Be Here Early: Choice New Album Reviews 1-13-17 – 1-19-17
Only The Lonely – Colony House – New indie rockers sound pasteurized and could do with a better producer to pull out the songs from the saminess that inflicts em. Still, “1234” is a goodie and they sound like no one else – C+
Reflections – Eno – As ambient and as musical as ever, it runs various sound modulations through a computer and works like the sound of dolphins plugged through a Miami hotel room: somewhere between invisible, annoying, and a sort of clingy weird scariness, for over an hour – C+
The Book Of Love – Justin Timberlake And Mitchell Owens – This is the original motion picture soundtrack to a movie that looks well beyond rotten lachrymose crap for weak minded middle class white women. However, the music is surprisingly lovely and uplifting. As incidental music goes it is consistently arresting and pretty and much better than Trolls – B
Oczy Mldy – The Flaming Lips – Wayne Coyne called it Syd Barrett meets A$AP Rocky – It is nothing of the sort, it is all awful and another psychedelic snooze: a brutal 56 minutes of tedium which is egotistical the way hippies were: simultaneously smug and unassuming – D+
I See You – The XX – Third time is a little lighter on its feet, with an indie disco feel that finds their musical palette widening out. Sometimes, you are getting exactly what you expect, and sometimes the ballads are too quiet and a little stifling, but at its best early on, this will do the trick – B
Godfather – Wiley – “I know what I’m like and I know what I’m not like”, the Godfather of grime warns early, and here the London legend has a flow equal to all but the best of his US counterparts: the samples are minimal, the beats irresistible, and the rhymes overpowering. This is his 11th album… also it may be his best, and his others were great, and, astoundingly, he initially refused to release it – A-
