Music Reviews

Damn, didn’t know the ship from Sabnautica made music.

Jokes aside for me AURORA has always been kind of a weird case – a friend of mine showed me her music like a year back and unlike them I didn’t instantly fell in love with it – I liked some elements of it, especially her voice, but I didn’t really care about anything else that was going on, though I understood why people were attracted to her music. So naturally going into this I didn’t have any super high expectations, even though I did have some, beacuse whether you like her or hate her music, you can’t deny there’s a certain level of quaity and pristineness that comes with AURORA’s music – she clearly puts a lot of work and effort and cares about the stuff that she puts out there. But truly and honestly, this album is right up my alley with what I like about modern pop music – the lush layered instrumentals complimented by her intimate voice together feel like a warm blanket wrapped around you that you just never wanna leave. And if you can get past the occasionally over-blown Imagine Dragons-esk choruses, there is actually quite a lot to be liked about this record. There is still your typical dramatic AURORA sound present, but this time there is a more experimental edge to it all and I think that is that something that, at least for me, was missing from AURORA’s music for me to really love it.

Alright, so let’s break this whole thing down bit-by-bit, shall we? I honestly don’t have much to say about the album’s 40 second opener „The Forbidden Fruits of Eden“ other than this is the most AURORA way to start a project and if you played me this without any context I would INSTANTLY recognize it’s her – like this has AURORA written all over it. That more surprising is when the next song „Everything Matters“ doesn’t really follow the typical AURORA sound – or in a sense it does, you have your typical guitar/piano ballad with AURORA singing her heart out over it, but what seperates this from every songle song in this style she has done is the percussion – the moment the drums kick in it INSTANTLY locks you in and refuses to let go. Then on top of that the raging bass that just gives the whole song new life. She has been hinting on going all out with this type of sound with her last LP and I think she truly embraced this sound right here. The distorted kind of deep vocal bits are another detail that may not seem like much but in reality make this song kinda work – it’s the whole package honestly. The next track „Giving In To The Love“ doesn’t waste any time in letting you know that THIS is AURORA – the heavy synths with electric guitar blend effortlessly and if not for the kinda cheezy chorus this would be instantly one of my favorites. Still one of the more intresting songs presented. I LOVE the next song „Cure For Me“ though, even though it’s a bit generic and over-blown, but the SECOND the drop hits, it just gets me everytime – honestly one of the most dancable tracks I’ve heard all year too and another W on AURORA’s part. „You Keep Me Crawling“ is more of what we’re used to from AURORA, but even though it’s been done before, here she really flexes how WELL EXECUTED it is. The melody is haunting and the drums super crisp and AURORA’s voice makes it all click. It also transitions super nicely into „Exist For Love“, which the moment I heard the gentle guitar plucks I knew this was gonna be a tear-jerker in a good way though. And yeah, I was right, this song hits all the right spots – probably the emotional high point of the whole album. The next songs „Heathens“ goes through many intresting ideas, especially the outro of the song which the first time I heard it completely threw me off-guard. „The Innocent“ I like more in theory then in practice – again one of the more dancable tracks, but this one just doesn’t have the same punch as „Cure For Me“ had, but honestly what song does – this one just has a different vibe and it’s still one of the more memorable and intresting songs on this album, so maybe I’m just nitpicky. Now i don’t know what’s up with albums in 2022 having the first half significantly better than the first one, but this one honestly fits that criteria aswell. „Exhale Inhale“ isn’t a bad song and it serves it’s purpose pretty well as sort of a transition point in the album, but some of the electronics don’t really stick the landing and overall this song easily just could have been left on the chopping block and honetly nothing woud change with the expirience I had with this album – maybe it would only enhance it. „A Temporary High“ is a song I WISHED I liked more, beacuse in concept this should have been one of the best songs on this album – all the pieces are there, but the full picture is just missing. The 80s sound this whole song has honestly kind of makes me feel like AURORA has also fallen for this 80s revival trend that The Weeknd started 2 years back and has honestly only been matched by himself in that field. „A Dangerous Thing“ picks things up a bit – I especially like how the song in a way parallels the song „Exist For Love“ with lyrics like „there is no love in the end“, just another showcase of AURORA’s genius writing. The next song „Artemis“ I like for what it tried to do with what seems to be harmonica if I’m not mistaken? It sounds okay and I commend AURORA for trying new things honestly not only on this song but on this whole album – it’s just that not all the ideas work as much as others and this song just should have been like a bonus track or something. The first and only time I can say the chorus REALLY hits the way AURORA intended is on „Blood In the Wine“, my personal favorite song on the album – it feels like a huge army marching towards me and I LOVE IT. The final 2 tracks on the album „This Could Be A Dream“ and „A Little Place Called Moon“ serve as a comedown from „Blood In the Wine“, but they both kinda overstay their welcome – like did they BOTH need to be 4 minutes? The answer is no – and you know me, I can listen to a 34 minute song and not bat an eye, but these songs just don’t have much of anything going for them to keep my attention for even the 4 minutes. I guess I like the trumpets on „This Could Be A Dream“, but they just appear for like 3 seconds and are then again written out of the song – like come on, there was so much you could have done with that, but instead you took the boring route. „A Little Place Called The Moon“ is the better one of the two closing tracks in my opinion as it wraps this whole album together in a satisfying way and credit where credit’s due, the song does have one of the better sounding instrumentals.

