on the pulse - 2024 - #1 - green day, 21 savage, sleater-kinney, bruiser wolf, infant island, mery steel, neck deep, sprints
SPRINTS - Letter To Self - Alright, an Irish post-punk debut that hit my radar from both my Patrons and Bandcamp, and buzz suggested their garage punk and post-punk was inspired by Savages, so I was curious. And I hear some of the Savages influence in the blunt lyricism, the minor-key snarl, and frontwoman Karla Chubb’s dramatic intensity, but producer Daniel Fox adds a rounded polish and similar melodic immediacy he gave Silverbacks, trading smoky atmosphere for accessible textures you’d hear in 2010s indie post-punk revivalism; Screaming Females is the better comparison. But I’m not sure it consistently works - maybe the lyrics need more flair or production with more ragged grit or scale, but it starts feeling claustrophically uniform in its self-aware desperate implosions, even if I like the optimistic rage of its ending. And while I prefer Irish post-punk to the UK scene these days… it’s certainly good, wish I liked it more.
Neck Deep - Neck Deep - I’ve said before Neck Deep is built for short form reviews, and after I effectively forgot their 2020 album damn near midway through reviewing it, I had zero expectations for a self-titled, self-produced project described as a ‘return to form’ featuring a new drummer and bassist. And if by ‘return to form’, you expect reasonably kinetic pop punk but unimpressive in melodies, production, performances, really anything that stands out from their influences especially blink-182… yep, that’s Neck Deep alright. The guitar leads feel rote and crushed behind the whining vocals, any ornamentation is more distracting than special, and when the lyrics default to self-flagellating ‘I’m a fuckup but you should totally sleep with me’ pablum and the shallowest of social commentary and flimsy optimism… if you’ve heard radio pop punk the past twenty five years, you’ve already forgotten this.
Mery Steel - She’s Back! - Let’s start 2024 with an artist I randomly found on Bandcamp, an Ohio singer-songwriter with her debut album promising something country adjacent… and that is what we got, but Mery Steel has real promise. Her sound splits the difference between elegant 70s countrypolitan and a splash of 80s Fleetwood Mac, but there’s also something Jim Steinman-esque in the melodic focus and especially her vocal lines that have a more theatrical presence I really liked! Granted, juxtaposing questionably produced synth-heavy cuts opposite more country creates an odd balance - the production definitely feels limited - and while I like the messy, hard loving melodrama of the lyrics, they can paint in broad strokes on the less memorable cuts. As it is, a short, solid, and rather charming indie debut carried on strong tunes, absolutely worth a shot!
Infant Island - Obsidian Wreath - It’s nice when screamo / black metal acts I find on Bandcamp also get suggested by my Patrons without my prompting - so, Virginia band, dropped a compelling full-length debut in 2018 but hit a sour note in 2020 courtesy of grainy, tinny, overcompressed production and the feel of overselling undercooked ideas. But this still caught my ear, their longest album to date… and I think it’s solid! The roiling grooves, filthy riffs and cacophonous drums remind me a bit of grindcore, but they have enough smoldering, organic post-rock atmosphere to fit themes of anxious despairing rage in the face of apocalypse, howled demands for community and impossible prayers to keep fighting for a world amidst the visceral suffering. I do think the buried, indecipherable screams do a disservice to the poetry, and I wish more melodic motifs popped, but I appreciated the punishing beauty here - very good stuff!
