Lana Del Rey – Ultraviolence
Her music positively drips with it. ‘Cruel World’, in opening the record, quickly has you realising why criticism of Del Rey’s vocal ability is largely redundant; her performances don’t need wide melodic range, or even straightforward emotional depth, as long as she’s able to keep up the sheer breadth of theatrics demonstrated on Ultraviolence. She veers between vulnerability and menace with a conviction largely missing from Born to Die, and then runs with it. She brings a tension to the title track that belies its glacial pacing. The vocal on ‘Fucked My Way Up to the Top’, especially, is so much more multi-faceted than the snark of the title suggests; it’s a tentative, almost whispered turn that spins aching sadness out of empathy where you’d expect coldness and detachment to prevail. Read the full review in Drowned In Sound
Antlers – Familiars
The album’s great triumph – The Antlers’ great triumph – is the intelligence with which Silberman’s masterful lyricism is matched to its backdrops. The lackadaisical, dreamy “Director” has a warm, hazy guitar line that flickers in and out, smartly juxtaposed against words that lament a loss of control; at the climax, that discontent boils over into aggressive percussion. The piano and brass on the near-eight minute “Revisited” rise to the task of interpreting its raw wistfulness, as does a wandering guitar solo late on. Closer “Refuge” is scored through with a nagging sense that its relief from the record’s anxieties is bound to be short-lived; the horns are their own voice, less toeing the line between cautious optimism and gloomy resignation than frantically bouncing over it. Read the full review on The Line of Best Fit
Felice Brothers – Favorite Waitress
Whereas 2011′s Celebration, Florida, their last LP, found the quintet indulging in electronic flourishes, spacey synthesizers, and drum machines, the band keeps the impulsive experimenting to a minimum on Favorite Waitress. It’s a return to their bare-bones roots music, marked right away with the acoustic strums and homey (albeit superfluous) recordings of dogs barking to kick off opener and highlight “Bird on Broken Wing”. On that track, which the band dedicates to the memory of Pete Seeger, Ian Felice’s warm, welcoming voice sings out, “Fare thee well my friend/ I’ll see you at the promised end/ Where the wind is laughter.” Read the full review on Consequence of Sound