Quick Hits, Vol. 166 (Sam Smith, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Sheer Mag, The National)

As a random aside, I've been listening to 2Pac's All Eyez on Me today, and the beat/lick-off moment in "When We Ride" is sooooo gold.  If that doesn't make you want to dance, or at least bob your head while biting your lower lip, then you need to go to church.  The more important question is Disc 1 or Disc 2?  One has both "How Do You Want It" and "California Love," which is pretty hard to beat, but the second disc has "Picture Me Rollin'" and the title track.  I think it is Disc 1, but that took me some hard cogitation just now.

Sam Smith - The Thrill of It All.  You really can't fade this guy's voice.  The beautiful, gliding expressiveness of it, and the seemingly effortless way he nails notes in all areas of his range.  It really is lovely.  This is not my type of music generally, the retro-soul and piano balladry stuff, but it doesn't mean I can't appreciate the beauty of it.  I think my favorite tunes on here are the more horn-forward, fun tracks like "Midnight Train" and "Baby, You Make Me Crazy."  And the open wounded-ness of "Nothing Left For You," with the great line of "I gave my heart to a goddamn fool, I lost everything, now I have nothing left for you," with the slinky delivery of a fine Bond theme song.  The big hit so far has been "Too Good at Goodbyes," clocking in at 396 million streams.

Just achingly sweet and sad.  And this one walks the line well between being a piano ballad but also having some groove. "HIM" is the one that the reviews keep bringing up, for its plain-spoken prayer from Smith to confess his secret of loving a dude and walking the streets of Mississippi with his lover among stares.  Fine song, the choir background saves it from a kind of boring beginning.  Really is a good album, although to be honest, it is kind of like the "new" Adele album, where I probably won't actually keep it around for repeat listens because I'm just not that into the soft soul stuff.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Polygondwanaland.  I clown on some of the rappers for making albums with 24 songs, where you'd think that a good editor could have made a good difference in cutting down the music into the 12 best songs, instead of just throwing everything out there to the streaming masses to see what sticks.  These dudes aren't doing overly long individual albums, but releasing five freaking discs in one calendar year is a little aggressive.  Really, feels like they just need someone to help them review all of this potential output and create one killer disc that could rock the world, and then the remaining tunes could be used for a B-Sides collection once the killer disc gets them into the mainstream conversation.  Instead you get a million tunes that wash out any of the potentially good ones with mediocrity.
Anyway, this is more of their proggy psych rock noodling stuff, where the top track is a 10 minute epic jam fest freakout, and then the rest of the album is similar (if shorter) tunes.  Here is the "hit," with 410k streams, "Crumbling Castle."

Woah, sweet visual effects, bra.  I've probably listened to this whole album 5 times by now, and I couldn't identify any particular song or moment from the whole thing.  It all just washes together into an indiscriminate mess of noodly guitar picking and electronic warbles and drum fills.  I like some of this band's music, but I think they could use a chopping block to only release their very best.

Sheer Mag - Need to Feel Your Love.  Not sure how deeply I've ever proclaimed my love for the bubble-gum punk-rock-lite jams of the Donnas before, but those ladies rule.  This is like a less tuneful, less groovy version of that type of music.  Sort of classic rock in its grooves and riffage, but sort of bratty punk at the same time, but with a lady as the lead singer.  So I have no clue what to call this stuff.  Jam "Turn it Up" and you'll get a taste of the Pixies meets Thin Lizzy meets The Donnas meets Black Flag meets the Allman Brothers type shred:

Right?  Mishmash of sounds, but its actually pretty rad.  The top track on here is "Fan the Flames," a distorted-ass, DIY-sounding track that sounds more sunshine bop than rock and roll.

The top two comments on the YouTube comment say that her vocals sound like a young Michael Jackson.  Yeah, I guess so, but its run through so much shitty distortion that it could sound like just about anything.  I'd prefer "Turn in Up" and that groove to the crappier sound on that more popular track.  This album works.  I'm gonna keep it.

The National - Sleep Well Beast.  I feel like we have discussed this previously.  I just can't understand The National.  Multiple people I respect really like them a lot, and I don't hate them, but their music is too melancholy and bland to me.  I keep restarting the album, and after "Day I Die" is over, I forget that there is even music playing until the next album starts and I realize I've been ignoring the music again.  When they last came to ACL Fest I made sure to go check them out, and they were just as sleepy in live form as they are in the studio.  Surprisingly, "Day I Die" isn't even the top song from this album (although it is the only one I can recall after listening to this album no less than 8 times), that award goes to "The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness," which currently fires up 13.2 million streams.

Reminds me of TV on the Radio.  OK, really concentrating on that tune, yeah, its pretty solid.  Maybe that is what this album requires, concentration and focus.  I'm going to try it out in the car and see if focus is helpful.