Quick Hits, Vol. 349 (Justice, Billy Strings, Iron & Wine, Neil Young & Crazy Horse)

Justice - Hyperdrama.  If you read me in the runup to ACL Fest, then you know that I generally avoid the techno/EDM stuff.  I usually just don't find the appeal and I haven't since my short flirtation with Skrillex.  But this disc is legitimately enjoyable.  Part of that could be that they bring Tame Impala on board for two songs, and TI freaking jams, but even more so I just have found myself drawn back to the album to listen more and bop my little head as I write boring stuff all day.  You know the little dance that Eddie Murphy does when he is Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop and he has dragged the two cops into the strip club and he is trying to be all nonchalant as he explains to them that there are bad guys in the club who they need to take out and he sort of just makes his entire body groove while also appearing still?  That is how I move when "Generator" is playing.  Or, how I think I am moving, when I more likely look like I am having a stroke.

Don't get me wrong, they still bugger off into the doofy stuff like "Ingognito" where they pretty much just thump their way through four minutes of your life with just a few little disco detours.  But they have so many other things going on with most of these tunes that as a cohesive album unit, that comes together.  "Explorer" sounds like what Beethoven would have done if given weed from today's mega marijuana farmers.  "Muscle Memory" belongs in the background of either Blade Runner 2342 or a rad 1980's Nintendo game.  So, like I said, you aren't getting just the bangers or just the druggy trips, you get a full package here.  Of course, the two Tame tracks get the most streams - which is odd to me, in my mind, Justice is a big band.  Maybe I'm just completely out of touch with what the kids like these days!  But like, I recall "Genesis" being a banger back in 2007 on that album with D.A.N.C.E.  Whatever.  We'll go with the first one for this, "Neverender" has 43 million streams.

I mean, it just sounds like a Tame Impala track, right?  Which is tight and all, but I don't note any real appreciable difference here between a Justice song featuring Tame Impala and a real TI song.  Whatever.  Good groove.  I dig this album.  Maybe they can be the ACL EDM band for next year?

Billy Strings - Highway Prayers.  Billy.  Man.  You can't put out a twenty song album.  I really dig what you are laying down, but an hour and fourteen minutes of banjo-mageddon really can wear on a man's brain.  The album opener is rad as hell, with all of the Banjo Hero antics that you would expect of a Stings album - "Leaning on a Travelin' Song" - and then the second song likewise keeps the speedy finger-picking party going.  "Leadfoot" is another banger, just high-octane bluegrass barrel rolls.  But I think my favorite tune in here is the less accomplished, but significantly funnier, "Catch and Release" tune about him getting pulled over while smoking weed on his way to the river to fish for bass. I love the conversational talkin' blues kind of presentation while he plucks around on the guitar.  "Malfunction Junction" has a Nickel Creek vibe in there, like one of their Chris Thile mandolin breakdown freakouts.  Just some of the most amazing sounds you could possibly make with a stringed instrument in hand.  I am a little surprised at how low these streaming numbers are.  Like, no song has more than 2 million streams?  Even for a niche like bluegrass, I'm confused by that.  I guess people just jam the live show and leave the albums out in the cold...  Anyway, top track for now is "Gild the Lily" with 1.8 million streams.

A little funkier, pretty low key and chill.  He's coming to ACL Live next weekend and I'd be all about that show!  Although the last time he came through, some of the other patrons sitting by us were sooooo mad that we weren't treating the show like it was a violin concerto at Carnegie Music Hall.  We weren't being obnoxious by any means, but just talking and maybe exclaiming when something was particularly rad and gnarly.  Made it annoying to feel policed during the groove.  I think this could have been honed down a bit to a tighter group of the best songs, but it still sounds great.

Iron & Wine - Light Verse.  Simple thing to review, because it is Iron & Wine.  You know it will be light and airy and intimate and beautiful and touching in a way that very few artists can do without sounding completely saccharine.  The album opener, "You Never Know," is the perfect example.  Light guitar, some orchestral flourishes, his lovely falsetto soaring in and around the strings as the song builds up into a deeper, smoother finish.  The top streamer is a duet with Fiona Apple called "All in Good Time," with 3.8 million streams.

Sounds like a song that should be sung in a barroom by a crowd.  I knew where that video was going to go and it got me anyway.  Dangit.  Although, I did not expect the kids to feel the need to pig out and then run through an alleyway randomly just to watch the olds dance some more.  That part seemed off.  Really nice disc though.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Fu##in' Up.  Not sure why this album was entirely necessary.  This is a raw reimagining of 1990's Ragged Glory, which was the only Neil Young album I owned until much much later when I was trying to understand his allure (and he was refusing to stream his songs).  So I know all of these tunes really well, this was a touchstone high school disc of tunes, but here they are made even more ragged and loose for reasons I don't necessarily get.  Not bad by any means, just feels a little silly once I am listening to it and it feels like these songs as just being smeared a little bit instead of really improved.  The world agrees with me, as the stream count is very low.  Top song, somewhat surprisingly for me, if "To Follow One's Own Dream (Days That Used to Be)"  302k streams.

Probably one of the songs on here that is most true to the original.  Just slower and you can tell how much Neil's voice has deteriorated.  But it also just sounds so quintessentially like Neil Young in his Crazy Horse world, with that guitar solo and his plaintive vocals about the past.  Fun trip into an album I loved long ago, but no need to hold on to this version.