So overall, I think this album sees AURORA trying just many new things and while some work better than others, they all cumulate together into one surprisingly cohesive mess of an album. Still if the question is „is this my favorite AURORA project“ then the answer is yes, it is. I’m really excited to see where she takes her sound next on her next project and until that day comes gonna overplay this one to death.

-favorite tracks: Cure For Me, Exist For Love, Blood In The Wine, Everything Mattters, Giving In To The Love, Heathens, You Keep Me Crawling, A Dangerous Thing

-least favorite tracks: Exhale Inhale, Artemis, This Could Be A Dream

Light 8/10

So, after the two major releases of this year so far (those being the new Earl Sweatshirt and The Weeknd records) I wanted to branch out and try something new for a change. And while I was browsing the dark dark lands of rate your music, I stumbled upon this – a brand new Bonobo album. The album mainly caught my eye with it’s SUPER relaxing album cover, which is slowly becoming one of my favorite album covers to look at in a long time. But you didn’t come here to listen to me praise this album cover, I’m here to critique the music – so is it any good? Well at it’s worst, Fragments is some really nice background music that might lack some punch to it, but is overall harmless – but at it’s best it’s some of the finest most well-crafted house beats I’ve heard all year (which considering this year just started out is not saying much, but you get what I mean). I didn’t really have high expectations going into this record since I know little to nothing about this guy’s music, but this honestly kinda blew me away – like I expected something really chill, somehting I could just put in the background and just vibe to, but got so much more out of – these songs have so much life, hope and emotion in them, it’s like the cover perfectly represents what the music sounds like.

