#2434 Chastity Belt - Time to Go Home

There's something unexpectedly modern here. Some moment that snaps.

90's revival, on the surface of it. 2nd wave surf revival, check (and thank you).

But there's something about the way that Chastity Belt spin out their frustrations that feels natural and unforced and from a feminine perspective, with a feminism so casual that it barely registers; less Riot Grrrl, more Why Girl. Even when Julia sings "ladies its ok to be...it's ok to be slutty", it's with such resignation that it's less a call to arms, more a sigh into a truth she's tired of having to explain.

90's how? The guitars are 90's, sure enough. But it's also that grunge resignation in new clothes. But also, aside: pet theory: the 90's was the last gasp of the album-shaped album, where flows mattered, where listens had beginning, middles, and ends. And that's on full display here, a swamp of simmering anger and misery, spiked by guitars, soothed by other guitars, soft and hard and soft.

It's fitting that the fastest song is about John Carpenter's The Thing - a movie about social distrust, body horror, and claustrophobic dread -- what better metaphor for burgeoning adulthood in scopes small and large.

And into the gorgeous arpeggiations of Joke, an Anchorage mirror cementing Chastity Belt as Surfer Blood's older, wiser, more jaded sister band.

But most crucial's that closing final track. Pet theory 2: last-track--title-track's the ultimate sequencing power move.

After Why Try, after On the Floor, after I Don't Care, after we're all giving up, the solution's dark side rears its head, and the wasted, staggering desperation comes to roost, and Time to Come Home wraps up with a loss // taking of control that falls all over itself as a defiant grasp of power that will feel familiar to anyone that's found themselves at the end of a cycle and pulling the big escape hatch lever as hard as their body weight will bear -- and suddenly it's over, probably to repeat tomorrow 4.5/5

#2433 Charly Bliss - Guppy

The peak Charly Blissness of the Charly Bliss album comes on DQ, where Eva mewls about "bouncing so hard I peed the trampoline" and repeats it again over minimal backing, again and again, just to make sure you hear, to make sure you know she's not sorry. To the contrary!

And you can't be mad by then. Those cracking, hyperpop baby-talk vocals are Billy Corgan make-or-break right out the gate, with a posse of shitkicking fuckyes riffs as a posse, daring you to sneer.

Also, band's called fucking Charly Bliss.

And if you sneered, you're missing out. By the time the third chorus whips around on DQ, the pitchfucked doubleups and blistering wall of guitars and shrieking exclamation points are the ends that justify the motherfuckin means.

This is around-the-horn pop that you'd have to be a shit not to love [disclosure, I was tempted to be that shit - but Glitter. Goddamn. If you don't like that song I guess you're just too cool] 4/5

#2432 Red Axes - Kicks Out Of You

I had this on while I watched two Minecraft villagers bounce up and down in a little 2x1 pool of water. Then some little hearts appeared over them. They kept bouncing. It felt about right // wrong.

That bass, a stoned, digital version of  Manfredas' that just keeps pulsing - menacing, imposing, getting in your personal space. Uncanny. Everything about it maybe a little sexy and definitely a little unwelcome, mirroring the affection // violence of the EP's title 3/5

#2431 Manfredas - Pink Industry EP

The tones are nothing special, the swervy progression's alright, the loose melodic wobble's a good time - but that bass.

That writhing, striding, lithe, loping fretless -- all groove, all motion, all sex. The two tracks its on are _made_ by it, which makes the last two tracks (remixes by personal fav Zongamin no less) such a letdown. The loose liveness on those two versions are refreshing, but you can't tease me with that bass and leave me hanging man 3.5/

#2430 Lnrdcroy - Much Less Normal

A more beautiful than usual strain of hissy house, that minimal strain of lightly-glitched lo-fi that's going around -  this has everything else I'm always complaining's missing: heart, mystery, pacing, flow. Land, Repair, Refuel, in particular is a masterpiece of tones with tone. Elsewhere listenable experiments sound like reverse-engineered Kid A inspirations (in a good way (BC Ferries (!))). It wears out a bit by the end, but it's a welcome reprieve from the cold that I've gone back to again and again lately 4/5

#2429 Huerco S - For Those Of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have)

Minimal glitch that's filled with little innovations - points for truly mysterious production, for burying any kind of recognizable tone or beat under films of hiss, shimmer, filter.

