Rapid Fire Reviews: Loosely Electronica with Forest Swords, Yeule, Eartheater

We're getting to that point in the year where I'm just trying to make every recap count as much as possible. Here are the loose collection of albums I've assembled to cover under the broadest possible umbrella of electronica. 

Bolted - Forest Swords

Forest Swords is the kind of musical project you don't easily forget. So even though it's been a full 6 years since the last proper studio album from FS, the distinctive brand of dark electronica with the occasional naturalistic field recording style mixed in still feels both instantly recognizable and artistically engaging. Though the album came out at a busy time for new reviews I still listened to it right away and I've had a lot of time to sit with it. Much of that comes from realizing just how good all of the album's singles really are. Tracks like the records first two songs Munitions and Butterfly Effect did win me over when I first heard them but the eerie, textured sonic anguish they both manage to achieve still feels so great. 

More than any previous Forest Swords album, Bolted feels like you're at the bottom of a well. The songs have an oppressive mix often using dense layering and pummeling reverb to push you into sonic submission while you listen. They also feel like hiding from something. I chock that terrifying sonic sensation up to the seas of metallically textured sonic chimes that burst into nearly every song here throughout. It's a sound you'll get used to hearing, but it never stops having an effect. While the album does have its distinctly attention grabbing moments, mostly the singles with additions of tracks like Caged and Line Gone Cold, even the in between moments help reinforce it all. Even though I think when Bolted gets quieter and more meditative it gets less compelling, there's no denying that the uncompromising approach to sonic texture never goes away. This album may not feel like a revelation in quite the same way as projects like Compassion and Engravings did at the time, it's still a very satisfying new chapter for a fascinating music project. 7/10

softscars - yeule

Yuele is perhaps most well known at this point for their 2022 album Glitch Princess, which I covered last year. The project featured an eerie approach to the styles of electronica and hyperpop that pulled heavy influence from artpop mainstays. It also ended with a challenging but honestly kind fo engaging ambient piece that stretched nearly 5 hours. This was yet another album where I liked the singles a lot, in particular dazies and inferno which are still some of my favorite songs on the album. The singles forecasted a shift into an equally synthetic sound but one more focused on rock and shoegaze influences and on the album proper, yeule mostly delivered. 

The album flexes its range right out of the gate with x w x which features blistering fuzzed out guitars and intense screams. But it follows that up right awy with the much dreamier and more spacious sulky baby. I would say both end up getting lapped by the title track softscars which I did hear as a single but didn't get the chance to fully appreciate until I hears just how infectious the refrains are on the album proper. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the project quite keeps that momentum up. Aside from the massive highlight of dazies I think the more reserved demeanor it takes around the midpoint robs the record of some of its strongest instincts. In particular, fish in the pool and software update coming back to back really does feel like it slows the record to a crawl. 

Thankfully, the album recovers its momentum and doesn't even need to rev up the intensity to do it. Inferno and bloodbunny proved to be a pretty compelling one-two punch that always returned the record to a satisfying place for me. And even though I'm a lot less crazy about the pop-punky cyber meat I think the record still manages to recover a decent bit at the end. I came away from softscars similar to how I felt about Glitch Princess despite the change in sound. yeule is primarily an interesting musical force because of her willingness to experiment sonically. Because of her wild ambitions she will always be an artist worth paying attention to. But unless her songwriting can improve enough to actually fit that ambition, it feels like she has an unfair cap on her artistic potential. 6/10

Powders - Eartheater

Eartheater first grabbed my attention with a run of albums and mixtapes in the late 2010s that ultimately ended with 2020's Phoenix, an album that impressed me quite a bit. I was surprised it took to long for a follow-up to emerge but she's chosen to release a pair of sister albums, the next of which is due out next year. I was already curious about her development artistically, but she really grabbed me with the single Pure Smile Snake Venom. The songs strange melodies and warped affection clicked with me right away and it's a major highlight late on the album. Everyone who discusses the record also seems to point out how good of a song Crushing is and I couldn't agree more. I love the wordplay of crushing on someone the way waves crushing seashells on the shore is great and the fact that the second best reason she can think for having a crush is that he's good at eating pussy is perfect. 

Another part of the record that has people talking is the breathy, spacious cover of System Of A Down's Chop Suey that pops up in the middle of the record. While I like it more than what Lil Uzi Vert did with the song earlier this year, I'm still not a big fan of it essentially sounding like a movie trailer cover version. Thankfully, the track is among mostly highlights. Clean Break comes before it and once again shows off a pretty compelling romantic dynamic performed with the actual anguish you'd expect. Heels Over Head leans even further into the albums creepy intimacy oger a stuttering drum beat and the results are once again thoroughly compelling. Powders isn't the kind of talbum to really blow you away on first listen, but every time I returned to it I liked the record more and more. It has an aesthetics tat is consistently both mystical but eerie and deeply unsettling throughout. I also love the reservation on display. The instinct to make some of the songs louder, more involved, or more intense than they needed to be must have been there and I admire everybody involved for resisting. The result is a short but extremely memorable outing from Eartheater that feels like a worth successor to Phoenix. 7.5/10