Apart from Emeralds' most epic titles, Motion Sickness Of Time Travel's self-titled LP for the Spectrum Spools label just might be the most ambitious work to emerge from America's underground ambient/drone movement. Classically trained, with a deep background in church music, Georgia-based composer Rachel Evans erases the divide between the sacred and the experimental over the course of the four sprawling (and stunning) pieces contained herein. It's a quality that's most evident on "Summer of the Cat's Eye"; profoundly solemn and meditative, it feels like a mass re-imagined as DIY kosmische musik.
"We know now we want more/ A life worth fighting for," Santigold dazedly drawls on "Disparate Youth," the standout track from her sophomore album. And she fights hard here, after four years of writer's block and touring burnout, getting Karen O to crash the party on the militaristic dub-punk opener "Go!" and snatching writing and production help from such A-listers as Dave Sitek, Boys Noize, Q-Tip and Major Lazer's Switch and Diplo, whose apocalyptic, bass-heavy dancehall dominates much of the album. Meanwhile, Santi herself sizzles with sass and spunk on songs like "Fame" and "Freak Like Me."
Rousing tales of small-town exhilaration? Check. Snarling electric guitars? Of course. A little rapping? Hell yeah. A deft, affable everybro superstar to sell it all? You know it. Jason Aldean asserts his country superstardom on album five, whether he's rhapsodizing the touring life ("Wheels Rollin'"), wooing a foxy lady (the excellent "Talk") or lamenting the plight of a stripper (the slightly ridiculous "Black Tears"). Luke Bryan and Eric Church drop some bars on "The Only Way I Know," but playful hick-hop oddity (and Joe Diffie tribute) "1994" is the biggest hoot. See him live.
Sometimes an album just takes your breath away. Swirling together contemporary jazz and Ethiopian grooves with a graceful boldness and elegant subtlety that makes this Addis Ababa-born pianist’s youth hard to believe, Guzo lures you in from the first creeping, tantalizing bass strains of “Abet Abet.” But each track offers new reasons to stay mesmerized: the quietly powerful octaves of “Ye Bati Koyita,” the sinewy funk of “Firma Ena Wereket,” the throbbing horns and complex vocal jazz of “I Am the Black Gold...” We stupidly tried to do other things while listening to “My Head.” It didn’t work.
He's not the most prolific artist, but blame that on the fact that TobyMac wants to cram in a little living between recording sessions. The reward is a rich record that scoots around between hip-hop, reggae and rock. The music is about living passionately, and he does just that on "Me Without You," a hooky, electronic dance track, and the southern funk jam "Thankful for You," a song that is as close to country as TobyMac will get. The album walks the line between swagger and sweetness, from highlight "Forgiveness," featuring Lecrae, to the long-overdue love song "Made for Me."
This record is awesome. Deal with it. Hedonistic, bratty, absurdly hooky 2012 radio pop gets no better, as Warrior's blazing title track (dig the EDM breakdown) and the deliriously infectious "Die Young" make clear. "Thinking of You" has a Daft Punk-worthy shredding-vocoder solo; "Dirty Love" is a daffy duet with, yes, Iggy Pop. (Rick Santorum is involved.) Plus piano balladry, explicit nods to The Strokes and Phil Collins (!), and lotsa tart, ludicrous quasi-rapping: "Feeling like a saber-tooth tiger/ Sippin' on a warm Budweiser." Album of the Year of Your Friday Night.
This South African art-rock wild man hits hard on his Sub Pop debut, a dazzling collage of Afropop, electro, raging alt-rock, exuberant hip-hop and a dozen other polyglot styles. His rubbery voice conjures up TV on the Radio, but fractured-soul eccentric Cody Chesnutt looms large, too. There's a lot to absorb here, but the playful, pummeling "Let Them Talk" is a fine entry point, and the lyrics throughout are an evocative trip, be they soft ("We'll have our tombstones stuck together") or defiantly hard ("Play me some Tupac/ Get in your ride/ Snortin' gunpowder/ And drinkin' cane wine").
Future historians may look back at this as the moment when bachata and R&B finally succumbed to the rhythms of their own satiny-slow dance and fully, blissfully merged. Here, Phase II draws us close into plaintively crooned, breathlessly intimate bachata ("Eres Tú"); there ("Addicted"), it dips us into sunny, morning-after soul; and just about everywhere, it spins us into a world where the line between them doesn't quite exist (see "Las Cosas Pequeñas"). Royce is a perfect matchmaker: He sings like Usher, woos like Bruno Mars and works the sultriest bachata shuffle this side of Santo Domingo.