But movement away from normal's nothing if it isn't _to_ somewhere, and this feels like lazy layering, with no real effort to affect or inspire. The songs can't even be bothered to end, simply snapped off abruptly after an arbitrary number of repetitions. That purity's admirable as art, but there's hundreds of people doing equally interesting stuff that's actually good to listen to 2.5/5

#2428 The Blaze - Territory

It's true that the negative space left from the Virile and Territory videos is felt. Those're masterpieces in more-than-the-sum-of-their-parts minimalism, and the music doesn't hit the same highs. But it's still haunting, nighttime frailty at its best, insistent tiny dance music, repetition and detail full of longing 4/5

#2427 Michael Kiwanuka - Love and Hate

Some day, when alien archaeologists have pored over the trillions of more interesting facets of ancient human society, some space-PhD candidate, desperate to carve out a niche in space-academy, will dig into these blog posts. And using space-data-science, it will observe a correlation between weather patterns in this little sliver of the landmass and words spent on reviews. Which is to say, a Massachusetts cloudy day has a way of opening a hole for a song to fall down, allowing that song to get settled and strange like a long-lost hobbit.

This is the decade of production, and maybe Moon Shaped Pool (similar cover art!) will be recognized as Radiohead's 3rd decade-bellwether LP some day. There's a similar drenching of strings and sounds and howling exotica choruses, over easy, blues-affected wanderers. Most of its too soppy and poppy, but when the clouds are infinity grey, its tough to resist the endless strains of Cold Little Heart, and other infinite sky-graspers. Kiwanuka's at his best when he goes big, it's a shame he doesn't quite commit to the grandest scope of his vision 3.5/5

#2426 Woods - Love is Love

Woods tamp down the nasal vocals, reach for Morning Jacket grandness, and come up with their biggest, spaciest, most beautiful album yet. The sweeping structures and swirling, interlocking parts are hypnotic and transformative, with a message of desperate love that we could use about now 4/5

#2425 Great Grandpa - Can Opener

Its happening! We're having a 90's revival! I can't decide if its too soon or about time, surprising or inevitable. Great Grandpa's all about those Built to Spill / Modest Mouse crunch backing and bent guitar leads - oh god they're even from Seattle. Time warp.  Pretty cooing ride on loose // knotty hideously start // stop hooks, an album that doesn't know whether to get geared up or give in and can't we all relate 3.5/5

#2424 Gas - Narkopop

Pop remains a masterpiece of objectified music, of the tangible untouchable. Narkopop mostly abandons that empty magic for something more narrative, more tense. Moon-shaped horns wander through in mourning. A peaceful stalking dread seeps in. It feels a bit like dying, slowly, the sound of blood pumping, wind in ears; of hope dropping in measures from your body 4/5

#2423 Nocow - Ledyanoy Album

TIL St. Petersburg winters are fuckin boring 2.5/5

#2422 Golden Pelicans - Disciples of Blood

Shouty nastiness that blurs the line between sneering punk and motorcycle metal. Chugging guitars roll relentless, and the energy's there, but it's strangely hookless and mostly forgettable 3/5

#2421 Kendrick Lamar - Damn

After the dizzying, explosive TPaB, the return to something more traditional's undeniably a comedown. Damn rides a groove and settles into it, with fewer highs and lows, less negative space, less contrast. The rhymes are as unassailable as ever, but too many songs show their hand and settle into verses and choruses and hooks that don't catch. The execption's those last 3 songs, a fall backwards through Fear's multipart horror house, into the float of God, into Duckworth's harrowing narrative. This is where the album's unexpected moments lie, breaking out of an 11 song cadence, going long, going small, taking breath.

