Short reviews: October releases
Notable releases this past month from Big Thief’s Adrianne Lenker, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, Julia Holter, Robyn, and more
Albums ordered by release date then by alphabetical order
Lady Gaga / Bradley Cooper — A Star is Born Soundtrack (Genre: Country/Rock/Pop)
It’s hard to say which version of the album is better: with or without dialogue. The dialogues add context and depth to the songs, but sometimes do nothing other than dragging down the pace of the album. Without them, however, the album goes through weird, sometimes inexplicably changes in music: it goes from the arena rock opener “Black Eyes” to the cozy and intimate bar scene of “La Vie En Rose” before switching to the country track “Maybe It’s Time”. Or later, it goes from the gigantic Broadway ballad “Is That Alright?” to the synthpop track “Why Did You Do That?”
Nevertheless, the soundtrack have numerous strong tracks, largely due to the chemistry between Cooper and Gaga. On highlights like “Diggin’ My Grave” and “Shallow”, their voices work together well, and the audience buys whatever they’re selling. They are both able to channel the emotions one would experience if they were watching the film. The touching “I’ll Never Love Again” shows the flexibility of Gaga’s delivery, showing both vulnerability and strength in her vocal.
The weakest part of the soundtrack, surprisingly, are the pop tracks that makes up Ally’s rise to stardom. They feel tacky, superficial (“Hair Body Face”), ridiculous (“Why Did You Do That?”), unoriginal and forgettable (“Heal Me”). For a pop star who has made numerous quality pop songs, it’s shocking that she would ever let songs like these be attached to her name.
Rating: B-
Essential tracks: “Diggin’ My Grave”, “I’ll Never Love Again”
Adrianne Lenker — abysskiss (Genre: Indie folk/Folk rock)
Lenker allegedly recorded this album in a week, and it feels fittingly so. All the tracks are simple and mellow; the calming melodies unroll so appeasingly. But just like her music with Big Thief, it’s never actually easy: the powerful lyrics deal with personal, intimate stories, to the point where sometimes you would feel like you’re witnessing a rare experience but don’t know how to make sense of it. On “terminal paradise”, she sings about coming to terms with death from a terminal condition, viewing it as a chance to grow and to give: “See my death become a trail/And the trail leads to a flower”. Her path isn’t easy, but her delicate voice and guitar-picking makes her sound seasoned and at peace.
Rating: B+
Essential tracks: “cradle”, “symbol”
St. Vincent — MassEducation (Genre: Pop)
MassEducation is the reworked, stripped down version of Annie Clark’s 2017 album Masseduction (review can be found here: https://medium.com/vuhchule/st-vincent-masseduction-930d69b01c80). As much as I adored the original album and appreciate the idea behind this stripped down version, I find this version more or less unnecessary. On the tracks that work, they still feel less of a revelation and more of a repackage. The reworked “Slow Disco” (dubbed “Slow Slow Disco” to differentiate it from the club remix released earlier called “Fast Slow Disco”) makes a great opener, with her rich and velvety signaling the vulnerability that is gonna fill this album. However, it doesn’t add anything to the original version, which is already vulnerable. If anything, it makes her sound lonely and desperate now that the backing vocals and layering strings are gone. Similarly, the new version of “Savior” drills into the contrast of the kinky verse and the dark and helpless refrain, playing around with the accompanying instruments. Still, the refrain in the original version comes and goes so quickly and unexpected, like a secret towed away, making you what to find out what’s hidden. You finally get to know more on the stripped down version, but you only hear more of the same cry for help, and everything’s still a mystery. “Los Ageless” still builds and burns with an outro monologue, but it doesn’t comes in so ferociously and feverishly before erupting for you to see the ashes falling down.
Many other tracks just simply feel inferior and redundant. The titular track “Masseduction” lacks the crucial internal conflict now that there’s only one vocal track. The piano-led tracks that were already stripped down like “Smoking Section”, “Happy Birthday, Johnny”, or even “New York” are emotional but merely sound like imperfect demos. The very human imperfections of these tracks even work against themselves sometimes, most notably in “Pills”, whose appeal lies in the polished artificial perfection that it jabs at.
All in all, this album is emotional and vulnerable, but probably not a record that you would like to dwell on or revisit often.
Rating: B
Kurt Vile — Bottle It In (Genre: Indie rock)
Kurt Vile makes another offer of his quirky Indie rock, filled with amusing ideas. On “Loading Zones”, he sings about his love for his town and cracks jokes about avoiding parking tickets. At the peak of the album, there’s the warping 10-minute long “Bassackwards” where he meanders around, making comments about the banal life. But as well as the stream-of-consciousness style works in the first half of the album, we start to lose track of what’s happening in the second half of the album. “Check Baby” is so incomprehensible that after a while it just sounds like nonsense to nonsense to nonsense (“Yeah balls to the balls to the balls to the walls to the walls […] Yeah it’s balls to the walls to the walls to the walls to the walls”). Later on, “Skinny Mini” goes on for over 10 minutes at a slow pace with not so much lyrics to spread out. Maybe it’s appropriate music to chill to, but in juxtaposition with all his previous music, Kurt Vile’s most recent album is too slack (well he IS the slacker rock king I guess) and too loose.
