An Acute Case: 2 August 2024
Bar scenes and beauty queens - a double grading special!
Zach Bryan: The Great American Bar Scene
19 songs made from the same stuff as the 16 on Zach Bryan, but if you loved those as much as me you won't complain. I was still figuring him out then, so the similarities here are a chance to tie up loose ends. This time I’ve found it easier to follow the threads that connect the remarkable details. Like the “Mechanical Bull” who’s sad he’ll never catch another beating now he’s grown up and settled down. Or the rail tie worker who leaves his brother to the grim fate awaiting him on “Oak Island”. Or the farmer with plates for “Purple Gas” who’d like a hill to die if he weren’t a flatland boy, who may reappear asking to be left to die out in the “Boons”, and could even be the narrator on “Pink Skies” talking to the memory of a dead relative while tidying up for their funeral. All are inhabitants of Bryan's native milieu that he brings them to life in a young-man’s-old-man voice that’s struck me afresh for its sensitivity. That's one reason I remain hesitant about the ‘poet first, musician second’ myth that surrounds him. But entertaining it has opened up the follow-your-gut energy of his performances, which are as close to instinctive as music this thoughtful gets. A / 8.5
Eminem: The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace)
No convincing reason for a concept where Marshall fights off Slim as he tries to get Eminem cancelled, presumably because the creator doesn’t have one. If that supports the theory on “Habits” that offending people is his addiction (which is preferable to this one on “Lucifer”: “when you reach these heights / freedom of speech dies,” yawn), the more compelling case is on “Evil”, when “might end up havin Slim say some shit you feel fucked up for laughin at” is followed by “I'm phenomenal at it / and that's problematic.” Which is to say he is and it is, but isn’t to say his views on the policing of wrongthink are insightful. After all, social commentary has never been his thing. But his delinquent pathologies have always been more about confronting himself no matter how many insults he hurls at others. And so long as they turbo-charge his rhyming, he’ll be funny enough (a Christopher Reeves dance song), clever enough (Marshall one-upping Slim by apologising to his victims), mischievous enough (making Slim’s final stroke an apparently sincere tirade against fat people), and impressive enough (“mood to play”, “feud with Dre” “pewter grey”, etc.) to stay relevant. It’s a game of inches. A MINUS / 7.7
Lupe Fiasco: Samurai
Backed by longtime collaborator Soundtrakk’s easy breezy beats, Wasalu Muhammad Jaco serves up a supple array of "very beautifully alliterated little battle raps for you." As a 20-year vet, he knows how to service a hook, with the one built around the idiom “this one takes the cake” (for I imagine no other reason than it tickles him) the best in show. But hooks aren’t his goal. This is bread and butter rappity rap, where rhyme is king and meaning is optional. Or in his words: “songs need to be sung / rivers need to be swum, swam, swum, all that.” He’s done explaining himself. Consequently, this lacks the sociological value of his other work. The compensation is vocab as wild as “Posturepedic”, “Acropolis”, “optimistically obstinate”, “Janis Joplin droplets”, “Christopher Wallace's topics on top an obelisk”, and “Kabbalist novelist inside of my oesophagus.” I have to take a deep breath just to think those lines. For Lupe, they’re as easy as “read a book, took a bath, went to sleep.” B PLUS / 7.0
Megan Moroney: Am I Okay?
I’m generally slow on the uptake but the salient points of this sophomore album made themselves known to me almost instantly. In the 14 months since she debuted her fetching croak, Moroney has filled out decisively in terms of sound and personality. The result is fewer tropes, more laughs, deeper feelings, and bolder musical choices on 14 even-handed reports of bad guys she lied to her mama (and herself) about, bozos who need space-as-in-let’s-send-them-to-the-moon, fickle beaus who left her for “Miss Universe” only cause she didn’t meet Brad Pitt first, nice guys she doesn’t wanna know are happy now (but hopes are), no-caller-ID assholes who won’t let her move on, and high school sweethearts she admits it’s problematic to fantasise about while she’s with her new man. Word is he wasn’t who she thought he was when she wrote the opening one-two about him being Mr Right. Finding someone new shouldn’t be a problem, though. She’s a hell of a catch. Until then, she’s got “The Girls”, who she remembers to thank for letting her go on about said boys for the ten-thousandth time. A / 8.2
Kate Nash: 9 Sad Symphonies
In a wry move, Nash picks pizzicato strings over blaring guitars for her first album on Kill Rock Stars. In another, there are 10 songs. All make a mark with memorable phrasing and musical tricksiness until you realise how often the same tricks are repeated. ** / 6.0 (“My Bile” “Ray”)
Abdallah Oumbadougou: Amghar: The Godfather Of Tuareg Music Vol 1
An attempt to canonise the leader of Northern Niger’s Takrist Nakal who died in 2020 aged 58 and is jointly credited with pioneering desert blues alongside Northern Mali’s Tinariwen. Turns out he met them in his younger days at one of Gaddafi’s training camps for displaced Tuareg men, which probably doesn’t count as a meet cute. Non-electric, but he handles his the guitar like a rock star, which is still the blueprint. ** / 6.2 (“Imidiwan” “Dague oudouniya zagzag bass tchilla”)
Katie Pruitt: Mantras
Sombre vocals, musical theatre melodies, mellow sonics, overdriven guitars, and layers of glockenspiel, mandolin, and strings—none of which sounds very country even though Pruitt is a Nashville resident and both her albums are on Rounder. If there’s a music city hallmark here, it’s the way she wraps every line up with a bow—a major plus on a record about the self-help strategies required to survive being a gay lapsed Catholic from a conservative household in the deep south. “Once in a while maybe I should / try manifesting something good” is the intention she sets at the close of “Self Sabotage”, though as the title of that one and “Worst Care Scenario” indicate, it won’t come easily. Having tried more direct routes (“moved away and unfriended the Jesus freaks”) and found them lacking (“amidst a mid-life crisis / left to your own devices”) she’s forced to admit “it's a vicious cycle that nobody can escape / blood related and trying to relate” and set about that painful work. She’s evidently got the capacity for it. But she could still use your encouragement, if not your prayers. A MINUS / 7.3
The Bird Calls: Old Faithful
The thirty-somethingth album by thirty-something Pitchfork1 associate editor Sam Sodomsky is the first to enlist professional help, which gives his guitar noodling a decent shove. If destinations are only intermittently arrived at, his casual discoveries along the way are worth your time: “I know that Jesus loves me but he says that to everybody”; “can you tell me what gets bigger the more that you take out?”; “just cause you've done your research, don't mean you know what you're talking about”, “I believe in people but people test my faith.” *** / 6.5 (“I Haven't Been This Happy In A Long Time” “Footprints”)