Respect to Kendrick, the best one out there, but Butterfly aside his albums don't move me 3.5/5

#2420 Foli Jackson - Tape 2

Listen / buy here!

Another offshoot of this whole lo-fi / detuned New England scene, but better than most! Restless enough to be interesting, packed with strange detours, with the restraint to let something ghostly and beautiful emerge. Clever stuff 3.5/5

#2419 The Standells - The Very Best of the Standells

Everything you could want from garage rock: a dash of proto-punk, plus plenty of organ-drenched psychadelia, with enough dusty rockabilia that you could assume Mainline was just about a train if you didn't listen too close. But there's something bloodless about this - maybe its the flat mix, or the lack of loudness, but it didn't quite light me up 3/5

#2418 Basic Channel - BCD

Super minimal beats, flecked with glitch, like you've read biological data and turned it to sound. But there's a strange warmth in the coldness, the clinical culmination of objective study that leads to something like intimacy. Not pleasant, exactly, but something to cling to 4/5

#2417 Maethelvin - CS005

There's a lot of 80's revival electronica out there. like a lot. And most of it sounds the same, going for some combination of wistful sentimentality // outerspace lightspeeding // video game propulsion // ominous Nightdriveism. And this falls right into every one of those traps, but it's better than most. Maybe it's just the right combination, that forward lean, with an earthbound glance to the stars, with a memory of a girl and a memory of a sound, but no obsession with either 3.5/5

#2416 Piebald - We are the Only Friends We Have

Piebald just blurts it out. They're a band that's a friend. They tell you about what happened since they saw you last, they barf out their thoughts about the world, they spin out a half-clever analogy without shame. It's all rather pop and I can't help but love them for it. What a bunch of unpretentious greater-Boston goofballs. Easily dismissed if you have the least bit of archness in you, easy to fist-pump and first-listen sing along to otherwise 3.5/5

#2415 Ministry - The Land of Rape and Honey

Just about the rawest, purest expression of listenable-ish noise and rhythm around - every other industrial album's a move away from this or a manufactured move back towards it. Truly nasty, unpleasant but essential 3.5/5

#2414 Queens of the Stone Age - Era Vulgaris

Another totally solid QotS album. Trading Lullaby's caveman stoner rock for lithe, striding efficiency and T1000 guitars. Spoon-level tightness reigns, no buzz out of place, but that clinical lack of liveness makes it hard to stay invested for the duration 3.5/5

#2413 Queens of the Stone Age - Lullabyes to Paralyze

Deadspin writer // Chopped champion Drew Magary recently ranked the QotS albums, but conceded he thought they basically ranged from great to still great. Sure, everyone would say something similar: they'll rank them as great to good, or kinda bad to really bad, or really mediocre to barely mediocre at all (but then, who would listen to all 6 albums by a band they're not even really that hot on? NOT ME>

It's not even that they're _that_ samey. But either you're into huge, hard, sleek riffs or you're not. Either you're into Josh Homme's slinking masculinity or you're not. And whether that's bent glammy or krauty or angular or (in this case) stoner // 90's revival, you've got the chromosome or you don't.

This's (marginally!) less exciting than the rest, but major points for a simmering patience that builds as a 25-minute ramp-up to the epic Someone's in the Wolf. The pacing's killer - it's their most album-album I've heard (yet!) and I gotta concede admiration for the pure, easy force that is those riffs. Even if it doesn't set your heart on fire, the sound is flawless, and it's super easy to plow through the entire catalog and come away with a 5-hour half-smile 3.5/5

#2412 The Housemartins - London 0 Hull 4

The Smiths, without the misery. But with extra jangle, extra stomp, extra staggering mania, the grumpycat sulk turned to a Joker grin, replacing existentialism with garden-variety cynicism, still bursting tuneful dissatisfaction. So you don't get that spike into your darkest moments that leaves you clinging to The Queen is Dead for dear life. But this's probably a better everyday dose of catchy, unbearably British 80's rock.

