Album Reviews

Review: Future Unlimited – Future Unlimited EP

Future Unlimited demonstrate a willingness to experiment in order to achieve fuller expressions of complex emotions, and that is to be applauded.

Review: Nicki Minaj – Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded

Nicki’s 2010 debut Pink Friday felt “guarded” in her mind. Now we get a full frontal 22-deluxe edition track assault on what her reality looks and feels like.

Review: Chromatics – Kill For Love

These Streets Will Never Look The Same. Birds of Paradise. A Matter of Time. No Escape. A few song titles off Chromatics excruciatingly-awaited LP, Kill For Love.

Review: Willis Earl Beal – Acousmatic Sorcery

Acousmatic Sorcery is less a collection of songs and more an experiment in sound-making, as if Willis Earl Beal walks to and fro, picking up instruments and figuring out how to use them make something like music.

Review: Bear In Heaven – I Love You, It’s Cool

With longtime bassist/keys player Sadek Bazarra leaving to focus on his graphic design ambitions Bear in Heaven are tasked with navigating the “spiky psych-prog tendencies” and “Southern rock spirit” spectrum bestowed by critics with one less astronaut.

Review: Madonna – MDNA

A collection of grimaces and forced smiles, mixed with showy instances of elation, MDNA is a jumble of lows and just a few highs, an exasperating portrait of an artist seemingly in the midst of crisis.

Review: THEESatisfaction – awE naturalE

THEESatsifaction have put all of the creative energy that has been swirling in them and between them into awE naturalE. It’s a pride-infused, soulful space journey that demands as much hip shaking as it does poetry analysis.

Review & Stream: Miike Snow – Happy To You

So Miike Snow is dabbling in other territories. Yet, Happy to You is still very in the thick of that Miike Snow sound.

Review: Big K.R.I.T – 4eva Na Day

4Eva Na Day is another collection of soulful and jazzy hip-hop that at times achieves the impact of its predecessors (notably Return of 4eva and Krit Wuz Here) but is ultimately a less jaw-dropping affair.

Review: The Shins – Port of Morrow

Port of Morrow is the fourth and most potent Shins album. These songs are nearly all chorus, big and upfront where his first two records were twisty and plucky.

Review: Tanlines – Mixed Emotions

Mixed Emotions is one of the most vivid break-up albums in recent memory. It actually feels like going through a breakup; it feels, at times, gleefully absurd, but at others, irritating, moody and incomprehensible.

Review: Daniel Rossen – Silent Hour / Golden Mile

The more I let the nuances of this stunning EP trickle through my porous heart, the more holes it heals. Stark requiems rarely sound this triumphant.

Review: Hodgy Beats – Untitled EP

Of the members of the enigmatic Odd Future crew Hodgy Beats always seemed to be the least absurd. He is eccentric, sure, but he is also a student of traditional hip-hop and a believer in the importance of a good soul sample.

Review: White Rabbits – Milk Famous

Critics swooned over their debut, Fort Nightly, and follow-up It’s Frightening produced their most-plays on Spotify. So how does their third effort Milk Famous compare?

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