on the pulse - 2023 - #11 - lil uzi vert, swans, hamish hawk, pj harvey, anohni, the japanese house, the aces, randy rogers & wade bowen
Randy Rogers & Wade Bowen - Hold My Beer, Vol. 3 - Look, at this point with this duo, you should know the formula - loose and likable neotraditional Texas country either built for barroom singalongs or about being the guys making loose and likable neotraditional Texas country, the only surprise is that it’s a six song EP this time and not a full-length album. And while I think the high water mark of their first collab back in 2015 is safe, the tighter construction keeps the formula fresh and free of filler, and avoids some of the production issues that cropped up on Wade Bowen’s album last year. It definitely is coloured by some backwards-looking nostalgia in a few of the more melancholic moments - and as much as “Shooting Hand” is an extended joke song, it absolutely plays to the same sort of machismo - but it never becomes obnoxious or overbearing by Texas country standards, and I'm fully aware I'm nitpicking at this point, especially as this is a duo that is so riotously willing to invite everyone to the party should they want to go, the list of name-checks on “We Ain't The Only Ones” was wild. But let's be real, we're on volume three of an incredibly consistent duo, and while you won't get any surprises, if you seek this out you'll get exactly what you're looking for at their high level of quality. Great stuff, a fun listen, check it out!
The Aces - I’ve Loved You For So Long - What’s annoying about The Aces is that they have a formula that should absolutely work for me in terms of their synth-inflected vocal harmonies and go-for-broke hooks, but their 2020 album didn’t leave much of an impression, and now back with this… imagine a throwback power pop girl group emulating Hatchie and Wolf Alice by way of MUNA, with a few extra fuzzy guitar solos and a more limited production budget, which is likely why this doesn’t have the texture, groove, or punch that it should. In other words, The Aces have streamlined much of their experimentation for something shorter, punchier, and closer to their new wave pop rock roots, albeit with a few weedy spurts of synth and pitch-shifted vocals to feel modern that really don’t add much - you can tell the song structures are calibrated to go viral on TikTok and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear it happen at some point. But considering they all breeze by pretty quickly, still lacking a lot of distinctive detail in the songwriting about their queer relationship drama and mid-20s burnout, and when even at their best their influences still blaze through brighter… this is a band that feels torn across its influences without finding a core that makes them special, and when the seeds of good vocal arrangements and hooks are here, that’s frustrating. It’s got moments - ‘Girls Make Me Wanna Die’ is legit sweet, I dig the smoldering exasperated mess of ‘Person’, ‘Attention’ is a deceptively nasty breakup song that a complete swerve against its jaunty melody - but few that are truly great; if you like this style of power pop you’ll probably like this, but you’ve also heard it done better.
The Japanese House - In The End It Always Does - you can add The Japanese House, the stage name of Amber Bain, to the synth-heavy, ethereal indie pop breakouts in 2019 that I was very late to hear… and I’ll admit of that group, her debut Good At Falling didn’t really click? The hooks didn’t quite pop as strongly, the arrangements hit a weird middleground of pleasantly tasteful and just a twinge awkward, and while the writing was good, I was never quite gripped. So I wanted to give her sophomore album a proper try… and this may sound weird, but here it goes: the reasons I like this more seem to be the exact reasons folks are cooler on it, but I’m still not won over? This is due to a shift in production from BJ Burton - not Danger Mouse, the other one - and his wonkier synth palette to something much cleaner, groovier, and more polished from George Daniel, who has a much heavier presence this time around with the padded percussion, chirpy pitch-shifted vocals, glossy but rickety acoustics, and twinkling atmosphere. And here’s the thing about that sound: it raises the floor of quality and the compositions pop a bit better, but it also translates to a sleepy, drippy comfort zone that’s been overexposed in recent years, especially given how much Bain’s vocals remind me of the midpoint between boygenius and Charli Adams, except run through more synthetic filters to accentuate her presence and occasionally sidechained the rest of the instrumental so they clip at odd intervals and don’t feel as smooth as they should in this style. That said, like with Good At Falling, I think the writing saves it: Bain has such a knack for soft-focus but sexually layered relationship drama, collapse, and queer yearning that even if I don’t love most of her tonal and mastering choices, there’s a winsome romance that translates depth through the little moments so they don’t feel precious or twee; I know it’s not for me, obviously, but I can still appreciate it. That said, while this is a slow-burn that will grow on you, there’s a part of me in listening that just wants a new Shura album, and it’s hard to ignore how there are others in this space who utilize this production palette more effectively; I still feel a bit at a distance from it - certainly good, but maybe not great.
