#2937 Ausli Hue - We're In Different Places

Wobbly house slathered in vocals that warp and contort, by methods natural and otherwise. A slippery, strange record that wants you to dance, but wants you to work at it 3.5/5

#2936 Andy Gabbard - Fluff

Perfectly named! So close to "Fuzz", but without the implication of bristle. An album of Tiny Music b-sides -- agreeable, but thinly mixed and slight 3/5

#2935 Nicolas - Las Lomas 2

Insistent, mysterious, menacing. Patient as a ghost. Tides of synths, Spanish muttered from the bottom of the well, building midnight desert atmosphere 3.5/5

#2934 Nicolas - Donut Girl EP

Wobbly, hazy, familiar synthwave sketches that barely round out 10 minutes 2.5/5

#2933 Men I Trust - Headroom

Très Québécois! As warm, sensual, and cool as Air // Daft Punk, with an icy electro clip. Hipster boat music in the best way 3.5/5

#2932 Yazz Ahmed - Le Saboteuse

Rolling, distance horn lines that move in unfamiliar contours. Hypnotic but dissonant, more pleasing intellectually than in the listening. Radiohead cover feels like a distraction 3/5

#2931 Sol Virani - No Pork in My Gumbo

There's a 25 great minute EP in here somewhere. Virani's got great flow (watch him dance around "wine" on the intro) and for a few tracks he perks up trap tropes with some soulful swoon. But there's nowhere near enough ideas on here to cover 24 songs and 72 minutes -- the whole last hour sounds like he's trying to hit the word count on a book report 3/5

#2930 Car Seat Headrest - Twin Fantasy (Face to Face)

Car Seat Headrest's long lost cult album recently got re-recorded - mostly note for note, with some rethinkings of the spoken word space-fillers. It's a messy record in either form, calling to mind, strangely specifically, It Was Hot We Stayed in the Water, in its particular rejection of sensible pacing in the name of deeply felt emotions beyond expression in standard forms.

Some of it's stunning. My Boys is a a soaring classic, Stop Smoking's a dagger of simplicity, and Cute Thing's a ripper you'd never be sorry to hear live. The 16-minute Famous Prophets is rewarding in the buildup and the payoff.

But man it's a long, weird meander (the other long song, Beach Life-In-Death is a mess, a disjointed pile of half-baked fragments). Face to Face (2018) cuts some of the most embarrassing spoken word bits, but those were arguably, in their own uncomfortable way, some of Mirror to Mirror's  (2011) highlights. The remake's production's undeniably a better listen, and I don't know that I'd make it through the original again -- but if I had to pick one to exist, I'd let Mirror to Mirror's bizarro boldness live forever. A strange project from a brilliant kid//adult, a stark illustration of how you can't have it both ways when it comes to sincerity 4/5

#2929 Christoph De Babalon - If You're Into It I'm Out Of It

The concrete, fluttering tape drones hold up better than the noisey, broken-breakbeat fuckery. But IYIIIOOI is a fun acronym and an analog for how the album's more than the some of its parts, how it works better in soft focus as a blearily remembered, haunting whole. This is menace incarnate, some ghost with intent beyond reckoning 3.5/5

#2928 Kali Uchis - Isolation

Relentlessly smooth, sneaky-adventurous, Kali winds her way through 15 slinky variations on her lush pop sound. The beats keep a half kilter off, Casio buzzes on In My Dreams are an unexpected twist, but no curtain falls. Midrange scotch that's surprisingly drinkable, with a little flourish on the finish 3.5/5

#2927 Ty Segall - Singles 2

Plenty of old school Ty Segall scuzz and fuzz. Nothing quite as instantly catchy as his best stuff, but a rocksolid listen for 3rd wave garage fans 4/5

#2926 Ty Segall - Ty Segall (2017)

Ty Segall distills his history. Never as raw as Lemons, never as ferocious as Slaughterhouse, but carrying some streamlined version of their spirit - this's a mellowing of his recent, desperate lunges away from his roots.

