Car Seat Headrest – Making a Door Less Open [Matador 2020]
It seems like the keenster has reverted to platitudes out of a sense of writer’s block and covered for himself by saying it was influenced by a side project. Not that it isn’t still funny or melodic, but that tuneful sense of levity doesn’t seem to be there. 3.2/5
Charly Bliss – Young Enough [Barsuk 2020]
I ragged on the first one (quite meanly now that I look at it) because the disjointed feeling between the less-than-substantial prose and chunky but unremarkable guitar + synth mash left something to be desired in the way of – if not synergy exactly – intra-song cohesiveness. This time around, I was floored. These are hooks that delight even (especially) as they galvanize, and are much better suited for Eva Hendricks’ voice, still perpetually out of breath but much less of a squeal. Conceptually a reaction to the messy explosion at the end of a toxic relationship in one’s meandering twenties, it’s a millennial close up of patriarchy and resilience that’s strongest in the middle. 4.5/5
Hayley Williams – Petals for Armor [Atlantic 2020]
After years of “Misery Business” and getting sick of being an avatar, she’s finally done what her ex-bandmates feared she would and went solo. A step into sexism and femininity for the first time from a woman who made it her career’s mission previously to avoid specifics outside of emotion. These are the messy sketches of newfound understanding so they’re rough and loose. But “Dead Horse”’s yah-yahs it’s impossible to feel like they don’t go nowhere. 3.4/5
Moses Sumney – Aromanticism [Jagjaguwar 2017]
The title also means “just not looking for anything serious right now but down for fwb”. I mean c’mon, right? The man is Moses Sumney the American born son of two California Ghanaian parents based now in up-and-coming Asheville North Carolina. Yes, his voice is molasses, somehow both ethereal and weighty but in pitch sounds no different that Brittany Howard’s. Difference is he writes songs that, whilst sometimes very very very pretty are boring AND have an odd air of sincerity in their fuckboy message. Space folk for the summertime sometimes but Jesus Christ with the histrionics. 2.4/5
Cosmic Hero 