In recent years, jazz great Henry Threadgill has been writing music based on a serialized approach to intervals. Sometimes the product sounds like atonal classical music -- except it grooves like nothing Schoenberg ever wrote. This is the third recording by Threadgill's standing band Zooid (now with cello), and it's their best yet: His system's jagged complexity challenges his players to find original paths to lyricism. Liberty Ellman's guitar does that throughout, but it's the bandleader's immortal alto sax that dominates "A Day Off" and "Ambient Pressure Thereby." Instant classic.
As part of her regular-guy accessibility, Pink's rock star appeal hinges on the fact that she doesn't act like one so much as parties like one. True to form, on The Truth, our foul-mouthed, hard-drinking everywoman does the "Walk of Shame"; waxes sarcastic about "whiskey dicks"; and generally pours her guts out. But she does it over some of her most interesting songs. Sure, there are strutting anthems about relationships and weekends. But there are also shivery duets ("Try"), malt-shop pop, stalking guitars and "Where Did the Beat Go?," a strange, sprawling mess that Pink sings the crap out of.
Alan Jackson's 14th studio album finds the singer with a new label (his own), a new parent company (EMI) and what sounds like a renewed love affair with traditional country. Jackson's experience shows on Thirty Miles West, as he chooses songs that highlight his deep twang. The album's most personal offering, "When I Saw You Leaving (For Nicey)," Jackson sings about his wife's battle with cancer. Other highlights include the breezy "You Go Your Way," the fiddle-kissed Zac Brown rave-up "Dixie Highway," the twangin' "Look Her in the Eye and Lie" and the down-to-earth "Nothin' Fancy."
On his fourth album, London's Lukid builds upon his style of sample-heavy beat music by undoing it. Where his previous records displayed an obvious debt to Dilla and Dabrye, Lonely is murkier and more amorphous, with less emphasis on rock-tumbled breaks and a deeper, more diffuse swirl of synths, voices and spiky machine rhythms. The grayscale timbres and omnipresent veil of hiss are reminiscent of Lukid's occasional collaborator Actress; so is the all-pervasive air of mystery. Stern but also sensual, it's perfect for darkened rooms and horizontal listening.
Impeccably crafted, dizzyingly diverse and uber-hip, MTMTMK is the kind of album music tastemakers dream of. The Very Best's palette has only expanded since the trio's debut: Guests include Amadou & Mariam and Senegalese MC Xuman, there's a song by Bruno Mars (the chunky, Afro-hop cut "We OK"), and all of it tastefully reaches for the pop stars with dance beats and serious hooks, even as it stays couched in their debut's Afro-pop and '80s cinemascapes. MTMTMK's reach is broad, but the kind of global neighborhood it imagines is inviting, especially on tracks like the joyous "I Wanna Go Away."
After setting the blues scene ablaze with a string of EPs, Gary Clark Jr. releases a full-length debut that makes good on his burgeoning reputation. What stands out is his ability to "re-combine" stylistic eras. On several cuts (including hard groovers "When My Train Pulls In" and "Bright Lights") he bleeds Stevie Ray Vaughan into The Black Keys. Meanwhile, when the fuzzy stomp of "Numb" crashes through the speakers, it's obvious the guy digs his psychedelic blues. But none of this should imply Clark lacks his own style; rather, the singer and guitarist is one sharp student of tradition.
Her last album established Ana Tijoux as Latin hip-hop's favorite b-girl. So she made a follow-up that sounds ... almost nothing like it. Gone are 1977's fuzzy, old-school beats and jazzy flow. Instead, we get a strange juxtaposition of stark, almost militaristic marches and, beginning with the Curumin-featuring "El Rey Solo," trip-hoppy dream worlds. And we get an Ana capable of both feathery coos (not to mention singing!) and steel-toed political critique (see "Shock," which takes up the Chilean education reform protests). La Bala (the bullet) is as stunning and piercing as its namesake.
Who knew these cyber-gunky French machine-metal cement-mixers were still around? Though only flamboyantly accented Marco Neves remains from their 1989 debut, this 2012 return might be their most banging ever. Imagine the Euro-perv inexorability of Leather Nun (whose "Gimme Gimme Gimme" Abba cover is referenced in road kvetch "Hard On") confounded by Adrian Sherwood agit-dub. Polyrhythmic marauders "Riot Dance" and “Subliminal Life” flow human blood through their appliances; “Drunk Waltz” staggers. Neves thanks "freedom fighters," too -- and in "Lowman Blues," gets guttural about guttersnipes.
