‘Requiem’, for all its attempted restraint, is the most ambitious-sounding GOAT record to date.
On ‘Friends’, it’s hard to determine a direction at which White Lies might be going with their music, since they seem to have been stuck in the same place for quite some time now.
Green Day’s fire is still alight, but while they aren’t exactly neutered, they do sound diluted.
‘Remember Us To Life’ goes some way to changing that, but though there are new layers of sound, the album feels too disjointed to really take hold.
Expanding the palette of their influences for album two, ‘Take Control’ sees Slaves doing exactly that.
’22, A Million’ not only manages to stray from anything clichéd but reasserts Justin Vernon’s status as one of the few artists that truly manages to make an art form out of his melancholic ponderings of the world around him.
While it ticks many of the same boxes as its predecessor, The Wytches’ second album sees them hit something of a creative ceiling that will need to be addressed next time.
Despite some mediocre moments, ‘Head Carrier’ gives us an older, more sensible Pixies who sound as though they’re having fun with their music.
In the third decade of their career, Drive-By Truckers get more politically explicit than ever before with their 11th album.
Michael Rosenberg gives us another collection of songs that are mostly tolerable and pleasant enough, yet still feel utterly bland and emotionally contrived.