Album Reviews

The 13-member Brockhampton collective are usually described as a pan-racial, non-heteronormative, self-proclaimed “boy band,” a rap group born on the internet and destined for pop domination. All of this obscures what Brockhampton truly is: a savvy, decent alternative rap group who understands the modern cyber-grind. Their output is staggering, a …

Since her gothy 2014 single “Beggin’ For Thread” (“to sew this hole up that you ripped in my head”), Jillian Banks has stepped with a vanguard steering pop from butterflies and rainbows towards darker, weirder places. She doubles down on III, suggesting Billie Eilish’s graver older sis with a timely …

Tim Bergling’s struggles were laid disturbingly bare in the film Avicii: True Stories – the story of a superstar DJ-cum-pop star whose fame and breakneck touring regimen left him a physical and emotional wreck. His relentless drive, meteoric rise, elfin beauty and substance abuse issues brought to mind Kurt Cobain. …

Justin Townes Earle has spent a dozen years–beginning with his 2007 debut E.P. Yuma–working towards the cheeky, New Testament-referencing title he bestows upon himself on his new album. From the beginning, Earle has been a relentlessly principled artist, fixed in his old-fashioned ways of what it means to be a …

It’s been nearly 60 years since the Rolling Stones stormed out of their sleepy London town to become “the world’s greatest rock & roll band,” and, in that time, they’ve put out more than two-dozen greatest-hits compilations. The best of the best-ofs (Forty Licks, Grrr!) provide a broad survey of …

Billie Eilish is a 17 year-old homeschooled choir singer turned pop music prodigy. And she’s every bit as awesomely messed up as that pedigree implies: She’s the demon spawn of Lana Del Rey’s California dreams, who first compared a sweetheart’s gaze to napalm skies on her arresting 2016 single gone …

“Nigga like the new Jay-Z” raps firebrand Meek Mill on “Tic Tac Toe.” “Poppin’ like Bad Boy in ’94, Big Poppa and Diddy,” he insists on “What’s Free.” Indeed, the shadow of the Biggie/Jay-Z/Nas era of critical and commercial dominance – circa 1996 to 2003 – looms large on Mill’s …

Three years after his last album, Tracker, Mark Knopfler returned with another dependable collection of Irish blues and laidback roots rock. The album’s material ranges from languid lullabys like “My Bacon Roll” and “Floating Away” to the upbeat blues funk of “Back on the Dancefloor” and “Nobody Does That.” At this point …

Kamasi Washington was hardly the first saxophonist to revive the so-called spiritual-jazz aesthetic of John Coltrane and his key successors like Pharoah Sanders. As early as the late Seventies, the late David S. Ware was combining blissful melodicism with mighty fervor in a way that pointed directly back to those …

The most radical thing a jazz singer could do in 2018 is stick to the basics. One might expect Cécile McLorin Salvant, who picked up Best Jazz Vocal Album Grammys for each of her past two albums and is riding a wave of mainstream acclaim, to team with a buzzy …