Bruiser Wolf - My $tory Got $tories - One thing I’ve noticed in talking about Bruiser Wolf as he’s broken out among the Detroit underground is that a lot of focus is on his uniquely kooky vocal delivery, which seems like a make-or-break proposition not just for his vocal timbre, but how deftly he piles up the old school punchlines and humour. But when I reviewed Dope Game Stupid back in 2021, I was concerned whether that stylistic choice might have him appear a bit one-dimensional - I’ve seen some folks try to pigeonhole him as a punchline rapper which I think is a little unfair off of one album and some strong guest verses - so I was hoping this sophomore follow-up would have more range in production, content, and song structure. And I would say it does for the most part: it still has Bruiser Wolf’s laid-back, impeccable comedic timing and wry drug hustling observations that more than ever remind me of a blend of Snoop Dogg, E-40, and Homeboy Sandman with every left-field quip, but the hooks have a bit more melodic flair or are just punchier in general. There are even cuts that embrace a more contemporary cleaner mix like ‘2 Bad’ with Danny Brown and ZelooperZ, or ‘I Was Taught To’ with Trinidad James of all people, and I was really impressed by how seamlessly Bruiser Wolf could fit there, especially alongside the more stripped back, soulful samples that underscore the majority of this album, along with plenty of half-formed conversational snippets that give this album the feel of working in the right Detroit barber shop or a smoky pool hall - the Stephen A Smith rant about Detroit on the title track in particular feels like it could have gone off on a background TV. It creates a lived-in environment that’s loose and flavourful where age has come with wisdom from too many street misadventures where you don’t want to be in this dope game - like Vince Staples, there’s a very grounded brutal realism to how mundane and difficult this life can be and the systemic decay that lands people there - and yet it’s often such a appealing hangout atmosphere that it papers over a few tasteless bars or the moments when the song structure feels more amorphous or abbreviated, especially as this project can feel frontloaded. And while I think there’s more flavour to the storytelling here alongside stronger compositions - ‘Waiting In The Lobby’ has adds a lot of early catharsis I appreciated - I also get the impression there’s another gear Bruiser Wolf can hit within this subject matter to maybe take it to another level, add more grit or personal emotional resonance to the stories being told. As it is, I really enjoyed this album - it’s an incredibly easy listen and recommendation, an absolute improvement over his debut that only showcases more potential… screw it, I’d even call this great, he certainly gets there on more cuts here than before, and that’s enough for me to give this a lot of props; I want to hear more stories.
Sleater-Kinney - Little Rope - So I was very close to just ignoring or vetoing this album altogether - the ugly circumstances around Janet Weiss’ exodus from the band coupled with a truly mediocre album in 2021 with Path Of Wellness, which I didn’t like at the time and has aged badly, all of that has really soured me on this version of Sleater-Kinney. But I figured I’d give this a shot - they brought in John Congleton to produce, it’s only just over a half hour, if it was boring I’d veto it and I’m fairly certain nobody would care. But that’s not what happened… because while Path Of Wellness was dull and thematically offensive, Little Rope is a mess, where it feels like the only reason establishment critics are giving this grace is because it’s Sleater-Kinney - and since the band burned the majority of my good will last time, I’m less willing to be generous. To start, this might be the worst production job John Congleton has delivered in his career - it reminds me way too much of when Dave Fridmann tries to flesh out a mix with texture and winds up bricking it, but at least he can deliver some credible psychedelic atmosphere, whereas here I’m left wondering if Congleton was reusing presets from the self-titled St. Vincent sessions with no tightness or groove, not helped by there being no bass guitar on this album and the down-tuning isn’t filling in the gaps! But then I remember the connection that Annie Clark has with Carrie Brownstein and it starts to make a bit of sense… but for as wonky as that self-titled St. Vincent album was, it always felt like there was an alien purpose to those warped choices, it didn’t have guitar tunings and synth sound like so much splattered, oily atonal vomit all over a claustrophobic mix with a bizarre amount of hard panned guitars that somehow still manages to have airless, chalky session drumwork with little tangible impact! Now I’m willing to accept this is an intentional pivot to sound more abrasive and challenging, an oppressively loud project that’s more noise rock than nervy post-punk, a pivot where the distortion and contorted textures that saturate the mix are part of the point, something closer to Sonic Youth - after all, I was the one who said I wanted a greater sense of tension after Path Of Wellness - but compared to tension that comes through tempo or ragged intensity, where the performance has electricity and Sleater-Kinney used to excel even at their sloppiest, this is closer to the tension that comes with a cluster migraine where all the tones are flat and at wildly inconsistent dynamic levels at that, when they’re not swallowed in formless, overcompressed texture and the vocals from Brownstein and Tucker barely grab my attention! And to be blunt, on a compositional level this album doesn’t sound like it’s trying to alienate or throw their audience - Sleater-Kinney have their difficult albums like The Woods - this