Albums of the Month: March
By Zach Zollo
Another month, another look back at the best albums released. Featured in this post are albums we did not formally review. Here, you can read our reviews for Eternal Atake, YHLQMDLG, Healer, and Heavy Light, as well as other great records in our feature Let’s Ketchup. Now onto this month's gems.
Descender - Post Louis
Every time I write this post, I usually start with an album of the year contender, obviously changing it as new music is released each month. But I think it’s going to be difficult to find an album as front-to-back flawless, as oh-so-perfectly-meant-for-me as what the London-based five piece Post Louis have released. While I wanted to do a full review, and there’s no excuse for not doing so with all the free time I have had, I figured I would condense my unlimited positivity for this record right here, right now!
Descender - Post Louis’s enthralling, multifarious debut - is an exceptional artistic statement, an album so adroitly performed, deftly arranged, and thematically captivating it’s hard not talk about it endlessly. Mixing indie, experimental and art rock in a way that’s vividly familiar yet impossible to pinpoint, the band commands your attention with phenomenal musicianship, enticing you further with moments of orchestral dissonance.
Descender - Post Louis’s enthralling, multifarious debut - is an exceptional artistic statement, an album so adroitly performed, deftly arranged, and thematically captivating it’s hard not talk about it endlessly. Mixing indie, experimental and art rock in a way that’s vividly familiar yet impossible to pinpoint, the band commands your attention with phenomenal musicianship, enticing you further with moments of orchestral dissonance.
Thematically, the album introduces topics from an angle rarely seen in today’s lyrical landscape, including working life and labor, the exhaustion of existence and the dynamics of power between those we love. Combined with Stephanie Davin’s ghostly voice, Robbie Stern’s excellent songwriting and celestial production (the album was partially recorded in the Norweigen Seamen’s Church in London after all), Descender makes a case for not only the best debut of this year, but one of the best debuts of the past you-name-how-long.
Can’t forget to include the BOPS: “Ghostwriter,” “Stress Fracture,” “Winter Pollen,” “Fishwife,” “Little Jack,” “Janaskie, Pt. 1”
After Hours - The Weeknd
The Weeknd’s best project to date, After Hours is the amalgamation of all the sounds and influences previously referenced in his back catalogue - except with a newfound aesthetic clarity and drive. Dream pop, synth-funk, 80s R&B and modern trap flair fuse together to produce a cacophony of glitz and glamour, the perfect backdrop for Abel’s lovelorn, inebriated lyrics. Also, *ahem*... “Blinding Lights.” Need I say more?
Melee - Dogleg
One of the great thrills of Dogleg’s Melee is its simplicity. Sure, it doesn’t particuarly innovate post-hardcore, or deliver grand statements beyond the usual emo touchstones, but it’s not necessarily attempting to. Instead, Dogleg is delivering a throwback of these genre’s respective heydays by focusing on one particular element: rippin’ it LOUD and F A S T. The mixing may be a lil’ flat - even for a DIY album of this caliber - but the band more than makes up for it with raucous performance, astute songwriting and one hell of a spirit. Certainly deserving of the praise it has thus far received, from the scene and beyond.
Saint Cloud - Waxahatchee
Waxahatchee has made an album of gosh darn rootin-tootin’ fantastic Americana. It maintains its momentum and pace from the opening jump of “Oxbow,” proving once and for all how Katie Crutchfield is a contemporary queen of sequencing. It’s also an album musically in line with Cass McCombs, and maybe even some mid-to-late 80s Tom Petty. Highly recommended for enthusiasts of passionate folk and alt-country.
New Me, Same Us - Little Dragon
Little Dragon have unexpectedly come through with an album that I enjoy more than anything they’ve released since 2011’s Ritual Union. The vibe is sensual and subdued, consummating the most intriguing elements of their alternative R&B stylings and their downtempo electronica. The songwriting has improved, and features tasteful instrumental accents of bells, chimes, bass licks, and whatever else is appropriate for makin’ star children. Highlights include “Rush,” “Another Lover,” “New Fiction” and “Where You Belong.”
We Are All Atomic - Spotlights
One of my favorite up-and-coming post-metal/shoegaze/sludge groups, the new EP by Spotlights is another excellent addition into their catalogue. It’s as atmospheric and pulsating with fury as last year’s Love & Decay, but it doesn’t play as a retread of that project’s ideas. Rather, it feels like a branching off into something doomier, something groovier. Dare I say it, it’s almost if Torche was dream pop at moments, especially “Part II.” Ultimately, it’s an excellent EP, and continues to build excitement for their subsequent output.
We Be No Machine - Onipa
Much like Mbongwana Star’s best-of-the-decade album From Kinshasa, Onipa’s We Be No Machine is that intergalactic goodshit. Fusing West African afrobeat and funk influences with post-punk, synthpop and house, the resulting sound is intensely rhythmic, curiously groovy, and peppered with personality. The “P-Funk of Another Planet,” if you please.
100% Yes - Melt Yourself Down
The third studio LP from Melt Yourself Down is exactly as it’s title says. A punk-jazz soundtrack to an ATV chase through a bazaar, 100% Yes features the group’s most developed songwriting, lyrically and structurally. From “This Is The Squeeze” to “Crocodile,” the performances are tight, the melodies spicy and frantic, and the rhythms gripping with tension.