Right off the back, there are no songs I like actively dislike off this album – some just hit harder than others and some just stick out more then others. That being said, some stand out tracks for me definetly include tracks like the short but sweet opener „Polyghost“, AKA the perfect tone-setter for this whole album – like if you don’t like what you hear on this song here then you are probably better off listening to something else. Then definetly the song that right follows this one „Shadows“, which might just have my favorite beat off of this album and also my favorite vocal performance (from the featured artist Jordan Rakei) for sure – yeah, there is a lot to like about this song. Probably the most ambitious cut this album provides is „Otomo“, which has GOT TO BE one of the BEST drops I’ve heard probably like ever – like sure, this song takes time to get to that point, but if you give it that time, if you’re patient enough, it will reward you that much more. Seriously, I can’t get over the RUSH of dopamine I get when the drop on this song comes, it’s pretty much flawless. „Tides“ with Jamilia Woods is also pretty sweet and serves as a nice cooldown after the hellride that was Otomo – her vocals compliment the track pretty well and it’s another sweet-sounding piece to the puzzle. „Closer“, another one of my favorites, has such an unexplainable atmosphere surrounding it – the synth work on here is also out of this world, like innitially I didn’t really think all that much about the song, but the second the synths hit, it was like I was transpored into another dimension – yeah, this track is pretty much saved by them. Now my personal faorite song is hands down „Age of Phase“, which has THE most infectious sample and melody on this whole album, it’s like Crystal Castle’s „Kept“ but like the lofi hip-hop beats to study to version of it. I could honestly listen just to that sample alone for hours and not get tired of it. Now that’s pretty much about it for the GREAT songs, you know, the „best and most well-crafted house beats of the year“ songs. Now as for the rest of the album… It’s okay still. And there is a lot of beauty to be found in the rest of these tracks – „Elysian“ has a nice string section attached to it, „From You“ with Joji has a nice Joji attached to it and „Sapien“ is honestly kinda underrated, the song is generally seen as one of the worst on the album and I just don’t find that to be the case – but honestly they all still just lack something extra the other ones have. Most of these track are also located on the second half of the album, so yeah, this album is pretty front-loaded, but not to the point where the second half is not worth listening to, I would compare it to the new The Weeknd album in that regard, where it’s good as a whole, but the first half obviously out-shines the second half.

(God, I never know how to wrap these things up) uhhh so YEAH, not bad first impression if I do say so myself – this record isn’t much and you won’t get much out of it expecting much – but what it is is a fun chill ride, that if you give it the benefit of the doubt can take you on a blissful journey. (also this album is a way for me to try this new „favorite/least favorite songs“ feature I definetly thought of myself and didn’t just shamelessly steal from Fantano and other creators)

-favorite tracks: Shadows, Otomo, Closer, Age of Phase

-least favorite tracks: Day by Day, Counterpart

Light 7/10

Christmas came EARLy this year.

So after a 4-year long wait we gather here together for the new Earl Sweatshirt release. Honestly I’m not super familiar with Earl’s work up to this point, the only album I heard from him in it’s entirety was „Some Rap Songs“, which still to this day is a really special album to me – I think it’s the closest things to doing drugs without actually doing drugs. Like there is something just so haunting and fundementally broken about it, even after all this time I can’t wrap me hear around it – that album for me really solidified Earl as one oh modern hip-hop’s greatest offenders in terms off production and uniquness. Now as for this album over here, I think that it only builds on the foundation that „Some Rap Songs“ layed down with a more modern twist – this is a much more accesible album than that album was. It’s a lot more shorter, clocking in at only 24 minutes, which is basically mixtape length. The album is filled with the trademark Earl Sweatshirt druggy, hard-to-pin-down production with the inclusion of more trap beats as well as some muble rap-isms scattered throughout the project. Also I think that Earl is legitemately in a much better headspace than he was on his last couple of LP – this album is much more free and much less i guess depressed than „Some Rap Songs“ was. Earl also is noticably more vocally present on this album then before – these songs just burst with confidence.

