Cloud Nothings – Here and Nowhere Else
It’s easy to get lost in the urgency of Cloud Nothings on this album and not really consider what is being talked about. “Psychic Trauma” features a chorus constructed by Baldi’s fractured bark, which will have many recalling Kurt Cobain in a comparison that proves more apt than we’d like to admit. But no one’s going to call this mere idol-aping, as Billie Joe Armstrong steps into Cobain’s place as key influence on album closer “I’m Not Part of Me”. Elsewhere, “No Thoughts” concludes with a rise in intensity octave to heights Cobain would have been hard-pressed to match. Moments like the outro to “Psychic Trauma” or the bridge of “Just See Fear” seem to unfold unrealistically, capturing studio moments in ways that you always hope to hear but rarely ever do, putting you practically in the room with the band. Read the full review on Consequence of Sound
Thievery Corporation – Saudade
Though countless songs have “saudade” in the title, the condition of saudade isn’t usually conveyed through words. It’s evoked. Its wistfulness radiates through every element of the music — from the sound Joao Gilberto makes humming that iconic introduction to “The Girl From Ipanema” to the yearning melody itself to the precise chop of the rhythm guitar behind the voice. You can’t just order up saudade. There’s no setting for it on a drum machine; no software emulation available. It comes seeping through the music, between the notes, as delicate and evanescent as a May breeze. Read the full review on NPR
Mac DeMarco – Salad Days
DeMarco isn’t a greenhorn – he’s been recording and releasing raunchy rock ‘n’ roll for five years, first under the great pseudonym Makeout Videotape, and now simply as himself. Salad Days is his third release for Captured Tracks, after the album-sized EP Rock And Roll Nightclub, and subsequent album-sized album 2. For the uninitiated, he’s like a bluesy Ariel Pink, an artist unafraid to blurt out incredible tracks with amazing proficiency to vast swathes of acclaim but not knockout sales. DeMarco probably doesn’t give a shit about either. Read the full review on Music OHM