Lav's Music Corner

Review by Lav: The Smile is a supergroup consisting of Radiohead's Thom Yorke & Johnny Greenwood alongside drummer Tom Skinner who is most well known for working with Shabaka Hutchings' band Sons Of Kemet. Another important inclusion was that of Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich. For album two Godrich has been replaced by Sam Petts-Davies, whose work I enjoyed significantly on the newest Warpaint album Radiate Like This . I enjoyed The Smile's first album a lot and was even more excited for the projects second album after hearing the singles.  Let's start talking about Wall Of Eyer  by discussing the second half of the album. That's where you'll find the astonishingly good lead single Bending Hectic , which might still be my favorite Smile song to date. The way it wanders through a beautiful and poignant first half willing to introduce instrumentation for spare brief moments masterfully holds me on the edge of my seat. The song is even better within the conte...

Getting back into a normal routine for 2024 this week we're actually going to look back at the best new songs released this week again. Though there were some high-profile drops, it's a surprising array of best tracks that result.  5.  Instincts  - Erick The Architect (feat. WESTSIDE BOOGIE) While I think I may prefer the previous Erick single more than this one I've always had a soft spot for when he strips things back to tell it like it is. There's one lyrical highlight after another on this song and I love how uncompromising he manages to keep the subject matter while curating such a gentle and touching vibe on the song.  Listen 4.  See you soon  - Wisp Wisp is an artist I've been hearing ABOUT a lot more recently than actually hearing from. That was sorted out quickly by this murmuring hazy shoegaze jam. From the eerie girlish vocals that seem like a midpoint between Nicole Dollanganger and Vyva Melinkolya to a bridge that manages to conjure a surprisin...

There were a few early-year EPs I wanted to cover, so let's take a look at them all together.  glow-zone  EP - gupi I don't think I've talked about gupi since 2020 when their collaborative food house album with Fraxiom was making waves in the hyperpop scene. In the meantime, I think I've probably seen at least 5 gupi sets at various parties and raves and they're liable to put on a good show. That's why I was excited to unpack this EP and see what gupi had to offer over 5 new tracks. But the project that resulted was probably something I should have seen coming. The project blurs together some of the poppy instincts of hyperpop, even going as far as to conclude with a Hannah Montana cover. But it's delivered with a big spoonful of the squelching synths and thumping dance beats of the more house and techno-flavored material gupi has released in the past. One place it works really well is in the jittery up-tempo song hyperstop . The track seems custom-made for ...

Review by Lav: Okay so I did not expect to be reviewing this album right now. I've been covering Neck Deep ever since their 2015 album Life's Not Out To Get You  really impressed me in my tween years before I even started this blog. I reviewed their two follow-up albums since then and I wasn't particularly impressed by either. After a four-year gap in new material I can't exactly say this self-titled fifth album was high on my list of priorities. But after seeing some positive buzz for the project spread online I decided to give it a shot and ultimately had to cover it. On their self-titled record Neck Deep get right back to basics and deliver their best album since the one that first made me a fan almost 10 years ago. Though this record is better than I expected, it's still firmly entrenched in the predictable sounds of pop-punk and that isn't always a perfect formula. For example, I'm not crazy about the album's lead single and bit hit Heartbreak Of Th...

Review by Lav: glass beach's first album, the fittingly titled the first glass beach album dropped back in 2019 and has attained quite a cult following in the years since. That's due to a few factors. The raw presentation and emotional vulnerability are in line with numerous internet-core classics and moments on the record felt like the future of emo. But in the rapid-fire pace that internet genres develop, 2019 feels like three waves ago. That's why I'm not surprised that the band returned with an indulgence into prog rock and art rock that sounds entirely different than their debut.  I was all over this album after having heard the first two singles. the CIA  was the lead single of the album and it's still my favorite glass beach song to date. It's one of the catchiest and most exciting singles I heard last year and every single compositional development it deploys feels both well-earned and perfectly reinforced. I also still like rare animal  a lot with its r...

