The Avett Brothers- The Avett Brothers (Republic)
Over two decades ago, The Avett Brothers emerged as one of the most humbly intriguing and promising acts in the ever-growing Americana movement. Sprouting from a sparse, acoustic roots sound that pulled influences from genres as vast as punk and bluegrass, they progressively built a vibrant bedrock of American sounds that, with the guidance of producer Rick Rubin, reached its full box-office potential on 2009’s mainstream breakthrough, I and Love and You. They haven’t looked back since, and they remain an artistic force committed to a forward-looking vision. So, despite the joyously welcome banjo and fiddle refocusing of tracks like “Country Kid” and “Orion’s Belt”, this record’s hype as a Country Was-rebirth is certainly overstated. That notwithstanding, it’s also an emotional re-centering from the political nature of the 2019 predecessor, Closer Than Together. You can hear this gorgeous transition taking place throughout the project opener, “Never Apart (w/ Vocal Prelude)”, with its peacefully heavenly harmonies flowing gracefully into one of the group’s most meditative love songs. Because as importantly rewarding as it may have been to hear them honestly assess a troubled world on Closer, it’s equally vital and cleansing to hear them circle back to the core life experiences of love and loss that they ruminate on throughout this self-titled arsenal. Cosmic reflections on relationships and the most intimate details of life’s emotional trajectory (“Cheap Coffee”, “Forever Now”, “2020 Regret”, “We Are Loved”) gracefully reside against passionate slices of youthful nostalgia (“Love Of A Girl”, the aforementioned “Kid” and “Belt”) to give the listener an inspired journey through the pair’s most cherished and pivotal life moments. And as we join them on this travelogue, we’re reminded that each of our individual landmark moments and memories ultimately share the same common essence. We long to go back to the past, often-times for the sheer fact that we cannot. Meanwhile, life’s most formative lessons of disappointment and surprise do nothing to prevent us from still planning out the perfect future, again perhaps for the sheer fact that it doesn’t actually exist. The Avett Brothers is a beautifully simple and pointed portrait of all these beautiful life contradictions, and a stirring reminder that life is at its more remarkable when its mostly allowed to just play out naturally. Vocally, melodically, and emotionally, this ranks among their most potent.
Billie Eilish- Hit Me Hard and Soft (Interscope)
The pop world’s most unassuming and unexpected superstar returns with her third studio set, and Hit Me Hard and Soft unequivocally feels like the buzzing extension of the potential exhibited on her smash 2019 debut; a potential that both Billie Eilish and co-writer/brother Finneas have conceded a cloudy haze of pandemic confusion prevented its 2021 follow-up from building upon. Over the course of this diversely crackling and concise ten-song set, Eilish reasserts the confidence in her evolved identity as an artist and also as a human being. Stylistically, she remains one of the musical world’s most nimble chameleons, navigating everything from her alternative rock roots to entrancing electropop dancers to jazz-inflected vocal showcases that could position her as a rival to Laufey if that was the direction she chose to pursue. Elsewhere, the sibling duo dabbles in mysterious sonic wizardry and art-rock leaning vignettes on moments like “L’Amour De Ma Vie”, “Bittersuite”, and “Blue”. The fact that they’re able to make such complex and expansive moments work within the confines of such a refreshingly tight album is a further testament to their creative power. Of course, it’s their alarmingly reflective lyrical work and Eilish’s icy soul vocals that give all of these deliciously adventurous detours a centered emotional pulse. But while the aforementioned 2021 predecessor, Happier Than Ever leaned far too hard into the muted qualities of Eilish’s music, and became awash in a cloud of monotony, Hard and Soft restores the edgy bite that rounded out her initial and unique appeal in the first place. No track better demonstrates that uninhibited nature than lead single, “Lunch”, a thumping and unapologetically primal expression of desire that finds Eilish brashly owning her sexual fluidity. It also delivers that long-awaited, next “Bad Guy”-level moment we’ve been hungering for since she became the breakout bedroom pop-star half a decade ago. Hit Me Hard and Soft proves to be the fully-realized moment for which that initial phenomenon was ultimately preparing us for: a nervy and fearless balance of eye-popping moments, sonic restlessness, hypnotic vocals, and gut-wrenching lyrics that even the purest vocal delivery can’t soften the blow from. This record is the moment where Billie Eilish not only gets her bite back, but fully gestates it, reclaiming her full power to dictate the overall pop music conversation in the process.
