on the pulse - 2024 - #7 - future + metro boomin, conan gray, ERNEST, kenya grace, glorilla, riTchie, cloud nothings, ekko astral

Ekko Astral - pink balloons - Alright, here we have a DC noise punk and queercore act that first caught some buzz in 2022 with their debut project QUARTZ blending in elements of garage and even goth rock. I wouldn’t call it groundbreaking, but the fundamentals were rock-solid… but that’s not quite the direction they chose to take their follow-up, a much louder, heavier, and wilder project that trades a lot of the sharper garage compositional structures for something closer to no wave, embracing harsher dissonant melodies, blown out textures especially around the percussion and meaty basslines, blaring synths, eerie drone passages, and poetry that’s way more ragged - probably the most chirpy and upbeat cut is ‘make me young’ and it’s barely a minute long! That’s not saying it’s not catchy or that certain grooves won’t grab your ear - the pummeling ‘head empty blues’ and ‘uwu type beat’ surrounded by nightmarish waves of howling distortion, the stuttering, wailing grind of ‘on brand’, the bassy swagger of ‘sticks and stones’ that explodes into a kaleidoscopic nightmare, and the guttural snarl of ‘devorah’ ramping its drone juxtaposed with softer singing into a cacophonous hardcore thunderstorm - but it’s less immediately accessible and feels like a much angrier album this time around, which makes a lot of sense peeling into the subject matter, where the framing seems to be casting a broader net to American society’s increasingly hostile confrontation of queerness, or indeed anything that is outside of what is constructed as ‘normative’, which a lot of folks don’t want to think about that hard. That’s led to some misreadings of this album where thanks to the pink colour palette and more girlish singing and more ‘terminally online’ lyricism and song titles, it’s being framed as more lightweight than it actually is, which does a disservice to how intricately constructed some of the nested lyricism and callbacks are; the poetry is ragged but never ramshackle, there are layers here. And I think there is a very human desire for some of that escapism - likely online - in this kafkaesque late capitalist reality, probably feeling all the more pronounced living in the US capital full of social climbers and those willing to trade the ideology for the right brand at the right time, but their actual reality doesn’t allow them the privilege to be ignorant or claim shallow forms of solidarity. And a significant chunk of this album rips into the contradictions of those who espouse left-leaning or progressive values… predominantly through consumption, where they can feel just as caught in the moral tangle, and man, those other people don’t want to be informed about the actual awkward bleak reality; the layered reference of ‘buffaloed’ across sports, trans culture, and late capitalism shows just how fucking dark it can get, very telling that it follows ‘sticks and stones’ which deliberately addresses discrimination in comedy from multiple perspectives, the comic, the ones targeted, and the increasingly exhausted bystander. But it’s not all pure doomscrolling - while I hear the early Alex Turner comparison in the nastier observations, it’s less nihilistic and there’s a desire for community and passion and a world that can be made better… or at least surviving a little longer through the worst of it, with the borderline post-rock closer ‘i-90’ building over eight and a half minutes to show the climatic strength to which they can hold. So as a whole… yeah, this is excellent - queercore that absolutely kicks ass, crushes everything in its path with experimental flair, and has plenty of vividly detailed, heartfelt personality; it won’t be for everyone, it can feel impressively bleak at times, but coming out of a very potent niche, Ekko Astral deserve to be taken seriously - great album!

Cloud Nothings - Final Summer - It’s a bit shocking it’s been three years since the last Cloud Nothings album, and they’ve only now signed to Pure Noise. So switching producers from Steve Albini to Jeff Ziegler - known for very early Kurt Vile - I expected a brighter, looser album… and that’s what we got, following the increasingly upbeat tones of Life Without Sound and continuing the optimistic arc from The Shadow I Remember, where if we’re speeding towards a dark conclusion, let’s come together to fight the weaponized ignorance and stupid games to find the dreams that allow you to be happy, even if everyone tries to hold you to every mistake or misstep. Feels like the most straightforwardly melodic Cloud Nothings record, which has me wishing the manic colour of the title track carried to more admittedly well-balanced cuts where the muscle or impressive riffs can feel a bit slapdash. Not their best, but incredibly listenable… let’s see how long it sticks.

