“The anime theme music stays ON during sex!”

Black Midi – Schlagenheim [Rough Trade 2019]
Joining the 2010s wave of postpunk only with the rhythm section being the drivers instead of in the backseat. Politics is there with lead vocalist Greep, mumbled, whispered, crooned, and shrieked. Bits of subversion here and there but there needs to be more clarity. 2.9/5

Brittany Howard – Jamie [ATO 2019]
A southern breeze, warm and welcoming, but only a breeze. 3.3/5

Purple Mountains – Purple Mountains [Drag City 2019]
This old folkie was a cult hero among the alternative kids for a reason. A lover of verse with a sardonic taste that helped make his nasally monotone become more digestible, his return after a decade and some change break with music was followed by his suicide weeks after its release. “That’s Just The Way I Feel,” where he states its title contents plainly like most of the tracks is imbued with both warmth and darkness, a forthright but cynical outlook that is never as truly woe-is-me as depressives can tend to be. At first I groaned because in this day-in-age it seemed like a point of view that belongs to a 20-something or younger, but his truth became universal the more time is spent with it on long walks. He’s also speaking to experiences that should feel true to anyone on the left who went to college, takes antidepressants, and craves intimacy while being so frightened of it that they reject it told with an acoustic guitar and backing band in it for the sesh. Pretty and regrettable all at once. 4.4/5

The National – High Violet [4AD 2010]
Cited as their best in critical and fanatical circles I’d have to say I mostly agree. For the hearers rather than listeners the debate would be between it and Boxer – listeners would argue Sleep Well Beast because both it and High Violet have something to get off their chest. Others have said more, and probably better articulated than I could, about what makes this album so strong and while I don’t like phoning it in please read them. But as for the other pleasures that aren’t mentioned – I’ll give a few– they are (for me); the drums creating anxiety under track one; “cause I don’t wanna get over you”; the Sufjan Stevens harmony in “Afraid”; the poignancy of how he says “bees”. Well-constructed, well refined. 4.7/5

Thom Yorke – Anima [XL 2019]
As always his solo work carries a stagnancy that reinforces how much he needs Johnny and Phil to ground him in something more fun, without them what he finds interesting is boring. Redemption you ask? The transition in the middle of “Twist” from diorama to epic is evidence he knows when to keep drama relevant to his art even if he only stumbles into it by accident. 3.0/5

Tyler Childers – Country Squire [Hickman Holler 2019]
Admittedly I’ve never been too into country, it’s lack of play in my father’s car growing up combined with the Internet’s ridicule of the reductive slog that Top 40 creams itself over had turned me not cynical, but off. Then came the fervent recommendations of two friends for Kentucky’s own Timothy Tyler Childers – Anthony Bourdain’s cosign didn’t hurt neither, may he rest in paradise – and oh how the music flows. Warm, sly, with one hell of a sense of humor Childers is clearly a young man of prose with a keen eye who enjoys a short story. If the people in his songs aren’t him they’ve each got enough of a dream to spend time thinking, laughing, and crying over it. And if that don’t do it for ya, keep in mind that while his mentor is covering Nirvana, Childers gives you his ever lovin’ hand. 4.1/5