Quick Hits, Vol. 207 (Wand, Quavo, Kevin Gates, Memphis May Fire)

Wand - Ganglion Reef.  I truly wish that I could remember how I came across this album, because its freaking fantastic.  But it's from 2014, so how did it end up in my queue?  It's psych rock with some 60's garage rock feel and a few exceedingly chunky, spiky, and hard riffs.  These tunes keep popping up, either when I shuffle my new music playlist or when I finish some other album, and every time I look up from whatever I am doing, bite my lip in aural pleasure, and figure out who is playing.  Like a heavy Tame Impala thing.  "Flying Golem" is the hit song as of now (ha!  as though that is going to suddenly change on a 5 year old album...) with 322k streams - so this album is not very popular...

When it kicks in, I feel like the first time the White Stripes melted my brain.  So melty and loose and fuzzed out.  Some of the tracks go for slower, spacey-ier action, and I'm less here for that, but when they crank it up, I'm all in.

Quavo - QUAVO HUNCHO.  One third of the terrible Migos.  Very similarly to the group's last album, a bloated, overlong, boring mess of tough sounding beats under terrible lyrics, this one sounds tight, but is vacuous and too long.  I'd love to say that the track with both Madonna and Cardi B is cool, but its garbage as well.  I figured for sure that the Drake collab would be the top track, but instead it is "WORKIN ME" (and yes, the all caps and lack of punctuation is part of the naming convention).  92.4 million streams.

Yep.  A whole 19 song album of those entirely mediocre raps.  And that video, directed by the man himself, also terrible.

Kevin Gates - Luca Brasi 3.  I swear, man, don't these rappers know that a little bit of scarcity can be a great thing in building your brand?  Gates has a cool sound, a good flow, a recognizable style of beats - he should be able to blow up.  Instead, he just keeps on shoving out more and more songs that all generally sound the same, which makes each new project sound less and less interesting.  This is eighteen more songs, that easily could have been part of any of his past 5 mixtapes/albums.  "Money Long" has the most streams, so I'll show you that one as an example of what I'm talking about.

Not a bad tune - but I just think he could take all of his songs, work on them a little bit more to make the lyrics a little more meaningful than "money long, but my dick longer" and kill it.  Oh well, he's just going to shove out 20 songs a year instead...  No lie, just had someone step into my office and hear this music and say they dug it, and the guy is not someone I ever would have pegged for a rap listener.  I'm shook.  No thanks on this album.  I'll just keep bumping "White Tan" instead.

Memphis May Fire - Broken.  Are people sneaking music into my new music playlist when I'm not looking?  This is terrible.  Where did it come from?  It's like a Linkin Park/Incubus facsimile thing of platitudes and generic lyrics.  Also, their Spotify bio looks like something written by an inspirational preacher in his spare time: "The music of Memphis May Fire is the sound of hope and compassion, delivered by a dedicated group of men striving for something greater than the world around them. Memphis May Fire is a clarion call to those who insist on bettering themselves, their loved ones and the conditions afflicting the world."  WT freaking F.  It's semi-electro-metal built for use in a Navy recruiting ad.

I kind of wanted to play "Watch Out" instead, but "The Old Me" has the most streams (2.1 million) and the real video.  Generic, uninteresting, no thanks.