Lav's Music Corner

Denzel Curry is a Florida rapper who has been omnipresent in hip hop for both his acclaimed albums and numerous standout features and collaborations. Melt My Eyez See Your Future  follows a shorter and more mixtape style release from Curry in 2019 and a collaborative EP with Kenny Beats in 2020. It serves as his first fully fleshed out studio album since 2018's critical success Ta13oo . Review By Lav: I've been a fan of Denzel Curry for quite a while. Some of his most rabid and diehard stans will certainly have a leg up on me in some areas but I've heard his entire commercial discography and responded pretty positively to most of it. For that reason I was excited to hear another full length project given how much I've liked his most conceptual and well thought album to date Ta13oo . If you're expecting Eyez  to be as cohesive that really isn't the point of the record, which deals in the most varied tracklist on any of Curry's records to date. While moments o...

Destroyer is a Canadian indie rock project fronted by principal singer and songwriter Dan Bejar who are well over 20 years into their run. The critical highlight of their discography came in the early 2010's when they adopted a sophisti-pop sound on Kaputt and Poison Season . Labyrinthitis  is the 13th Destroyer album and follows 2020's sonically darker Have We Met . Review By Lav: I've been a fan of Destroyer for a long time and it's no secret. When I made my 2011 retrospectives last year I had high praise for both the album Kaputt  and the song Chinatown  and the 2015 retrospective will be exactly the same. While I was a lot less impressed by 2017's ken  I was back to dishing out praise a few years ago when the band returned with a dark, moody nightclub aesthetic on Have We Met . After a few good singles I was really excited all over again for this album. While there is occasionally so much instrumentation wandering around these songs that it gets exhausting, for ...

Another week that absolutely filled up the stat sheet with lots of new releases from notable names. While there wasn't a grand, highly anticipated comeback or massive pop collaboration to steal the spotlight there was something new this week for just about anybody and the best of the bunch are here.  5.  If We Get Caught  - Bloc Party After their last few singles I had been begging Bloc Party to dig their heels in and drop something that really rips, but it turns out the secret to making their best single of this era so far was to lean into their sentimentality. There's something very sweet and innocent about the fear of getting caught and the expression of love as if it's the very last thing you'll ever get to say to someone. The song is sweet and infinitely endearing.  Listen 4.  Lost  - Zola Jesus Even though you can never be sure what to expect from Zola Jesus, you can always expect it to be good and this certainly is. The chambered mix of the song with...

EPs come and EPs go. As long as the music industry keeps lining them up I'll keep doing my best to knock them down. Did any of that sound cool? Reading it back I don't think so. Let's just get to the reviews. Enjoy <3 Raving Dahlia EP - Sevdaliza Sevdaliza is an Iranian singer-songwriter, who I was late to. The first time I heard her music was on her 2020 album Shabrang  but it didn't take much engagement with her fanbase for me to realize that her EPs are a very important part of her discography and that's why I was really excited for this one. After reading about the concept of the "Raving Dahlia" and the projects attempt to take on unrealistic standards women in music are held to. One thing that clearly hasn't changed in two years and is impossible not to notice on the record is just how dominant of a vocal force Sevdaliza is. The EP wastes no time getting you introduced to her vocal prescence as the opening song is a very spark piece of chamber ...

While every album is talked about on the internet these days there is no denying that some get their acclaim from a more grassroots level. This trio of releases come from artists who have fervent defenders online, me included. I wanted to review all of them in full but it's been a busy year so I decided to just quickly cover them here before I'm even more late than I already am. Enjoy <3 Weatherglow EP - Weatherday & Asian Glow I've been excited for pretty much anything Sputnik, AKA Weatherday does under any of their side projects. While a collaborative EP may not be the exact thing fans were highly anticipating post- Come In  I still think it's an opportunity for some really cool music. Asian Glow is another beloved underground noisy lo-fi artist who collaborated with Parannoul last year and is now checking Weatherday off of the internet-core heroes list. Seriously though I was really excited to hear this and it pretty much lived up to my expectations. You'l...

Charli XCX is a popstar unlike any other and one that really needs no introduction if you've been paying attention to music in any capacity. After scoring a few early radio hits, most notably Boom Clap , she turned her sights on experimental pop and hyperpop. Along the way she created some of the genre's most acclaimed songs and albums while working with some of its most innovative producers like A.G. Cook and Sophie. She is also responsible for jumpstarting the careers of numerous artists in the scene through collaborations on her projects.  Review By Lav: It's hard to imagine somebody feeling neutral about Charli XCX. Either you're a big music fan and you've been following her career closely since 2015's Vroom Vroom  EP through her explorations and innovations within the world of hyperpop. Or alternatively you like radio music in which case she has disappeared completely from your radar since singing the hook on Iggy Azalea  Fancy , with maybe the sole excepti...

Rosalia is a Spanish singer and pop star who has emerged in recent years for her futuristic style and take on genres like Spanish folk and reggaeton. Since her massively acclaimed 2018 album El Mal Querer  her star had grown drastically alongside her musical scope. She served up high profile collaborations with Bad Bunny, James Blake, Travis Scott and Arca before releasing a string of acclaimed singles in the lead up to this LP, one of the most anticipated of 2022 by both fans and critics. Review By Lav: So, this is a big one. I fell in love with Rosalia a few years ago and following her career has been an exciting and versatile journey ever since. Now it is finally time for her to show up and drop a third album while all eyes are on her. I won't linger on this too long, she absolutely killed it. MOTOMAMI  is an exciting, experimental and uncompromising vision of Rosalia as both a person and an artist. It's a spectacular combination of her immense vocal talent paired with genr...