RiTchie - Triple Digits (112) - Not going to mince words, I’ve long felt a twinge of regret that I really only got to Injury Reserve in 2021 after Steppa J. Groggs’ passing - not only did it feel like I missed an act I could have come to really like, with Floss as a tape that went so damn hard, with the added frustration that By The Time I Get To Phoenix never really clicked for me as a whole, I felt like I had really missed a moment. So when I heard that RiTchie was going to be releasing a solo project, I really wanted to get around to hear it and give him a proper chance… and it was certainly intriguing, not quite a ‘back-to-basics’ approach compared to the genre-breaking By The Time I Get To Phoenix so much a recentering, where RiTchie bends his style into a grainy, melodic, constantly warping flow where so much of this album is… well, rap about rapping, but not quite in the way you’d think. RiTchie has always had a fondness for more complicated lyricism but here there’s an element of metatext in asking ‘why not just do it’ go down his more creative and dextrous rabbit holes, that may not be grasped or immediately understood but are more personally fulfilling or, dare I say, fun - and hell, when it is so blisteringly hot outside in the streets, why bother chasing the heat when you can find some relief, it’s better than gatekeeping it! And it lends to some interesting detours across the project, like the jabs taken at the industry clout chasers with Amine on ‘Dizzy’, or how so much artistry is misunderstood and compromised on ‘The Thing’ with Quelle Chris; he gets that so much of this is fronting and cosplay, but stepping outside of that can be disorienting and very uncertain, and you can play it safe… or you could make something interesting. So by necessity and despite its relatively brief runtime, it’s a looser, shaggier listen, and how much you’re able to click with RiTchie’s voice creaking through the autotune and pitch-shifting glitch or bending into Andre 3000-esque vocal inflections as the production feels increasingly fragmented is up the air - ‘RiTchie Valens’ is the most prominent example where the squeaking adlibs just kill it for me. But there’s a lot I still like: the lo-fi roiling crank of ‘WYTD?!?!’, the shuffling ache of the title track, the ramshackle beat and pianos of ‘Looping’, the borderline robotic ‘Get A Fade’ that’s actually a cover of Girlpool’s cover of ‘Cut Your Bangs’, and especially the aching organ and guitar samples shuddering through ‘Dizzy’ and the sandy bounce of ‘The Thing’. As a whole, this is a really nice diversion - it has the feel of RiTchie still feeling out where he wants his sound to go, and there’s a lot of promising ideas here where maybe a little more structure and meat would help them hit more consistently. In other words, I absolutely think this is good and worth hearing… but it’s the next project that has me truly intrigued where RiTchie will take the temperature.

GloRilla - Ehhthang Ehhthang - The more I’ve heard from GloRilla, the more I like her: not just in attitude and savvy instincts, but also tightening up her flows and showing more layers and emotionality. And with traction going into 2024 without the benefit of TikTok virality, I was intrigued where this would go… and yeah, it works! The beats are still spare but better mixed and the samples draw on a rich tradition of Memphis rap, especially Three 6 Mafia - that guitar sizzle on ‘Bad Bih 4 Ya’ makes me wish she went for louder crunk - and outside of Megan, I think she outshines every guest rapper here! And I like how her storytelling has expanded, her bruising tempered by a confessional honesty on cuts like ‘Opp Shit’ and ‘Aite’ where she’s aware of danger that comes with vulnerability, and a genuine desire to see all the girls win and thrive. Still room for a bit more variance in content and production, but this is a solid improvement; very good stuff, check it out!

Kenya Grace - The After Taste - As much as ‘Strangers’ was obviously following PinkPantheress, it’s still a really damn good song and it left me curious to hear Kenya Grace’s self-produced EP - outside of an intro, outro and ‘Strangers’, there’s only six other songs, should make for a fast listen. And it really is - Grace has a formula for softspoken, nocturnal, cleanly produced drum’n’bass with chilly synths and touches of guitar, with a loose framing device in why so many fleeting relationships post the big breakup have failed, all at breezy tempos built for the dancefloor. The BANKS influence rings through in the sleek restrained cool around the aching emotive core, with the self-awareness to recognize her own self-destructive impulses… although the limited texture and lyrics might leave it a bit lacking in character. Not revolutionary - I’d struggle to call it super distinct - but there’s some gentle competent charm to it, generally good stuff.