Speaking of songs that vocally AND instrumentally burst with confidence, the opener „Old Friend“ is sure as hell one of them. For how short this intro is, it definetly doesn’t waste any time kicking the door right open with an ethereal beat that has little to no percussion whatsoever, just some crazy synths with Earl’s voice sliding on top of them, like you can tell this is Earl in his natural habitat. Almost as smooth as the song itself is the transition into „2010“ which overall is just a great song, even though a bit too repetetive. Earl sounds hungry on here and his rapping is just so effortless and it translates super well to the listener. Next up is the title track „Sick!“ and the first real showcase of this album’s much more accesible trap-flavoured beats – it honestly sounds like something that would prefectly fit on „Some Rap Songs“ weirdly enough (minus the raging trap hi-hats i guess). By this point on the album we start to notice that this album is a bit of a mess, but that’s something you gotta expect when listen to Earl’s music – the next two songs completely throw the „1 to 2 minute songs MAX“ format this album has been following so far out the window and drops at us not one but TWO 4-minute songs, both with the only features this album features (heh). The first of the two „Vision“ featuring Zelooperz (which I honestly had no idea who was, sounds like a name for a Pokemon, but then again this man named himself after a piece of clothing lmao) is i guess the less enjoyable of the two for me, but that’s like having to pick between your favorite child, you love them both pretty much equally. This one is one of the more trap-inluenced songs and it’s done well enough to where it’s enjoyable, it doesn’t drag on for too long and it leads pretty nicely into the latter of the two „Tabula Rasa“, and pretty nice it is. I love the little vocal chop samples integrated into the piano-driven beat, it has Earl Sweatshirt written all over it. This one also features Armand Hammer, which is a match made in heaven. Both artist are in their A game here. After this we are back to the shorter songs with the song „Lye“ and I’m not gonna lye, this song is pretty heat. Probably the most jazzy song on the album, and you know me, I’m somewhat of a jazz enjoyer myself, so this was a nice change of pace for me. The beat is so smooth it should actually be illegal, aaaah, it’s so good. Also somewhere around here is when I realized something when I was giving this album like me third listen – Earl REALLY abuses the hell out of the „fading-in and out“ effect on this album (don’t know what it’s called, feel free to educate me in the comments). Like he does that A LOT on this record, especially on songs like these and the closing track and I’m not really sure how I feel about it – on one hand it kinda ruins some of the songs for me, but on the other it really doesn’t, I don’t know, I guess it kinda balances out and I’m just indifferent to it. Moving on we have the song „Lobby(Int)“, which I could honestly do without – it’s not a bad song by any stretch of the imagination, but the fact that after one of the best beats of the entire album we get this just uninspired trap mess… I ain’t mad, just dissapointed. Like even Earl sounds half asleep on this song. But yeah, you wouldn’t find this in the list of my favorite songs of this album, let me tell you. „God Laughs“ picks things up a bit, but not by much – I do mess with the sampling on this song though, there is something really cathartic and mysterious about it. The song „Titanic“ is like a more fleshed out version of „Lobby(Int)“ with a beat that honestly might just take the crown for the best trap beat on this whole album. The closer „Fire in the Hole“ is probably the best song of the album if we’re being honest, it’s the perfect note to end this album on. The guitar-work on this song is really something to behold and the beat just has so much life and personality, like everytime I listen to it I just close my eyes and pictue myself floating in space, because the song really got me feeling like that. It’s also one of those songs when you finnish hearing you just wanna listen to the whole thing again – AKA a good closer. The piano fade-out is also a nice touch, makes it feel more complete.

I think this album more than anything is a sign of something much more ambitious coming down the line – it shows not only artistic growth but Earl’s growth as a human being. The biggest flaws this album has are honestly just what it doesn’t have – it doesn’t have much of a direction nor ambition and it’s generaly just a little too short and a little too repetetive for my liking – like cut some of the longer songs short and add like 3 or 4 more songs – that i think would only make this an even more cohesive expirience. That being said, this album is still a fantastic display of talent and artistic growth and while I still prefer „Some Rap Songs“ over this, I can’t WAIT to see what Earl has in stock for us next.

Light 8/10

First review of 2022 hooray!!

This album, at least for me, was a series of many red flags. First off all how it was announced basically like not even a year after After Hours, Abel’s last album and one of my personal favorites of that year, the really confusing almost non-existent roll-out to this album and, of course, the in my opinnion still not so great album cover, (which is me after waiting for this thing to drop since it’s been announced). Then the album actually came out and I gave it a full listen and… Well all my red flags proved to be right, or at least innitialy they were. I couldn’t remember a single note from this album besides „Take My Breath“, which I’ve already listened to death at that point and I was starting to get genuinely worried, because everyone LOVED this album when it dropped. I felt like I was going crazy – what does everyone see in this that I’m overlooking? It must be just me, right? So I decided to give it a few more shots and well, long story short, this album is amazing (that’s what I call character development right here). Speaking of character development, Abel REALLY build on the 80s inspired foundation he layed down on his last album and I feel like this album is him fully embracing it. It may not do as well commercially, but don’t let that stop you from how much this album actually bops.

