Lav's Music Corner

Let's go babes, Coachella starts today. Whether you're in the desert yourself or watching online it's an exciting time for music fans of all kind. So rather than the monotony of collecting artists by their genre or stylistic choices to make these rapid fire reviews, this time I'm just covering three artists with records I haven't touched on this year that you can hear at Coachella this weekend. Enjoy <3   Bronco  - Orville Peck Canada's own cowboy king is back in action with a second studio album following up 2020's Show Pony  EP. I've always enjoyed Orville Peck even though I agree with the major complaint about his music, that it's built around a gimmick. But I honestly really like that gimmick. His adaptation of country aesthetics with a heartland flare paired with his trademark deep vocals is a winning formula in my book. On top of that his interpolation of gay themes is a hilarious subversion of a genre that has always had difficulty with out...

Every year it just seems like there are WAY more rap albums than I can listen to and review. I've had rapid fire reviews for rap collaborations, trap albums, conscious rap, abstract hip hop and even one that was just for Griselda. Yet there are still mountains of rap albums I want to cover. I'm taking on these four in an attempt to make a dent in that pile with some of the most pressing of the available choices.  The Color Blu(e)  - Blu After having not heard much about Blu in quite a while he has entered an incredibly prolific and acclaimed stretch across the past few years. His last two collaborative records have both been fan favorites and the latter, last year's Miles  was one of my favorite rap records of the year and one of the smartest rap albums I've ever heard. So I was excited going into this concept album because it's clear how talented Blu is and if anybody could stretch a concept album about a single color to nearly 45 minutes it's him. While I do h...

On todays edition of rapid fire reviews we are giving in to our simple side and indulging on some plain old pop rock. Bands that won't test you with complicated things, but try to lull you in with measured pleasures. Does it work? Rarely. But they continue trying. Music Of The Spheres   - Coldplay "Coldplay averages out to be a pretty good band". That was always my line. I'm an adamant defender of the bands first three records and I really enjoyed their last album Everyday Life  in 2019. So yeah when you average everything out, the good outweighs the bad. They are stretching that formula to its absolute limit here. Believe it or not this isn't the worst album Coldplay has ever released which I promise you is not a compliment directed at Spheres . Believe it or not I didn't even approach this album with the critical cynicism that most do for a new Coldplay release. I thought the lead single Higher Power  was actually one of their more tasteful pop crossovers an...

We're at that time of year where I try to cover as much as I possibly can before 2021 is out and that starts with some of the albums that have spawned quite a bit of discourse. These are rap records that came out over the past month or so and inspired Instagram rap page admin discussion, profuse memeing and second hand listening experiences outside bumping car windows.  Expensive Pain - Meek Mill Is it just me or was there a lot more discussion about Meek like, two years ago. Obviously during the Drake beef and Dreams Worth More Than Money  era he was quite the headline grabber but even in recent years during his very public battle with the legal system I just saw a lot more people talking about him. This record seems like it's gonna chart pretty well and it certainly attracted the attention of a number of high profile mainstream hip hop artists, but I can't shake the feeling that it's his most culturally inessential album to date. As a pop culture observer that's a...

There's a hundred million trillion albums that came out this year that I want to review and there's no way I'll have time to cover all of them. Coming off a slow week I'll jump on the opportunity to cover a few of the more talked about indie pop, pop rock, synth pop, parallel records that don't really have a ton to do with each other. But hey whatever checks the box right.  Screen Violence  - Chvrches Like many people I was incredibly impressed with Chvrches 2013 debut The Bones Of What You Believe  which delivered catchy synth pop but with a distinctly loud edge edge that made for high impact tracks throughout. Since then I've been less and less impressed with each Chvrches release culminating with their third album in 2018, Love Is Dead  and a truly obnoxious Marshmello collaboration Here With Me  a year later. I was pretty hesitant going into Screen Violence  given that I thought the singles were a pretty mixed bag. With that being said I did thing that ...

If all goes well there should be a number of rapid fire review posts going out this weekend the first of which is merely a pair of records I've been meaning to review for a while and mirror each other in a way that I feel very clever and very smart and very good at my job for thinking of when nobody else did /s, mostly. These are mostly covers albums by artists who have a very specific sound to thank for some of their original tracks and took a spin doing their own versions of some of the classic tunes from those sounds, whether it be Mexican folk music or delta blues.  Un Canto Por Mexico, Vol. II  - Natalia Lafourcade Part two of Natalia's renditions of classic Mexican folk songs is a record that I've been flirting with off and on for a few months since it came out. Since I'm not a native speaker and not as familiar with the original versions of these tracks I took my time pulling apart the various creative decisions she makes on the record given how much I've enj...

