on the pulse - 2022 - #17 - joey bada$$, steve lacy, rico nasty, flo milli, em beihold, deaf havana, zach bryan
Zach Bryan - American Heartbreak - Again, long-overdue. And you’d think a shambling, two hour beast with so much acclaim would get a long review… but truth be told, the hard-living, hard-loving organic sprawl of American Heartbreak is both its greatest strength and weakness. More varied, robust and rich, enjoyable nearly its entire run so you can’t imagine cutting it… but at thirty four tracks not only do songs hit the same notes, but also feel like first or second drafts rather than something more refined, cutting and memorable. Trim to the twelve best songs and you have a devastating album of the year candidate, but while the sheer expanse to pull you into Bryan’s world is part of the appeal, the best here don’t need to rely on that excess. Best to treat it like a playlist and pick your favourites rather than one extended piece - a very good one, not a great one.
Zach Bryan - Summertime Blues - You’d think after releasing a 34 song album Zach Bryan would take a break… but no, here’s an EP in time for summer shows, and by EP he means nine more songs and my lingering feeling he could have just dropped one transcendent project with the best of the best. Because again, it’s not like Zach Bryan’s formula has changed here either - a bit rootsier with more organic twang, fiddles, uneven mastering, and some very welcome if rough-edged vocal harmonies, including a duet with Charles Wesley Godwin, but in a leaner package with its sweaty stories of hard love, loss, and backbreaking work, it feels more ragged and anxious, but also self-aware and focused. It does end on a weirdly angry note, but hell, I think I like this more than American Heartbreak. Great little taster, probably a good entry point.
Deaf Havana - The Present Is A Foreign Land - The more I listen to this, the more it feels like a swan song - Deaf Havana had been on the verge of breakup after Rituals and the pandemic, and even getting this to the finish line cost them their bassist and drummer, and even then it didn’t save them from the messy, overblown mixing that has frustrated me for years. But in grappling with questions of legacy and whether it was all worth it as aging, poverty, depression, heartbreak, substance abuse, and internal conflict rip them apart - to say nothing of Ed Sheeran obviously cribbing notes - they still overloaded the album with a spray of synth-inflected, roaring guitar hooks with desperate adrenaline, where sweeping strings, horns and pulsating glitch come back with better melodic balance. It’s flailing, emo, full of bone-deep weary melancholy… and might just be their best.
Em Beihold - Egg In The Backseat - Am I the only one surprised by the lack of attention and promo this EP is getting? It’s not like GAYLE getting one hit, folks actually like ‘Numb Little Bug’, you’d think they’d check this out! Because yeah, this is pretty damn solid, a bouncy, well-produced but pleasantly prickly and staccato slice of piano-driven indie pop somewhere at the intersection of Sara Bareilles and BENEE with a smattering of Imogen Heap and Regina Spektor. But three elements put this in its own territory: remarkably tight melodic hooks, really potent grooves that amplify the exasperated anxiety, but also a keen sense of self-awareness in how she’s able to know herself and hold on… albeit barely, which creates stakes. It’s the sort of Gen Z pop where there’s a emotive core beneath the ironic deflection, with a lot of charm. Short, but leaves you wanting more, check it out!
Flo Milli - You Still Here, Ho? - I should have covered Flo Milli in 2020 - I won’t call her breakthrough mixtape one of the best rap projects of all time, but it was wiry and quirky and had a ton of personality that helped Flo Milli stand out as a more interesting lyricist amidst the newest class of women in hip-hop. This is her debut album proper… and while Flo Milli is delivering exactly what you’d expect in its flexing, sex, and threats, and it still can be enjoyable, it’s not better. The hooks are more repetitive, the melodic flows chasing Doja Cat feel undercooked, and the wild flair of her mixtape feels diminished even if the production has more obvious polish. It’s the Megan Thee Stallion problem of “accessible” pop concessions rather than refining the unpredictable attitude that made her stand out - I blame label interference from RCA - so while it’s decent, I’m concerned going forward.
Rico Nasty - Las Ruinas - …this is a lot, and from the jump Rico Nasty is calling this more of a mixtape than a proper album, which is at least a partial excuse for how manic, genre-bending, slapdash and outright messy it feels, from trap metal to drum’n’bass to hyperpop. And it hammers those edges with every shuddering pitch shift, creaking breakdown, wild shift in production quality, and clunky feature, spanning Marshmello’s buzzed-out mix of ‘Watch Your Man’ to every frustrating verse from BKTHERULA. And it all builds to the whiplash of the final third that features the most sensitive cuts of Rico Nasty’s career, where you get clues to the relationship insecurities and anxious desire to provide for her son underpinning it all. It’s a tougher mess to swallow, but with more dimension and humanity alongside the bangers, it’s probably the most invested I’ve been since Nasty, damn good.
Steve Lacy - Gemini Rights - Hey, the guy with the weak voice and goopy guitars in The Internet launched his solo career… and it took off thanks to ‘Bad Habit’ going viral. So let’s ignore his badly sequenced and amateurish-at-best 2019 debut and focus on this… and at least it’s an improvement? Bass grooves are better balanced, vocal harmonies are better layered, compositions calling back to psychedelic pop, bossa nova, and smooth jazz are sharper, and even if the goopy guitar mixing and iffy mixing still aren’t my thing, they’re not as obtrusive. But Steve Lacy… he can’t stay on key, his falsetto is weak, and his hazy, thrown-together “cool” vibe can’t save weak performances and writing that alternates between petulant, petty, and vaguely pathetic, albeit reasonably well-framed. So flighty, bisexual, back-and-forth Californication - decent vibes… until the details test your patience.
Joey Bada$$ - 2000 - On the one hand, if you have been specifically waiting the past five years for a new Joey Bada$$ project, this is exactly what you’re expecting: a clever veteran over ridiculously smooth but textured production mostly from Statik Selektah; he’s always had a better command of melody than so many of his peers and that makes this album so easy to enjoy. But if you’re looking for the diversity and experimentation that made ALL AMERIKKKAN BADA$$ so forward-thinking and potent, this is playing to different stakes, a personal reckoning with old friends long gone and resetting the board with the success comfortably in hand. As such it can feel slight or nostalgic in its flexes, resting on laurels and big cosigns, but his systemic critiques and personal stories alongside classy compositional refinement sets a killer mood. Not my favourite of his, but still great.