ERNEST - NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE - So I’m fine with ERNEST pivoting to neotraditional country, especially if Joey Moi was producing; it’s not really subtle or nuanced, but warm guitar tones with pedal steel, fiddle and live drums is targeted for my nostalgia. Unfortunately over 26 songs nearly running a bloated 90 minutes - god, I hate Nashville using Morgan Wallen’s stream-trolling - we get a quantity over quality flood where ERNEST’s bland vocals and workman compositions lead to poorly sequenced, underwhelming, occasionally smarmy drinking or heartbreak songs, bro-country rap leftovers, and with HARDY the corniest cover of Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ I’ve ever heard. There are notable moments - Lukas Nelson and Lainey Wilson gamely try, ‘Did It For The Story’ was slick, I liked ‘Kiss of Death’ and ‘Ain’t Right Ain’t Wrong’, and ‘Dollar To Cash’ is a good closer - but with no real curation or quality control, I think I get why ERNEST stays behind the scenes.

Conan Gray - Found Heaven - Look, I really did not like Conan Gray’s Kid Krow - I wasn’t impressed across the board, between the underwhelming vocals, inconsistent production, and a petulance to his lyricism that really rubbed me the wrong way, I was set on basically ignoring him for the foreseeable future. But then I started hearing more positive buzz on his album from this year, where it looked like he was embracing more 80s glam - which didn’t surprise me given Kid Krow, the inspiration was always there - so after a quick breeze through his 2022 album that I skipped at the time and wasn’t impressed with this time either, it felt like a lot of the same formula, I figured I’d give this a shot; it’s hard to screw up when Republic is bringing in Max Martin, Shawn Everett, Greg Kurstin, and more! And… why do I get the same feeling as when I reviewed Allie X earlier this year, but with a more robust industry budget, where I get the throwback nostalgia and Gray easily has the most full and flashy production of his career, full of glittery analog synths, pulsating bass, huge drum machines, Queen-esque power ballad bombast ramped to eleven - albeit with all the songs tightly built to fit a TikTok-ready structure, which can fracture the immersion a bit - but it’s all in service of Conan Gray, who might have the overdubs and multitracking in the right places but just can’t match the charisma, raw intensity and volume of what he’s emulating, he’s not Harry Styles. And you can tell he’s trying so hard to stretch his range, even trying his throaty lower register and leaning into his breathy falsetto, but I can hear every moment where his willowy vocal is pushed back because he can’t quite hit those notes with credible power, or obviously touched up synthetically in post to obscure how it’s breaking, which only emphasizes how much this feels like cosplay; you can so easily get lost in production this big and the big difference between the 80s and now is that those artists rarely got the production support and had to sink or swim with questionable vocals, there’s an ocean of forgotten 80s pop that died on this hill! Of course, the other problem is that Conan Gray increasingly feels like a limited songwriter - a lot of this album surrounds his first big breakup and while the pathos feels a bit more realized and the petulant edges feel more earned, it’s not like he’s bringing much in the way of lyrical flair, these are pretty stock pop songs at the end of the day. And while I can tell a song like ‘Bourgouiseises’ is an obvious pisstake on 80s obsession with wealth, it’s not a good thing that it could very easily be played straight from Conan Gray and it would be difficult to tell the difference… or that it’s probably the most interesting song on the album. That’s not saying that there aren’t moments that work - the whole album is broadly listenable if you like 80s pop, in terms of pure soundcraft and performance it’s probably his best work, and there’s a kinetic flash to ‘Never Ending Song’ and ‘Fainted Love’ that I quite liked, ‘Killing Me’ to a lesser extent - and the fact that it’s only just decent isn’t a good sign. I think the fans will enjoy it, but if you drop this in 1984… well, it’d probably get the same response as getting dropped forty years later, a few pleasant nods and then forgotten.