Hopefully this is the first of a lot more rapid fire reviews in the coming weeks as I've got a lot of catching up to do. First things first. There have been a number of high profile records coming from the experimental and alternative realms of hip hop that I'm putting under the "outsider hip hop" umbrella even though the sounds don't necessarily have a ton of similarity.  Long Term Effects Of SUFFERING  - $uicideboy$ Any $uicideboy$ fan that's ever interacted with me on Twitter can tell you that I have a shaky relationship with Ruby and $crim as of recent. Even though I enjoyed their I Want To Die In New Orleans  album since then they've released a Travis Barker collaboration that missed me completely , as well as a mixtape that didn't leave much of an impact . If there is a silver lining to Long Term  when viewed from a big picture lens it's that the band clearly put more effort into this release. At the very least this collection of short songs ...

An extremely busy time for me is finally settling down and I'll have time to focus on a lot of records I've wanted to review over the last month or two through rapid fire reviews. While there is still a ton of exciting indie music coming out on a weekly basis in 2021 it is also worth looking back at some of the staples of the genre whether in the 2010's or 2000's to see what they've been up to recently.  Draw Down The Moon  - Foxing I've always had a weird relationship with Foxing, seemingly be drawn to the albums that most people are least impressed by. While they're debut is certainly solid I though the follow-up Dealer  impressively embraced post-rock fusion in a way that felt more instrumentally impressive than most indie rock bands were capable of. This is why I was surprised to feel to meh about the bands previous record Nearer My God  in 2018. Regardless I was willing to engage with the band given the clear talent in their line-up and the fact that th...

While the connection between these records may be loose, they are pretty loose.  This is honestly just a couple of albums I want to talk about before the year is out and there doesn't seem to be any better time than now.  HARAM!  - Goldlink Goldlink is a DC area rapper who has immense talent and has shown it off more than a few times in his career so far. Unfortunately it hasn't translated into many great records as he consistently provides inconsistency as a singer rapper and songwriter. It's been 2 years since we last heard from him and in my review of his last album I mentioned that when he and his features are operating at their best the highlights are excellent. But just like is often the case those tracks were mixed in with underwritten and underperformed cuts. HARAM!  seemed to come out of nowhere shortly following Goldlink's return to Twitter and features a pretty busy and impressive selection of features among its tracklist. It also features a mixtape like c...

I have a lot of albums that I'd like to catch up on. So during the next few weeks, which at least look initially like down weeks relative to the heavy schedules of May and June, I'll be covering as much as I can through these rapid fire reviews. Starting off we are diving into some accessible and more importantly danceable cuts from the indie pop and indietronica worlds that I have been meaning to talk about for a while now. Islomania  - Islands Islands is the indie pop project of Nicholas Thornburn, once a member of a personal favorite band of mine from the indie world of the 2000's, The Unicorns. The band has had a diverse selection of members around Nicholas, including fellow Unicorn Jamie Thompson across their 8 albums on 4 different labels. This is the bands first new album in 5 years since they dropped two records back in 2016, and the era got off to a good start with (We Like To) Do It With The Lights On , the records lead single which has been one of my essential su...

This weeks rapid fire reviews are a couple of experimental projects that are capable of seriously blowing out speakers. Whether these missed me when they first came out or just dropped at points where I was too busy to review them I wanted to be sure to get my thoughts on them out there.  Black Crows Cyborg  - Merzbow & Prurient Black Crows Cyborg  is the new collaborative record between two titans of noise music Merzbow and Prurient. Between the pair they are some of the most prolific artists in all of music regardless of genre but I was still excited to see how the sounds they have been developing in recent years would work with each other, especially off of them both dropping collaborative projects with other artists that I enjoyed last year. The record is two long tracks that add up to just over half an hour and the first is certainly the more abstract of the two. City Barbarism Melancholy  uses a lot of space that gives the impression of a massive aband...

Between two busy release weekends I wanted to take the time to really quickly get my thoughts out about a couple of indie records that have been turning heads in the past few months. I was hoping to do a full length review of some of these but with even more high profile indie releases on the horizon I wanted to get them out quickly while they are still more or less relevant. Enjoy <3 Entertainment, Death  - Spirit Of The Beehive Spirit of the Beehive are a Philly based indie outfit that I've heard mentioned in passing a few times over the years and this is actually their 4th album. I saw this thing turning heads and getting some pretty good reviews when it first came out so I gave it a listen as well as some of their other work. One thing that is immediately obvious about this record going into it is that the band will unashamedly bounce between all different kinds of genres and sounds with ease. Even within the same song they are dabbling in harsh experimental rock sounds then...