This week, I’ve got another four albums for your listening ears. There will be three new albums from the past week (on a monday to monday basis) and one classic album we’re celebrating the anniversary of.
Cut. Turn. Fade. Back. – Hail The Sun
6.2/10
New from Californian swancore group Hail The Sun is their latest record “Cut. Turn. Fade. Back.” and unfortunately I’m not terribly impressed this time around. For the less initiated, swancore is mathy post-hardcore. For the even less initiated, mathy post-hardcore is like Pierce The Veil took a music theory class.
While this album obviously has much more going on than your average post-hardcore outing, it has a way higher production value and more commercialized sheen on it than most swancore. As well as all of the previous records by Hail The Sun. While there are some of those signature swancore mathy elements, with more technical riffs on tracks like “There’s No Place In Heaven For Fakes” and “Insensitive Tempos”, it really is just another samey post-hardcore release, which is kind of lost on me.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed this album, it’s got everything you’d want from a post-hardcore release. Cheesy lyrics about your evil ex, screaming breakdowns and of course great guitar tone. Though none of it is really evolutionary like I’ve come to expect from them. Thus follows a dilemma: am I as a critic allowed to deduct extra points from a record’s review because I felt it was a poor follow up to the prior, better release? Yes, I decided. I will.
There’s some experimental electronic bits in the opener “The Drooling Class” (which is probably the best track on the album) that makes you think you’re in for something exciting on all the rest of the tracks, only for it to be rehashed mall music for the rest of the record.
This entire review is secretly just an excuse to promote their far superior and timeless “Wake” from over a decade ago that they still haven’t left the shadow of. “Cut. Turn. Fade. Back.” isn’t bad by any means though.
Son of Spergy – Daniel Caesar
6/10
Daniel Caesar is one of the most prominent voices in R&B today, producing consistently good soul projects since his debut in 2017 (though admittedly, none of his followups have been as critically successful). Caesar’s work is consistent, yes, but he doesn’t really show a ton of growth album-to-album. This album follows his pattern of rehashed yet pleasant tunes.
Caesar’s voice is incredible, on this album especially it’s almost a little dreamy. Between his soft, high voice, and the occasional choir to back him up, there’s no shortage of incredible vocal performances. The background music is typically lowkey, with simple acoustic loops, lo-fi, hip-hop inspired drumming, and relaxed basslines. Tracks like “Sign Of The Times” are almost entirely (save for a reserved string crescendo at the end) just Caesar and backing vocals giving it their all. Thankfully, Caesar’s voice is strong enough that this isn’t a direct criticism, but the structure does start to get samey after some time.
There are also tons of amazing features on the album. Caesar’s brother, 646yf4t joins for a track, other neo-soul artists like Sampha and Blood Orange are here, but it’s not just a collaboration of soul. Synthwave artist Yebba features, and most notable of all is folk group Bon Iver (though to be fair, they haven’t been folk since they were good, which was around two decades ago).
The album is both named for and about Caesar’s father, with tracks about generational trauma affecting him and more directly about his relationship with his father. Most obvious of which is the standout track, album closer “Sins Of The Father”, which ditches the symbolism to directly drop lines like “Dad was forgetful, he promised a lot, Thankfully, he never got caught”.
Many of the tracks sound and are structured the same, though many of them are pretty good, and when Caesar experiments a bit and adds more flourish to his tracks, they always improve. Looking forward, I hope Caesar will learn from this and take more risks musically.
Of the Near and Far – Patricia Brennan
8.2/10
With a genre as old and thoroughly innovated as jazz, it’s difficult to find quality new jazz that impresses me on the basis of uniqueness alone, but this album certainly did. In just 45 minutes bandleader Patricia Brennan brings you on a journey that feels like you’re traveling through the cosmos: whether it be mindlessly drifting through the void or falling into a collapsing star.
