#2806 Brother John Sellers - Baptist Shouts and Gospel Songs

Sellers has a great voice, but on this recording he's prone to too much tremulo and other put-on inflections. Add dips into hokey blues and general overproduction and this ends up feeling too commercial to connect too deeply 3/5

#2805 Juanita Johnson and the Gospel Tones - Climbing High Mountains

Second wave gospel music that's heard the likes of Little Richard and reclaimed all that swinging, rocking power, that's not afraid of a little electric guitar. But that's also still deeply rooted in Gospel Proper, a bridge of the sacred and the popular, a rich, joyful swirl of 1964 re-reimagining of rock roots 4/5

#2804 The Nudge - Dark Arts

The Nudge aren't shy about finding a groove and riding it. Dark Arts's a super-clean, super-tight set of fuzzed out lines that map out the shape of your face and melt it on down slow. The 25-minute closing tracks crosses over into jammy indulgence at times, and I say this as someone who deeply loves long songs. Still, a totally solid psychedelic that'll take the edge off your week right good, especially those first two tracks 3.5/5

#2803 Primal Rite - Dirge of Escapism

Muscular, knotted metal that balances raw//clean, complex//blunt, dreary//catchy in about the right ratios to appeal to the casual fan (me). As soft-focus fury goes, this'll punch up your day something nice 3.5/5

#2802 Batpiss - Rest in Piss

Roaring, dissonant post-punk that's never really noisy, hooky, propulsive, clever, or raw enough to catch. A muddled mix of greater influences 2.5/5

#2801 Sampa the Great - Birds and the BEE9

Warm tones, all breath and wind and sun, full of something more than your day to day. Sampa taps into it, in word and sound. Inflected phrasing dripping backstory and personality. A salve 4/5

#2800 Charlie XCX - Pop 2

I'm down with big autotune. Human voices are boring. Shave off their everyday aspect to get at the frail spine. Pack in the difference with fat artificial synths. In a world increasingly lies, obfuscation and bullshit, artifice is the new sincerity.

Pop 2 works best when it commits, hits hard on the synths and cranks the distortions to 11 -- those first and last tracks are fucking staggering. In between it's too often too safe, too repetitive, too smoothed out - but there's enough flashes of boldness, especially on that bonkers I Got It // Femmebot turn to make it worth a listen 3.5/5