Here the hooks are effortless, the fuzz is natural. Where old Ty was a hundred-reverberation melee, new Ty is a flashing two-guitar cross-channel duel. And for once the pretty songs -- prettier than usual even -- feel at home. With the hindsight of the Freedom's Goblin's triumph, it's hard not to see this as a sweet last kiss to Segall's garage era sound 4/5

#2925 Bobby Caldwell - What You Won't Do For Love

Pure AOR with the barest exotic touches. Stevie Wonderbread. Tonic for those who find Steely Dan just a little too spicy. But damn smooth if you're in the market for this kind of thing. In an era of synthwave and disco revival, maybe this deserves a second look. That title track at least is undeniably sweet 3.5/5

#2924 Shamir - Revelations

I'll bet this is at least one person's all-time favorite album, and that's something. And it's admirable that Shamir wants to move past his day-glo pop beginnings. But we don't need any more lethargic bedroom indie pop; the endless falsetto wonderings aren't nearly interesting enough to make generic guitar grumble and lazy casiotone clipclops worth bothering with 2.5/5

#2923 Ty Segall - Freedom's Goblin

Freedom's Goblin's a sprawling, brilliant double album that takes Segall's dalliances with glam and squealing strangeness, marries them to his natural talents for hooksome fuzz, adds some killer rock horns, and blossoms into a bewildering opus.

After reaching the outer limits of what blasted guitar rock could accomplish, Ty Segall seemed lost. But last year's self-titled album was a centering ritual and the path opened up. Sweet 60's shimmer, Exile swagger, flashes of outright power pop (5 Ft Tall!) and more - none of the 19 songs sound the same. It harkens back to those adventurous albums from 90's bands trying to find space outside their sound: Tiny Music, Vitalogy, In It For the Money, Mellon Collie. Segall takes solo credit on this one, but there's a band on the cover and a band's worth of ideas on the record.

And then there's those sweet little callbacks. A hollowed-out third version of Talkin (may he keep making these forever) shows Segall hasn't lost his Diddy Wah Diddy. A 12 minute track closes things out, a pair of Cowgirl in the Sand guitars stretching Sleeper's title track into glitched out disintegration.

Ty's early stuff is legend, and he's finally showing us how much more he's capable of 4.5/5

#2922 Courtney Barnett - Tell Me How You Really Feel

If you handed someone this album and Sometimes I Sit and Think, you'd forgive them for mixing them up. Barnett's debut was inventive and restless and clever*, fully baked and cresting the way a great second album might be.

TMHYRF's the one that sounds like a wave-making debut. The songs are enjoyable, but simple, indebted to the past, obsessed with obscuring fuzz and distortion-driven slights of hand. It's Mellow Gold, Cowboys From Hell, Surfer Rosa, Subliminal Plastic Motives, Blue Album, Gish, Homework, Black Sabbath, Undertow, The Bends**, Kerplunk, Isn't Anything -- the perfectly solid prelude to the seminal sophomore -- but it came . . after . .?***

Maybe it's hanging out with Kurt Vile - Tell Me How shares his dry take on lyrics and love of slow-roasted guitar tone. Some of those drones are some Yo La Tengo caliber endless shit. Maybe it's just what Barnett wants to _do, shaking off any need to top herself, rattling out 10 perfectly good songs about thisish and thatish, wreathed in Americana and guitars.

That feedback on the opener, that wish-this-would-go-on-forver**** sweet sweet solo on City Looks Pretty. Damn near every song has some great guitar moment, some gorgeous congregation of electricity. And while we've lost a measure of perspicacity, instead we get supreme confidence from a voice that's in it for the long haul 3.5/5

* if __I__ noticed the lyrics she's gotta be doing something right

** shh

*** this is how you get famous in 2018: hit it big with the indie nerds, leverage that cache into broader appeal

**** surely she knew there was a moment worth stretching into an 8 minute song there, did she wuss out because this was her big breakout moment? or maybe its just a bit of the old leave em wanting more. do want more.

#2921 The Barr Brothers - Queens of the Breakers

Queens of the Breakers drifts in that War on Drugs // Kurt Vile // MMJ // Blitzen Trapper endless twilight, but finds its own hidden corner of the great sky to light up. Every time you calibrate your heart the Brothers find some insidious variation that rattles a piece loose 4/5

#2920 Shoping - The Official Body

Angular mutant disco, hall of mirrors retro that sounds like 4 decades at once, cathode rays stuck between stations. B-52s, Devo, Wire, Pretty Girls Make Graves, The Knife, and 100 more but somehow not enough. Love the surfy guitars, stuttering bass, sneering attitude, but there's no soul in the shell 3/5

#2919 Hookworms - Hookworms EP

(1 _ _ _)

You can so rarely track a linear progression like this, where a band spends 7 years making their sound steadily better, one album at a time. Hookworms have the core out the gate: a noisy squall of guitars washing out distant vocals, and that rhythm section, driving, driving, driving, a relentless krauty juggernaut. A messy, promising start 3.5/5

#2918 Hookworms - The Hum

(_ _ 3 _)

Where Hookworms hit their stride proper. You'll feel it click on that opening track, the song cracking open: experiment has become technique. The stack of layers is steady and ready for more. A direct continuation, even the lowercase roman numerals keep ticking up. The confidence is remarkable.

