Lav's Music Corner

070 Shake AKA Danielle Balbuena is a New Jersey born rapper and singer who first caught the attention of the hip hop world last year when she was featured on Pusha T's Santeria  followed shortly by features on the Kanye West tracks Ghost Town  and Violent Crimes . After these critically acclaimed performances she released a handful of singles before announcing her debut record on the back of her Under The Moon single. Review By Lavender: I was definitely looking forward to hearing more from 070 Shake after she lit it up on back to back weekends with a killer performance on Santeria  and then an absolute tour de force moment on Ghost Town . I even enjoyed some of her first mixtape and her biggest single to date Honey . But when the singles for this record started rolling in my expectations got lower and lower for the most part, and for good reason because Modus Vivendi  kind of lands flat on its face. The era got off to a pretty rough start last year with the...

AJJ is an Arizona based folk punk band who pioneered the genre in the 2000's with their 2007 record People Who Can Eat People Are the Luckiest People In The World . They stumbled back into critically acclaim with 4th record 2011's Knife Man . Since then they've dropped two records and gone through a name change from Andrew Jackson Jihad but haven't really been back in the indie spotlight until now. Review By Lavender: I have a pretty strong affinity for AJJ's two best records but their career has definitely been hit or miss. What got me so excited for this album was the trio of great singles the band dropped leading up to it. While I don't think the record is as groundbreaking as some of those that preceeded it I do think its their best record in almost a decade and finally brings the great sense of contemporary satire that I always look for from the band back in spades. First lets talk about those three great singles that made me and so many others so ...

Wolf Parade is a Canadian indie folk band who blew up on the back of an incredible debut record, 2005's Apologies To The Queen Mary .The group disbanded early on in this decade but reformed for a moderately well received comeback record in 2017. Now after a three year gap of playing live shows and releasing a pair of singles the band is back with a fifth studio record in Thin Mind . Review By Lavender: Wolf Parade's 2005 debut record Apologies To The Queen Mary  is one of the greatest indie records of all time and despite near universal praise to this day I still think the record doesn't get nearly the credit it deserves. Since then I have always enjoyed the work of Spencer Krug with Wolf Parade and under other aliases but nothing has ever quite felt as groundbreaking or unique. Thin Mind  however takes a big step in the right direction specifically with a fantastic instrumental palette that makes it one of the best things I've heard the band do since their iconi...

Halsey is a New Jersey born pop singer who blew up around five years ago on the back of her debut record Badlands  and its smash single New Americana . Manis  is her third record and it comes three years after her last project Hopeless Fountain Kingdom , but Halsey hasn't been quiet in those years with a consistent output of new music and singles as well as a consistently presence in pop music headlines for a number of reasons. Review By Lavender: There has never really been a time when I've considered myself a Halsey fan. For every genuinely good pop tune like Ghost  or Strangers  there are mountains of painful, generic and incredibly underwritten pop tunes under her belt. After hearing the long list of singles leading up to this record I was pretty sure I wasn't going to like Manic  any more than her last two records, but the best way I can describe it is as one step forward and about five steps back. The lead single for the record was the track Witho...

Algiers is a Georgia based experimental rock band who emerged earlier this decade with a unique and rootsy take on Post-Punk. There Is No Year  is their third record and looks to follow in the footsteps of their politically charged and instrumentally exciting first two records. Review By Lavender: I can't say I've been head over heels for Algiers so far. They are from my adopted hometown of Atlanta and play an explosive brad of post-punk that I enjoy. Their records are both solid and I like plenty of the bands tracks but as a whole I thought the records were good, and just that. After some inconsistent singles leading up to the album I had a feeling we were heading towards the same kind of release, but There Is No Year  may be the weakest of Algiers three good records. The lead single Dispossession  absolutely rules with a dominating lead vocal performance that emerges from rapid fire melodies across the track. The instrumental is driving and intricate with a bac...

Raekwon AKA The Chef is a New York rapper and founding member of legendary hip hop collective Wu-Tang Clan. He delivered some of the most exciting and iconic performances in the groups history and since then has found critical success with his Only Built 4 Cuban Linx  pair of records. His most recent solo record was 2017's The Wild  and he made few appearances on the most recent Wu-Tang EP's and records. Review By Lavender: Who isn't excited for more music from The Chef. Even though his last record The Wild  wasn't perfect he proved on numerous tracks that he still had it and to this day is one of the most exciting Wu-Tang members to catch as a feature. Unfortunately The Appetition  is short but very rarely sweet. The opening and closing songs both fall short of the reputation The Chef himself has earned. Solid Gold  comes off as just kind of lazy in almost all parts. The hook is well sung but not at all well written and while Raekwon's performance is a...

