Lav's Music Corner

Review by Lav: DIIV are a shoegaze outfit from Brooklyn that have been active for over a decade now. After falling in love with their debut album Oshin  I wasn't crazy about their second record. Thankfully in 2019 their third album arrived and I was much more fond of it. Given the full 5 years that have passed since then I was excited to hear yet another new rendition of the bands shoegaze sound. On Frog In Boiling Water,  the band gets expansive in a way that raises the stakes and drama of their sound even without having to get harsher. Frog  may not be the band's most compelling release yet, but its embrace of a slower more spacious brand of shoegaze is nonetheless well done.  Five different songs, a full half of the record's tracklist, were released as singles before it dropped. For the most part, they're a pretty good bunch and they make up most of the first half of the record. The title track Frog In Boiling Water  may be my favorite of the bunch serving up...

I've been bad about covering new country releases, at least the ones music fans are actually talking about. So let's fix that.  Anniversary  - Adeem The Artist Adeem The Artist is an alt-country artist who I first heard about thanks to Spectrum Pulse who covered their 2021 release Cast Iron Pansexual . That was followed by the even more widely discussed White Trash Revelry, though I wasn't quite as much of a fan of that one. Adeem represents one of the most unique and earnest figures in country music, unburdened by the machine of Nashville that controls the genre with an iron fist, yet with a clear appreciation for the genre's history and pioneers, even if they may be those very same Nashville stars.  This unencumbered style of songwriting allows Adeem to say things like the instantly iconic opening lines of Nancy , one of the best songs on the record. The record is at its best when Adeem's earnest sentiments lead them to a place more vulnerable than many of their c...

I'm actually early this week to make up for the past two, enjoy <3. 5.  Ark  - KMRU & Kevin Richard Martin With two singles under their belt, I'm becoming incredibly excited for prolific ambient producer KMRU's upcoming collaborative record with The Bug's Kevin Richard Martin. This second single deals in spoken word samples and thick walls of gritty haze that give the track a distinctive texture. It's the louder of the two singles so far and yet in some of the methodical repetition and pure haze of it all I find the song more soothing than its predecessor.  Listen 4.  Sexy To Someone  - Clairo Clairo fans will be the first to tell you I haven't been nearly as crazy about her music thus far as many other critics but I've seen glimpses. That's why I'm surprised by how much I like this song. It's crafted in the image of some of my favorite up-beat tracks of hers to date with a vibrant instrumental now free of Jack Antonoff's touch. What r...

Review by Lav: Before the mid-year point of 2024 I'm trying to catch up on some records I've been meaning to cover. Waxahatchee is up next after her new record somehow slipped through the cracks with me in a busy week earlier this year. I've been a fan of her music for a LONG time on albums like American Weekend  and Ivy Tripp . While I was surprised to not particularly enjoy her breakthrough album Saint Cloud , I was much more positive towards her Jess Williamson collaboration Plains and some of the singles from this record. That's why it's no surprise that I came away from this record with mostly positive feelings.  Let's start with the only place we can start, the lead single Right Back To It . The gorgeous swaying number features some of Katie's best vocals and refrains ever with subtle but impactful additions from MJ Lenderman. It's genuinely one of the best songs I've heard this year and I think it's among Katie's best songs ever.  That...

Billie Eilish is a unique pop singer who broke through into superstardom in 2019 and has been one of the biggest voices in popular music ever since. Her often whisper-quiet vocals give her a pretty recognizable sound whether it's being applied to murmuring dark bangers or gentle acoustic ballads. While plenty of critics out there have lumped praise onto everything she's ever touched, I can't say I've often felt the same. Her debut album really rubbed me the wrong way with some of the cringiest lyrics and song topics I've heard in pop in a long time and truly disastrous production from nearly start to finish. But since then I think Billie has slowly been improving. I thought her sophomore album Happier Than Ever  was better even if it carried over some similar critical flaws. Though singles like Everything I Wanted  and the spectacular What Was I Made For?  are among her best tracks to date, so I was optimistic.  HIT ME HARD AND SOFT  arrives with both less and m...

What a great week for new singles, let's get into it. 5.  New World  - Tindersticks According to Tindersticks themselves, this is a shift into a more poppier and accessible direction. Given this less-than-4-minute edit from the band is still a distinctly composed swaying chamber ballad it's not like they're exactly making an Imagine Dragons song or anything. But I see what they're going for and despite a slow start I appreciate where the song eventually ends up.  Listen 4.  Joker  - Porches Porches got my attention earlier this year with the great single Rag  which is probably why I was so open to this deeply strange follow-up. This weird indie-slacked jam that seems to meander through weird lyrics about getting a dog and kissing him on the mouth. I know it may not exactly sound enticing but there's something so effortlessly smooth about the songs rambling demeanor that I find pretty captivating.  Listen 3.  Oh No!  - The Decemberists This is...

Dua Lipa is a pop star who broke through in the late 2010's on the back of hits like New Rules . She quickly elevated herself to the A-list with 2020's Future Nostalgia  which managed to be a hit with both fans and critics alike. I liked that record quite a bit and I was looking forward to a follow-up, never expecting that wait to extend to 4 entire years. But now Dua is back with a third record that features production from Tame Impala's Kevin Parker and Danny L Harle of PC Music fame. Despite those colorful choices though, Radical Optimism 's downfall is how dry and flat its sonic palette often feels.  The album doesn't start off that way though, in fact it gets off to a strong start. Starting your new era off with a song called End Of An Era  is just music critic bait but hey, I'll bite. While the production on the song is about as flat as the rest of the record I can't help but love the chorus. It has such a sweet flourish to it and when the bright hits ...