Ellie Goulding is lucky her debut was a sleeper. Because her second album sounds like it was created by a woman immersed in creativity, not consumed with chart position or reiterating the airy pop of Lights. Halcyon is complicated and challenging, its pensive angel choirs and complex beats (often honed from her vocals) are fascinating if almost alienating. Then you get to "Figure 8," a symphony of ebbing, flowing beats; rippling vocal riffs; and swollen drama that drowns any doubts, heralding a second half in which Goulding finds her groove as pop provocateur.
Psychedelic Pill just might be Young's best since Rust Never Sleeps, though such superlatives are, of course, always debatable. What is not is the fact that it's his most '70s-sounding record since, well, the '70s! Caked in Crazy Horse squall and California harmonies, it's a passionate journey through Neil's nine lives; there's Canadian pride ("Born in Ontario"), the joys of hearing "Like a Rolling Stone" for the first time ("Twisted Road") and hippie rumination ("Walk Like a Giant"). Also, if you love when Neil goes long, Psychedelic Pill boasts four epics that break the eight-minute mark.
If you know "In the Dark," it might feel like you know Dev and what to expect from her debut: that intimate purr; those familiar club themes; those Catarac swoops. And all that stuff's here, just broken up and sprinkled like breadcrumbs down other, stranger paths. Take "In My Trunk," which kind of sounds like "Bass Down Low"'s crunkier cousin before it meanders off on an art poppy bridge to nowhere. See also: off-kilter girl-group hoots, deconstructed electro-pop, fiercely lyrical braggadocio, and piano jam "Getaway." Dev, it's going to be interesting getting to know ya.
Recorded in the 1970s at Bell Labs, Laurie Spiegel's The Expanding Universe is a Rosetta Stone uniting American minimalism, early computer music and the chiming harmonies of Appalachian folk in sumptuous, electronic fantasias in which seemingly repetitive structures slowly unspool in unpredictable ways. First released in 1980, the album's four original tracks ("Patchwork," "Old Wave," "Pentachrome," and "The Expanding Universe") are accompanied here by 15 sketches from the same period; they range from the droning "Wandering in Our Times" to the unexpected proto-techno of "Drums."
Everyone loves Nicki Minaj: She's a self-described Harajuku girl with a potty mouth and a dementedly theatrical fashion sense to match. But do we love her music? Like her 2010 debut, Pink Friday, the new Roman Reloaded straddles her audience's demands for both face-melting rhymes and pop confections. The former camp gets the "HOV Lane" (as in Jay-Z, aka "Jay Hova") and ciphers with Rick Ross, Cam'Ron and Nas; pop fans get clubby house tracks made by Lady Gaga producer RedOne, including the dance-pop hit "Starships." Blending these two identities into a satisfying whole proves elusive.
What were you doing at age 20? Cloud Nothings boss Dylan Baldi was already recording this, his third album, with none other than Steve Albini warming the producer's chair. Now with a full backing band, Baldi's sound is noisier and... ballsier. Songs break into sludgy instrumental jams, most notably on "Wasted Days" and "Separation." The drums are beaten to a pulp, and so are the guitars, as he howls like a kid trapped in existential angst. "Give up, come to/ No hope, we're through," he moans on the opening track. Forget about the 2012 release date: This is quality '90s slacker rock.
Grizzly Bear have an incredible ability to balance grand beauty with stark eeriness. The quartet's fourth album weaves intricate melodies into a plush quilt that has the power to change colors, shapes and textures with each listen. Throughout, myriad sounds -- droning synths, distorted guitar, acoustic picks, off-kilter beats, horns, strings and those cavernous choir-boy croons -- clash, then mingle, then waltz together. The arrangements feel more based in free jazz than anything in the rock canon; just see "Yet Again," which starts like Coldplay before falling headfirst down the rabbit hole.
Elle Varner is a restlessly inventive writer, and a singer with a sweetly gritty voice reminiscent of Keyshia Cole and Macy Gray. She mostly sticks to love and loss, but she devises nifty twists, from the slurred chorus of "Refill," to being too shy to speak to a crush on "Not Tonight." On "So Fly," she's a woman who frets over her body measurements, like TLC's "Unpretty." The one thing keeping Varner's debut Imperfect is the production: Save for the Biz Markie-inspired percussion on "Only Wanna Give It To You," its R&B-by-numbers can't keep pace with her outstanding lyrics.