Pinegrove are a New Jersey based indie folk band fronted by Evan Stephens Hall who rose to prominence in in 2016 when they released their critically acclaimed debut album Cardinal . The group entered a strange hiatus in 2017 when Hall made a Facebook post responding to anonymous allegations of "sexual coercion" and cancelled the bands upcoming tour. Their follow-up record Skylight  appeared on streaming services in 2018 and now two years later the band are prepared for their proper comeback on Marigold . Review By Lavender: I really enjoyed Pinegrove's 2016 breakout record Cardinal  and I had a feeling that the band was poised for a big breakout moment. The bands next few years had some strange controversy and a cancelled tour but I even continued to enjoy the music that they put out on their Skylight  record. After enjoying the singles leading up to this album and remembering how much I enjoyed their debut album I got really excited for Marigold , and for good rea...

Eminem Review By Lavender: Marshall Mathers AKA Eminem is a rapper from Detroit who got his career off to a fantastic start. Between 1999 and 2002 Eminem dropped three excellent records that you should definitely listen to. Since then Eminem has release no more good records and the quality of his albums have ranged from mediocre to some of the worst rap records of all time. His new album Music To Be Murdered By  isn't terrible, and is better than his last two bad records. There are some great guest features and a handful of solid instrumentals from hip hop new and old. Unfortunately many of these tracks suffer from the same things Eminem's music has for decades. This album is full of terrible hooks, bad features from bad singers and Eminem's kooky rap styling and childish upset delivery. By far the worst thing about this record is that literally every song is overflowing with some of the worst lyrics I've ever heard on an actual rap album, so instead of breaking do...

Selena Gomez is an actress and singer whose career in the former propelled her into the latter as a child star. Her first proper studio album as a solo artist came in 2013 and it looked as though a promising music career was on the horizon for her when she released Revival  shortly after in 2015 to more critical praise and commercial success. Despite this somewhat promising start it has been a long time since we heard a proper studio record. She has a handful of successful singles and some high profile features under her belt in the time between these records that kept her name in the headlines, and a pair of big singles leading up to the release of Rare  re-introduced her as a bonafide star. Review By Lavender: I can't say that I've really been a Selena Gomez fan when it comes to her music. With the exception of the excellent Talking Heads sampling Bad Liar , I haven't really enjoyed many of Selena's biggest hits and I remember coming away from her last record...

Beach Slang is a Philly based punk rock project of James Alex who first exploded onto the scene in 2015 with their great debut album The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us . They followed it up quickly with a moderately well received sophomore record before spending a year experimenting with a quieter version of their sound under the "Quiet Slang" moniker. Now they are back with their first record of new studio material in four years and the singles took a much more classic rock inspired approach. Review By Lavender: The debut record from Beach Slang remains one of the most underrated rock records of this entire decade as the youthful flare frontman James Alex taps into is a consistently captivating sound. Since this record the group has slowly began to let more and more of the punk flare they once had go in favor of more conventional classic rock sounds or flat out acoustic ones, and on Heartbreak City  they go even further down this path with their most con...

Poppy is a computer girl, and the meticulously fashioned cult leader creation of Moriah Rose Pereira. She first broke out as a YouTube star before signing to Mad Decent records in 2017 and releasing her debut record Poppy.Computer . Her first record is full of short cleanly produced sugary sweet synth pop tunes, but since then she has begun to undergo a fast artistic transition. On her second record 2018's Am I A Girl?  she began to loosely adapt some of the sounds of genres like nu metal and post-hardcore into her songs , and the result was a unique and compositionally varied series of tracks that proved she was even more versatile as a vocalist than anyone thought. Last year on her critically acclaimed Choke  EP she took this even further collaborating with Rap Metal band Fever 333 and going full on Slint on the track Meat , and I Disagree  looks to be her furthest descent into the world of hardcore rock music yet. Review By Lavender: I have been a pretty proud m...