These EPs are all just a lil bit scary, but that's okay because more importantly they're all also varying degrees of good.  Living Is Easy  EP - Agriculture Agriculture is a west coast black metal outfit that's signed to The Flenser, all of which basically guaranteed that I was going to like them before I ever heard a single song. That crystalized into a debut self-titled album last year that I thought was solid and one I was looking forward to the follow-up to. I didn't expect that it was going to come so soon in an EP just a year later and I also didn't expect it to be teased with singles I loved as much as the two they delivered. Opener Living Is Easy  feels triumphant in the same way some of the best songs on their debut did. It has punishing intensity in the crashing drums and guttural wails across the middle section. But the song is weirdly bright in the spaces between in a way that makes its throttling intensity feel like it isn't just there to punish lis...

Review By Lav: Moor Mother is a Philly-based poet and versatile jazz musician who has spent more than a decade pushing the boundaries of both her songwriting and the often increasingly abstract and experimental sonic palettes she lends it to. I've enjoyed the past two Moor Mother albums quite a bit in particular her 2022 effort JAZZ CODES . But The Great Bailout  might surpass that in terms of both conceptual ambition and sheer intensity.  I would consider this record more sonically experimental than its predecessor, but not because it has more going on. In fact, the album sort of kills with quiet sometimes. Guilty  is a riveting start to the record where Moor Mother teams up with Lonnie Holly who contributes surprisingly eerie vocals to this chillingly minimal instrumental space. I love the fluttering strings that exist in the sucking isolation and how challenging they come off despite how sweet they sound.The repetition of the phrase "did you pay off the trauma" sets up...

This video is late again and as usual I have a great excuse I just can't hell you <3 Enjoy 5.  Gold River  - Parannoul Let the excitement once again get underway for the RYM king of noisy shoegaze, Parannoul. After dropping a record last year that seemed to reel in some of his harshest ambitions this new single is absolutely blistering, occasionally even to the detriment of some of its most dramatic moments. But for the most part it's a sonic pummeling I'm thrilled to take part in.  Listen 4.  xXidontneedyou_tolovemebackXx  - Happy Birthday Mr. Baskets I've been paying attention to Happy Birthday Mr. Baskets since I heard her on Tamagotchi Massacre's delightful new album last year and this is comfortably my new favorite song of hers. With a surprisingly glistening instrumental palette that shines through its dense hyperpop production the track sounds like a sped-up DJ Sabrina track in a way I find mesmerizing. But it's the irresistible refrains that truly won...

St. Vincent While I never really fully came around on some of St. Vincent's earliest material, for a full decade now she's been on a stylistic elevation and creative ascent that I've absolutely adored. It's hard to say exactly where it peaked, but when we last heard from Annie Clark she was in her Young Americans  era on an album I loved in 2021 . Now she's onto something grittier, darker, and even more explosive than ever before. While much of the album lives up to its predecessors, it doesn't quite stick the landing in the same way.  The album got off to a strong start when I liked its first two singles a lot. Broken Man  came first and it's an absolute ripper worthy of St. Vincent's always incredible lead singles. The gritty production and instrumentation pair perfectly with an absolutely swagger-packed vocal performance from Annie that absolutely kills. I also loved Flea  which once again delivered more muscle than your average St. Vincent track. Thi...

 Call me Taylor with the surprise drop. This is my Anthology . Still  - Erika De Casier I was introduced to Erika De Casier through just about the dorkiest way possible, NewJeans. Casier co-wrote numerous songs from my new favorite K-Pop group's new EP last year and because I enjoyed her work so much in that capacity I wanted to tap into her next album. I went in kind of unsure what to expect after hearing a few singles lean into a gentle but distinctly alternative style I found pretty compelling even if the vision was imprecise. Sometimes it feels like almost an outline of the more sensual side of R&B with tracks like Home Alone , which literally uses repetition of the word "sexy" to get its point across. Believe It  feels similarly in the mold of a more romantic flavor of R&B but it's one of the least memorable songs here, maybe as a result. But some of the singles projected a very different sonic thesis. Lucky  is a dream track with a drum & bass beat ...

This was a ROUGH week for new singles, jesus. 5.  Starburned And Unkissed  - Caroline Polachek Leave it to this, an all time bad week for new singles, for a soundtrack cut from Caroline Polachek to make the cut. While everyone probably should rush out and see I Saw The TV Glow  immediately this song is also worth a crack even if the grinding distortion A.G. Cook laces into the chorus can occasionally be a tad overbearing. Caroline has always been interesting in her sonic experiments and this is no different.  Listen 4.  Buried Alive  - Chance The Rapper This is closer to a two-minute freestyle or cypher verse than a full song but I can't deny I appreciate the mission statement. Chance's 2019 album The Big Day  seemingly erased every bit of momentum he had off of his first the, largely quite solid mixtapes. So him taking a few minutes to remind fans he can still spit some bars and work to start defending himself is something I'll take.  Listen 3....