1. Bailen - Thrilled To Be Here
Realizing that my alma mater's college station has gotten really good has really kind of pushed my taste towards college rock lately, WTMD has really turned me onto some good newer artists. I heard "I Was Wrong" by the NYC trio Bailen a couple months ago on the station and made a quick note to myself to check out their album when it came out, and I'm glad I did, this is really excellent. It's kind of a cliche to say that there's something special about siblings' vocal harmonies, but these two brothers and one sister really do sound incredible together, Julia Bailen has the most immediate striking voice, but Daniel Bailen sings my favorite track, "Not Gonna Take Me," which sounds like some kind of amazing lost Crowded House song. I put this and the other albums I've been listening to this year into one big 2019 albums Spotify playlist.

2. ScHoolboy Q - CrasH Talk
It's been almost 3 years since Blank Face LP and ScHoolboy Q had been saying he was '90% done' with the follow-up for 2 of those years. He recorded and discarded a lot of material to end up with the pared down CrasH Talk, which is barely more than half the lengh of Blank Face, and I'm inclined to say all the editing was worth it, this album breezes by and makes the most of Q's blithe shit talk and cranky charisma where his other albums have always kind of felt like a chore to me, like even he wasn't that happy with them. This really ends strong, too, the last 3 songs are easily some of the best tracks.

3. Sara Bareilles - Amidst The Chaos
Hearing that someone is doing an earthy stripped-down album produced by T Bone Burnett isn't necessarily something that gets me excited, but in the case of Sara Bareilles, it was pretty encouraging news. I've always really liked her back catalog but had a much stronger affinity for the stuff that consisted primarily of her voice and piano with maybe a minimal rhythm section, rather than the more polished and programmed tracks of her last proper album, 2013's The Blessed Unrest. And Amidst The Chaos is gorgeous, it's kind of her Carole King album, really puts her voice and melodies up front, with backing from world class musicians like Marc Ribot and Jim Keltner.

4. Shy Glizzy - Covered N Blood
This is the 3rd project Shy Glizzy has released in the last 18 months, and while the last 2 seemed to be very accessible and guest-heavy to capitalize on his renewed momentum from "Crew," Covered N Blood just sounds a little more serious, like he just had some things to get off his chest. "How I'm Coming" and "Ridin Down Slauson" are a couple of my favorites on this one.

5. Priests - The Seduction of Kansas
The Washington, D.C. quartet Priests' second full-length album sounds a bit more stylized than their previous records, like there's kind of a phaser effect on most of the vocals and the guitars maybe sound a little more trebly too. It's their first record with John Congleton, a very seasoned producer who's done some great records with well known bands (including the Bailen album), so I'll accept the sound of The Seduction of Kansas as a deliberate creative decision, even if I kind of go back and forth about whether I really dig it or wish they'd gone in a different direction. "Not Perceived" is one great track where everything slows down and comes into focus and pull off the unique musical statement this album seems to be aiming for.

6. Abdu Ali - Fiyah!!!

7. Beyonce - Homecoming: The Live Album
I'm not the biggest fan of live albums (give me a concert or an album, not a halfway point between both, ideally) and outright dislike watching streamed footage of concerts. But I got caught up in enough of the excitement about Beyonce's Coachella set that I watched maybe half of it last year, and was properly amazed, but there was still plenty I didn't see/hear that there was the fun of discovery in listening to the album. There's obviously a whole underlying HBCU theme to the use of a marching band in this set, but it makes perfect sense in a lot of ways, since horns and marching snares are already a part of a good number Beyonce's best songs, and there's so many great beat switches and interpolations, it's really impressive to listen to even without watching the choreography and showmanship.

8. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Fishing For Fishies
The Australian septet King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard released 5 albums in 2017, and then understandably took 2018 off, so Fishing For Fishies is the first record in a minute from an insanely prolific band. These songs feel a little more playful and concise than some of their other stuff, which is fine but I have mixed feelings about the band's vocals/lyrics. But there's still really impressive musicianship in there, I love the 11/8 time signature of "The Cruel Millennial."

9. Pink - Hurts 2B Human
I enjoyed going back through Pink's catalog to revise my deep album cuts playlist last week, and add some stuff from the new album, it's not her best but she's really approaching 40 much more gracefully than pop stars usually do, the acoustic sound of her You + Me side project has been integrated nicely into her solo stuff. And this album is still quietly very musically varied, collaborations with Chris Stapleton and Khalid and Beck all sound good alongside each other.

10. Anderson .Paak - Ventura
Like Scorpion, FUTURE and HNDRXX, or Sweat / Suit, rapper/singer Anderson .Paak apparently recorded Venture and last year's Oxnard together as a planned double album that would display both his hip hop material and his more melodic songs. But we didn't really hear about that plan when Oxnard was released in November, so it kind of feels like his Aftermath debut didn't really do what it was supposed to do and a follow-up was quickly dispatched 5 months later as some kind of course correction. Either way, Ventura is a better album that does a better job of displaying Anderson .Paak's skill set, even beyond the flex of having Andre 3000 and Smokey Robinson on the first two records, it's just very funky and relaxed and tuneful, I especially like "Good Heels" with Jazmine Sullivan, I wish that one was longer. I still don't entirely buy the hype about .Paak being some kind of Stevie Wonder genius and find his voice annoying, but he delivered on this record.

The Worst Album of the Month: Don Felder - American Rock 'n' Roll
Don Felder may not be a household name, but he's kind of a quietly important and fascinating figure in classic rock (founding member of The Eagles, got slide guitar lessons from Duane Allman and was Tom Petty's guitar teacher). So I checked out his new solo album hoping for the best ("Visions" from the first Eagles album still rules), but I just cringed all the way through it. The opening title track has lyrics like "Oh my, how Santana could play, the smoke and acid in our head, everybody trippin' to the Grateful Dead, oh Janis, you gave us a piece of your heart," it's just all such an on-the-nose and cheesy celebration of music, it's sincere but sounds clumsy and mediocre. 

This entry was posted on Monday, May 06, 2019 at 11:41 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.