Lav's Music Corner

Rather than locking in on a super-specific genre of experimental rock, this time we're just going to do a sweep of several already difficult-to-define records from under that umbrella, enjoy.  Lower  - Benjamin Booker Even though I'm not a particularly bit fan of Benjamin Booker's first two album's in the 2010s, I went into Lower  all the way back in December with genuine hype. That's because he had made a few notable appearances on various billy woods projects where he slotted into the world of the mysterious rapper nicely. Additionally, one of billy's frequent collaborators, Kenny Segal, normally a hip-hop focused producer, is on board for wall to wall production on Lower . That all came together on singles like the solid "SAME KIND OF LONELY" and the even better "SLOW DANCE IN A GAY BAR" where Segal's production gave Booker's muted rock stylings a nocturnal and hypnotic boost that I found pretty infectious.  Lower  gets off to a pr...

Review by Lavender: billy woods is simultaneously one of the most prolific and most acclaimed voices in the rap underground. Releasing multiple projects a year, pretty much every year, with a variety of collaborators, he seemingly never runs out of clever turns of phrase and stories to tell. While his talent is obvious, I've often expressed my issues with his prolific output, which often creates multiple solid records when one great record could have easily sufficed. That's not the case with GOLLIWOG , an album whose conceptual ambitions and frequent highlights feel like they come from another world than even some of the more acclaimed billy projects in recent years. It's why I can recommend the record full stop, even to those who haven't been as in love with billy woods as some critics, as I think it's his best album of this decade so far.  I went into GOLLIWOG already more excited than I would be for any old billy woods record. Much of that was because of the lea...

This week's rapid fire reviews are, for lack of a better term, called "girl noise," which is the only way I could think to cover the punk, hardcore, pop punk, indie punk, and noise pop that makes up this group of artists. I've grasped at thinner straws than this for rapid-fire reviews in the past. Enjoy. Are We All Angels  - Scowl Scowl are a California hardcore band whose reputation as a ferocious live act preceded me ever hearing their studio material after their 2021 debut missed me. In fact, it was one of those live performances that first got me interested in the band, and that hype built alongside some of the singles from this record. In particular, it was “Not Hell, Not Heaven” that really grabbed me and worked as an excellent proof of concept of how the band can bounce between their most pop-friendly ambition and bombastic tension-inducing urges. That gave way to “B.A.B.E.,” which arguably executes the formula every bit as well.  If you follow the discourse su...

Review by Lavender:  Jenny Hval is a Norwegian singer-songwriter whose career stretches back more than 15 years and is packed full of poetic, gentle, introspective, and often lightly conceptual projects. While she's had her hand in several side projects and collaborations, her best work comes in her core series of solo albums, which goes pretty much without a miss in the bunch. Listing the highlights would basically involve me telling you about each of the 5 projects she dropped between 2013 and 2022, all of which are absolutely worth checking out.  With a pedigree like that, there was no reason to go into Iris Silver Mist  expecting anything but continued excellence, and that's what I got with the brilliant lead single "To be a rose." It was announced alongside the reveal that the album would be smell-themed and even pulls its title from a perfume. That obviously shows up on "Rose" where Jenny begins to unpack how specific smells can evoke such vivid nostal...

Review by Lavender: Model/Actriz are a New York industrial outfit whose combination of intimate whispered vocals and pulsating metallic sound has garnered more than a few comparisons to Nine Inch Nails. Back in 2022, they released one of the best debut albums of this entire decade with Dogsbody , immediately capitalizing on all the hype they built up. Now, 3 years later, they've returned with a sophomore effort on the back of some truly spectacular singles. On Pirouette , they build on all of their momentum to soar even higher than before with a record whose vulnerability only heightens the tension of its propulsive, masterful instrumentation.  Speaking of those singles which I liked initially, but became even more fond of within the context of the record. "Cinderella" kicked things off as a lead single and introduced a newfound vulnerability to the band's already existent candor. They pay it off in such dramatic fashion with eerie guitar tones and intimate whispers o...

Review by Lavender: Viagra Boys are a Swedish post-punk band who began a crawl up to critical darlings in the late 2010s. They broke through with a grimy, guttural intensity to their music and a lyrical style that gives new meaning to the word bizarre. The band had improved with every single release leading up to their third album,  Cave World , in 2022 . I'm still a HUGE fan of that record and its ability to weave together a coherent narrative about the dumbest and most degraded parts of society through a series of stories that are all kind of about being de-evolving to a monkey. That's the kind of shit you're getting into with this band. For that reason, I was pretty excited for this record, and even though the band doesn't quite one-up their excellent predecessor, I'm still very happy with what they delivered.  This album gets off to an absolutely remarkable start with its trio of singles reminding me exactly why I enjoy them so much in the first place. First up ...

It's time to loop back around on some indie music. At one point or another I absolutely LOVED all 5 of the artists we're going to talk about today, but in an already extremely busy 2025 so far, their newest material fell by the wayside. To amend artists who have made music I love so much, I'm covering them all here instead.  Dan's Boogie  - Destroyer In the early to mid-2010s Dan Bejar, AKA Destroyer, released a pair of albums that really should serve as benchmarks for indie pop and sophisti-pop. Kaputt  and Poison Season  are both staggeringly good albums that till sound as delightfully fresh and lush today as they did when they came out. Since then Dan has shared a few records I liked, most notably his darker 2020 record Have We Met , but hasn't quite reached the same highs he once did. That wasn't helped when the lead single "Bologna" was a huge letdown for me and one of my least favorite Destroyer singles ever. Thankfully, the era bounced back from...