Model/Actriz – Pirouette [True Panther 2025]
On their second one they get closer to properly recording their strengths, especially by emphasizing texture that pleasantly irritates while holding the listener’s focus as opposed to Dogsbody’s dull thuds of noize. There’s also more room to breathe, and their rhythm section creates audible grooves for Cole Haden to emote, croon, and sneer through. The vampire twink-king of Brooklyn is particularly firing on all cylinders on “Cinderella” vacillating between vulnerable regret and anxious anger until a tender chorus surrounds him with noise that contains a subtle mixture of amniotic warmth and teeth baring menace. The rest sustains and fills, but with that as their blueprint going forward in the studio this band could shake things up in a noise rock scene that needs it. 3.8/5
The Mountain Goats – Heretic Pride [4AD 2008]
It’s his first real glimmer of emotional tension since We Shall All Be Healed’s treatise on the community that junkies are forced to create for survival and it’s due in no small part to John Darnielle finally solidifying a band that he likes around him that crucially includes drummer Jon Wuster’s ability to find the anxiety between Darnielle’s strumming. As a whole product it aligns itself more with the toxic misfires of Tallahassee than the trauma of Get Lonely and it’s all the stronger for it because Darnielle works best in fiction rather than memoir. But still there’s filler, and though it’s good you’d be hard pressed to find something that hits like “Sax Rohmer #1” or something as textural as “Autoclave” thanks to its syncopation. Does anyone even know what an autoclave is without googling? Methinks not and so we move forward knowing he can be clearer when he wants to be without trying to force SAT vocab. 3.7/5
Turnstile – Never Enough [Roadrunner 2025]
When those bands in the early 2000s released the-same-album-twice-but-with-diminishing-returns they at least had the decency to make the first one a paradigm shift and keep the schedule itself to under 3 years. Having been lukewarm on Glow On’s mantra based lyricism and finding their “experimentalism” to be neither cutting edge nor compelling enough I can say that when they try the sequel thing I’m even more bored. 2.7/5
Julien Baker & TORRES – Send a Prayer My Way [Matador 2025]
Southern lesbian cowboys are sad and yearning for sure, but also horny and clear eyed about the alcoholic tropes in the genre homage they honor kindly – but not strongly enough to break the blood-brain barrier. 3.5/5
(“Tuesday”, “Goodbye Baby”)
Home is Where – Hunting Season [Wax Bodega 2025]
Fifth wave emo leaders pivot to a Southern sound which is their heritage. But it seems their knack for hooks has left them. 3.3/5
(“reptile house”, “drive-by mooning”)
Young Thug – PUNK [Atlantic 2021]
Big man, big sound, too much sound, big sad. 3.4/5
(“Livin’ it up”, Day Before”)
Stevie Wonder – Innervisions [Tamla 1974]
More than anything else he’s put up until now this is an album rather than a collection of songs – there’s a coherent sound that touches upon love, race, class, and even Nixon so I’m told. And at various points it’s clean, gorgeous, bright, groovy, shiny, there’s Latin keyboards and psychedelic guitars all from – for the first time – one man and one man alone. Time has a way of removing or adding context depending on lyrical explicitness and because Stevie’s main metaphor is love it allows for a projection of internal thought onto that blank canvas, in other words: it’s been 50 years and I wasn’t alive when first released so the radiance doesn’t speak to me on a subtle level. Explicitly however, it’s eye opening to see just how much the Black Power movement was in mainstream art like this, hopefully something like that comes back again – history is a flat circle, right? 4.5/5
Creedence Clearwater Revival – Creedence Clearwater Revival [Concord 1968]
When they’re this young you can hear how scrappy they are. John Fogerty and his pals who he now hates put together a sound in late 60’s San Francisco that rings true to the spirit as swamp rock, borrowing so much blues in its guitar and vocal intonations that it feels ripped from the south despite being performed by four middle-class white kids. For every tasty lick and driving beat there’s some dumb noise that doesn’t signify enough yet as anything else other than time filler, especially since there’s so much overtly macho posturing. And some decent politics. 3.4/5
Lucy Dacus – Forever is a Feeling [Matador 2025]
At this point I’m not sure how much more needs to be said about Dacus’ ability to make emotionally, melodically intense, and creative songs about her points of view on love, friendship, the past. She’s erudite but accessible, and calm but warm even when she gets loud, which as one of the only women at the forefront of the sapphic-guitar-rock-wave willing to lay on distortion I can appreciate. So while this isn’t a leap like Home Videos was it’s more complete than it, fewer half-thought out verses or choruses that she repeats one too many times – even some sex songs if you listen closely enough. However much it is or isn’t influenced by her own life, the way she sings and plays makes you hopeful that even if love won’t last forever, even if all good things do come to pass, that the pain afterwards is simply the result of something so real being so valued. And it’s a sentiment I hope listeners can abide by, for at least the last half decade I know that I have. 4.0/5
Cosmic Hero 