100 Proof marks Kellie Pickler's ticket to the big leagues. Eschewing country-flavored pop for a more traditional sound, Pickler's Southern twang thrives -- and has never commanded as much attention. The tender "Long As I Never See You Again" highlights her lower register as she gently coos over an acoustic guitar. "Where's Tammy Wynette" is a sassy slice of old-school where she ruminates, "I stay torn between killing him and loving him/ He stays torn between neon lights and home." Other highlights include "Unlock That Honky Tonk," "Stop Cheatin' on Me" and "Little House on the Highway."
Matthew Dear's fifth album, Beams, is his fullest yet. As you might guess from the title, it's brighter than its predecessor, 2010's Black City; Dear's multi-tracked baritone still lends a sepulchral undertone, but his jittery loops and plucked guitar have a newfound glint. The slow-motion disco of "Headcage" shines with an eerie neon glow, and "Ahead of Myself" and "Shake Me" are shot through with warm light; Talking Heads' Caribbean-tinged post-punk informs the wriggly "Up & Out." Something about Dear's production style lends an almost squishy touch, like dancing in quicksand.
This Toronto trio would've fit right in alongside shape-of-grunge-to-come pork-porkers of the Head Of David/Janitors/Scratch Acid ilk back in the mid-'80s. Given the blues-less riff propulsion, back-of-the-mix vocal chants and especially the drum wallop of "Headache" and "Knife in the Water" (shades of Breaking Circus' "Knife in the Marathon"?), it's surprising Steve Albini isn't the producer. They're big on punk drone and fond of trash-compacted art-noise buzz, too -- notably in "Nausea." But the instructively titled "Get Off" and "Wasted" are where they really open a can of nerd whoop-ass.
On the cover for Life is Good, Nas drapes a green dress on his knee -- the same dress his ex-wife Kelis wore at their wedding. Save for "Bye Baby," the album isn't about her; instead, he addresses how the world perceives him. He notes his disdain for interviews on "Back When," and how some believe he "overthinks the songs he writing," and rues his teenage daughter's Twitter account on the lovely "Daughters." The melodic production from Salaam Remi and No I.D. is strong yet restrained; it leaves space for Nas' torrents of rhymes, the key to his status as one of hip-hop's best rappers.
Like the perfect pair of broken-in jeans, Blackberry Smoke's soulful blend of Southern-fried guitar riffs, and big 'n' bouncy rhythms, is a comfortable old friend. Their sound isn't flashy or trendy, but you know the fit is just right when the deliciously lustful rocker "Six Ways to Sunday" hits at full blast. But the boys can play it sensitive, too: "Up the Road" starts off with just a piano and Charlie Starr's stirring vocals, before slowly building into a stunning slice of old-school soul. Other highlights include "Ain't Got the Blues," "Everybody Knows She's Mine" and "Lucky Seven."
Robert Glasper's chops as a jazz pianist can't be questioned -- he picked up a Grammy nomination and turned heads early in his career. But Glasper is equally notable for bridging genres. Black Radio is a collaboration with a roster of urban, hip-hop and R&B voices that includes Erykah Badu, Me'Shell Ndegeocello and Mos Def. All the mixed elements make it difficult to classify this as a jazz record (there's a robotic cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit," for goodness sake), but that's precisely the point: It's a testament to Glasper's potential to bring jazz back into the mainstream.
It's tempting to say Locked Down is the Doctor's long-overdue return to the psychedelic voodoo meditations of Gris-Gris and Babylon. After all, this Dan Auerbach-produced effort is awfully trippy in places. Yet the music is decidedly modern in its hyper-awareness of pop-music history, from vintage New Orleans R&B to the fuzz of modern garage rock. The sublime "Ice Age" bubbles like the vintage stuff, yet there's a subtle hip-hop strut lurking in its groove. This idea is even more successful on the funky "Eleggua" (dig that Creole jive). Though Dr. John is now 71, his voice still sounds great.
Beach House have yet to lift out of their somber dream-pop haze. The Baltimore duo's fourth album Bloom is another sleepy beauty built upon endless layers of guitar, keyboard and organ which fuse into a sort of glowing negative space around Victoria Legrand's inimitable soulful howl. "What comes after this momentary bliss?" she purrs on opening track "Myth." They answer that with an hour of dreamy drones that float like M83 and guitar riffs that ground it all with a post-punk gravity. Beauty has its limits, though: By 17-minute "Irene" you may already be at another state of (un)consciousness.