feels like the blocky transitions, the worst coming on ‘Hell’ or with that anticlimatic key change on the final hook of ‘Don’t Feel Right’, and the runoff of bad synth and guitar tunings are jammed in because they are at least ideas attached to conventional structures, where if there is self-awareness, it’s trying to force a “compelling” mess rather than coming to it naturally. And yet with all of that, a part of me still wanted to give the benefit of the doubt when it came to the content - Brownstein’s mother had died in a car accident in late 2022 when half of the songs had already been written, reportedly this album is exploring grief, a balance of personal tragedy in an overwhelming world in crisis, I can imagine how this sound might make sense in that thematic context. And to their credit, I think the writing somewhat gets there - so much of this record feels like a trauma response, where in the face of endings and calamities we can’t control in a world that normalizes all of it, where you can feel simultaneously invisible, marginalized and hunted by both external and internal pressures, where there can be a desperate plea for outward acceptance despite how this has affected you, where even the stripped down mundanity of the writing makes sense in that claustrophobic context. And I get how this could work for Sleater-Kinney, because both Home Is Where and Svalbard tackled similar themes just last year to great success. On paper, this makes sense, it’s easy to defend… in other words, the ‘saint’ we should be talking about isn’t St. Vincent, it’s St. Anger, and there’s a shocking number of parallels: atrocious production where the ‘rawness’ feels overthought, the drums sound like ass, the vocal mixing is haphazard, the grooves are non-existent, and yet when you hear that Sleater-Kinney were wondering if they were even going to make another album, there’s an element of this feeling therapeutic for the band to get something out, to keep the project going a little longer. Now I don’t make that comparison lightly, and Little Rope as a whole is better than St. Anger - for one, it’s nowhere near as long, there are a few melodic hooks that I can imagine working live when the production doesn’t ruin them like ‘Say It Like You Mean It’ or ‘Untidy Creature’, and again, I know there’s an audience that’ll give this a pass or defend it. And I just can’t - it doesn’t feel experimental when Congleton did this better a decade ago… hell, Sleater-Kinney did it with The Woods, and Little Rope can’t approach that; even if I respect what they’re trying to do and feel kind of terrible for ripping in this much, this is one of the worst records I’ve covered in some time. For everyone’s sake, skip it.
21 Savage - american dream - It’s weird to consider any expectations for this 21 Savage album, because a part of me did have them - I really liked SAVAGE MODE II, and he’s dropped some great guest verses. At the same time, though, it’s hard to ignore his limitations and flaws, not the least playing second fiddle to Drake on Her Loss - I might have preferred him to Drake on that godawful album, but that’s not exactly saying much. So with an album coupled to a highly stylized biopic, I wasn’t sure what I would be getting with this, what expectations I should have… and I don’t want to say I’m disappointed or surprised, but I feel like I should be. To be blunt, a lot of this album feels like 21 Savage in cruise control: the flows are more inconsistent - as are the punchlines and poop jokes - and if you’ve heard more than one 21 Savage album before, you’ve heard the breadth of his subject matter from the street-level threats to the luxury rap flexing to the increasingly obnoxious songs about women; I don’t want to say Drake is rubbing off on him - mostly because these songs are masturbatory enough - but it’s always been 21 Savage’s weak point going back to Issa Album, and I’m not sure he finds enough pathos in ‘the women becoming like him in treating a partner with disposability’ to get around some pretty basic, largely unconvincing and eyerolling macho posturing - it’s not like he’s interested in holding himself accountable here either. But with every album the internal contradictions of 21 Savage that hold him back across the board are increasingly interesting, from how he treats women to the framing of street level violence where on the final track he tries to explore the real world cost of it for the kids - especially if this album wanted to juxtapose them with aspirational themes around the ‘american dream’ - but 21 also seems unwilling to go there, go deeper, which leaves a lot of those emotional beats feeling shallow and the ideas undercooked. For what it’s worth, there were a few features that mostly worked - Doja Cat can somewhat nail the menace on the Scarlet leftover ‘n.h.i.e.’, Lil Durk brought a lot of energy to ‘dangerous’, I actually really liked the hooks from Mariah The Scientist and Burna Boy, and Travis Scott of all people sounded most invested and on point on ‘née-nah’ than I expected - and while the trap production didn’t nail the atmosphere or breadth of his better albums, it was more inconsistent than anything; I’ll certainly take the haunted elegance of ‘redrum’ over that the chipmunked run from ‘see the real’ to ‘should’ve wore a bonnet’, or whatever the hell Mikky Ekko thought he was doing on the hook of the wonky early 2010s throwback ‘red sky’. But in the end… again, I wanted to be more disappointed with this, but 21 Savage has never lived up to the snippets of great potential we’ve seen on the occasional guest verse or individual song; the album just being okay is not only unsurprising, it feels expected, playing to industry expectations that don’t flatter or focus his skillset. If you’re a 21 Savage fan, you’ve heard better, and if you’re not, this won’t change your mind.