Okay so I'm getting a late start to the year at least on the blog. I woke up one day this week and realized I had somehow just kind of forgotten the weekly segment I've done on here for years. So there's been three weeks of the new year so far and quite a few high-profile songs released, these are the 10 best. 10.  Right Back To It  - Waxahatchee (feat. MJ Lenderman) Fresh off a breakthrough year for Wednesday, MJ Lenderman teams up for a supporting contribution to Waxahatchee's new song, and boy does it go over well. The pair aren't exactly charting new ground stylistically but Katie's vocals are somehow even more infectious than ever before and the woozy folk instrumental palette is still a near perfect fit.  Listen 9.  J Christ  - Lil Nas X Much like Doja Cat did last year with Paint The Town Red , Lil Nas X is leaning into his most controversial instincts. I think he ended up with a pretty catchy song which keeps up the line of his short and incredibly infec...

Review by Lav:  I was pretty damn excited for this album. From his breakthrough around 2015 leading up to his sophomore album i am > i was , 21 Savage underwent one of the greatest and quickest artistic improvements I've ever witnessed in hip hop. That left me pretty excited for what he's gonna do next. While his output in the years since certainly hasn't been bad, he hasn't continued progressing artistically in the way I had hoped. I was really excited to see him cross paths with Metro Boomin for a second time on 2020's Savage Mode II  but the album didn't really live up to the hype I had for it. On the other hand, I was pretty surprised by just how good his collab album with Drake Her Loss  was in 2022.  That led us to american dream , the long-awaited third solo studio album from Savage. The album dropped with no singles and was only announced just a few days before its release. Without much to set expectations for the record in advance, I'll start the...

Review by Lav: I've been a big fan of Kali Uchis for quite a while and reviewed all her major projects on the blog. I showed out plenty of love for her 2018 album Isolation . Since then, it's been a lot of 6's and 7's for her work as she's continued to put out quality music but not quite reach the same peaks. In early 2023 she promised two new albums, one in English and Spanish. A few months later she shared her English album Red Moon In Venus , which I thought was solid though unspectacular outside of its smash hit Moonlight . And now less than a year later, she's delivering on her promise to share a second Spanish album.  ORQUIDEAS led off with a trio of singles that I like quite a bit. Munekita  came first and it's the most obvious banger imaginable.It sports dynamic features from El Alfa and a killer appearance in particular from JT of City Girls. It set the tone for some great collaborations on the album which was followed by the third single Labios Mor...

Way back when I first started reviewing albums in full on this blog one of the first records I covered was Ryan Adams' heartland rocking Prisoner . Since then, I've been basically silent on him as an artist in almost any capacity as he's grown to be a pretty controversial figure for reasons I totally agree with but won't dig through here. In his retreat from the indie mainstream he's taken to releasing an absolute shit ton of music, far more than I could keep up with on the blog. But when he dropped four entire new albums on the first day of the year my curiosity just got the best of me and for some reason I chose to review all of them. Heatwave  - Ryan Adams This album is absolutely ALL over the place right out of the gate. It kicks off with a short roaring classic punk rager before shifting into an 80s power ballad type cut and then hitting the title track which feels like a Spoon-inspired piece of indie rock. The only thing that ties all the songs together is the...

Review by Lav: poorly wrote suicide note is a New York skramz project spearheaded by musician Ashley Pearson. She only debuted the project last year and yet the music impressed me as soon as I heard it. Even in an increasingly dense world of great skramz releases I loved the pure frenetic anguish and blistering sonic palette of her self-titled debut. That extended onto a split with bright little stars that followed a few months later. Even within the world of lo-fi bedroom music Ash seems to be releasing music at an incredibly fast pace and shared the albums second project right at the start of 2024. One thing I'll say right out of the gate against the record is that I don't find many of the shorter tracks, interludes, intros, and outros all that compelling. Occasionally it's something I can really find myself enjoying on a record and heightening the experience but here I think they tend to separate me from the hyperactive emotional viscera the project serves up on its best...

Last list of the year before I can send 2023 off for good. Enjoy <3 100. Yeule - Softscars Yuele made a splash a few years ago with Glitch Princess  and had some promising singles leading up to this album. While a transition into the sounds of shoegaze doesn't go over quite as well as I hoped I think they still proved to be a unique force within the ever-expanding world of difficult-to-define internet music.  Listen To: dazies , inferno 99. Matmos - Return To Archive While I do feel like this effort is an improvement upon what Matmos did last year it once again feels like more impressive as a concept than in execution. At the very least this album manages to hit its stride right of the gate in a way that never failed to grab me quickly.  Listen To: Injection Basic Sound , Mud-Dauber Wasp 98. Slayyyter - STARFUCKER I think it's safe to say that Slayyyter hasn't quite found her footing yet as a conventional pop star. When this album tries to leave the club it typically s...