Cancer 4 Cure revisits familiar territory: knotty raps on urban paranoia and police state tactics, and "constellation funk" that increasingly resembles industrial prog-rock. It takes multiple listens to process, and the payoff isn't as tremendous as past classics like Fantastic Damage. Still, there's something to be said for virtually inventing your own hip-hop sub-genre -- his closest precedent may be Nine Inch Nails. The clear storylines of "Tougher Colder Killer" and "For My Upstairs Neighbor" have a velocity that the rest of El's murky yet memorably abrasive album sometimes lacks.
3 Pears proves you can't keep a quality artist down. "Dim Lights, Thick Smoke" is a storming barn-burner that picks up right where Yoakam left off years ago. The Beck-produced "Missing Heart" finds Yoakam singing, "I am an open wound/ In need of room/ With space to heal" -- with the glut of country songs about trucks and beer, it's nice to hear some real emotion! Lightening things up is the title track -- a jangling slice of rootsy pop with pristine arrangements evoking shades of Elvis Costello. Other highlights: "Long Way to Go," "Take Hold of My Hand" and the Byrds-y "Rock It All Away."
The hype surrounding this album is too much for such a young band; best to explore with sober ears. Alabama Shakes are a wonderfully promising garage-soul act, the triangulated center between The Black Keys, Sharon Jones and Black Lips. They can shake and rattle, yet their roll is a bit stiff. But hey, they're young! What makes them a major prospect is Brittany Howard. She can really sing the blues, though like Otis (or even Bon Scott), her pleading shifts into overdrive too often. But hey, they're young! To hear the Shakes really nail it, try "Hold On," "On Your Way" and "Goin' to the Party."
Comparisons to Mumford & Sons abound, especially with rustic party-anthem "Ho Hey"; both bands play in the same rootsy playground, and wash their sepia-tone sound with an indie aesthetic. But The Lumineers' kinship with wordsmiths such as Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen helps set them apart. Singer Wesley Schultz invokes shades of Dylan in both style and inflection on the lilting "Flowers in Your Hair," while "Slow It Down" does just that, with a sparse, haunting guitar accompanying Schultz's plaintive vocals, and "Big Parade" revs up the pace with simplistic rhythms, foot stomps and hand claps.
On his debut album, Barcelona's John Talabot builds upon the Balearic house foundations of his earlier singles without ever getting tripped up in retro fealty or tropical affect. Instead, he lets his loops lead him towards pop's ballooning outline, hovering somewhere in the middle between hypnotic disco and full-on sing-along. Madrid's Pional sings and co-writes two of the LP's strongest songs, but the whole thing's meant to be listened to in one go, from dusky rainforest chants to all-out electro-pop reverie. This edition includes additional singles and remixes.
On his solo debut, Jack White essentially tosses his entire catalog into a blender -- from his famous bands' output to his production work -- and spins it into gold. The retrophile throws solid punches at everything modern (even the women: "She don't care about the bruises that she's leaving on me/ 'Cause she's got freedom in the 21st century"), reveling in classic sounds from Zeppelin rock to country to blues to soul. He bangs on the electric piano as fervently as he strikes his axe, and he ain't one bit happy about love, even when ex-wife Karen Elson joins in on the bruised-and-battered fun.
Finally critics' darlings after all these years (took them even longer than kindred soul Nick Cave), the ex-noise misanthropes pull out all stops: Two hours' worth of exotic instruments (bagpipes!) and indie cameos (Karen O!) in service of crawling, tintinnabulating, incrementally evolving clangs and monotone mantras. Some horror effects, some heaviness, some freak folk, some frying bacon or rain on a tin roof, lots of droning á la Krautrock but more rhythmically inert -- at least until the final 10 minutes, when tension's released and drum fireworks go up, in case you dozed off along the way.
Tasteful, mature and simultaneously exploratory and accessible, Baroness' longest, most ambitious, least metal album is quite the Rorschach test: Whether you mainly hear classic rock, rural prog, indie folk, alt-grunge, psych or emo in its cascading wide-screen structures and unabashed growl-free harmonies could say a lot about you. The defiantly unhistrionic emotion isn't immune to whine or gut-bust, and there's a fine line between beautiful and boring. But sublime wistfulness and heavy sections sprout naturally; "Cocainium" grabs hold right away, and the rest might keep unfolding for years.