And what a delightfully self-aggrandizing // self-effacing title, embracing their role a slight calling them the 4th best band from Hull. Well played 3.5/5

#2411 Duster - Stratosphere

Lo-fi post-rock that drones and hisses and plinks and plunks and, every once in a while (Echo, Bravo!) rises to a righteous shoegae climax. A weird nexus of every 90's underground trend that falls short of each movement's best, but should appeal to fans of Slint, Sonic Youth, and lesser GBV 3/5

#2410 Edgar Froese - Aqua

I feel a little shitty complaining about '74 electronica, like I'm ripping a fridge drawing of some kindergarten nephew HORSES HAVE FOUR LEGS SHITHEAD

But man, this sounds like someone found out how to make this patch cable and that hole make the machine go woOOblywoOOblywoOOblywoOObly.

And another set of cables make it go bweeeeoooooooOOOOOOOOB.

And just put a bunch of those on top of eachother.

Like, that nephew's in 4th grade and just discovered collages, and a bunch of faces from perfume ads are...I don't know, I guess they're like next to eachother now.

It's spacy, its organic, it's listenable-ish, but the seams of creation show through and there's a certain amount of "my kid coulda done that" that's tough to get past 3/5

#2409 Stimming - Alpe Lusia

I was thisclose just to turning this off and deleting it from my tolisten Spotify list and dooming it to forgotten forever.

Pressing Plant, with all its nervous skittering and deboned tones, is annoying as shit.

Frustrating. Tense. Needlessly tense.

But the album opens into the windchime ivy of Trains of Hope and I'm _just_intrigued_enough_. A certain wandering, restless, genreless exploration spills out over the canvas in messy surges, poisoned again and again by those grating detuned tones, but with a stirring enough backdrop to carry you through, to the melodica buzzes, to the choral surges, to the horn wobbles, to the sitar sweeps.

Like a surprisingly-great thrift store painting someone's gold-sharpied the word +SHIT+ across.

You almost admire the gesture, as you struggle to find the beauty of the source, and grapple with the difficulty -- even as you wished you had an easier route, you almost appreciate the glass in your shoes for the scartissue 3.5/5

#2408 Idjut Boys - Versions

Dub's a frustrating space to pin down, kinda know-it-when-I-hear-it.

Something about the specific heady fullness of that bass sound brings the word to my fingers, something about that wave of reverb, absent any real connection to the roots.

But the dub tag goes on here.

But this's more than twoncy 90's headbobbing, it's a post-Avalanchian sense of reinvention in sampling.

Occasionally fucking gorgeous. Goddamn that William Tyler opener.

And elsewhere raving up and on out.

--

I have no ideas what these boys are doing, is what I'm saying.

But it's woolly and impossible and groovesome and inventive and blindingly brilliant.

A suckerpunch of beauty and hookability that only gets better with deeper looks, until you don't know what's new or old, what's data what's pointer, what's source what's echo.

Essential shit 4.5/5

#2407 Digitalism - I Love You, Dude

Digitalism's got some great synth tones, the kind of buzz you just want to bury your face in. It's a shame they can't shut the fuck up, vocals reaching so far for emo hearts, sounding like Cut Copy gone Killers.

Tracks like Blitz and Antibiotics are all lightcycle sheen, sizzling with nightdrive sparks, but it's all buried in a pop-grasping trainwreck of an album 3/5

#2406 DJ Seinfeld - Season 1

Sporting just about the most vaporwave cover art imaginable, Season 1 sets up the expectation of heavy, detuned plastic kitsch. But once you're inside, you're neck-deep in house, just big bass hits and minimal skittering, all spun into disorienting pans and time-melting pacing. Strangely claustrophobic, strangely terrifying stuff 3/5

#2405 Atlanta Rhythm Section - A Rock and Roll Alternative

Southern yacht rock.

