Terradactyl sounds like it’s about to fly off the rails at any moment. On first listen, producer Polyphonic’s looping, glitch-filled, digital death knell beats sounds like they’re constantly just about to spiral completely out of control and threaten to overpower Serengeti’s flat, modest rhymes that are delivered as if the MC is reciting them over his morning coffee. After a few listens though, Polyphonic’s layered electronics start to crystallize and Serengeti’s laidback delivery begins to reveal intelligent, internally complex verses on everything from his sense of self to military recruitment. After a few more listens the duo become inseparable, each element balancing perfectly with the next to create brilliant wizardry, confident enough in itself to sit back and see if anyone takes notice.
On her solo debut, Karin Dreijer crafts an album that could’ve fooled anyone into believing it was by her other band, The Knife. While that might sound damning to some, it’s actually high praise. The Knife are excellent and more is always welcome, regardless of name. There are, however, small differences. For one, Fever Ray Dreijer traverses terrain even more frozen than she did along with brother Olaf on The Knife’s 2006 album Silent Shout, and she does so in a more detached manner. Sure, she employs the same electronic backings and thick vocal effects as those found on Silent Shout, but she pushes further out into the icy wilderness and ends up somewhere strangely inviting, almost cozy. Forget the name; embrace the quality.
Camera Obscura has long lived in the shadow fellow Scottish indie poppers Belle and Sebastian. On My Maudlin Career they fully emerge from that shadow, not by changing their sound, but by perfecting it. Camera Obscura’s now expected mixture of folk, northern soul and brill-building pop still carries the day, but Tracyanne Campbell and company achieve a sublimely warm, affecting sound they’ve never quite attained before.
Perhaps what sets the album apart from past efforts are Campbell’s vocals. Always a forlorn singer, here Campbell struggles to occasionally tackle somewhat cheerier subject matter. Her world-weary resignation that things will fall apart creates a wonderful conflict within these offerings of perfect pop.
DM Stith’s Heavy Ghost could soundtrack a horror movie filmed in heaven. Stith’s lilting voice and lush arrangements are undeniably beautiful, but it’s the album’s dark underbelly that is really striking and gets the spine tingling. Featuring omnipresent backup vocals from what sounds like the chorus line of the dead, the album delights in spooky atmosphere and unexpected startles. Heavy Ghost sounds simultaneously like nothing you’ve ever heard before and a subtle skewering of everything you’re familiar with. The album sweeps you off your feet and then, just when you’re falling madly in love with the beauty swirling around you, whispers sweet murders in your ear.
After years of delays, false release dates, label drama and intense speculation, the sequel to Raekwon’s 1995 classic Only Built 4 Cuban Linx finally saw the light of day in 2009 and surprised even its most anxious anticipators by being better than they could have possible hoped for. Cuban Linx pt. II knocks everything out of the park. Rae sounds the best he has in years, Ghostface Killah attacks his frequent supporting role with deranged glee, Method Man, The GZA and Inspectah Deck all drop impassioned guest verses, the producers—from heavyweights like The RZA, J. Dilla and Dr. Dre to lesser knowns BT and Scram Jones—are all at the top of their games. Cuban Linx pt. II feels like it could have come out during the Wu-Tang Clan’s mid-nineties hay day. It’s fully deserving of the name it shares and should be viewed as one of the best rap albums of the decade.
After getting their freak on so resoundingly well on 2008’s Visiter, few could have expected boredom from The Dodos in 2009. After all, Visiter was an album of boundless energy, finger shredding fretwork, insane percussion, bloody shrieks, frenetic freak-outs and singsong melodies when the occasion called for them. It was huge, sprawling and hard to believe that all that racket came (mainly) from only two guys, a guitar, an army of toms and a garbage can. Messy though it was at times, there was an almost overwhelming amount of life on Visiter. In comparison, Time to Die sounds like it got a head start on its title by a good many months. Here the band sounds limp and listless, going through the motions as if by necessity. It’s unclear whether the blame for the album’s lack of pulse lies that the band’s feet or, those of producer Phil Ek or some combination of the two, but, whatever the cause, The Dodos went from being a group surging with vigour to a frozen stiff clogging up the morgue in a little under a year.
