Those soaring vocals are where they nail it - hits you right in the feelings as they grow the vocals from a falsetto whisper to an arena-sized howl. I do not like that video at all though. Creepy ass AI person. But yeah, this is another nice album from these dudes. I wish they would shift it up and include some more rocking stuff in the midst of the loveliness, but it's still good.
Larry June - The Great Escape. I've enjoyed this dude ever since he was tacked onto the ACL poster last year. He's got a good flow and this laid-back vibe on these tracks that is really appealing to me. Not trying to do any crazy tongue-twisting, not trying to do voices and play characters, he's just rolling along over some chill beats. He's got the Alchemist making the beats on this, and they are relaaaaaaxed cruisers that will have you nodding along immediately. Lots of piano samples, horn bleats, and smooth jazzy elements - it feels like you are in the coolest afterparty just vibing it out after a long night before you finally call it a night. He's got a number of appearances on here too - Action Bronson, Big Sean, Ty Dolla $ign, Wiz Khalifa, Slum Village, Joey Bada$$ - and mostly those work as well. The Bronson one just matches up perfectly between their two styles. The top track is the one with Big Sean - "Palisades, CA," with 8.5 million streams.
That beat just kicks off like it is smoking weed. I don't know how a beat can smoke weed, but that one does and its a little paranoid about what is happening now. Sean gets a little hyped in comparison to the flow from June - I kind of dig the slow-mo on the rest of the album instead. But, good tune and a very enjoyable album. One of those where it keeps ending and I'm a little disappointed that it's already over.
Random aside here: I've been thinking in my head about what the perfect ACL lineup would look like. Well, perfect but also realistic. And one of the sticking points I keep having is who is the right rapper to put at the top of the lineup. They just did Kendrick, and he was kind of weird because he straddles this line between party rap and smart rap. A lot of the best rappers of all time wouldn't really move the needle on getting people excited (at least in my opinion). Drake is lame. Kanye is evil. (I asked my 15 year old, and her insight was that people want tracks they know the words to, so Ye and Drake would be the number one choices. Ughhh). Jay-Z was boring as hell last time. Eminem just lip synced (and hasn't released anything good in years). Lil Wayne just isn't big enough, same with Future, or like Nas, Lauryn Hill, Ludacris, LL Cool J, or other older folks. I wonder if they could pull off a West Coast Party thing and have Snoop, Dre, and 50 Cent handling headlining duties together? That would be cool. Maybe Nicki Minaj? Probably not big enough for a headlining spot. Same with currently popular stuff like Ice Spice, Young Thug, 21 Savage, etc. Maybe they just need to go rapper adjacent and get Beyonce or Rihanna to come and blow the doors off the park.
Nickel Creek - Celebrants. I love me some old school Nickel Creek. I've seen them a number of times, and the Punch Brothers (the Chris Thile band that came out of NC when they went on hiatus), and they are just a lovely combination of skill and beauty. My instant issue with this album is that it is crazy long. 18 songs? 9 seconds under an hour? Come on, man. I don't know if it is the length or just a lack of great songs, but this one just kind of floats along in the background for me without ever grabbing my attention. Which is too bad. Overall, it sounds nice, they're still studs on their instruments, but I don't get snagged out of my work to pay attention to anything here. And their earlier albums absolutely had attention snaggers that I love to this day. This one may just need more time to percolate and grow on me. I don't know. The top song is the title track and first one on the album. 987k streams.
Still doing the pandemic thing there with songs about the lockdown and surviving it. I get to see them play live again this Saturday, so hopefully something from these songs will click when I see them doing them in person. I'd hate to think that I had outgrown them, or they had left me behind.
Foo Fighters - But Here We Are. Taylor Hawkins dying was insanely sad. For those of you reading this without background knowledge, Taylor was their kick ass drummer. Gallons of ink have been spilled about how tough it was for Hawkins to step in to a band with Grohl, the drummer for the biggest grunge band of all time (and who had played the drums himself on the first two albums), but Taylor was amazing. His drumming really does a ton of hard work in their songs, and he'll be missed. In fact, I was a little surprised to see the Foos keep going after losing Hawkins. Felt like they might just fold up shop and go home to count their millions. But they're back, baby! And having just seen them play live twice in the past two weeks, I'll readily admit that the new guy they got to play drums can jam. Really good.
So, this, the first post-Hawkins disc, was released in June 2023 and picks up the general Foos' sound right where they left off. The album itself deals with a lot of the heavier elements of life, in that Grohl is obviously dealing with two devastating deaths in rapid succession, as his mother died a few months after Hawkins. If you know Grohl's history, he was very close to his mother, and so these deaths were likely crushing, and you can hear it in these lyrics. Just the opening salvo of "Rescued," the album opener and lead single, gets you the mood: "It came in a flash/It came out of nowhere/It happened so fast/And then it was over." Or "The Glass," where he more expressly sings about watching his mother die from behind glass inside of the hospital room. The thing that you get here overall though is a return to the classics. This sounds like the old Foos, without the weird detours into silliness or caricature. They just fully engage the power-chord machine and pounding drums and tear into the real deal rock and roll here.
Nothing maudlin or subtle about that tune - they aren't pausing their normally scheduled program - they just kick in and blast phasers at 11. Catchy and full of generic platitudes. I dig it. And most of the album tracks that feel, up until the last two songs. "The Teacher" and "Rest" aren't acoustic sad songs or anything, but they just more explicitly dig into his sadness even as they chug along with rock aggression. "You showed me how to breathe, never showed me how to say goodbye." Those two songs show alot about what this album is actually about, despite all the bombast and arena-ready choruses. Good stuff.
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