By: Eva Zhu, Rebeka Roga and Neil MacAlister
Visions of a Life by Wolf Alice
Every once in awhile, a female-fronted, guitar-prominent rock band will burst onto the scene and enchant the entire music community with their talent. Wolf Alice is one of those bands. Their debut album, My Love is Cool came out in 2015, and was a perfect mix of Cobain-era grunge and indie rock. The sound on their sophomore LP Visions of a Life shifts away from grunge, as they never enjoyed that label. Instead, we’re offered eleven tracks of perfect indie rock tunes.
Ellie (lead vocals and rhythm guitar) experiments with spoken word verses that blend in effortlessly with the melody. This can be found on songs like “Don’t Delete the Kisses” (which is the perfect song for wooing your crush with), and “Sky Musings.” The band also dabbles in punk with “Yuk Foo,” and post-rock on the eight-minute title track “Visions of a Life.” All in all, if you’re into polished, heavy indie rock, I strongly suggest you give this band a listen. – EZ
Super Slimey by Young Thug and Future
For an album that incited lofty expectations and had a supposed recipe for greatness, Young Thug and Future’s album Super Slimey was underwhelming. The album artwork is a perfect way of mixing Future and Young Thug: the background is a white marble design, which links to most of Future’s designs, whereas the snake and album name ties in with Young Thug’s theme of slime. The beats are agreeable, but are way more representative of Future’s style. Tracks such as “No Cap” and “Drip on Me” seem like Future intended them for his last album HNDRXX but didn’t go through with them. The eleventh track “Killed Before” is entirely for Young Thug; the beats are in character for him and are pure greatness. Each song on this album only shows off one artist or the other. There should have been more fluidity in combining the unique qualities of both artists in each song, leading me to think this project isn’t truly complete. Hopefully any future collaborations between the two artists showcase both of their styles more. – RR
IWASVERYBAD by IDK
IDK is one of the DC/Maryland/Virginia region’s biggest rising stars, three albums deep into an impressive career and only getting better with age. His last two albums were both introspective, narrative-heavy projects, but IWASVERYBAD is IDK’s most personal work yet, taking a close look back at the rapper’s childhood. The album deals mostly with his relationship with his mother: as a child, their lack of closeness drove him to look for love in the streets, engaging in violence and promiscuity later in life that eventually landed him in jail. It was this event, however, and the way his mother supported him when no one else did, that mended their tumultuous relationship. By the end of the album, her passing is eulogized in harrowing, yet profoundly beautiful terms: “where you get them wings from, pretty?” There are shades of early Kanye and good kid-era Kendrick throughout the album; IDK wears his influences clearly on his sleeve, but none of that takes away from the personal nature of this remarkable project. – NM
ken by Destroyer
Destroyer isn’t just one of the best artists to come out of Vancouver, he’s one of the best artists indie rock has to offer. Frontman Dan Bejar has led a career that spans more than twenty years (including work as part of The New Pornographers). His band Destroyer is a frequently experimental art project, constantly evolving across various iterations of the rock genre. Every album is unique, from the jazz-influenced Kaputt to the free-form explorations of This Night. With ken, Destroyer’s twelfth album, he’s decided to explore the synth-driven style of ‘80s artists like New Order and the Cure. Bejar’s writing is as dense and apocalyptic as ever, alternating between tender warnings, whimsical musings, and repetitive maxims that can mean anything depending on your state of mind. He’s never been a particularly easy artist to decipher, but there’s something about the mystical soundscapes and endlessly evocative songwriting that elevates him from indie rock philosopher to being one of the most important artists of the last twenty years. – NM
