Lav's Music Corner

Now that I'm recovered enough to have opinions again a week full of big swings fell right into my lap. See what hit it out of the park and what completely struck out.  5.  Alter Ego  - Doechii (feat. JT) This is definitely a tricky one but in a week like this, it belongs on the list. Doechii and City Girls rapper JT is a combination I was THRILLED for and boy do they deliver. The two verses on this song are intense, pummeling, verbose, and completely unstoppable avalanches of charisma and momentum. Unfortunately, no matter how many times I try I just cannot get behind this chorus. Where both rappers make the intensity of their performance sound great on the verse the hook is just purely annoying in a way that is so blown out it's difficult to swallow. It's a tricky assessment on a song that has some of the most impressive performances I've heard all year.  Listen 4.  Gasping Dust  - Full Of Hell (feat. Ross Dolan) Is this song only a minute long, yes. But b...

Review by Lav: Julia Holter has been one of my favorite artists of the past 15 years by absolutely any metric. Since her very beginning, she's been dazzling with absolute whimsy weaved into almost everything she's done. In 2013 she reached a peak of accessibility with her immaculate textures weaved into irresistible wintry indie songs. But since then she's been indulging further and further into experimental flavors of instrumentation and composition. After releasing a magnum ops of experimental beauty on 2018's Aviary  I was thrilled for whatever she was going to drop next. While that album is hardly an indulgence in excess, by comparison,  Something  is a shift towards minimal space that comes with a no less beautiful eye for detail.  The singles from this album absolutely blew me away. Sun Girl  came first and it also serves as the album's opener. I absolutely adore the song with its wandering pan flutes and field recordings. It comes together with this vibra...

Review by Lav: Kim Gordon is an absolute musical legend by any measure. From her decades spent in one of the greatest rock bands of all time, Sonic Youth, to her various side projects and production credits she's served as inspiration for countless musicians. That's why it's no surprise that even this far into her career she's continuing to innovate. The Collective  sounds like a record brash enough to have been made by Kim in her experimental heydey of the early 80s, but with sonic displays that could only exist in 2024. The result is one of the most confrontational albums I've heard all year.  The Collective  kicks off with its lead single BYE BYE  which is almost impossibly good. I love the combination of thumping trap beats with grinding guitars across the entire second half. The way Kim methodically lists off everything she's saying "bye bye" to is so captivating and the entire song just rips. Similarly stunning highlights come on the back half of...

I am in the thick of Rolling Loud weekend and running on absolute fumes right now.  5.  Monaco  - Ride Is it a bizarrely full circle moment to hear Ride sounding like they're trying to be Amusement Parks On Fire? Yes. But that doesn't prevent me from enjoying the results. While Ride's comeback has never inspired the same critical acclaim as some of their classic shoegaze contemporaries they have managed an impressive consistency in both release schedule and quality that I've grown to appreciate a lot.  Listen 4.  Enough for you  - Wisp Once again shoegaze upstart Wisp has impressed me with a track from her upcoming EP. The formula here is far from unheard of but she's dabbling in sounds heavier than some of her contemporaries. With smashing drums and chugging riffs she's wandering her dreamy poise into Hum territory, an influence many of the other new age shoegaze acts probably won't reach for years. What results is an impressive level of sonic intensity th...

Review by Lav: Ariana Grande ended the 2010s one an absolutely spectacular streak. Her 4th and 5th albums Sweetener  and thank u, next  were released in quick succession and contained not just her best material to date but some of the best songs any mainstream pop star had to offer. While doing it she also elevated her stardom from pop famous to absolute superstardom on the back of hit after hit after hit. She followed those albums up with the far hornier Positions  in 2020. While the record did fit right in with the pandemic going on around it, Positions  didn't have the caliber of songs or hits as its predecessors. If you were worried about eternal sunshine  suffering from the same fate, Ariana Grande doesn't double down on her mistakes.  I've seen some bonified pop critics whose opinions I admire treat this album's lead single yes, and?  like it isn't special, and I just don't understand that. The song is straight up worship of Madonna's Vogue ...

