Elbow – Audio Vertigo: Things They’ve Been Holding Back for Years

Artist: Elbow
Album: Audio Vertigo
Year: 2024
Grade: B

In Brief: The aptly named Audio Vertigo is surprisingly immediate and aggressive, for a band normally known for their buttery smooth lead vocalist and their tendency to pull off a well-executed slow burn. It’s not a completely unfamiliar side of the band; it’s more like a personality trait that came out once or twice per album in the past wound up dominating this one. This time around it’s the more romantic, swoony side of Elbow that takes a back seat, with only a track or two really hinting at it. The end result is a bit of a bumpy ride, but overall it’s a fun subversion of expectations from a supremely talented band that continues to surprise me with every record they put out.

What Am I Listening To? – April 2024

Here are my thoughts on the latest from The Secret Sisters, Sucré, Ariel Sharratt/Mathias Kom/Shotgun Jimmie, Vampire Weekend, Lo Moon, Dustin Kensrue, Lizzy McAlpine, Pearl Jam, Plumb, Pet Shop Boys, and Iron & Wine.

Kate Miller-Heidke – Nightflight: In the darkness, I can feel my heart. (Gap Year, Pt. 8)

Artist: Kate Miller-Heidke
Album: Nightflight
Year: 2012
Grade: A

In Brief: This classically trained, yet unconventionally clever singer/songwriter from Australia first got her big break in the late 2000s, thought for my money, the early 2010s were when she really hit her stride. Equal parts bouncy, mischievous, dark, and profoundly wise, Nightflight is a difficult album to do justice without it sounding like I’m lumping Kate in with a bevy of other piano-based female artists from around that same time frame. Just trust me on this one – her music is worth seeking out on its own terms.

Green Day – Saviors: Hit me with power chords before you lay me dead.

Artist: Green Day
Album: Saviors
Year: 2024
Grade: B

In Brief: On the one hand, Saviors is a sonic walk down memory lane – what many might consider a “return to form” after its thoroughly forgettable predecessor. On the other hand, it’s not written with the intent of reliving the glory days. Sure, their inner teenagers might come out here and there for a bit of irreverent humor, but it’s the frustrated commentary on the turmoil of American life in the 2020s and the honest confessions of what it means to be an aging rock star still fighting off old demons that keep me coming back. I won’t pretend that I’m the biggest Green Day fan out there – not by a long shot. But it’s nice to have a version of Green Day back that seems to truly give a damn.

Geographer – A Mirror Brightly: Faith isn’t blind. Was it playing you the whole time?

Artist: Geographer
Album: A Mirror Brightly
Year: 2024
Grade: B+

In Brief: Geographer’s smooth and cerebral blend of synthetic and organic pop sounds may not hid you over the head with big hooks on his new album as strongly as some of his past work has. But he still strikes a compelling balance between soothing melodic goodness, a few surprising experimental moments, and heartfelt and meaningful songwriting. To pigeonhole his music simply as “synthpop”, “indie pop”, or “dream pop” might do it a disservice, but he’s quite good at finding the boundary between the concrete and the ethereal, and poking at it with questions that need to be asked.

Brittany Howard – What Now: In and Out of Rainbows

Artist: Brittany Howard
Album: What Now
Year: 2024
Grade: A-

In Brief: As much as I miss Alabama Shakes, their frontwoman has certainly remained expressive and eclectic as ever in her solo career, easily besting her debut Jaime on album #2. What Now pulls together such a wide variety of sounds, from the smooth and soulful, to the high-tech and highly danceable, to the raggedy and confrontational. It’s a hard album to pin down stylistically, but once it really gets going, it’s like an unstoppable freight train decked out with all the colors of the rainbow. It might just be her best work thus far.

What Am I Listening To? – March 2024

Here are my thoughts on the latest from Everything Everything, Hollow Coves, BrhyM, Young Oceans, Norah Jones, RAYE, Kele, Kacey Musgraves, Elbow, Wye Oak, and Jason Wade.

Peter Bjorn and John – Gimme Some: This art is no longer contemporary, but it’s still worth digging a little deeper. (Gap Year, Pt. 7)

Artist: Peter Bjorn and John
Album: Gimme Some
Year: 2011
Grade: A-

In Brief: These three Swedes belatedly broke into my Top 10 for the year 2011 – a year where that might have been a more difficult feat than most of the others I’ve been alive for thus far. They hit just the right mix of scrappy garage rock and psychedelia with relentlessly sunny power pop here, which catches me off guard in the best possible way every time. There are plenty of jangly and muscular guitar riffs to keep you smiling here, but the real triumph is the rhythm section, with strong bass lines and almost manically happy drum beats that are so addictive that it makes a brilliantly subversive cover for a lot of the sour cynicism underneath.

Sleep Token – Take Me Back to Eden: Yea, though I walk through the uncanny valley of the shadow of genre-fluidity…

Artist: Sleep Token
Album: Take Me Back to Eden
Year: 2023
Grade: B

In Brief: One of 2023’s most acclaimed – and most polarizing – metal records is largely concerned with making sounds that one would be hard-pressed to describe as “metal”, or really even “rock”. Sleep Token is a band that is capable of being blisteringly heavy, but that is also fascinated with ambient soundscapes and computerized “bedroom pop”-type sounds, dodging genre expectations from one song to the next, or even at multiple points within a song. At times it sounds like an attempt to be all things to all listeners gone horribly awry – but there’s something about the cold, calculated nature of it all that lines up frighteningly well with their creepy masks and insistence on anonymity. Any humanity that exists behind the facade is subsumed in their slavish devotion to their bizarre religious lore. As weird as this all sounds, it’s also strangely addictive.

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – Bauhaus Staircase: How will you ever say goodbye?

Artist: Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
Album: Bauhaus Staircase
Year: 2023
Grade: B

In Brief: Whether it’s the geeky synthesized sounds that bring back warm memories of the 80s, or the smooth and emotionally weighty pop melodies that would sound good in any era, OMD manages a pretty good rundown of the various things they’ve excelled at on an album that may well be their swan song. If this is how these elder statesmen of synthpop choose to go out, then it’s a strong note to end on – a testament to their long-running legacy, and also a darn good fit for a 21st century revival of the genre that’s still going strong.