Future & Metro Boomin - WE STILL DON’T TRUST YOU - I’ve said a number of times that it’s better to release one truly great album than split it into two that are merely pretty good, although with Future indulging his HNDRXX R&B side to contrast with FUTURE back in 2017, it wasn’t surprising that the buzz around this was following the same pattern. But that initial plan probably did not account for the commercial staying power WE DON’T TRUST YOU had, the firestorm of beef that erupted around him, and that Drake would be looking to fire back, so playing the HNDRXX card not only felt like ‘wrong time for this’ move, he also packaged it with seven more songs that lean on trap to satiate those now coming back for the fight and fight only, very obviously recorded rough after the beef ignited. And given that Future albums already run long and I’m lukewarm on his R&B diversions - I didn’t review HNDRXX outside of a few songs on Billboard BREAKDOWN, revisiting it now, I grasp its appeal and I’ve come around more to his warbling delivery, but it’s never been my favourite lane for him with weaker highs, the intensity can feel spotty - I had a real sinking feeling about this. So with that… okay, let’s deal with the ‘bonus’ cuts and the structural issue there right out of the gate, they were very clearly tacked on last minute to play into the intensity of the last album, probably recorded later as well, and Future sounds alive and hungry over considerably louder and rougher production; I’m not about to give the A$AP Rocky verse much attention outside of the likelihood that Drake will ignore it and him into dust. But it also reminds me of - and this isn’t a new observation and what do you know, speak of the devil - when Drake tacked on ‘Jimmy Cooks’ to Honestly, Nevermind, when you have a softer, more introspective tone where more production risks manifest and you want to ensure you have a banger, and it makes even less sense this time around because Future did HNDRXX before! What’s worse is that it’s such a jarring tonal shift after such an exhaustingly long album, where it feels like Metro Boomin was drawing out every groove without more in the way of change-ups or dramatic crescendos, that by the time you get to a set of grimy, mixtape-quality trap bangers you have ear fatigue and want to bow out. And this has been a problem with Future for years now: when he doesn’t vary his content, overlong songs and albums work against him, especially as the drug-running, shallow hedonism, and relationship melodrama test my patience, especially as I don’t find the spare introspection we get that interesting or emotionally evocative. So with all of that being established - and J. Cole miscalculating yet against to leave his verse on ‘Red Leather’ which only confirms how unready he was for any conflict despite being a decent enough verse alongside Future just going way too long to not say much - I do think there are cuts worth considering from both sides of this. For one, Metro Boomin is considerably more experimental across this album in pulling across throwback synthpop and vintage R&B sample flips like the eerie gospel flip across ‘Beat It’ or the Ty Dolla $ign assist with ‘Gracious’, especially when The Weeknd shows up for either backing adlibs or take more of the lead, like with the gentle bounce of the title track, the Isley Brothers flip on ‘All To Myself’ with some nice flashy synthwork, or the gothic ‘Always My Fault’ - yeah, it’s borderline Riverdale-core, it worked for me! Hell, even among the more conventional trap cuts, I think I like Future’s flip of Drake’s flow of ‘Feel No Way’ on ‘This Sunday’ more than Drake’s, the drowned out Brownstone sample on ‘Luv Bad Bitches’ is way catchier than it has any right to be, and I somehow bought into the flexing of ‘Came To The Party’ and the flagrant guitar wailing all over ‘Mile High Memories’ and the creeping danger of ‘Crazy Clientele’ - certainly better than the overmixed mess of ‘Right 4 You’ or that dud of a horny interlude with ‘Amazing’. And for what it’s worth, you can tell that past Future’s opening round of flexing, there’s a weariness in his liquor-soaked lifestyle where he has a deeper yearning for a single woman to trust, or maybe even settle down or show a bit more vulnerability and move past the games… guess that’s what signing that many child support cheques will get you after so much reckless sex; it’s not quite reckoning with consequences so much as taking stock of his life, which is what happens when you turn forty. It’s the one element I like in J. Cole’s verse and probably the reason he didn’t take it off: the question of what will ultimately give both men internal peace, if anything at all. But as a whole… look, it doesn’t reach the best heights of WE DON’T TRUST YOU, if only on the basis of being way too long and sloppily sequenced to have any momentum, but it also feels built for an insular audience who has already bought into this palette of Future’s hedonism, and while I hear growth and get more of its appeal if you get into that nasty headspace, there’s an intensity and tighter focus that feels lost in the sauce. I think this is best for the diehard Future R&B hive - a subset of a subset; outside of them it’s a tougher sell, unless you just go for the last seven tracks if you want some decent but not excellent trap bangers. And for me… I’m a little shocked to say it, but I think there’s enough to go digging; there are absolutely problems, but I think this is decent, give it a shot.