Late again, I have a good excuse this time though (she doesn't have a good excuse.) 5.  Wild God  - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds After a trio of albums under the Bad Seeds name that very fittingly saw Nick Cave exploring something more somber, introspective, and poetic, he got weird again on a 2021 collaboration with Warren Ellis. Now that bizarre tone and style of songwriting that's always existed in his music is coming revving back to the Bad Seeds in this new single. I appreciate his uniquely bizarre imagery and the way the song dramatically rises throughout. Listen 4.  Summon  - Jlin As has been the case throughout her career Jlin is a master of texture. Leaning away from some of the grinding electronics deployed on last year's EP this song focused more on the combination of an array of chimes with what sounds like some of the tensest strings I've heard anywhere so far this year. The result is quite striking at first but it's something I settled into more and m...

Review by Lav: Mannequin Pussy is a Philly punk rock band that has long interested me for their combination of ferocity and sonic versatility. For many it was their 2019 album Patience  that served as their breakthrough, but where they really clicked with me was on the 2021 follow-up Perfect EP. Across just a few tracks the band showed off their full range with infectious dreamy space and speedy punk intensity coming back to back on songs throughout. But with the singles for this record, the band seemed to take a different approach, why not combine them? For the best example look no further than the title track, lead single, and opener I Got Heaven . It's an absolutely ripping opener that I loved last year and it wastes no time kicking the album off with a bang. I love that it hits right away with this literally animalistic ferocity to the lyrics. It's also a great example of how the album can transition seamlessly between its punk angst and a sweeter, dreamier sincerity. I als...

I did like 1 EP review for the entire month of February so let's catch up on what's been going on in the short form.  Club Shy  EP - Shygirl You could certainly describe me as a Shygirl skeptic for quite a while now. While her talent is obvious and her versatility is a strong suit that very few of her contemporaries possess. Though her vocals are often compelling and she has tapped into some interesting sonic fusions, too much of her material just feels like such a mash-up of random styles that it becomes nothing. The one track I really liked from Shygirl up to this point was BDE  which features Slowthai, and we're not going there right now.  So I didn't exactly go into this new 15-minute EP expecting some of Shygirl's best material yet, but that's exactly what we ended up with. Of all the styles she's dabbled in really directly in the past these clubby pop songs seem to fit her the best. The first one that hooked me was tell me  with Boys Noize whose repeat...

Review by Lav: I absolutely love MGMT and I'm not ashamed about it. Their debut album Oracular Spectacular  was one of the first records I fully fell in love with as a budding music fan and it holds up spectacularly well. I also loved their follow-up the more expansive lean into psychedelia Congratulations. And even as I came away mostly lukewarm from their third album they returned a few years later with the absolutely spectacular Little Dark Age. All of that love for their back catalog combined with singles I mostly adored made this one of the most anticipated releases of the year for me.  Right out of the gate I think this album started a spectacular 3 for 3 on singles. Mother Nature  came first and I think it was genuinely one of the best songs I heard in 2023. I love the soaring Beatles-ey harmonies and the sugary pop hook. It manages to be both theatrical and youthful but also deeply heartfelt and I just adore everything about it. I love MGMT and this may be one of ...

Late drop again because I'm just getting back from vacation but hey at least it's coming out today.  5.  Von Dutch  - Charli XCX Aspiring hyperpop DJs got the best news of the year when Charli XCX announced that her upcoming project would be a club record. We got the first taste of that with von dutch  and, yep, it's certainly a club record. Okay there are plenty of things I like about the song like the revving squeaky synths and Charli's always unflinching confidence. But the beat and refrains just start to feel like nothing aa the song goes on. It doesn't have the actual high impact that I was hoping for from a lead single, If the refrains start to click with me more going forward the song will work a LOT better.  Listen 4.  Running Through The Campus  - Cloud Nothings I've always had a soft spot for this band even as they seem to get less and less hype each year. This song continues their shift into a pop flavor though it arguably dials some of that...