What an interesting week. We had some exciting comebacks, big announcements, lead singles. A pretty great mix of stuff kind of coming out of nowhere but the weekend was all the better for it, enjoy <3 5.  Honeybrains  - Royal Blood If you have a soft spot for really back to basics rock with heavy distortion, formulaic progressions and simplistic instrumentation then this will be the track for you this week. Even acknowledging how much the band borrows I can't help but admit that they manage to do some good stuff with these stop and start riffs and a handful of catchy refrains.  Listen 4.  Gibson Girl  - Ethel Cain While Ethel's music continues to be difficult to define with genre labels it still has an aesthetic vision that is irresistible. The dark and spacious instrumentation and sexually charged instrumentation paints this expressive portrait of her sexuality that is utterly intoxicating. While the song deploys a number of instrumental additions throughout...

This week on the show where I try and often fail to limit myself to shorter reviews so I can cover more records in a year we are covering some ambient or ambient parallel projects. This genre certainly isn't for everyone so if you're reading this, you wonderful soul, lets go on this journey together. Enjoy <3 Daughter - Raum Raum is a collaborative project between Liz Harris AKA Grouper and experimental musician Jefre Cantu-Ledesma. Raum actually released an album prior to this back in 2013 thought I had never even heard of it until I listened to it a few times to make this review. On Daughter  the duo are blending a very conventional style of ambient music with two other distinct elements, field recordings and the droning abstraction that dominated Grouper's very good album from last year. That creates some really beautiful and even striking moments like on the opening song Walk Together  where the thick ambient haze is suddenly completely interrupted by a random vocal ...

Jenny Hval is a Norwegian singer-songwriter who has attracted a cult like fanbase for her avant-garde art pop and chamber music infused style and unique lyricism. Since releasing her massively acclaimed breakout record Apocalypse, Girl  in 2015 she has been on a run of albums released on Sacred Bones. Classic Objects  is her first release on her new label, 4AD and follows the debut album of her side project Lost Girls last year. Review By Lav: As someone who is a writer, an art school grad, an occasionally pretentious music listener and most importantly a woman, I absolutely adore Jenny Hval. Her philosophical brand of self-reflecting and highly conceptual art pop consistently hits the right spots in nearly every element and has for over a decade now. Since I started full time reviewing in 2016 I have dished out a lot of praise to Jenny. Blood Bitch  was high on my 2016 albums of the year list as was The Practice Of Love  in 2019 and The Long Sleep  was one of m...

Macross 82-99 is a Mexican producer who dabbles in Vaporwave and Future Funk. He is signed to one of the most prominent Bandcamp labels for Vaporwave, Neon City and his most acclaimed releases are the two previous editions of the Sailorwave  trilogy, which have their own cult like following.  Review By Lav: I love Sailorwave . Even though I don't listen to as much Vaporwave these days as I did when the genre was at its height in the middle of the 2010's the one leftover from that era I continue to return to, aside from whatever Vektroid is up to, is Macross 82-99. More specifically his Sailorwave  series which first grabbed me years ago with the very first addition. If you know me well I can already hear what you're thinking, "you only like this because you love Sailor Moon." While it's true that I'm a moonie and that it's one of the only anime series I have experience with, I'm firstly a music critic and if I didn't like the music I wouldn...

I have nothing of any importance to say this week aside from the fact that it was the best week for new singles in quite a while. Enjoy <3 5.  Wild Child  - The Black Keys Dan and Patrick are back and clearly influenced by their spin as a Missouri Delta covers band because this is their busiest piece of original material in years. While it is instantly satisfying to see them turn back the clock and there's a guitar bridge on the song that can only be defined as "sweet", I'm not sure this is quite as infectious and instantaneous as their best material. Still loving the change of pace.  Listen 4.  Sweetest Pie  - Megan Thee Stallion (Feat. Dua Lipa) Is this a purely pop motivated turn for Megan, yes. But it's also a really enjoyable song with Dua's charming hook and the combination of typically hip hop centric trap drums with those walls of warbling synths that go together surprisingly well. I love that Dua is allowed more than just the hook on the song even ...

Before we even get into this, I know. Most metalheads definition of experimental metal is some of the most crushing, brutal and flat out disturbing hardcore and extreme musical genres humans have ever conceived. Keep in mind that I'm an indie dweeb more obsessed with ambient tones than layers of throttling satanic harrowing shrills. I love genres like extreme death metal and technical hardcore as much as any good critic but what I mean here is more of a sense of metal crossing over with non-metal experimental music. Ambient, electronica and even indie and psychedelia are included between the shredding riffs and screamed vocals on this list. At some point in the future I will surely cover the new Corpsegrinder solo album don't you worry, but for now here are some alternative and experimental metal albums that have grabbed my attention recently.  Enemy Of Love  - The Body & OAA Ever since The Body released I've Seen All I Need To See  last year and it absolutely blew me...