That is, hokey try-hard grit-lite rock from the late-70's. Some early flashes of tasty guitars and crunchy hookiness give you some hope, but then...man, Outside Woman Blues is about as white as the blues gets, Neon Nites is dopey Warren Zevonism, and yes, So Into You tips right over into full on yacht rock. Didn't know Southern rock even could do that 3/5

#2404 Splashh - Waiting a Lifetime

Splashh make poppy, shoegaze-lite, packed with pretty guitar tones, like Silversun Pickups got its emo balls did and ended up kinda housebroken. Not necessarily a bad thing. The songs're mostly waterey wanderers, leaning on some stale 00's indie moves (that whistling on the title track!), but it gets by on that killer silver dragon tone, fuzzy, shiny and beautiful. Worth a solid headphone listen 3.5/5

#2403 Sea Level - Sea Level

Jam bands//jazz rock//Southern rock//Steely Dan//Lynyrd Skynyrd. Deeply uncool, but maybe too-maligned -- or maybe maligned aboutright. This's all that paradox and more: not enough grit to be legitimate, not enough art to be respectable, not enough musicianship to work as pure virtuosity.

You can just see the ex-hippies and other unaware well-washed squares bobbing along blankly in collared shirts. There's some solid, generally hooky jams here, but culturally it's couched in the worst of the 70's. Herculean feat of rising-above-context required for enjoyment of totally fine tunes 3/5

#2402 Country Joe and the Fish - Electric Music for the Mind and Body

If somebody told you this was a parody album, you'd buy it for a beat or two.

I mean. That band name, that album name, that cover art, all kicking off with a song called "Flying High", whispering L!...S!...D!..., with a song about LBJ (gonna make him eat a _flower_, gonna make him take _acid_), everything slathered in organs and Grateful guitars - a hyperdense capsule of the psychedelic moment. Maybe at the time it read sincere; the music can hardly be held accountable for its moves calcifying into cliche after the fact, but it all sounds pretty goofy in 2017 3/5

#2401 B12 - Electro Soma

Very early-90's electronica, very nerdy, very Orbital, totally standard tones/bloops/squonks as space travel. Good Work Music. Atmospheric, clever, but too fussy to be relaxing, not quite aggresive enough to be exciting, and lacking that subtle human touch the best such stuff's got 3/5

#2400 The Chocolate Watchband - Inner Mystique

Shit moved fast in the late 60's - CWB went from standard revival/psych into full, flute/sitar/kitchensink gotta _blow_ _yer_ _mind_ grasping in the span of a year. It all feels a bit overproduced, very effortful. By-the-book adventurousness is worlds better than [normal], and there's some mind-melting stretches, but Inner Mystique lacks the urgency and naturalness of their debut.

More Their Satanic Majesty's Request than Aftermath/Sgt Peppers 3.5/5

#2399 The Chocolate Watchband - No Way Out

A blueprint of 60's garage-into-psych, down to an oft-covered cover and a Bo Diddley beat. CWB's debut is right on the cusp: a perfect hybrid of American-via-England 50's revival and what's-next late 60's exploration. Standard, but rolling its own thing - exciting, packed with Stonesey growl and swirly guitars, all spooling out naturally, finding new ground that's been waiting 4/5

#2398 Justice - Woman

Justice always sounded a step away from Daft Punk, and now they've followed them right into outright disco, even less successfully than (the wildly overrated) RAM.