Brennan is a vibraphonist, in my opinion an often overlooked instrument in a lot of jazz spaces (after all, these things are thousands of dollars) but one that adds an immediately noticeable depth to any composition. Though it’s not just the vibraphone here that gives it a sense of uniquity, it’s the entire orchestration. While a majority of the instruments are acoustically performed, there’s also a heavy dose of electronic sounds scattered throughout. Such as the track “Aquarius” which absolutely nails that feeling of drifting endlessly through a bright, yet empty cosmos.
There’s also a healthy dose of strings here, and while violins and cellos are unusual for a majority of jazz performances, they perfectly accent the otherworldly atmosphere Brennan is going for here. The real star of the show however is not just a single instrument, but the excellent interplay between them, specifically between Brennan’s vibraphone and Miles Okazaki on the guitar. The two instruments live inside of each other, dancing with and through each line and phrase so effortlessly. The vibraphone’s echo, the wailing strings, though her chosen ensemble seems strange initially, it proves its merit in providing that out-of-this-world atmosphere.
Every composition– all of which are written entirely by Brennan– share a similar atmosphere but all accomplish totally different goals. There’s of course the more ambient jazz pieces like “Lyra” or “Antila”, but it’s clear Brennan’s composition abilities go far beyond that. Tracks like the frantic, rock-fusion inspired “Andromena”, with shredding guitar and piano solos (if you’re wondering how to shred a piano, just listen), desperate basslines and a heap of string work to play around it show off her variety. In case you forgot this wasn’t a Frank Zappa album however, it goes right back into a cool, relaxed “Citalli”, featuring a harmonium-esque midi, and that spacey vibraphone back in the spotlight.
If you’re looking for something new and bizarre to add to your album rotation this week, I highly recommend you check out the latest from Brennan.
LONG SEASON – Fishmans
9.4/10
Fishmans are the band that (to me) are most indicative of how “into” music you are. Fishmans are all but unknown to mainstream western culture, but to those of us in online music spaces, they’re the creme de la creme of Japanese pop music– and there’s a great reason for that. Excluding their two hour long live album recorded months before lead singer Shinji Sato’s untimely death, “LONG SEASON” is their definitive magnum-opus. The “album” is just one, 35 minute song, which is technically untitled but is usually just called “Long Season”.
The music is psychedelia and dream-pop. At its core, it’s ethereal, lush, hazy and near hypnotic. Due to the track’s ridiculous length, every line of music, whether it’s a verse, guitar riff, bassline or drum fill is spaced out so that there’s little flickers of variation appearing throughout, giving the entire thing a distorted, memory-like feeling.
The song is backed by one iconic piano riff, for nearly the entire runtime there is a repeating run of four, descending piano notes. Does this bore you, drive you insane? Does it fade into the background as the rest of the track that actually changes overtakes it? Somehow neither. Those damn four notes with slight variation play for around half an hour and neither get tiring nor become background noise.
That’s not to say that the song remains the same. There’s a clear progression, by the end of the song there’s a full choir and all the moving parts come to life. It’s a sensual relief almost, it’s not just a climax of the song, but it’s all of the little variations and riffs that were sparse throughout the song all playing repeatedly at once, which gives this perfect cohesive performance that feels like you’re flying.
One of the main highlights not just to this album, but Fishmans as a whole is Sato’s incredible vocality. He has this androgynous wail to him, his voice is high pitched, wavy and cuts through the rest of the music while still leaving room for the instruments to follow behind him. It’s a great juxtaposition to the cool, atmospheric neo-psychadelia to have a damn-near soprano (despite him being male) tone exploding around the rest of the music.
Throughout the five parts (yes, I find it annoying that a song called “Long Season” is not divided into four parts for the four seasons, alas) the lyrics that aren’t just Sato and ensemble shouting “Get ‘Round In The Season” are mostly just about driving around Tokyo and listening to music on the radio. A simple pleasure we can all relate to, and that warm, natural feeling the music has emulates the breeziness and nature smells you’d experience driving at dusk with the windows down.
Get ‘round in the season, and give this album a listen.
