Five years after his acclaimed debut album, Hozier has returned. If you listen to the internet, he has spent these last five years journeying the Earth to bring us the sounds of the forest and show us the melodies of our deepest, hidden emotions. Wasteland, Baby! is the haunting result.
The Ryman Auditorium often challenges its visiting artists. For Rainbow Kitten Surprise, this manifested as a battle over energy. But they still crushed it.
From the opening track, BROCKHAMPTON shows that iridescence is a different beast from their previous endeavors, while still retaining the same backbone that propelled them to quick success and a dedicated fanbase. The SATURATION trilogy has concluded in both style and name, and I’m okay with that — iridescence is complicated and superb.
Mt. Joy’s self titled debut album is a wonderful adventure in self-reflection, situational awareness, and emotional consideration.
Lana Del Rey is brilliant. She is the queen of rootless melancholy, an emotion many people seem unable to access fully — except through her. She’s a master of her own persona, and she’s constructed it with such consistency across all platforms that it’s baffling. She remains accessible enough to still convince us of her humanity, but remains removed enough that it’s still a question asked: is she real?
This piece is about SATURATION III, the album released on December 15th from Brockhampton (stylized BROCKHAMPTON). For more on the boy band and their rise to prominence, please see WRVU’s In-Depth Look: Who is BROCKHAMPTON?
“The best boy band since One Direction.” An artistic collective. The internet’s first boy band. Kevin Abstract’s newest group venture.
The Greatest Gift, Sufjan Stevens’s new mixtape — consisting of outtakes, remixes, and demos from his 2016 studio album Carrie & Lowell — is equal parts haunting and beautiful.
As winter arrives and the days get darker, melancholy music creeps its way back into that special place in our hearts. That place we’ve kept locked away during the summer season of pop anthems and EDM drops. November is well under way, and now is the time that indie-folk and alternative anthems reclaim their space, ruling our winters.
Despite some wonderful hedonic highlight tracks, Super Slimey runs into the same issue many projects by prolific trap rappers suffer from: a lack of time and effort. It’s still enjoyable.
In the midst of chaos, Knox Fortune offers us a refuge in Paradise with his debut album. The Chicago singer/songwriter/producer is perhaps best well known for his hook on Chance the Rapper’s “All Night,” but on Paradise, he shows he can stand alone in authentic style, production and lyrics.