ANOHNI - My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross - So let’s clean up some old business, I really did not like ANOHNI’s solo album Hopelessness in 2016. That review got a ton of backlash, so I went back to the album… and I still don’t like it: I get that it was a different time and leftist discourse has evolved significantly since, but the self-flagellating and often defeatist nihilism feels extremely tasteless, the examination of global politics and societal issues can be ham-fisted, contradictory, and awkwardly pompous, I don’t think her delivery worked for the material at all, and while the production has aged pretty well, it’s not enough to save it. That said, this is her first full-length since then, features a reunion with her old band The Johnsons, heavily inspired by Marvin Gaye, and I wanted to give ANOHNI another shot… and this is one of the tricky cases because while it’s an improvement, less experimental but I’ll argue it succeeds in what it’s trying to do… I still don’t really like for it, and once again it’s rooted in lyrics and themes. For what it’s worth the politics are predominantly in subtext and more focused on environmental causes, the damage we are doing to the world at large and grappling with climate grief, reflecting how things have changed so little since Marvin Gaye wrote about climate change fifty years ago. And I get how it can feel cleansing to wallow in pure depressive doomerism, that by the end you’re now inspired to fight… but there are reasons I don’t feel that from this, and it’s rooted in issues I’ve had since Hopelessness: the writing paints in very broad strokes, it feels very individualistically framed - when we know climate change is driven off of global megacorporations and late capitalist thirst for short-term profit rather than individual responsibility, in which ANOHNI feels paralyzed and complicit and only just starting to break free - and the self-sacrificial defeatist pessimism drives me nuts; there are systemic answers and solutions, we’ve known them for decades and the urgency is rising, it’s a matter of mustering the iron will, doing the hard work, and getting the explosives. Granted, my Overton window is considerably wider than hers, and that’s not saying I don’t have empathy for ANOHNI, where the exhaustion at being scapegoated and blamed for bad, often bigoted backlash might drive someone into this, but her very stately, blue-eyed soul delivery wallows in this state, where despite how strikingly well-produced this parallel is constructed to the past, given how narrow her framing can be, I’m not sure any tender attempt at populism drives action. For what it’s worth, Jimmy Hogarth’s production is beautiful and textured - the arrangements once again save the project in recreating that lush, expansive soul - and I think there’s a place for where albums like this make sense and can feel relieving, where tenderness can be its own quiet revolution, and on tonal choice alone it’ll get to an broader audience; but it can also feel a bit too indebted to a past, amplifying how so little has changed, that despair might only increase… or go overlooked by those enamoured by old-fashioned tunes. In the end, it is certainly a fine listen, and for its niche I think it succeeds and I hope it finds who needs it… I just think that niche is narrower in 2023, and while I know my privilege gives me some distance from that weight, I’d prefer to get involved in the heavy lifting.