The vocals are the problem: generic falsettos repeating the same generic things. They're on every track, so it's a big problem, this problem, whining over all kinds of watered-down popped bass and stringy synths. Every once in a while we get a glimpse of that muscular synth sound, uncut and uncluttered, but its way too little way too late 2.5/5

#2397 Busdriver - Thumbs

From his first dalliances with Daedelus, on through Dibiase, offkilter electronics are nothing new for Busdriver. But this is his most adventurous album since Temporary Forever. Things start off slow. Too slow, too minimal for their own good, some of the trademark absurdisms left hanging out to dry. But the backing builds to the task, with a lush, evocative buzz running through the middle sections, climaxing in Surrounded by Millionaire's harrying, offkilter screeches.

But then the album hits the skids, stumbles again and again, and mostly peters out (one exception, see below).

It's a wildly uneven album, but the stretching is exciting to stumble through.

This's also the first album where the previously-squeaky-clean Busdriver sounds really comfortable dropping F/N-bombs. No judgement on the endpoint, but he went through an uneasy period of transformation, and this feels like he's speaking from the heart again. He sounds serious. No grasping for hits, no hints of gimmick. And he sounds up to the task. It's strongest felt on the closing track, where Busdriver hits on some unusually plainspoken poignancy, a simple incision into the problems of the moment made personal.

Again, uneven on the whole, but I haven't been this eager to sift through his knotty rhymes in decades (decades!) 4/5

#2396 Floorplan - Victorious

Steadfastly, utterly committed to that repetition, shift only ever so slowly, house thumps, techno ticks, no dancefloor spell will be broken on this watch. The hook's one or two words, again and again. Later, gospel threads run underneath, sermons and psalms, until you see the lights.

Utterly committed. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might 3.5/5

#2395 DJ Marfox - Chapa Quente

Points for originality. Beats loop elliptical, keep offcenter; at its best (2685) it's a dizzying, manic romp. But this's got more newness than goodness - no heart, no headbob, and (that track aside) dancability's mostly a stretch, the sound reaching its limits halfway through the EP's 26 minutes 2.5/5

#2394 Vangelis - Earth

An album about shedding skin, of rain and ritual and letting it happen. And more rain. A lot of rain.

All bookended by songs that show you that music is the way. Earth leads off with Come On, a raucous red herring, a garagey stomper that is a key to the door to the room to the way. And by the end Vangelis sings directly of a wish to make a song that will transcend song. And in between: a spacy, experimental walkabout, packed with stuttering plucks, endless drones, searching moans. When an actual song breaks out it's an invigorating, disorienting stumble.

Never boring for all its exploration and explosion, a quietly perfect little trip 4.5/5

#2393 John Talbot - Fin

Strikes a nice balance of the experimental trends of the early 00's and a listenable, vaguely-grooveable center, weird angles sanded down into weird curves. A strange, quiet wanderer 3.5/5

#2392 Pick a Piper - Distance

Stay off the vocals kids. That mopey, dopey, Hot Chippy opener almost turned me away.

But then things get so icy and so warm, those thin beats and rounded synths, so much more heart with that tonal ventriloquism. All the heady glow of DJ Koze or Jamie XX at their best, a great background album to get lost in. Shame that it kinda just suddenly -ends- 3.5/5

#2391 White Reaper - The World's Best American Band

White Reaper shed their searing, bratty punk skin on this unexpected turn towards 70's big-riff rock, channeling the likes of Thin Lizzy, Sweet, and Kiss. From the kinda-great album title, to the crowd noise on the opening track, you're ready to imagine every power-stance solo and fist-pumping stomp blasting over an arena of thousands. Which's strange for a band that seemed destined for Great Scott greatness (where they were great!) at best.

The result's weirdly British, borderline The Darkness in its shamelessness, but without a sliver of irony. It's a fun direction, just disorienting, especially because it never quite actually escapes its scuzzy divebar gravity - those twiggy guitars and strained shouts're more desperate than dominant, more world-worn than world-conquering. It could be a brilliant combination that we're just not quite ready for, but I'm getting there 4/5

#2390 Elektroids - Elektoworld

There was a meme going around: in '97 electronic music was supposed to sound like the future, and now we just want to sound like '97.

