Stock Exchange by Haviah Mighty
There’s those drums again! Someone oughta send a memo around so that rappers stop using the type of drum machine sounds I don’t like. Everything in the world should be catered to me! Mighty’s flow is catchy, even if it’s undermined by trap beats that I personally find irritating, so I was onboard. Where the album lost me was its last few songs. In “Tesla,” she brags about her ability to buy fancy cars, singing “I got a lot to do across town, I’ma ride it in a Tesla.” That’s lame as hell. Teslas are a bad car type and their fanbase consists of the most insufferable nerds on the planet. Plus, they seem to explode a lot, so I don’t know if that’s something you want to do. The closer “So So” features an absurd lyric that I actually paused the song to laugh about: “I been icy like a froyo,” delivered in what seemed to be total sincerity. First of all, I’m not sure where you get your frozen yogurt, but it’s not supposed to be icy. Second, is that the best simile you could think of? If you’re trying to boast about how cool and detached you are, I’m not sure that comparing yourself to a summer treat is the most credible way of doing so. In fairness, that was a funny lyric and I enjoyed myself, so maybe that was the intention? I don’t know. This album was fine. I want to emphasize that point. Sorry for doing Ben Shapiro-adjacent rap lyric analysis to it.
Highlight: “Atlantic.”
2.75 stars out of 5.
Shapeshyfter by myst milano.
More songs about how cool the rapper is and how much sex they’re having, which rocks. Good for them, tbh! I’m not cool and I haven’t had sex in many a moon, but the nice thing about art is how it offers the audience access to a wide array of experiences and viewpoints they’d have otherwise missed. When I walk into an art gallery and see a Tom Thomson landscape on the wall, I don’t think “this sucks! I can’t relate to this at all!” Instead, I think “huh, that’s neat.” I’m the same way with this album. The lyricism is often clever and myst milano. gets in some solid owns on their haters. I thought I had the artist figured out until the very final song. In “Wax Poetic,” they sing “every time I try to wax poetic / it all comes out sounding so pathetic / when I’m myself, I regret it.” Do I detect a glimmer of self-doubt? Damn, that hits. I guess I can relate after all.
Highlights: “184 Haunted House,” “Great Dane,” “Wax Poetic.”
3.5 stars out of 5.
Hang Time by Cedric Noel
Slow, melancholic folk rock. Pleasant and sad simultaneously. Noel’s voice has a soothing quality to it. Several songs, like “Born” and “A Hold on Losing,” have these protracted dénouements that allow you to sit in silent reflection of your own mood as the guitars reverberate restlessly.
Highlights: “Bass Song,” “Allies,” “Nighttime (Skin).”
3.5 stars out of 5.
Sewn Back Together by OMBIIGIZI
Through the lenses of post-rock, grunge, and shoegaze, the Anishinabe duo of Adam Sturgeon and Daniel Monkman have created this resonant exploration of their search for belonging in a settler colonial society that displaces Indigenous peoples from their families and culture. It’s thought-provoking, moving, and musically entertaining.
Highlights: “Residential Military,” “Niiyo Biboonagizi,” “Birch Bark Paper Trails.”
3.75 stars out of 5.
Bronco by Orville Peck
Not interested, sorry. “Imagine if a cowboy were gay” is an intriguing premise at first, but I just didn’t care for the music.
2.5 stars out of 5.
Frame of a Fauna by Ouri
Weird and vaguely spooky electronic music. For as much as that description appeals to me, very few of the individual songs left any sort of impression. That came to be more and more true as the album went on. It entered with intrigue and left with … whatever the opposite of “intrigue” is. I didn’t care about the last half of the album, is what I’m trying to say.
Highlight: “Ossature.”
2.75 stars out of 5.
Un homme et son piano by P’tit Belliveau
Man, I really wish I spoke heavily accented Acadian French. This album seems like it would have been a blast if I could’ve picked up on the nuances here. The songs are called things like “J’aimerais d’avoir un John Deere” (“I’d Love to Have a John Deere”), “Bière qui va m’faire penser” (“Beer That Makes Me Think”), and “J’feel comme un alien” (you figure that one out), so I’m just gonna have to assume that the lyrics were equally amusing. Some of the songs were fully or partially in English, and those had a bit of humour to them, so I think that’s a fair assumption. The album sounds intentionally chintzy, with a lot of cheap synth effects and drum patterns, which only augments the experience of listening to it. He’s doing irony! I love that stuff!
Highlight: “Bière qui va m’faire penser.”
3.5 stars out of 5.
THE UNRAVELING OF PUPTHEBAND by PUP
As I’ve written about previously, The Dream Is Over is one of my 10 favourite albums ever made, so I’m predisposed to liking a new PUP album. I won’t say this was disappointing, per se, but it stuck with me a lot less than TDIO and Morbid Stuff did. I listened to those albums repeatedly upon release, whereas with this one, I listened to it once and came back to it a few days later. The overuse of compression on the instruments didn’t help. As the recurring “board of directors” motif makes clear, the band struggled to find new things to say during the making of Unravelling, which is understandable. There’s only some many interesting directions you can take “four white guys whining about their depression and substance abuse,” which is an assessment I’m sure the band would agree with. Their self-awareness is one of their strongest qualities. I don’t mean to come across as overly negative here. I still enjoyed the album overall, and I’ll keep listening to their stuff forever.
Highlights: “Totally Fine,” “Cutting Off the Corners,” “PUPTHEBAND Is Filing for Bankruptcy.”
4 stars out of 5.
ruminations of a sad oaf. 