PJ Harvey - I Inside The Old Year Dying - it’s been seven years since PJ Harvey has released an album, seven years since The Hope Six Demolition Project where I had a lot of contentious opinions compared to Harvey’s extensive and acclaimed back catalog. But that’s something of a lie: Harvey has been working in soundtrack work for a few projects since, and last year wrote a novel-length narrative poem called Orlam drenched in English folklore, specifically drawing from old vernacular rooted in her hometown of Dorset… and this album feels like the tangled, challenging culmination of both, where Harvey returns to the haunted lilting delivery of White Chalk but enmeshed in jangling, haunted atmospherics somewhere between neofolk, electroacoustic ambient music, and late period Nick Cave. It’s weird, and I mean that in the Shakespearean sense of the word, where Harvey lifts poetic turns of phrase from Orlam and then deliberately allows double meanings to linger from near-extinct Dorset slang interweaving with modern English as choppy acoustics, distant bells, subtle percussion, and electric guitar fragments spark and echo across the mist, creating the feel of a pastoral town living simultaneously in different ages across time. I’d almost call it childlike in its magical realism if there wasn’t so much underlying horror and nightmare fuel as other thematic arcs from Orlam manifest in a primal blur of dark, yawning thresholds, gender-bending, and spectral figures pagan and ‘divine’, along with cycles of abuse and the brutal loss of feminine innocence, where a Civil War-era ghost with the name of Elvis looms large. PJ Harvey has described this album as searching for meaning, the blinding passion of a first love - and I hear it, even if its discovery is goddamn harrowing and tragic to everyone involved, the sort of faerie tale where you’re left wondering if the poet recognized just how dark this truly is. What also gets left by the wayside is a lot of song structure and melodic hooks - calling this a ‘meditation’ is apt, given the structured but free-flowing poetic meter and dreamlike sequencing, where even if you can translate the Dorset dialect it can feel more like a companion piece to Orlam on paper than a more focused album - in other words, it feels like a personal passion project and it will absolutely throw PJ Harvey fans looking for something more direct. I have other quibbles: the vocal mixing can be a little slapdash, the Radiohead-esque electronic elements don’t always blend well, and it can feel a little reserved, following PJ Harvey’s odd tendency in recent years to hold everything at a distance, and while that works thematically here, it feels like another factor to hold immediate emotional resonance further out of reach. But it’s such a unique strange and compelling listen that the literature nerd in me that ventures into unkempt wilderness kind of adores this regardless; you’ll hear little else like this in 2023, if it’s not great it’s exceptionally close, absolutely worth hearing!
Hamish Hawk - Angel Numbers - when a friend gives me an album and describes it as ‘Spectrum Pulse core’… I was naturally skeptical, but I’ll be damned if Hamish Hawk didn’t impress me. A Scottish singer-songwriter at the intersection of Orville Peck, Alex Cameron, and Tenant From Zero, I was won over by intricate, detailed but remarkably emotive songwriting, Hawk’s striking theatricality, and meticulously well-produced indie rock and chamber pop compositions that still went for big hooks. This is the follow-up to his 2021 breakout, with a more robust production budget… and it’s an odd one, where the biggest and most opulent songs still go for broke and kick ass, but there are fewer of them now as this album sprawls into odder, more self-referential singer-songwriter material, full of pedal steel, lush strings and horns, chintzy keys and musings on fame, delusions of grandeur, and succeeding in the music industry - it’s VERY Alex Cameron in how the musical metatext intermingles with romance that feels more world-weary than I think it can sell, especially when Hawk gets into his less impactful upper register. That said, the production is way more colourful and balanced, the slow-burn romantic moments are tastefully groovy and have a literate flair I really love, and when Hawk nails that balance, ‘Think Of Us Kissing’ and ‘Elvis Look-Alike Shadows’ are gloriously magnetic in their wit and self-aware melodrama, ‘Desperately’ is a savage deconstruction of its own swagger, ‘Bill’ is a great reminder that even in dreams Bill Callahan is such a grounding force, and the “love” song ‘Rest & Veneers’ is understated and mundane to near-perfection. Definitely an album carried by its strongest moments, it feels uneven and ends on an oddly heavy note… but enough on the cusp of greatness at its best that I’ll stick up for it.
