Dev Lemons - Delusional
Genre: Pop; electro-pop
Review
Content creator Dev Lemons is making the leap to full time musician with her debut EP, Delusional. While this EP is far from my favorite project of the year, it shows that Dev clearly has a future in terms of music creation. This project is more emotional than any of Dev's previous work, but she still managed to blend in plenty of weirder electronic moments into the production to combat all of the breakup motifs. Her songwriting isn't quite as intoxicating as some of her singles last year has been, but it's still overall entertaining. I do wish that there was something more unique here, because instead of pushing any boundaries, this project exists between the weird electronic music and the indie pop tunes. It's not necessarily great in any of those two sounds, and the combination of those two is far from unique. But even though it's not unique, Dev was able to create a solid debut EP. Hopefully she'll only continue to improve from here.
Favorite Songs: "Cyberpunk Fairy", "Dizzy Vision", "If You Wanna Reach Me"
If You Like: half-alive; underscores
Various Artists - A Small Light (Soundtrack)
Genre: Pop
Review
This is less of a project, and more of a collection of covers made for this television show. The show itself is about Miep Gies, a woman who helped hide Anne Frank and her family during WWII. It seems like a fascinating show, but on the music side, they got a bunch of great artists to do some heartfelt covers of classic songs. Most of these songs are originally from the 1920s-1940s. These songs are so old that on most of their Wikipedia pages, there is often a specific date when they wrote the song, and another one years later for when it was first recorded. It makes it interesting to hear current day artists do their own versions of it though. Weyes Blood’s voice fits “When You’re Smiling” so well that it very well could be an original track. The opposite goes for Moses Sumney’s cover of “I’ll Be Seeing You”, where his falsetto sounds just as alien as ever. I’m not even sure how much this counts as an actual album, but there’s plenty of awesome covers here!
Favorite Songs: “When You’re Smiling”, “Cheryl”, “Til We Meet Again”
If You Like: Soundtracks; new artists covering old songs; artists you already know trying something different
KayCyy & Gesaffelstein - TW2052
Genre: Electronic; hip-hop; R&B
Review
This is a follow-up to their 3-song collaboration EP last year. All three of these songs were fantastic and almost mind-blowing, especially the single, “The Sun”. That track ended up in my top 5 tracks of 2022, so I was very excited to hear more! Unfortunately, this album only has four more tracks, but at least all of them end up being good. “Roll The Dice” feels like a reference track for The Weeknd, but KayCyy’s voice still works really well with it. “Ashley’s Heartbreak” could easily be a middling track, but Gesaffelstein really carries with all the production on this one! All of the screeches and alarms really fill the sci-fi atmosphere of this song. I do wish that this project was longer though. Even with it combining songs from both projects, this still clocks in at 7 songs and only 20 minutes in totality. I would love to hear what they could do on a full length project. This still feels like just the start of what could, and should, be a duo who pushes music forward.
Favorite Songs: “Roll The Dice”, “Ashley’s Heartbreak”, “Timeless”
If You Like: The Weeknd; dark electronic music
Kassa Overall - Animals
Genre: Jazz-fusion; hip-hop
Review
Kassa Overall is the newest signee to the famed experimental label, Warp Records. Animals is his first release on the new label, and it’s immediately evident that he fits in among the Flying Lotus’s and Danny Brown’s. I can’t think of anyone that could have Nick Hakim, Danny Brown, Francis and the Lights, Vijay Iyer, and Lil B on the same album, and it not be a total trainwreck. Needless to say, but the versatility on this album is vast! Some songs could fit in with a traditional hip-hop fans playlist, whereas others are along the same lines as the new internet-jazz artists like Louis Cole or DOMi & JD Beck. Kassa’s drumming and overall band-leading ability is what really rounds this album together, especially on tracks like “Still Ain’t Find Me” and “No It Ain’t”. Kassa’s rapping and singing is a bit hit-or-miss, but his ability to bring everything together is what helps Animals stand out in music today.
Favorite Songs: “Clock Ticking” (Feat. Danny Brown & Wiki), “So Happy” (Feat. Laura Mvula & Francing and the Lights), “Make My Way Back Home” (Feat. Theo Croker & Nick Hakim)
If You Like: Flying Lotus; Louis Cole; weird jazz-fusion
Metro Boomin - Across The Spider-Verse: Soundtrack
Genre: Hip-hop; R&B; pop
Review
Even with Metro’s name attached to this project, the fact that it was a soundtrack still kept my expectations low. So when it did finally come out, I was pleasantly surprised with how entertaining it was! The first five songs on here are all legitimately great! Sure, everything is spider related, but the actual production and performances are all deeply intentional. “Am I Dreaming” with A$AP Rocky and Rosiee feels like a leftover track from Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, while having Offset and JID on the same song with “Danger” can’t be anything less than good. Outside of those first five tracks, the rest of the album is very hit or miss, especially during the middle where it gets more dance-hall influenced. For a soundtrack though, I was still pleasantly surprised overall. There are plenty of great tracks from great artists that I will likely continue to replay for a while.