Rating: B
Essential tracks: “Loading Zones”, “Bassackwards”
Daughters — You Won’t Get What You Want (Genre: Noise rock/Industrial rock)
The Rhode Island noise-rock band reunites after eight years, and their new records explore new dimensions their previous records never did. At almost 49 minutes long, You Won’t Get What You Want is twice as long as their two previous albums, and the length reflects a new direction in their sound. Their rage and intensity is still there, but feels more controlled and intentional. “City Song” opens to album with a slow, cold, but urgent sound, before leading up to “Long Road, No Turns” and “Satan in the Wait”. These songs are some of the longest songs on the album, taking time to sprawl out and build a complex structure, before their breakneck speed returns on “The Flammable Man”. “Less Sex” offers a cool down, where the lead singer Alexis Marshall takes on a dark, grim tone à la Nick Cave. The best track on the album, however, comes near the end of the album: punk banger “The Reason They Hate Me” is possibly the catchiest song the band has written.
Rating: A
Essential tracks: “The Flammable Man”, “Less Sex”, “The Reason They Hate Me”
Julia Holter — Aviary (Genre: Experimental/Art pop)
After the more direct and accessible pop sound of 2015’s Have You In My Wilderness, Julia Holter goes wild and delivers a dreamlike, sprawling, and rich set of compositions. Aviary is the Medúlla to Have You In My Wilderness’s Debut (Björk reference in case you don’t know). There’s the forceful, astral opener “Turn the Light On”, the medieval “Voce Simul”, the sweeping “Another Dream”. A highlight of the album is “Everyday Is an Emergency”, which opens with 4 minutes of atonal bagpipe before making an unexpected turn into an ominous piano ballad with cryptic lyrics. It’s like the soundtrack to a lost Twilight Zone episode, or a twisted apocalyptic dream you are not ready to see but don’t want to get out of. The centerpiece of the album is “I Shall Love 2”, a spacey ecstatic track that feels like a warm, compassionate, and empathetic hug. On the second half of the album, the Kate Bush-frenetic piano ballad “Les Jeux To You” is another highlight.
However, Aviary is not exactly a fun experience. Julia Holter describes it as a playful and cathartic record, which means she just goes wherever the music takes her to. While it is not confined by conventions, the record isn’t breezy, and rather a demanding listen. Björk’s Medúlla is experimental and inaccessible, but it’s still a nice and tight record at 45 minutes long. At a sprawling 90 minutes long, Aviary is almost twice as long as any other album in Holter’s catalogue. One needs to sit down and attentively listen to it at least twice just to get it, which is not something everyone can afford considering its length.
Rating: A-
Essential tracks: “Everyday Is an Emergency”, “I Shall Love 2”, “Les Jeux To You”
Robyn — Honey (Genre: Electropop)
It’s hard not to love Robyn’s new album, but it’s also hard to love Honey as much as her previous albums. Her first full length solo album in 8 years doesn’t flash and dazzle, and chances are that it won’t give you the emotional catharsis like Body Talk did. But the intimacy, the emotions, and the attention to details are still there. Take the lead single “Missing U” for example. It immediately feels sparse: there’s a four-on-the-floor kick drum, a warbling synth line, and some keyboard. They are disconnected, like something is missing. And that’s exactly what she’s conveying: “There’s this empty space you left behind now you’re not here with me.” It’s this empty space, not an empty space. It’s right here; it’s existing; she can feel it, and she wants you to feel it. And she makes it clear that the word choice is intentional: it’s “this part of you”; it’s “this clock that stopped”; it’s “this residue”.
Every track on Honey is built the same way, anti-climatic and introspective but blissful. Robyn is no longer in a crowd, but she’s lonely no more: she has one place beside her, and she has her eyes on the right person. That’s where the title track comes in. By the time it was released, “Honey” has already become a legend, the center of a myth after an early version of the song was played during the credits of a Girls episode. And on the song, Robyn’s inviting you to get what you want: “No, you’re not gonna get what you need/But baby, I have what you want/Come get your honey”. The song is alive with warmth and movement: the golden “waves” and strong “current”, backed by the familiar heartbeat kick drum. Honey is the “Dance to This” to Body Talk’s “My My My!” (Troye Sivan reference if you can’t tell), the behind the scenes to the main show. There’s less, but it feels warm, intimate, introspective, and enough.
Rating: A-
Essential tracks: “Missing U”, “Honey”
Thom Yorke — Suspiria (Music for the Luca Guadagnino Film) (Genre: Art pop/Ambient)
Okay, remember a couple hundred words ago where I said you need to listen to Aviary at least twice to get it? Suspiria is not as uncompromising, but even harder to get. Inspired by the 1982 Blade Runner soundtrack, Thom Yorke creates dark melodies out of classical compositions and synthesizers. The result is a suspenseful, hair-raising soundtrack that works extremely well with the horror film that it accompanies. Thom Yorke is a genius, and he uses music to great effects. On the amazingly brilliant “Suspirium”, he uses a repetitive fast-paced piano loop in 3/4 time to emphasize the dance motif, a cycle we can’t get out of. The chord progression helps build tension and confusion from a deceptively uplifting mood, as well as a dreamlike, haunting quality (I’ll spare you the details, but catch my analysis of the song later). Later on, “Volk” uses an odd time signature (5/4), as well as an off-beat synth line that mirrors the main melody line to create an uneasy feeling. Similarly, “Had Ended” starts briefly with a droning sound to great impact, while “Unmade” showcases his beautiful vocals.
But just like Aviary, Suspiria can be too demanding to enjoy. Even worse, some may find it too pedantic, which wouldn’t improve with multiple listens. Moreover, it’s a soundtrack, and probably not suitable to be listened on its own. Many of the tracks are instrumental and supposed to accompany scenes of the film. Among an 80 minutes long soundtrack album, these tracks sound like nothing more than ambient loops punctuated with some occasional creepy sounds. You wouldn’t want to play this record inconspicuously in the background either: one off-guard moment and it will scare the hell out of you.
Rating: B+
Essential tracks: “Suspirium”, “Volk”