The more things change etc - here's an album from '95 that wants to sound like the future via '81's Computer World. Minimal analog electronics chomp and chirp and electric voices repeat themselves again and again mutterboarding "jap an ese . elec tronics" or something, over and over. It's got no sense of pacing, little sense of melody, and its too derivative to be the future - Elektroids don't seem to understand what made Kraftwerk great, or otherwise just can't recreate it 2.5/5

#2389 Division of Laura Lee - Black City

It's pretty tough to avoid the Hives comparisons, especially if you're Swedish in the long 90's and sound a lot like the Hives. DoLL bang out plenty of chuggy, vaguely hooky, perfectly fine punkish rock, and show flashes of a very British ambition for anthemic greatness, but none of it's particularly memorable 3/5

#2388 The Warm Fuzzies - Extinction

Chuggy Weezer guitars spiked with tangy synths and twee winkies, sounding like a totally decent unexpected local band that makes you say "I'd see those guys again!", meaning it more than usual.

The Fuzzies're hooky and fun, somewhere between poppy Cars and poppy Devo, but sound a bit like a band that's still a little too focused on making sure they play the songs justright, unable to let them burn with their own frisky energy. The Laura-fronted songs do best, shoutout to Say What You Mean, sparking with a looser exuberance 3.5/5

#2387 Bohemian Vendetta - Bohemian Vendetta

Bog-standard 60's rock, ready for inclusion in some double-digit Nuggets edition, complete with covers of Satisfaction and House of the Rising Sun. Totally fine, but totally absent a moment that stands out from the sound 3/5

#2386 Milk Music - Mystic 100's

A moaning, one-step-in-front-of-the-other, defeated-but-persisting chug goes on and on. The fuzztones shift, a solo erupts for a couple of bars and flickers out, the whole album just pushes on, a cigarette burning down slow. A pretty good album for right about now 3.5/5

#2385 The Blue Things - The Blue Things

Folk-rock tipping into psychadelia, familiar enough that you could mistake it for a 60's compilation of unknown bands' minor singles. But it's also got flashes of its own sweet, chugging, rough-edged energy, popping with jittery guitar moves and harmonica flourishes. Another B+ hidden gem 3.5/5

#2384 VA - Mono No Aware

I try not to get sucked into counter-reviewing the ever-present Pitchfork, but Mark Richardson coyly alludes to the "tint of low-level anxiety, a sprinkling of menace, hints of relaxation or peace" on this comp and nah. Every song is *drowning__ in anxiety, dripping with menace, and the only relaxation or peace I found was when I turned it off.

That doesn't make it bad, but let's set expectations: this is mostly dissonance, detuned notes, too-slow slurs, sub-musical tones, outright static, unexpected blurts. There's a picture of someone holding their hand in fire on the cover for fuck's sake. This is a sub-generation weaned on Oneohtrix. Maybe our calibration's off, maybe making plain old pretty ambient's just a mined-out space, but this's no easy time, more an endurance test in the name of hearing some cool new sonic angles 3/5

#2483 Mr. Elevator and the Brain Hotel - When the Morning Greets You

The first handful of tracks are standard something-missing psychadelia revival, by the numbers songs that sound overrepetitive even at sub-3:00, Olivia Tremor via Tame Impala to nowhere.

But Are You Hypnotized finds a real spark, and then you're off onto a second-side suite that suddenly _works_. From Intro to Ending, it's a seven song journey with real momentum, pulled backwards into a catchy, disoriented, beautiful piece of psych proper. It's actually pretty great, just wish they'd found a better set of songs to tee you up with 3.5/5

#2482 Palma Violets - Best of Friends

Garagey revival gone English, with a Stones-via-Supergrass bratty swagger and plenty of poppy fist-pumpalong choruses. The synth-burdened detours are distracting, but it's not enough to kill the irresistible rough//clean rambleon energy 4/5