoid moments, you can tell any populism on this project wears thin really fast. I have other nitpicks - a little more variation in production would help, the Chris Paul reference on ‘Switched Up’ really age well now that he’s on the Suns - but miraculously after so much anger, the album ends optimistically; yeah, it feels better to do better than I did last year. And this is a prime example - very solid 7/10, this is getting slept on, you’ll want to fix that.

Shelley FKA DRAM - Shelley FKA DRAM - I’m shocked this took five years. And it’s one of those cases where I’m not sure where the problem was: the artist formerly known as D.R.A.M. had a terrific breakthrough single in 2016 with so much charisma and flair that even if I didn’t love his debut album, there was enough energy and varied texture to keep it on my radar and got him a touring spot opposite Travis Scott and Kendrick in 2017! And then… well, turns out he felt hemmed in by just being known for ‘Broccoli’ and wanted to embrace the soulful side that often got overlooked by the casual fans, and that meant a new name and a long break to solidify the rebrand. Now given I liked both sides of what he put forward, I was curious where this album would go… and really, I’m not surprised, but there’s a part of me that was expecting a bit more. Now some of this was inevitable as I was someone who really dug Shelley’s knack for loose humour and groove on the poppier cuts - he’s such an outsized, likable personality that made so much sense in pop and I thought he got a really raw deal with only ‘Broccoli’ getting massive success - but I also think some of this is the era of soul throwback that Shelley is pulling from, which is more reminiscent of very late 70s and the early 80s in R&B, when cooler synths and sharper drum machines began taking hold instead of the more lush arrangements and supple grooves of the mid-70s. And I’ve mentioned this in the past, but this just isn’t an era in soul and R&B I like as much, especially with Shelley leaning into the thicker and more modern bass beats and sharper but stiffer percussion that don’t pick up the same groove; still buttery and smooth and he’s got the expressive vocal presence to make it work and even brings a bit of quirk to the Daft Punk cover ‘Something About Us’, but minus more of the sense of playful humour that used to be his standby it has a very different feel. It feels more old school, more self-serious, more mature… and I dunno, I’m just not sure that was the best pick for this album, even if he got H.E.R. and Erykah Badu as natural fits for it, Watt for a guitar solo and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers for drumwork on ‘The Lay Down’ which is probably the album standout, and Summer Walker for the obvious point of crossover. And what’s exasperating is that given the success of this sort of slow-burn R&B and soul on the charts this year, he would be primed to smash through, but without a bit of that added lyrical flair or a bit more spark, I feel like this was a lateral move that’s more consistent but doesn’t quite capture the unique sparkle of the best moments of his debut outside of maybe the two closing cuts ‘Remedies’ and ‘Rich & Famous’. Which also translates to a few songs just running together or falling into the background like ‘Married Woman’ - ‘Me & Mrs. Jones’ this is not, but it does unfortunately remind me a bit too much of the late Billy Paul’s 80s output, if you catch my drift. But a lateral move is still really good, so… solid 7/10, an exceptionally easy album to enjoy, and if you like that specific era of retro-soul, you’ll like it even more.

Weezer - Van Weezer - …you’d think I’d have learned given the response to my Weezer review from earlier this year, or the fact that I was proven right in all of my comparisons between Weezer and AJR when they announced a collaboration to drop this past week. But no, this was the project that’s been teased for so long, Weezer making yet another slice of nostalgia bait, half directed at the cock rock / hair metal of the mid-80s and half of their own, quasi-ironic sound across the 2000s that has aged… let’s be polite and say haphazardly. Now I had serious doubts about this right from when it was announced, especially in the 80s rock pastiche because a.) I've had a fondness for this era of hard rock for way longer than I should have the past twenty years which means I’m very familiar with this subgenre and era; b.) a lot of this sound was heavily dependent on the 80s ‘bigness’ in the production and Weezer’s producer this time around was Suzy Shinn, who I discovered is most known for her work on late-period Panic! At the Disco and Fall Out Boy, and c.) as I said in my OK Human review, not since the Matt Sharp years has Weezer been known for their compositional prowess or technical skills, and you do need at least some of those if you’re going to try and imitate Van Halen! I bring all of this up because in comparison with my well-documented issues with Rivers Cuomo as a lyricist, the bar for wit, intelligence, and even good taste is way lower here, even for Weezer. So in the grand tradition of setting criminally low expectations for this band, I can actually say there’s a bit more to be appreciated from Van Weezer than OK Human - going back to pure, stupid, Maladroit-era, guitar-driven music somewhere between power pop and hard rock with the occasional bit of decent, metal-adjacent shredding where you can tell the framing is padlocked into nostalgic wish fulfillment is about the only way this works, and there are moments where it does. Yeah, there’s a layer of tinny overcompression over too many of the songs and the bass and drums remain painfully underwhelming and the handclaps sound fake as hell and Rivers Cuomo has nowhere close to the pipes to sell any of the retro rock and metal he’s trying to imitate, but again, this is an album with the childlike, earnest exuberance of trying desperately to imitate one’s legends, especially with every notable riff the band cribs from classic rock. And yeah, I understand why Weezer would want to dive headfirst into the pure rockstar fantasy so many young guys have… but there’s two major problems, the first being that Rivers Cuomo is fifty and more importantly already did some of this with Maladroit and Make Believe, now he’s just stripping out the irony and it winds up feeling more like a midlife crisis. The other problem is that it’s just not especially well executed - I already mentioned the production issue, but while there are moments that are trying to be a bit more empathetic and “progressive”, you’re still dealing with Weezer with their simping, whining, and weirdly chosen pop culture references, which doesn’t help pull away from the lingering immaturity of all of this. More disappointingly, you’d think the band would at least try to make one blow-out-the-speakers anthemic jam, and yet the plaintive lyrics and Cuomo’s hangdog delivery seem to undercut it, so that epic, fist-pumping ‘bigness’ or heaviness never really materializes - and without any real commentary or deeper subtext on the era or even nostalgia, it feels like Weezer just can’t execute their own sincere tribute. And there’s a part of me that kind of sees a whiff of what happened with the Teal and Black albums in the promotion that makes me think Weezer knows it - Van Weezer has inspired more shrugs than discourse, which is why on the week after they released this they announced a remix from OK Human featuring AJR - incidentally, I called it. Kind of a shame, because the guitar work and hooks are legit pretty good here on cuts like ‘The End of the Road’, even if it just feels like a half-formed copy of a copy - so very light 5/10. It’s not worth hating, but the execution is too thin to care more. In other words, your average mid-tier Weezer album.