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Only Dust Remains - Backxwash: Review

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Review by Lavender: Backxwash is a rapper who garnered tons of attention and acclaim for a trilogy of albums she released between 2020 and 2022. The projects combined a thunderous style of hip-hop crossed with an embrace for classical metal stylings and screamed vocals. In combination with her vulnerability and willingness to discuss harrowing subject matter, the resulting music was extremely intense and extremely unique. The trilogy ended with my favorite release of the bunch HIS HAPPINESS SHALL COME FIRST EVEN THOUGH WE ARE SUFFERING  which is among my favorite rap albums of this entire decade so far. So needless to say I was pretty excited for her return.  The two singles this album led with had my expectations as high as ever. "Wake Up" is a thunderous epic of a song that really blew me away last year and I still absolutely love it. It's a multi-faceted composition that slips in and out of its different passages flawlessly and the way it always circles back around to ...
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For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) - Japanese Breakfast: Review

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Review by Lavender: Japanese Breakfast is the project of singer-songwriter Michelle Zauner, who has spent nearly a decade now writing some of the most interesting, playful, and versatile music in the world of indie pop and rock. Her appeal spanned new peaks in 2021 with her third album Jubilee , where songs like "Be Sweet" and "Paprika" showed off a more vibrant and poppy side to her sound and found critical acclaim doing so. My favorite Japanese Breakfast album remains her 2017 outing Soft Sounds From Another Planet , which used playful atmosphere and entrancing space to highlight her abilities as a writer. After hearing some of that quiet poise in the singles for this record, I was hoping for a triumphant return to that style. But it is not what I got.  Let's talk highlights first, because the album does have some. Lead single "Orlando In Love" is a track I hoped I would like more within the context of the album. It's a gentle track that could se...
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Hornet Disaster - Weatherday: Review

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Review by Lavender: Weatherday is the emo and noise pop project of Swedish singer-songwriter Sputnik. The project first received quite a bit of attention online in the months following their 2019 debut Come In , which in the years since has developed a pretty substantial cult following. While Sputnik has remained busy with various collaborations and side projects in that time, Hornet Disaster  is the long-awaited sophomore Weatherday album. With a 76-minute runtime spread across 19 tracks, the album gives long-time fans plenty to chew on for however long it takes until Weatherday eventually returns again.  If you've paid any attention to my TikTok or Twitter, or even came to the release party I hosted for Hornet Disaster  last week, then you already know I'm a big Weatherday fan. And in the lead up to this record I became more and more excited with the release of pretty much every song. In one way or another dating all the way back to 2022, 7 songs in total had been relea...
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Dead Channel Sky - Clipping: Review

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Review by Lavender: Clipping  is a rap trio that in certain circles needs absolutely no introduction. One of those circles being my long-time readers as I've always been a huge fan of the band. I dished out a lot of retrospective acclaim to their progressive rap masterpiece from 2014 and their highly conceptual follow-up a few years later. I was also a big fan of their multi-album indulgence into horror-core which resulted in the excellent 2020 album Visions Of Bodies Being Burned , their best record yet and one I called my album of the year for 2020. But it's been a long 5 years since then and what the group returned with is a shift in style to the equally conceptual world of cyberpunk. While they tackle the new sound and style with just as much commitment, it's far and away the dorkiest thing I've ever heard them do, which is an issue at points.  Dead Channel Sky  isn't precisely a tale of two halves but a majority of the highlights pop up on the first half, which...
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MUSIC - Playboi Carti: Review

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Review by Lavender: Playboi Carti is a rapper who rose rapidly to popularity around 2016 on the back of a few viral hits on his self-titled debut mixtape. That was followed by two records that played with unique sounds in the highly-populated world of trap music and both garnered substantial critical acclaim. 2018's Die Lit remains a personal favorite of mine whose woozy psychedelic beats remain undeniable to this day. That was followed in late 2020 by Whole Lotta Red  which substantially switched up Carti's sound and became highly influential in the worlds of vamp and rage. After several release dates were announced and never followed up on and a series of singles were uploaded to YouTube last year, we've finally arrived at Carti's follow-up. Music , by comparison, is even more all over the place than its predecessor though it delivers a comparable energy. What it doesn't deliver is anywhere near as dramatic a progression in his style or ethos as I was hoping for. ...
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MAYHEM - Lady Gaga: Review

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Review by Lavender: Lady Gaga is a caliber of pop star that really needs no introduction. Throughout the early 2010s, she was elevating to and then occupying a platform of pure superstardom scoring hit after hit after hit in the process. Though her previous record Chromatica  performed decently in 2021, it was a significant step down from expectations for her studio output that left me and many others wondering if her time in the brightest lights was over. It isn't. On the back of some of her biggest hits in years, Gaga returned triumphantly with a record that stylistically throws it back to her earliest days and is surprisingly rewarding doing it.  To say that this record started off on unsure footing would be an understatement. Last year Gaga shared "Disease," a single that didn't perform extraordinarily well. I think that's a shame cause the song is an absolute fucking jam with an utterly infectious hook and thumping dance beat that I think is great. On the opp...
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Please Don't Hate Me with Saoirse Dream, Shygirl, GFOTY & Food House: Rapid Fire Reviews

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For the first rapid fire review segment of 2025 I wanted to take a look at some hyperpop records that have been garnering a lot of attention, or that we've been covering over on Ringtone Magazine. saoirse dream  - saoirse dream Let's start with the easy one. I like this Saoirse Dream record quite a bit and you should listen to it. She combines the digital sounds of contemporary hyperpop with flavors of 90s rock like grunge and shoegaze into a genre she calls Wizard Sleaze. I know all of that because I interviewed Catherine, the girl behind Saoirse Dream about the album for Ringtone Magazine and caught a ripping live show from her the week the album dropped. For that reason I'm not going into detail to try and pick the record apart track by track, instead I'll just give it a certified Lavender seal of approval and encourage you to try the record out yourself. 7.5/10 Club Shy Room 2 EP - Shygirl Despite never being a massive fan of Shygirl's first few albums, I went ...
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