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 laced underneath reminiscent of the new Kelela album from last year. Whereas Ice is a standout cut featuring Florida rap duo They Hate Change where everyone involved displays an impressive amount of chemistry. Later in the record, there's even more special guests with Shygirl appearing on the song Ex-Girlfriend. The track has an absolutely excellent chorus that will not leave my head, though Shygirl at her absolute MOST reserved seems like an exceedingly strange choice in a collaborator. That same extreme gentleness seeps into the Blood Orange-featuring cut Twice, though it arguably fits much better. These two songs seem to get at a sense the record has not to do anything too out there, too loud, or too distracting. On about half the album it works really well as Erika's voice expertly navigates the intimate soundscapes. But there are points on this record where it feels like it's absolutely begging for SOMETHING, though what that specifically is varies. Overall I enjoyed Still, even if it doesn't ever feel like it knows what it wants to be. 6/10
What Now - Brittany Howard
Lukewarm feelings on Alabama Shakes' music sparked some of the earliest controversy in my time as an online music persona of sorts, and I never really warmed up on the band's work. Seeing as Brittany Howard was such a significant creative force behind the project her solo career thus far has sort of felt like a continuation of the original promise of the band that preceded it. I liked but didn't love her 2019 solo debut and kind of anticipated to come away from this record with similar feelings. Like her music always has, What Now is rich and lively throughout with an instrumental palette that leaps out of one vibrant song after another.
One thing this record has that I haven't heard on any of Howard's projects in the past is impressive artistic cohesion. Moving from the gentler patient tones of a song like I Don't directly into the funkier jam What Now is buttery smooth and those slick transitions exist all over the album. That's followed by a similarly impressive moment in reverse from the album's most bombastic highlight Red Flag into To Be Still. I think this record gets off to a really strong start and I like the first half a lot. The first song on the record I'm not crazy about doesn't come until Another Day whose stuffy drums bouncing back and forth remind me of some of the issues I had with Sound & Color almost a decade ago. The overbearing bombast on the production side of things seeps into a lot of the second half of the record including two singles I wasn't crazy about, though for very different reasons. And I'm really not sure there is a diamond in the rough in the second half despite a moment or two I can kind of enjoy. Overall the record gets off to an impressive start that I think will be its lasting impression. But the deeper I dove into the album the more and more stunned I was by just how much it fails to follow up on that across the second half. I liked this album more than I didn't and slick transitions throughout go a LONG way to helping the causes, but it's still just barely clearing that mark. 5.5/10
A LA SALA - Khruangbin
Khruangbin is a psychedelia outfit that I have never been all that excited by. You hear some praise for their 2015 effort The Universe Smiles Upon You and just as much for their 2020 comeback Mordechai. Neither album really clicked with me when they dropped and I have similar opinions on them after relistening in preparation for this review. Khruangbin continues to feel like just barely a step above elevator music. Their purposefully minimal performances are clearly designed to cultivate a vibe and they really don't manage to do much else. These dry compositions and painfully slow unfolding musical sequences keep me in stasis throughout. The best thing I can compare it to is honestly Cigarettes After Sex. Though that band's tears-in-my-diary fusion of emo and slowcore is very different from Khruangbin's woozy reverb laced soul, they both end in the exact same result, oppressive boredom.
That doesn't mean the album is completely without moments I find compelling. My favorite of the singles was the last one Pon Pon whose percussion often cuts through the reverbed haze and gives the song a muted but genuinely dancy energy. The whispered vocals also just feel too weirdly performed for Khruangbin relative to the rest of the album though I can't help but appreciate having something to actually grab onto. I also strangely like Casa De La Sala. It's an interlude but it's the only song here that seemingly strays consciously into minimalism rather than merely lacking anything compelling to add onto it and I kind of wish it was longer than just two minutes. Like most critics, I'm just not sure what I'm supposed to get out of this album. Beyond a nebulously defined and unimpressively maintained "vibe" that numerous other way more compelling records do better, what's the appeal? In that sense, Khruangbin comes off as more functional than artistic in a way that makes any analysis of the record feel much more like work than it should. 3/10