This is pacing mastered, patience weaponized. That bassline hasn't missed one beat in years. Indie-motorik to rival The Men and Traams, and heck Prins Thomas and Lindstrom too 4.5/5

#2917 Hookworms - Pearl Mystic

(_ 2 _ _)

Where hookworms take all that noise and turn it into songs, condensing the instrumental asides into numbered interludes, letting the endless rhythm section draw out exaltations and exhaustions, stretching a canvas for all that feedback. Gorgeousness emerges 4/5

#2916 Hookworms - Microshift

(_ _ _ 4)

At last that dangerous moment, when the sound's mastered. Now what?

Hookworms are no average band. The new synths bolster their strengths, locking into those perfect rhythms and adding _another layer of fuzz and buzz to drown in. And in the salinity of that mix the vocals rise to the top, carving out dancepunk Phoenix manifestos with all the confidence you'd expect from this very confident band.

It's gorgeous and dizzying, all those arty ambitions slamming against swirling solos and anthemic yelps, that icy-precise beat thawing to tap toes, songs stretching to 8:37 when they need to, bailing at 2:19 when they've made their point. This is where you'd usually look forward to a band's next album, but surely _this_time they've hit a wall. Maybe not. For now enjoy one of the best albums of 2018 4.5/5

#2915 Fugazi - In On the Kill Taker

Fugazi's noisy (read: noisier) record: that flayed production's a thrill. There are zero people who'll have a different opinion of this (great) album than the rest of Fugazi's (consistently great) output 4/5

#2914 The Lovely Eggs - This is Eggland

With a guitar tone that sweet, with that much attitude, with that much touch for every backing vocal and synthy flourish -- there's life in the two-piece band thing yet. A dizzying wave of precision yelps and carpetbomber fuzz 3.5/5

#2913 Arctic Monkeys - Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino

What a bad album! A loungey, slinking sluice of Spacehogey glam, like a hundred years in the 2001 room washed away Turner's every memory of the Arctic Monkeys.

And yet! Good god does it commit to the sound and concept. And around the third time you listen to Star Treatment's unearned confidence, a Midnite Vulture sliding into your DarkMoons like

it sounds a little sexy. This dude does not give a fuck.

And 6 tracks in, we're still locked in. Still doing . . whatever _this is. Close the deal, jesus.

Debut Test asks if an unexpected direction from an expectation-laden band would have been better received if it was some new band's debut. Abacab, Tiny Music, Adore, Congratulations, They Were Wrong So We Drowned (no, yes, yes, no, yes)

This time ask: could this have hoped to be more than a microcult hit if it wasn't for the trackrecord it's rejecting? (nah)

But that's what's happening! The nerve!

Not good, but I'm wildly glad it exists 3/5

#2912 The Idle Race - Idle Race

Exhibit B that Jeff Lynne's an alien angel here to tell us about the rhythms of the universe. Countless little flourishes of guitar and production, carved from light, bathed in layers of vocals, pushed off the edge of the world. Lacking the dizzying highs of The Birthday, but at least the music hall singsongers are a little less cringey 4/5

#2911 Traams - Grin

God bless post-motorik, god bless Traams. That locked in bass, that sizzling texture, it's the cure for what ails, tension in the process of release. A remarkably confident debut, locked in and pushing forward forever 4/5

#2910 The Monks - Hamburg Recordings 1967

they don't record em like this anymore, there's air in this for all that thin guitar and underdeveloped harmony to float on. Space for all that quavering strange, all that pinch and punch. What a bunch of fucking weirdo geniuses 4/5

#2909 Ought - Room Inside the World

Taut post-punk that gets caught in the gums of its frontman's Morrissey moaning. The band's angular and tight as a goddamn canvas, full of bop and shimmer, but Darcy's mealymouthed JD-via-Interpol overemoting drags it down like an overdressed Caesar 2.5/5

