Since their 2013 debut album, No Regerts, Chastity Belt have been celebrating girlhood in all its irreverence. Borrowing heavily from rrriot-girl predecessors like Sleater-Kinney, the band have toed the line between bold and brazen for most of their career, each of their songs flecked with mischief and bursting with righteous,[Read More…]
Album Reviews
March music madness
The month of March saw no shortage of music releases. Both Hozier and Weezer made their comebacks—one triumphant, the other less so—and Solange’s When I Get Home awed Country and R&B fans alike. The final two weeks of this tepid, rainy month have provided us with two more treasures: One from[Read More…]
Chai’s ‘PUNK’ is the much-needed antidote to the drudgery of our daily lives
There is a tragically narrow vision of what contemporary East Asian music should sound like. Often lumped into vague, generalized categories such as ‘J-Pop’ or ‘K-Pop,’ Western critics have a tendency to consider the ethnic groupings of Asian musical production first and foremost, often obscuring the lyrical and technical aspects[Read More…]
Solange’s ‘When I Get Home’ is an avant-garde celebration of black excellence
Three years after the striking A Seat at the Table (2016), Solange released her fourth album, When I Get Home, on March 1. Accompanied by a short eponymous film, the album is an homage to the artist’s Houston roots, her birthplace, and the city’s black pioneers. A notable departure from her last studio[Read More…]
Weezer stumbles into pop music with ‘Weezer (The Black Album)’
Before even pressing ‘play,’ Weezer’s Weezer (The Black Album) tempts listeners to write the album off immediately. With The Black Album, released on March 3, the band tried to emulate meme culture, adding a spork into the packaging of pre-ordered copies, and even making a cameo in the game Fortnite. These gimmicks[Read More…]
‘Tip of the Sphere’ is a little bit magical
Singer-songwriter Cass McCombs has always been a compelling storyteller and Tip of the Sphere, his latest work, might just be his magnum opus. The album, released on Feb. 8, is a whirlwind of fantastical world-building, deft lyricism, and cathartic melodies. The songs are a subtle departure from the spare, folksy[Read More…]
The hollow girl bossery of ‘thank u, next’
My interest in Ariana Grande was piqued by 2018’s Sweetener, a critically-acclaimed jazz-infused love letter to then-beau, comedian Pete Davidson. thank u, next is the antidote to Sweetener, a cryptic dissection of the infamous broken engagement that has been met with similar praise. And yet, it is at this juncture that I[Read More…]
Girlpool evokes the pain of transition in ‘What Chaos is Imaginary’
Contemporary indie bands tend to follow a well-worn formula based on monotonic, parched vocals delivering angsty lyrics over a simple, distorted guitar. Fans and critics likely expected little else from Girlpool’s newest release, What Chaos is Imaginary. The band fits all of the criteria—two teens from L.A. who got their[Read More…]
Fired up with Fireball Kid
Just over halfway through Fireball Kid’s “Be Friends” (with Magi Merlin, Ura Star, and Big Friends) a distorted guitar solo rips through the production. Sparkly pop textures, autotuned falsetto verses, and Magi Merlin’s lush, commanding hook suddenly fall off, and, for a second, it sounds like someone tripped over a[Read More…]
Sharon Van Etten is ethereal in ‘Remind Me Tomorrow’
Sharon Van Etten has never shied away from vulnerability. Her music is often associated with a certain melancholy and is characterized by honest lyrics on love, inevitable heartbreak, and the self-reflection that follows. However, on her newest record Remind Me Tomorrow, Van Etten shifts away from her usual brooding depictions[Read More…]
