Dragon Ball Z Uncensored

[Mike Dunn]

If everyone posts their favorite album of 2018 I’ll review it.

Mine was You Won’t Get What You Want by Daughters.

[Ryoko's Biatch]

Flamingo & Koval by Bobby Feeno

[My Head Hurts 90]

The Internet - Hive Mind

[MADali]

Sons of Kemet - Your Queen Is A Reptile

[hst]

Daytona - Pusha T

[Mike Dunn]

I haven’t forgotten about you, FTUMC bros. Reviews are brewing.

[My Head Hurts 90]

Doing some one sentence reviews just because.

Albums that I really liked

Sons of Kemet - Youngblood Brass Band, but instead of well-meaning white jazz guys from Wisconsin it’s awesome black people.

Bobby Feeno - It's amazing what hiphop can do once it becomes untethered from conventional aesthetics surrounding class, drug culture, and masculinity. Also, this is fucking Arian Foster?


Fine

Pusha-T - Enjoyable solely due to Kanye West's production


Not really my thing

Daughters - I like abrasive sounds, but most of these ideas are just not good enough to be longer than two minutes, which apparently was how this band used to write songs when it was more punky. "Satan in the Wait" is a great life is a nightmare tune though.

[Ryoko's Biatch]

Foster also did the production on the album.

[Mike Dunn]

Sons of Kemet - Your Queen Is A Reptile

Comprised of a saxophonist, a tuba player, and two drummers, Sons of Kemet makes a lot of noise for a small combo. They're billed as a jazz band, but they incorporate aspects of afrobeat, New Orleans second line, dub reggae, marching band music and grime, among other genres. The band is at their best when they're wildly frenetic, which is often -- the two drummers interlocked in bouncing polyrhythms while the saxophonist trills. It's solid head bobbing stuff, hyper rhythmic and danceable. There's some Afrocentric anti-Brexit political stuff going on lyrically and thematically, with each song named in honor of prominent black female political figures. My favorite track is "My Queen is Angela Davis", which evolves through increasingly intense movements, starting out sounding like music from Contra until ultimately settling into a fist pumping jungle/drum and bass riff. I will say the band loses me a little bit when they slow things down. With the album clocking in at nearly an hour, it could have benefited from some editing. I found myself skipping more meditative tracks like "My Queen Is Anna Julia Cooper" and "My Queen Is Nanny Of The Maroons" on subsequent listens. But it's a testament to the quality of the music that I listened more than once to begin with. The highs are really high, and this shit really gets me going.

4/5

[Mike Dunn]

Bobby Feeno - Flamingo & Koval

I have to give props to Arian Foster. He did the unthinkable and crossed over from sports to music without making a complete fool of himself. Has that ever been done before? Shaq's albums are famously terrible. Tony Parker recorded a French rap album that I imagine would suck immensely if I could understand French. Apparently Jon Daly did backup vocals for Kid Rock? Yeah, general consensus is that jocks and musicians are two separate camps and it's usually a bad idea to cross the aisle.

So Bobby Feeno has a lot going for it. The production, which amazingly was also handled by Foster, is pretty stellar, integrating soul samples and soft electric pianos and synth pads. The beats remind me a lot of Photay, which is a good thing. The lyrical content covers some decent ground -- pining for ex lovers, family drama, family joy, the joys and challenges of fatherhood, reckoning financial comeup with a hood upbringing, throwing shots at organized religion. It pains a relatable picture of Foster as Feeno. It's surprisingly gentle for a rap album, with Feeno generally trading braggadocio for some heart on the sleeve aw shucks shit. It feels honest and generally works well for him.

With all that said I've got one big problem with this album. Bobby Feeno does this thing with his voice where he sounds like Bernie Mac in the skits on the first two Kanye albums -- that thing where his voice kind of cracks when he says vowels. Almost like he's hiccupping. I find this incredibly annoying and it made it hard to finish the album. It's a shame because his flow is solid, his lyrics are solid, the beats are solid, he's got almost everything else down. Some of the hooks are weak too ("I feel like a gawd/Y'all don't wanna do that", "I just wanna see your lips, babe" -- euggh). So in summation this is an album that I wish I could like more, but I probably won't be coming back to this well very often.

3/5

[MADali]

Daughters – You Won’t Get What You Want

I’m not really a fan of noise. I like melodies, okay, maybe it’s not very rock and roll of me, but to be honest, none of the classic rock were noise.

“You Won’t Get What You Want” seems to be trying their best to hide all their melodies. They are not a new band, and seem to have some following, so were they concerned that if they had less distortion in their music, their fans would consider them a bunch of sell outs? In an interview, the guitarist, Nicholas Sadler, said, “My natural inclination is toward strong melody,” he says. “And most of the music people have heard from me doesn’t express that. Daughters is kind of an anti-melody band. But if you go back and listen to the early stuff, there’s something listenable in what we do, and that’s part of where it comes from.”

So, why not just stick to that? The best example of what the band could be if they let go of their past baggage is the song, “Less Sex”. To me, “Less Sex” is everything I wish the album was. It is the only song where the vocals are on the forefront of the song, with the interjections of the noise coming in between the vocals, like some sort of anti-guitar solo. Eventually, when the two, the rough vocals and the distortion parts finally fuse, you are ready for it. It is not abrasive.