Swans - The Beggar - In retrospect, I should not be surprised that this is the Swans album we got, especially following Leaving Meaning and its questions of what ultimately remains after we pass from this world, in the meaning we place in the art we create and how much time and societal upheaval will fracture and distort it all, and all that matters is the primal experience. My review framed that project as feeling very disjointed and nihilistic in an abstract, postmodern way, but with The Beggar feeling more thematically focused on encroaching entropy and the inevitability of death, the wistful brutality of its realizations feel more poignant. But The Beggar feels more grounded in personal emotions - Michael Gira does not have the visceral power in delivery he once did, so sonically this is once again pulling from early 90s Swans like White Light From The Mouth Of Infinity but now a little more from The Great Annihilator as well, especially with a cut like ‘Los Angeles: City of Death’. And at least on the first half it feels better structured - the melodies cycle and crescendo more effectively, the choral vocals, the lap pedal steel, climatic drums, and guitars both acoustic and electric bring a bluesier timbre while still feeling distinctly eerie with the flutes and synths, and Gira cycles through a broader range of emotions that one would face at an end. A slouching disgust at one’s decay, genuine rage and sadness, regret for the debasements we’ve indulged to keep living - and a scream of loving rage for what we’ve denied ourselves on ‘Why Can’t I Have What I Want Anytime I Want?’ - a grim acceptance of the inevitable, and a curiosity to see whatever cosmic hell comes next; Swans have always been great at capturing transcendence. The second half leans on drone and sound collage with a single track running 43 minutes for those that have lived alongside that person clinging to scraps of life, and a smaller bonus cut reflecting on a full life lived with more finality - the length makes sense because for one begging and reaching the end of life, what would have most value but time itself, but in comparison to other Swans pieces that run this long, while conceptually I can appreciate its ebbs and flows, it will not be one I revisit much. As a whole… I liked it more than Leaving Meaning, conceptually it feels more personal and immediate with stronger melodies, and while it retraces old territory, I’d argue it’s a more satisfying manifestation of it - definitely an album I’ll reexamine more in pieces than as a whole and I wouldn’t put it among Swans’ best, but as a career coda, especially for long-time fans… I think they stick the landing; impressive stuff!
Lil Uzi Vert - The Pink Tape - …is anyone seriously coming to me for a take on Lil Uzi Vert? My frustration with Uzi is that I get their appeal, but the execution has never stuck. The production is sticky, but feels perpetually unbalanced, lacking in groove, and awkwardly mixed on bloated projects, and for every extravagant, imaginative flair in delivery or content, there are so many facepalm-worthy moments - they’re trap’s Billy Idol, and is best with festival-ready bangers. So going rap-rock feels like a natural evolution of their sound… and we’re left with a project that always seems like it’s on the cusp of something potent, but then slides back into everything that makes Uzi such an frustrating artist, at least on record. It can be split into two parts: the sticky, synth-inflected, lethargic trap and rage music - which remains as underwhelming as always because the bloated flexing, hedonism, and toxic relationships run together and become the worst thing melodrama can be - boring - and rap rock experiments borrowing from nu-metal that should hit way harder than they do because the guitars are never allowed to really explode and where Uzi’s hypebeast presence feels peripheral to songs that don’t use them to their fullest extent, including a cover of System of a Down’s ‘Chop Suey’ that I don’t think anyone needed. What’s frustrating is there’s a surprising number of cuts that legit work, like Arca’s production on ‘Suicide Doors’, the guttural distortion on ‘Amped’, the jittery rage of ‘x2’, the cinematic wrestling flip on ‘Nakamura’, the nightmarish pitched-down ‘Fire Alarm’, ‘Werewolf’ with Bring Me The Horizon dropping the best bassline on the album, the chiptune of ‘Pluto To Mars’ that feels like a 2020 leftover, the glassy synth groove on ‘Days Come And Goo’, ‘Don Toliver’ really delivering on ‘Patience’, the rumbling guitars on ‘Rehab’, this album ends on a high note with its more personal deep cuts. But then you get the bad Travis Scott verse on ‘Aye’, or an abysmal Nicki Minaj feature off the ‘I’m Blue’ sample from Eiffel 65 on ‘Endless Fashion’, or so many forgettable, abbreviated trap fragments with Uzi’s shallow obnoxiousness, the stupid comparisons they make to their jewelry, and panic at being perceived as gay that translates to some overcompensating insecure machismo that a nonbinary rockstar like them doesn’t need to validate - the bigots in parts of hip-hop don’t want to understand or acknowledge any dimensions of queerness, just keep taking their bitches. So overall… it feels way too long, awkwardly sequenced, and wildly uneven, but if this was streamlined to a tight half hour… it wouldn’t be great, but the potential would be better realized. Better than I expected, it’s got moments, but as a whole, it’s tough to recommend.