You notice the tone shift instantly on the first actual song on this album „Gasoline“, where Abel, for the first I ever heard him do it like this, really explores the capabilities of his lower register voice. And admitedly it was a bit off-putting the first time I heard it, but there is honestly something really mezmerizing about it – it just clicks with you after a while for some reason. Also this is where you start to notice how rich and layered the production on this album is – the lush 80s synths with punchy crisp drums in the hands of some excelent producers make this a treat to listen to. „How Do I Make You Love Me?“ is honestly one of my favorite songs here, the chorus goes so hard it should actually be illegal – there is also this underlying feeling present throughout the entirety of the song that something just isn’t right. What definetly must be illegal though is the transition into „Take My Breath“, which is so good I still can’t proccess how excelently that is done. The song itself also took a new form on this album, clocking at around almost 6 minutes, almost double the length of the original single version and I gotta say, it really does the song justice, I’ll take this version over the original any day. If I had just 6 minutes left of my life… I probably wouldn’t listen to this song, but it’s still really good. Instead I would play the next song „Sacrifice“ two times, because that guitar thing that’s going throughout the entire track goes SO HARD IT DIDN’T HAVE TO GO SO HARD BUT IT DOES OH MY GOD IT’S SO GOOD. The Quincy Jones interlude „A Tale By Quincy“ is one of the better interludes I’ve heard in a while for sure and it ends on a really dark note aswell. „Out of Time“ is really uplifting instrumentally and yet so miserable lyrically, it just creates this contrast that I absolutely love. The flute or whatever it is that’s going on constantly in the background really makes this song work. „Here We Go… Again“ with Tyler is fitting title, because right as that first note hit I said to myself exactly that. The song has no drums and is all just vibes with a so so Tyler verse, which I still can’t help but enjoy, because you know, it’s Tyler. It kind of works as the halfway point of this album, almost making the album two parts. The next song „Best Friends“ I enjoy a lot, the abrasive synths and the earworm that is the chorus, this should be an instant favorite for me, right? Well I think the song is good, but it’s just missing that extra something to really make it GREAT. Still one of my favorites just because of the reasons stated above. Here I think the album start to lose it’s focus a bit, the next few tracks „Is There Someone Else?“ „Starry Eyes“ and „Every Angel is Terrifying“ just don’t really do it for me, they all just blend into one forgetable expirience and I usually tend to skip this section (I like to call it the „Yawn FM“) while listening to the album. „Don’t Break My Heart“ puts the album back on track with a really gentle beat, I really like how the hi-hats mix with the somewhat burried synths and Abel’s storytelling. I also especially enjoy the section in each chorus where he says „I don’t know if I can take it anymore“, something about the way he says that just gets me everytime. Overall just an okay song though. „I Heard You’re Married“ featuring Lil Wayne coincidently also has a really nice vocal line in the chorus and a pretty catchy beat, but that’s about it for what makes this song stand out – oh and Lil Wayne is here too. The true highlight of the album comes in the form of „Less Than Zero“ though, with the really quiet guitar playing, the excellent synths, the absolutely bombastic chorus and just the overall aesthethic, all the pieces are there and the whole picture is excellent. The outro song „Phantom Regret By Jim“ is basically just an interlude, but it surpasses many of the whole song on here. Really convinving performance from Jim and a compelling way to close off the album and tie the whole thing together.

So yeah, this album is pretty good – I think the middle second half is significantly less exciting than the first one, but it also has „Less Than Zero“ on it, so it ballances out. Overall a solid effort from The Weeknd, I don’t think it’s on the same level of enjoyability as After Hours for me though, where I grew to love really every track on there, but it’s a natural artistic progression for The Weeknd to continue this path of 80s anthems and if he continues to do them as succesfully as here, then I think he’ll be just fine off doing exactly that. So yeah, a pretty good start to 2022 music-wise.

Strong 7/10