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Lenny Kravitz- Blue Electric Light (BMG)
Lenny Kravitz has emerged as perhaps the modern music world’s most ageless rock star. Now in his sixties and well into his third decade as a recording artist and all of his signature trademarks remain as vitally relevant as ever: from his charismatic vocals and his indisputable musical dexterity to his irresistible sex appeal and soulful philosophies on humanity. With his twelfth studio release, Blue Electric Light, we find the dynamic entertainer moving on from the more pensive emotional nature of 2018’s Raise Vibration. This is not to say that Kravitz has forgone any of the deeper considerations of his most thoughtful work, it’s just that Light places a greater emphasis on the stylistic mixology and energetic swagger that permeated his initial breakthrough in the early nineties. The rich blues-rock dressing of the bright-eyed opener, “It’s Just Another Fine Day (In This Universe of Love)” sets the stage for Lenny’s trademark stylistic creativity and late-60s-informed POVs, and it results in one of the most contagiously raw and fiery sets of escapism that he’s ever delivered. He wears his Prince influences as prominently as ever before on the ferocious funk-rock of lead single “TK421”, and that sheer seductive adrenaline courses through every subsequent track thereafter. Kravitz delivers every bold anthem with the kind of conviction and confidence that truly badass rock stylists like him always do, whether it be on bopping 80s soft-rock (“Human” and “Bundle of Joy”), sensuous R&B-soaked rock ballads (“Honey” and “Stuck in the Middle”), hard rock (“Paralyzed”), Bowie-leaning space-rock (the title track) or frigging gospel-rock (“Love Is My Religion”). Rock and roll in the 2020s so often takes itself sooo seriously, drowning the music in a thick vat of alternative and avant garde atmospherics. While that frequently has resulted in some truly great forward-motion music, it’s a real joy to hear a straight-forwardly entertaining outing like Blue Electric Light. Kravitz’s best work has always abounded when it has presented the fresh and modern relevance of the classic rock & roll tropes that have survived generations of musical evolution. This record is one of his very best exercises in this fashion, and it makes for one of the most exhilarating listens of the year thus far.
The Mavericks- Moon & Stars (Mono Mundo)
When assessing their thirty-plus years musical journey, it’s positively quaint to consider that The Mavericks originally launched under the guise of a mainstream country act, even by the big-tent parameters of Nashville’s 90s boom. Even during their presence on the country charts throughout that period, there was no harnessing the sheer range of Raul Malo’s exquisite vocal power, nor the creative ambitions and diverse influences that their Miami-roots provided. They were always a band that defied genre definition, and that spirit rewarded listeners with some of the most vibrant records of our time. That esteemed standard has only magnified since the group reunited with 2013’s outstanding In Time, and now continues on with Moon & Stars. This record follows up their first Spanish-language album from 2020, and returns Malo & company to a lush tapestry of well..almost any classic music style you can name. It’s ironic that the set opens with a track entitled “The Years Will Not Be Kind” (a gorgeously sad rumination on the passage of time BTW), as it’s clearly evident that this band’s ability to seamlessly meld a wild and beautiful fusion of disparate sounds is as strong as it has ever been. Their affinity for Tex-Mex sounds beat at the heart of nearly ever track, which otherwise gloriously traverses through moments of classic rock, pop noir, big band, soul, jazz, blues, country and of course, polka. The accordion laced jubilance of “Overnight Success” immediately recalls the heights of their “All You Ever Do” run, while the tantalizing “Without A Word” elicits turbo-charged Spaghetti Western-rock intensity, and promises to be a perennial highlight of their summer tour (I’ve already got my tickets). “And We Dance” gives Malo’s ever-sublime voice the chilling showcase it deserves and finds him indulging in his signature neo-Orbison mode, with a splash of latter-day Dwight Yoakam thrown in for good measure. Meanwhile, the trippy finale, “Turn Yourself Around” truly sounds like something that could have naturally resided in the final stretch of Abbey Road. And the group can still command a respectable guest cast, with appearances from some of the finest among the current roots music crop, with Sierra Ferrell, Maggie Rose, and Nicole Atkins each joining tracks that marvelously spotlight their own unique wheelhouses, while ace tenor-saxophonist Max Abrams steals the show with his solos on the bluesy jazz wonder of “Here You Come Again”. This entire record is a generous offering of unabashed musical excellence, with the Mavericks once again proving to be a band you can comfortably expect the moon and the stars from, because they’ve rarely, if ever, failed to deliver them.
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