A few quick-fire reviews from more commercial sounds. Make no mistake though, just because there's no black metal screams at the moon, doesn't mean these releases don't hit as hard as Minoru Suzuki on a bad day.
Wanderlux - Grime Time
During the whimsical, light-hearted moments-before-disaster time of Christmas 2019, I stumbled across a YouTuber-turned-musician by the name of Wanderlux, who had turned the witchy/faerie Instagram aesthetic into a dark and ethereal indie pop EP called Earthen. At the time, I compared it (positively) to the latest album Chelsea Wolfe, albeit with a more colourful and shimmery disposition, I guess the pastel goth to Wolfe's funeral goth.
Less than a year later and Wanderlux has followed up with a debut (mini-)album which has fine-tuned a lot of the rough edges that come with a debut self-release. Straight away the mixing is much improved, framing her vocals a lot better and giving Wanderlux the chance to properly show off what she's capable of. On the EP, the vocals often fell too far into the music dreamland of the release, whereas on Grime Time, the vocals are clearer and sit better in the mix, allowing more clarity into Wanderlux's range, from a sheepish, melodic delivery in the same category as a Billie Eilish or Salt Ashes, to the big, punchy Florence + the Machine-lite bombs in "Ghost of Us" and top tier track "Heaven Is".
It's not a complete turnaround just yet; even on a 27 minute release, repetitive ideas were popping up occasionally and one or two songs did revert back to drowning out the vocals, but the trio of "Heaven Is", "Let It Rain" and the title track preserve the quality of the album. "Heaven Is" has the previously mentioned big vocal hooks in the chorus that would be great to hear more of, "Let It Rain" has a more indie feel to it, along with a Linda Perry-ness about the vocals, and the closing title track is a phenomenally broody goth pop jam to end proceedings.
Rina Sawayama - SAWAYAMA
Chalk this one up as an unexpected surprise, Rina Sawayama's debut album sees her trying to combine pop music with, well everything really. The Japanese-British singer-songwriter had previously established herself as a pop/R&B artist on her debut release RINA EP, showing early promise of her musical mind, combining pop with the likes of R&B, AOR and turn of the century bubblegum pop, and while tracks like "Ordinary Superstar" and "Alterlife" did feature some guest appearance from our favourite six-string super-weapon, it wasn't quite enough to prepare people for what Rina was cooking up for the debut...
Enter "STFU!", the lead single for the album which feels like the hands of time have pick-pocketed circa-2000 Disturbed, with a drilling nu metal riff fronted by Rina's on-point delivery, nailing the post-grunge 'loud-soft-loud' transitions perfectly. It's bold and brave experiment that may not yet be challenging the likes of Poppy and BabyMetal, but it's a damn site better than Amaranthe, Icon for Hire, or the last three Punk Goes... comps.
The pop-metal collaboration does get better within the album. "Dynasty" puts most power metal releases from this year to shame, "Who's Gonna Save U Now?" is probably glam metal's best chance at survival in this day and age, and "Paradisin'" - whilst much softer than its counterparts - is a bonafide bop. But there's more to this endeavour seemingly to see if pop and metal can still be friends; "Chosen Family" teases country pop, "XS" brings in a Latin vibe (R.I.P. ill niño), and "Bad Friend" and "Tokyo Love Hotel" both feel like they come from the school of Charli XCX (more on her later). It feels like an album crafted by a pop musician trying to incorporate other sounds into a final performance, not a label trying to yeet things together and hoping for the best or someone trying to sell-out. For comparison, BabyMetal feels like songs are written as metal songs first with pop added second, whereas SAWAYAMA - like Poppy - feels like pop first, metal second (especially on Poppy's Am I a Girl?).
Charli XCX - how i'm feeling now
An artist with a constantly changing sound, it feels weird to say that Charli XCX's musical arc from albums three and four is the most consistent of her still young career. Starting out as a broody synthpop performer before transitioning into a power pop Queen, Charli seems to have established herself as a titan of experimental pop, never shy of combining synthpop, electronica, pop, darkwave, glitch, and whatever she wants to work with. But the idea of remaining consistent to the avant-garde just seems a bit oxymoronic (just listen to that Igorrr fella).
Genre elitism aside, Charli's complex creativity runs the show on her latest album, released a mere eight months after her previous semi-self-titled effort. Opener "pink diamond" opens as an intense trap doomsday clock that whiffs of Korn's "Twisted Transistor", before a sharp right-hand turn leads into "forever", a synthpop bop that seems to be at war with itself, combining bright pop melodies with near industrial abrasion with Charli herself breaking out of the opener's Essex-rooted rap into a more floaty singing performance. "7 years" has Charli at has vocal best on the album, "detonate" ups the pace to really bring the album alive, and "anthems" sounds like it was written as an ode to Rammstein's Christian Lorenz.
It feels like there's a little more sophistication with Charli's work now. Sucker was recognisable immediately (and bloody brilliant) whereas Charli took a while to get going before comfortably sitting at its level. how i'm feeling now follows a similar path, borderline forgettable when you first press play, but indoctrinate yourself in the world that Charli XCX has created, and you will soon start to see the full breadth and possibilities of modern commercial pop.
Run the Jewels - RTJ4
You absolutely don't/shouldn't need someone like me to tell you why this album is important. The US hip hop duo return with another scathing assortment of punishing lyrical sonnets over the top of catchy beats that as much rooted in old school hip hop as they are in the modern day's synth era. Released two days early in the face of the BLM-charged protests across the globe, there's an argument for the impact the album would've had in the 'old normal', but circumstances as they and whether they meant it or not, RTJ have released a cold rundown of police brutality, systemically-sourced poverty, corporations, the government, and the general treatment of black human beings in a modern, apparently inclusive world.
But taking the album at face value, away from its global setting, does not take away from its quality. Opener "yankee and the brave (ep. 4)" goes straight for the jugular in attacking the rich and the police on a backdrop that confirms El-P as a modern-day titan in production. The song sets the bar high and comfortably stays there for the album's duration, the bass-dominate beat of "out of sight" rattles your head as if you're getting a root canal from a jackhammer; the vocal accoutrements from Josh Homme and Mavis Staples on "pulling the pin" turning the track into a spacey, ethereal affair, compounded my Staples' emotive delivery in which just exudes emotion from what she's been through; Pharrell Williams and Zack De La Rocha both making an appearance on "JU$T", resulting in a 4-way assault of hard truths and brutal quips, made all the more satisfying when you see people question Williams' pop hop stardom and start realising the lyrical content of Rage Against the Machine some 20 years later; but the lyrical peak comes from the half-way point of the album in "walking in the snow".
Incorporating elements of trap and an eerie guitar/electronic line, Killer Mike delivers lines that one would think he'd written in direct response to George Floyd. But this is the reality Mike and many others like him have suffered from, outside of viral movements and black squares on social media, with El-P even confirming on Twitter that the track was written in November 2019. RTJ4 feels like an album built from the ground up to make the listener angry, upset, or just to feel something, and if by chance you are unable to feel anything from this...
How?
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