Coma Ecliptic – Between The Buried And Me – This hardcore band is so softcore I coulda sworn they were CCM, and even so some of this is better than you might expect. The early “The Coma Machine” is a winner – B-
Hammer Of The Witches – Cradle Of Filth – Is there an X-Box game that comes with it? Song title of the day, “deflowering the maidenhead, displeasuring the goddess”, now if it was only half as good as its name. Speed goth metalcore by past masters – C+
Morning/Evening – Four Tet – What’s the difference between the two? Around twelve hours – C
Adriane Younge Presents:Twelve Reasons To Die II – Ghostface Killah – Deluxe, which means there is even more of it – D+
In Love With A Boy EP – Kaya Stewart – 15 year old child of rock royalty, releases five good mood dance tracks with a thumping beat – B
Pattern Of Excel – Lee Bannon – Hip hop producer makes a lot of strange and wonderful beats, like ambient for people who need a nudge – B
Working Girl – Little Boots – Dance pop album missing a couple of sure fire hits – C
Mobile Orchestra – Owl City – The Hanson track “Unbelievable” is catchy and sweet, the rest of it is not catchy and sweet. Made for Taylor Swift to high five on Instagram – C
Sometime Last Night – R5 – Disney actor and Glee actor form pop group, made for youngsters who will know how to use it – D+
Overthinking Pt 1 EP – Romans – UK DJ has a feel for the pop song – B-
Lucky 7 – Statik Selektah – High rollin’ rappers, starting with Joey Bada$$, but with Action Bronson close behind, featured on East Coast DJ’s fine sounding tracks. Reminds of those Hut 97 boots from back in the 90s – B-
Recreational Love – The Bird And Bee – Inara George has a fine voice for this 60s cabaret jazz this side of Bacharach stuff which veers into disco, and Greg Kurstin is a talented fellow no doubt. But it is a little on the bland side – C+
Black Rose – Tyrese – Tyrese is to soul what D’Angelo is to abs (abs in 2015 not 2000) – D+
Minions Soundtrack – A handful of Brit Explosion hits, some incidental music and the Minions singing the Beatles “Revolution” – C-
Nina Revisited: A Tribute To Nina Simone – Various Artist – Executive Producer of the current Nina movie bio Lauryn Hill performs four of the covers here, Nina’s daughter adds two songs, and current popular performers of color like Mary J. Blige, Gregory Porter, Jasmine Simone, all with various degrees of success, especially Hill.The only cropper is Common’s terrible rap on “Young, Gifted, And Black” – B
Ghost Notes – Veruca Salt – The post grunge rock group meets Bangles without jangles one hit wonders, stay close to the formula here, all soaring girl vocals over 90s rock, even the album length, 54 minutes, suggests an earlier age. With Nina Gordon back and Louis Gordon never left, nine years after their last release, this harkens all the way back to their first album – C+
No Life For Me – Wavves And Cloud Nothings – Two punk rock heavy melody bands reach the second half of their 20s with a tasty little album. Cloud Nothings have been on a roll since the Steve Albini album an Wavves have been a little whatever for the past couple of years, but this will do them both well. All loud guitars and playful tunefulness, two good bands, one good album – ALBUM OF THE WEEK B+
Communion – Years And Years – Synth pop boy band trio, though a touch more soulful than that implies. Very buzzy but a little goes a long way – C+