Green Day - Saviors - Look, it’s been nearly fifteen years since the last truly great Green Day album, and that’s coming with my caveat that 21st Century Breakdown is criminally underrated. Since then, it’s been rough - I know a lot of folks stuck up for Revolution Radio but in retrospect I don’t think it’s better than decent, it’s aged pretty badly, and everything else has been a disaster. So even if I heard the buzz suggesting that Saviors was something of a return to form, embracing more of their classic rock side, maybe even being reminiscent of 21st Century Breakdown in patches, I knew not to get my hopes up too high even if Rob Cavallo was back on production; hell, the fact that I’m prioritizing a review of it at all is probably giving the band more credit than they deserve in 2024. And… let me start with this: on a musical level, this is probably the best that Green Day has sounded in years - Cavallo gives the guitars a lot of bright, galloping crunch, the basslines are well-balanced with some sinuous muscle, and for a band that spent the last decade plus showing every way their spare formula could be ruined by bad production, I’m grateful for small blessings… even the drums could afford to be a little louder. And credit to Billie Joe Armstrong finally getting the message that his falsetto isn’t good and going for a more shredded punk yell - for a guy now in his 50s with decades in punk, the fact that his voice sounds decent or any of this is credible at all is a testament to a good performance. Yes, the album naturally feels a bit slower with more acoustic passages, and there are more than a few melodic riffs where you hear parallels - beyond the standard Ramones comparison and how ‘Living In The 20s’ is cribbing openly from ‘Horseshoes and Handgrenades’, ‘One Eyed Bastard’ in particular reminded me a lot of ‘So What’ by P!nk - but that shouldn’t be surprising; probably a bit longer than it can sustain the momentum after a really strong from ‘1981’ to ‘Corvette Summer’, but Green Day is no stranger to that either and can still write one hell of a hook, even if I would struggle to say there’s any here that hit their absolute peak. But let’s be real: this album was going to live or die based on the lyrics… which in retrospect is weird because it feels like the critique can feel misplaced: Green Day has always been more interested in provocation and populism rather than precision. And for a pop punk band that makes sense, especially as there’s an earnest firepower to their political material that lands better as they’ve gotten older than the haggard, Gen X teen malaise - their absolute worst material in the 2010s was trying to clumsily recapture that - but every bad faith dunk I’ve seen on Green Day seems focused on their broad political commentary rather than their slacktivist teenage irony that was played out by the end of the 90s; I guess I’m not surprised going political demands being held to a higher, largely inconsistent standard, not helped by Billie Joe Armstrong stumbling a lot more often than he should and how any subtler emotional truth or complexity is going to feel at odds with playing to their extremely direct formula. But I’ll give Saviors credit for this: it feels closer to the modern zeitgeist and hits more than it misses, mostly because Gen Z’s brand of irony echoes that of their Gen X parents, and the snotty exhaustion of a disempowered generation as everything steadily gets worse amidst the clouds of drug addiction and anxiety and mental illness… look, if it wasn’t coming from a middle-aged Green Day explicitly, I can imagine this working for that audience! Now there are absolutely missteps - the ‘everyone is racist’ line on ‘Strange Days Are Here To Stay’, a song I otherwise really like, ‘Fancy Sauce’ is a dreadful album closer that lands on a really nihilistic note with lines about ‘taking responsibility’ that feel cribbed from Armstrong’s stint in rehab - I’m not crazy about how Armstrong writes around mental health in general, it feels dated - and Green Day always have had a weird tendency of lyrics that clipped out of context and read on a surface level feel clunky or embarrassing; that’s been true for decades, they’re not getting past that, even if I still wish they were a little sharper. But aside from cuts like ‘Bobby Sox’ that allow Armstrong’s bisexuality to be more visible than ever before, where I think Saviors works is the mature return to that existential angst that’s always been at the core of their best work, understanding their very human mess, and the limits of what they can control, especially amidst cycles of history of which they’re acutely aware in both ‘1981’ and ‘Living In The 20s’. In short, it’s probably their best album since 21st Century Breakdown, but more importantly it feels like a Green Day that can exist in 2024 and not feel wildly out of place to - the formula is finally intact again, and while this doesn’t reach their classics by any means, this is a good album, and as a fan who had to put up with their bullshit the past fifteen years, I’m happy we can at least get this.