Killer Mike's R.A.P. Music is a curveball even by the standards of a career marked by numerous twists. But it's deeper than a blog-rap gimmick. El-P curbs his skronk/noise tendencies and adds bass bottom to his tracks, while Killer Mike spits rhymes with clarity and mostly without the dumb thug fantasies that sometimes cloud his vision. (The clever drug-dealer story "JoJo's Chillin'" is an exception.) The result is a satisfying blend of unique styles, Mike's drawling aggression to El's industrial funk, and songs like "Willie Burke Sherwood" and "Big Beast."
Post-Internet... super-hybridity... recombinant pop... whatever Simon Reynolds-approved tag you prefer, Visions nails it. On her debut album for dream merchants 4AD, Claire Boucher erects a fractal geometry from shards of electro, early-1990s R&B, synth pop, disco and new age. As with many other electronic producer-mavens to emerge in the 21st century, she sounds as if she grew up worshipping Björk, Enya and Gang Gang Dance. Though Visions contains discrete tracks, they appear to melt into one another, not unlike a DJ mix or, if you're old enough to remember, a well-crafted mixtape.
Daphni is the dance-floor Superman to Caribou's psych-pop Clark Kent. He brings the same wonderfully off-kilter approach to both projects, but the Daphni stuff is all muscle, whether it's the low-slung Afrobeat of "Ne Noya," the R&B-sampling "Yes, I Know" or the garage-gone-haywire squeals of "Springs." The huffing, pumping "Ye Ye," originally released on a split EP with Four Tet, is an instant classic of counterintuitive techno; "Jiao" is part Oni Ayhun, part St. Vitus' dance. It's not all so heavy, though; "Long" is a keening synth jam better suited for swooning than cutting rugs.
Fiona Apple perfectly sums up the visceral power of her music right at the onset of her fourth album: "Every single night's a fight with my brain/ I just wanna feel everything," she yowls, her tongue twisting each syllable with the force of a bullet. Throughout, it's this vicious self-combat that bleeds out as erudite rhyme ("orotund mutt" with "moribund slut") and metaphor ("I could liken you to a werewolf the way you left me for dead/ But I admit that I provided a full moon"). Meanwhile, the skittering percussion and free-jazz flow sound as wild as the battle in her brain must feel.
All Hell seems to have the power to slow down time -- or at least your heart rate. Daughn Gibson's debut album flows like a narcotic easing its way through the bloodstream. The trick is in blending two seemingly disparate genres -- lonesome outlaw country and twitchy dubstep -- together until the mix bleeds black. Gibson's brooding baritone oozes with the resigned dread of Johnny Cash or Scott Walker, while his echoing piano and synths trace the line between Burial and James Blake -- see "Tiffany Lou" or "Lookin' Back on '99," which has the lost-highway rhythm of a David Lynch mind-bender.
Miguel's second album is drenched in his honeyed, echoing voice. Its airy lightness fuses the synthesized boogie of underground artists like Dam-Funk to the lovelorn sex rooms of R&B. A relentless seducer, Miguel implores the listener to "Use Me"; "I can teach you," he promises seductively. "Adorn" and "Do You..." sound terrific, especially when contrasted with his debut, All I Want Is You, which had a brighter, if equally sex-obsessed, tone. Although he can't quite divorce himself from mainstream R&B's focus on baby-making ballads, Kaleidoscope Dream is still an impressive evolution.
The Vancouver duo's sophomore release is a celebration indeed, with its juicy rock 'n' roll center bookended by the popping and cracking of fireworks. "Don't we have anything to live for?/ Well of course we do/ But until it comes true, we're drinking" -- that's how these guys lead us into Celebration Rock, a set of joyous oh-oh-oh's and fuzzy, raucous guitar-drum interplay. Lead vocalist Brian King has the snotty shout of an indie-rock god from the '80s, a decade they take a lot of cues from, channeling Springsteen and The Replacements, and covering The Gun Club's "For the Love of Ivy."
After 2011's excellent Nostalgia, Ultra mixtape and the hit "Novacane," Frank Ocean fulfills his promise with this revelatory hour documenting his L.A. life, from the privileged teens running wild on "Super Rich Kids" to the nine-minute stripper tribute "Pyramids" (his most indulgent track). Singer-songwriter introspection (via a guitar solo from John Mayer on the oddly titled "White") and The Neptunes (the Pharrell Williams-produced "Sweet Life") lend substance to Ocean's journey in Hollyweird, but his sympathetic lyrics and warm voice make it intimate and casually brilliant.