Favorite Songs: “Am I Dreaming” (Feat. A$AP Rocky & Rosiee), “Danger (Spider)” (Feat. Offset & JID), “Hummingbird” (Feat. James Blake)
If You Like: Any of the artists associated with the soundtrack
Kenny Mason - 6
Genre: Hip-hop; trap; grunge
Review
After his three-song EP titled 3 that was released on 3/3, he is back with six more songs released on 6/6 with the title 6. This project does fill out nicely compared to the previous three song endeavor. Most of these songs have a darker energy to his 2022 mixtape, Ruffs, even though they both have the same prominent producer, Coupe. Coupe’s production does work well with Kenny, but I do want Kenny to continue to push the envelope more. The majority of his Coupe-produced tracks are sonically stagnant compared to where I know he could go. This isn’t as much of a problem now, but if Kenny continues with this same sound for the next few years, it might start to be. But for now, 6 is another enjoyable helping of what has made Kenny Mason unique, and it seems like he won’t stop here. He’s already talked about there being a 9 project later this year, so this is a great appetizer.
Favorite Songs: “Darkside”, “Dracula”, “Side II Side”
If You Like: His previous work; JID; Young Nudy
Six Impala - Earwax
Genre: Experimental; electronic; sound collage
Review
This is an experimental electronic group that consists of five members, one being one of my favorite new artists, underscores. There’s no other way to describe this album than pure chaos. Just look at the cover art. I’m not even sure what the point or symbolism of this cover is, but it looks fascinating! That is the feeling that I come away with for most of this album. For example, the intro track is over nine minutes long, and it’s mainly just sound collages that don’t seem to go together. Or look at the track “WDFLYA”, which is just six minutes of silence bookended by a couple-seconds of a distorted phrase. Don’t get me wrong though, there are some bangers on here! I absolutely love the heaviness of tracks like “Eardrum” and “Sticky Helix”. Even outside of that, the sounds they manage to create here are mind blowing. For better or for worse, I guarantee you haven’t heard something that sounds like this. I dare anyone reading this to just listen to the song “¿?¿ floating point ¿?¿” and see how you feel.
Favorite Songs: “¿?¿ floating point ¿?¿”, “Eardrum”, “Sticky Helix”
If You Like: Chaos
Sumbuck - Lucky
Genre: Indie; folk; singer-songwriter
Review
This is the side project of Caamp lead singer, Taylor Meier. There are some songs on here that sound like they should be Caamp songs, but there are also others that sound like a completely different artist. “Hey Honey” was the lead single for this album, and it fits right in with the Caamp style of music. It’s built around a guitar loop and Taylor’s raspy voice, all of which help the track be a feel good anthem. Then we look at the other single, “How Long”, which is six minutes long of mostly folk jamming with Taylor singing completely in a falsetto. He actually executes both of these styles of song fairly well, which helps make this album feel different than his other material. The love-stricken subject matter gets a bit tiresome by the end, but Lucky is still a really good album that shows someone well-known exploring some new territory.
Favorite Songs: “Hold It All”, “McKenzie”, “Hey Honey”
If You Like: Caamp; summery indie music
Young Thug - Business is Business
Genre: Hip-hop; trap
Review
Young Thug may still be fighting his RICO case over a year later, but he still found time to put together another collection of tracks! For the most part, these songs feel like leftovers. Enjoyable leftovers for sure, but still leftovers. They aren’t pushing anything forward, or are even unique, which is weird for Thug. He usually tries to push the stylings of trap music to their limits, but this album doesn’t. It’s still a really enjoyable album though! “Want Me Dead” with 21 Savage is a summer banger, while “Jonesboro” produced by Metro Boomin is the closest to anything new Thug rapped on here, and it sounds fantastic! “Uncle M” is criminally short and should’ve had at least one more Thug verse. It’s a quality trap album, but for someone like Young Thug, that feels a little disappointing. But I suppose given the circumstances and his last few projects, maybe we shouldn’t still expect something mind blowing.
Favorite Songs: “Jonesboro”, “Uncle M”, “Wit Da Racks” (Feat. 21 Savage, Travis Scott, & Yak Gotti)
If You Like: Trap music
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