3/5

[MADali]

The Internet – Hive Mind

I suppose the name of the band completely matches the kind of music this album has. You think, what kind of band would choose “The Internet”, and you think, maybe it’s a band that’s just…everything? And in a way, that’s what the album seems to be. I’m not that knowledgeable about R&B, so maybe I’m wrong about this, but I felt like the album is throwing everything at me R&B, using all the R&B the band had in their toolbox.

It’s like googling R&B on...the Internet. Heh.

You know, I guess I’m just going to continue with my shitty Internet analogy. The album is like Facebook and Instagram and all big major internet companies we have today. They are all big and well-made, but I feel they don’t have that charm. The album, to me, doesn’t have any charm. It’s too slick, too generic, like something from the popular 90s R&B MTV artists, but with 2018 production values.

Also, the album feels too long. 13 tracks, at almost one hour, it was hard for me not to have the songs keep merging with one other. Which, in a way, I suppose is one of the album’s positive points. I have a hard time having an album with vocals on while reading, because I keep actively listening to the words and keep messing up my reading, but I actually found this album good background reading music.

3/5

[MADali]

Bobby Feeno - Flamingo & Koval

Rap is always a bit difficult for me to listen to since it’s so different than music I usually listen to, but I found this album really enjoyable.

Here is the first reason I liked the album. I enjoyed the music. I don’t mean the beats or whatever. The actual music. The intro has some great piano that I would have loved to listen to even if there was no rapping on top of it. Or maybe, I should say that I liked the song in spite of the rapping on top of it.

Okay, so that’s my first reason I liked the album, the music was good. Now, the second reason is that I really found Bobby Feeno. I don’t even know why, because it’s not like I listen to rap albums by actively listening to the lyrics. I don’t even get it, even when I listen carefully to it. What the hell is a watermelon sunrise? But I still felt some kind of sincerity from Bobby Feeno that made him likable.

Maybe it was because it didn’t feel like he was picking a fight with me, nor was he whispering in my ear, trying to fuck me (except with the track, “Lips”). Most of the time I felt that Bobby Feeno was having some heart to heart talk with me.

4/5

[MADali]

Roll Call:

Nominations:
Mike Dunn: Daughters
TL: Bobby Feeno
MHH: The Internet
Madali: Sons of Kemet
Hunter: Daytona

Reviewed:
Mike Dunn: Reviewed Sons of Kemet and Bobby Feeno. Three left.
TL: All five left.
MHH: Reviewed all, but didn't review own nomination. Tell us why you liked your own shit, man.
Madali: Reviewed three albums, two left.
Hunter: All five left.

Get your shit together, you fags.

[My Head Hurts 90]

The Internet: Madali already touched on why I liked this. Hive Mind runs through just about every modality of R&B and adds in a touch of funky dissonance to keep things from being stale. I played this album from start to finish way more than anything else that was made last year. True, some of the tracks may be hard to distinguish, but, speaking as a 30-year-old fuckbag that likes Dragon Prince, being able to have a record that I can tune in and out of and still be kind of interested in is a bonus.

I think I probably enjoyed the 2018 US Girls album more, but Hive Mind had recency bias.

[Ryoko's Biatch]

Does anyone else think the music club would be better if instead of everyone reviewing the same album, we just reviewed albums we've listened to recently? No pressure for other people to review it, but if they want to, they can.

Just a casual recommendation club for regular bros.

[Ryoko's Biatch]

Fuck y'all for not replying to my idea.

Tech N9ne - N9NA

I really liked this a lot! I've been thinking about how I'd describe it in terms of his larger catalog, but that's probably not relevant to this review. It might be his most accessible album, but that's not at all a negative. His skills as a rapper have always been top notch (imo), but I feel like a lot of his songs on previous albums suffered from really shitty hooks and poor beat selection. Not so here. Everything clicks. Even if you're not a Tech fan, I think it's worth checking out.

Stand out tracks: N9NA, Like I Ain't, F'n Do It, Rata, She Fell, I Caught Crazy

4/5

ScHoolboy Q - CrasH Talk

I liked it, but Oxymoron and Blank Face are both better. Don't @ me.

Stand out tracks: Numb Numb Juice, Drunk, 5200, Floating, Dangerous, CrasH

3.5/5

[MADali]

It's a decent enough idea, TL.

[My Head Hurts 90]

N9na - I generally don't like famously "technical" rappers because that's usually the same metric that makes people say things like "Eminem is a top 5 all-time rapper" even though his lyrics aren't worth a shit. Anyways, this is kind of what I imagine the greatest Twista album ever would sound like. It's a bit long, but the album balances fast/slow tracks. I agree with TL on pretty much all the tracks he highlights, but nothing really jumps out as being exceptionally memorable.


Recommendation

Musas - Natalia Lafourcade: It's summer and that means you're likely going to be outside eating some grilled meat. You'll need some relaxing music that's not too schmaltzy. Put this on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31q9ogWJnxc
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[Ryoko's Biatch]

Bobby Feeno - A Late February

I should have reviewed this one a few weeks ago. Anyway, it's good, but it's not the kind of music I'm all that into. The production is really, really nice. If you listened to Flamingo & Koval, it's the same flavor on the beats. I assume he did all of the production himself again. I guess I'm just not into love songs and this is an EP, and that's 4 out of 5. Ms. Carry, the fifth song, is interesting because it's not a topic you see talked about that much.

3.5/5

I've been listening to K.R.I.T. Iz Here, I'll try to review that soon.