#2908 Slug - Higgledy Piggledy

music for people who are in bands, pure muso, Spoon meets Enon. All perfectly catchy, full of angular angles, but so damn arch, without making it around the horn to new age cool 3/5

#2907 Iceage - Beyondless

Sloppy, shambing post-punk heading nowhere. Elias bleats and moans, the band plods along dutifully. It's almost artful how little effort everyone seems to show. Dead boring though 2.5/5

#2906 DJ Koze - Knock Knock

Koze's still the master of listenable, slippery electronic trippery. Amygdala meets the Avalanches, a hazy plume of buzzy bass and playful beats, wistful vocals searching for something 4/5

#2905 Twin Peaks - Sweet '17 Singles

Twin Peaks whittles off the last of their bristly bark, leaving 47 minues of breezy honkytonk indie-Americana. MMJ//Wilco meets The Stones//The Band: jangling piano, sweet guitars, soothing harmonies, exhaling horns carry you away 4/5

#2904 Janelle Monae - Dirty Computer

A shimmering swash of pop, rock, and R&B. Monae's pulls the Prince thing off -- Make Me Feel and Americans swerve just wide of ripoff* and find their own greatness. And the flowing 5-7 sequence is intoxicating, kicking off with Screwed, which goes beyond double entendre into a broad, clever rollaround in the worry//fuckit knifedge we're riding.

But it's an album that takes a bit to find its footing. Dirty Computer's a glorious, layered opener, but then there's Crazy, Classic, Life -- an overproduced Coke-commercial Royals-wannabe that Prince would've been embarrassed repeat the name of, a pop trainwreck of empty verses, tacky basslines, and cringey raps. I guess you gotta sell records to children. Take a Byte (oof) only fares a little better.

If you can get past it though, you'll find an 11 song sequence that's assured and subtly strange and absolutely worth your attention 4/5

* edit: Prince was involved in the record, so ripoff is probably the wrong word, but overwhelming similarity is still real distracting

#2903 Strange Lot - Gods & Clods

A moaning, late-Nirvana resolution // desperation runs through Gods & Clods, everything a little detuned, sung a little badly, but roaring, with early-Ty Segall screech and stomp. The second half drags, but for those first sloppy, tempo-fucked, slurry, staggering tracks, there's a flash of something thrilling. Keep an eye on these guys 3.5/5

#2902 The Lay Llammas - Ostro

Deeply trippy stuff, dual-wielding buzzy repetition and wandering guitars. Textured, utterly listenable krauty psychadelia, voices wandering in as extras in the installation. A great little driftaway to put on loop 4/5

#2901 Kutiman - 6 AM

Of 6 AM's 8 tracks, 4 have Adam Scheflan on vocals and those're the weakest ones. They're all Black Keys swagger-lite slathered in production: James Bond strings, hiphop shuffles, backing oooos, organ flourishes - it's all too much. Fancy music for boring people.

The instrumentals get a little space to breathe without the crushing expectation of selling records, building exotica atmosphere and gentle momentum. But they're broken up terribly by all those vocal tracks; kills the record 2.5/5

#2900 Travis Morrison - Travistan

The Dismemberment Plan man's solo turn's mostly notable for its 0.0 Pitchfork review. That's a shamefully sensationalist score - the idea that this is anywhere in the bottom percent of albums is a shit take.

But it's...not good either. It sounds cheap: the production, the sentiment, the hokey jokey songwriting, like 14 cranks on a grocery store toy dispenser. Most songs are sub-Randy Newman oh-hey-look. I mean holy shit we didn't need four (4 (!)) sing-songy songs about presidents on coins.

But hey, it's light, it's playful, with little synthy flourishes and rappy breakdowns. Morrison's fuckin around a little, shaking off all the angst. I don't like it, but it doesn't like, offend my goddamn sensibilities 2/5

#2899 Frankie Rose - Cage Tropical

80's production and robot reverb cooing are fine, chill enough, but the whole sound's three times reheated by now, the vocals cloying by the end. There's flashes of beauty, but it's all a bit animatronic 3/5

#2898 Minami Deutsch - With Dim Light

With Dim Light's a hypnotic, krauty delight, packed with ripping guitars. The plastic tightness of the first track's a red herring, afterwards everything unspools into rolling waves of rhythm and energy. All those lean-in beats, all that screeching distortion, this's that unicorn child of mathy and raw 4/5