on the pulse - 2022 - #23 - charlie puth, carly rae jepsen, tegan and sara, tove lo, poppy, alvvays, gayle, maggie lindemann

Maggie Lindemann - Suckerpunch - I wanted to give this a proper chance - Lindemann was discovered and signed from Instagram, made some generic pop, but then went indie to go pop punk and even trap metal. An EP last year, now a full-length… that feels like more of that EP, for better and worse. Yes, Lindemann has range as a singer and clearly worships Amy Lee, but she doesn’t have the texture or fiery intensity of her 2000s pop rock idols - and her vocal isn’t mixed well - especially against music that sounds like stock pop punk or goopy, mid-2010s Bring Me The Horizon alternative, all of which is overcompressed, underpowered, and lacking in groove and strong lead melodies. And along with try-hard melodrama and angst in the lyrics that’s less edgy than just generic, ironically it feels like the basic pop flavor of her idols - I found it bland, maybe better for a younger audience who hasn’t heard more.

GAYLE - a study of the human experience vol. 2 - Alright, round two, and it looks like even fewer folks seem to care this time, even as GAYLE is apparently building a reputation as being a really solid live act. And with this… well, the central contradiction of the first EP is stark once again: it’s got the ragged swagger to get nastier but still feels overpolished and compromised - it’s why blackbear is here. And once again the writing is the standout: teenage existential confusion where nobody’s quite sure what level of irony they’re on, but GAYLE is self-aware of that and will drop the deflection to get real, especially on ‘15’ that feels like the raw, young followthrough to Demi Lovato’s ‘29’ - not the only parallel either. It’s frustrating, GAYLE has potential but Atlantic would rather mismanage her for cheap virality than play for something real. It’s not bad, but it should be better.

Alvvays - Blue Rev - Watching the trajectory of Alvvays is fascinating - absence makes the heart grow fonder, but over five years it’s felt like a respected but overlooked indie pop act is now widely celebrated, with many calling this their best yet. Yet I can’t agree - the new rhythm section saps the basslines of their coursing, ragged meat, so the fizzy but blocky, synth-inflected production from Shawn Everett is bigger and glossier, but with less foundation the hooks don’t have the same pop and Rankins’ sweeter delivery struggles to cut through. Now for lyrics all about emotional revelations as the world whirls around you, where like the last two albums the tension comes from reckoning with your stasis in prescribed roles and realizing what it’ll mean to break free, it makes sense it only works in fractured, poorly sequenced moments… but this is their weakest to date. Definitely good, not great.

Poppy - Stagger - So with Poppy we’re just on the wild ride of genre experimentation, but after ‘Flux’ wound up one of the best pop metal songs I’ve heard in years, I wanted to give this return to major labels EP a proper chance. And it’s another swerve: through four songs and eleven minutes it’s probably closest to modern hardcore in its manic, distorted shredding with too much compression and some more programmed breakdowns that seem to pull from 2000s indie rock, post-hardcore and even trip-hop! Now the loose revenge arc of Poppy’s writing from dispassionate rage to fully claiming her shapeshifting agency might be familiar but it is well-executed - what keeps this from greatness is production, which feels really inconsistent in mix dynamics and grooves across these four songs, which leaves the sound underdeveloped. So… a good teaser, but that’s about it.

Tove Lo - Dirt Femme - I don’t know why I had any optimism for Tove Lo, outside of thinking her career has been criminally mismanaged, but she’s independent now with a new album, could be good… and for what it’s worth, it’s an improvement. Now it’s a given the production has issues - I blame her engineering team and especially The Struts for leaving in a lot of ugly, tinny high frequencies around her vocals like on the last album - but pulsating retro synthpop leaning on house has a bit more of an identity and can fit her raw, pitchy delivery. But while it’s more tuneful, Tove Lo’s lyrical appeal came with reckless, sexually-charged abandon, and while marriage has brought maturity and introspection, it’s dampened that individual flair and narrative ambition, it’s just more basic. So with lingering issues and less personality, tuneful improvements just aren’t enough to save this. Decent at best.

Tegan And Sara - Crybaby - …I did not expect this swerve, but I guess when you’re indie for the first time decades, you can do something wild! So, remember Tegan And Sara’s electronic experiments in the early 2000s? Drive the tempos close to dance punk with Superorganism-esque synth textures and hyperpop vocal modulations, push the manic technicolor side into the stratosphere but don’t sacrifice pop compositional instincts, well-balanced production, harmonies, frustrated angst and a genuinely terrific final third, you get this! Now like all of Tegan and Sara’s electronic flourishes - and me and hyperpop in general - some kookier tones don’t quite work, and there’s a odd lingering tension between arrested adolescent melodrama and contemplating the next steps of adulthood, a continuum of queer time. And honestly, it’s pretty great for it - this is getting slept on, check it out!

Carly Rae Jepsen - The Loneliest Time - Here’s a frustrating conundrum - I’m on record saying that Carly Rae Jepsen could think about diversifying her sound and subject matter, and when she does… it doesn’t click as well as it should. And it’s exasperating to pin down why - some synth choices are questionable, but dabbling in light funk, 80s soft rock, disco, and 90s R&B should feel natural. But it’s also a step away from her best ethereal ballads or exultant bangers, and in particular her synthetic vocal mix doesn’t always fit these new sounds; at some points this album reminds me of S Club 7, and not always in the good way. Because while dejected, yearning loneliness is the most persistent emotion in a string of hookup misfires, the songs when it clicks feel patchy. Let me stress that overall, the album is good, but it’s inconsistent and the magic isn’t quite there - just hit and miss for me.

Charlie Puth - CHARLIE - It’s going under the radar that Charlie Puth has had multiple charting hits this year, both that felt gimmicky but were enough to get me to check this out… and that was a mistake, because this isn’t good at all! You expect the painfully cheap, tinny production that sounds antiseptic and canned around these rejected cuts from The 1975 - how does the percussion still sound this stiff - but after the smoother R&B of Voicenotes, why go to the most unnecessary autotune warble I’ve heard in recent memory, to say nothing of the chunky and mostly embarrassing attempts at rock? Speaking of embarrassing, the lyrics: Puth has always been basic, but he’s had flashes of moody swagger that’s now gone for petty melodrama to reverse-engineer a TikTok hit that’s at best is forgettable but at worst is amateurish, cloying, or just inexplicable. It’s the Kidz Bop version of itself, skip it!