St. Vincent "Daddy's Home" (2021)

Daddy's Home

release date: May 14, 2021

format: digital (14 x File, FLAC)

[album rate: 3 / 5] [3,12]

producer: Annie Clark & Jack Antonoff

label: Loma Vista Recordings - nationality: USA

Track highlights: 1. "Pay Your Way in Pain" (live) - 2. "Down and Out Downtown" - 3. "Daddy's Home" - 4. "Live in the Dream" - 5. "The Melting of the Sun" - 7. "The Laughing Man" - 10. "Somebody Like Me"

7th studio album by St. Vincent follows 2½ years after MassEducation (Oct. 2018), which didn't really offer brand new songs but merely contained acoustic interpretations of songs from Masseduction (Oct. 2017), which still counts as St. Vincent's most recent album, and this new one is like that made in collaboration with producer Jack Antonoff, who is also credited as co-composer on five cuts.

Stylistically, it's unsurprisingly a new mix that Annie Clark comes up with here, although as her recent releases it's music without her previously distinct guitar signature, which markedly characterised her first albums. Where Masseduction offered experimental synthpop, she has now dressed out in 70s nostalgia with equal parts of psychedelic pop and soft glam rock - or: soft psychedelic rock and glam pop. The songs are quiet ones in a laid-back style with focus on the narrative, and it sounds to me like Clark has plowed through everything with Bowie from Aladdin Sane (1973) to Young Americans (1975) and then with some inspiration from Pink Floyd she has set the stove on a low flame. And St. Vincent does share some traits with Bowie: she is always a distinct persona, based on her latest music, and you never know in which direction she moves from there, but you know it's top-dollar-styled like a new production by Andrew Lloyd Webber without ever revealing the actual living individual behind the mask. In the long run, St. Vincent may touch on enervating, and I'm no (longer) the great St. Vincent fan I used to be after her first three albums where she was Annie Clark - the fabulous musician and brilliant guitarist. Now the whole thing has really gone Big Business and she has to conquer every scene dressed up in a new skin suit matching a new ground tone and new musical ideas. It's completely deliciously produced and beautifully executed, but unfortunately also... touching on boring. It lacks edge and a will to mark itself as anything other than another one of today's greats with an album you'll see high up in the charts and which will be forgotten in a year. Don't forget to make great music!!

Not recommended.

[ allmusic.com, NME, Rolling Stone 4 / 5, 👍Pitchfork 6,7 / 10 stars ]

Lingua Ignota "Sinner Get Ready" (2021)

Sinner Get Ready

release date: Aug. 6, 2021

format: digital (9 x File, FLAC)

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,62]

producer: Kristin Hayter

label: Sargent House - nationality: USA

Track highlights: 2. "I Who Bend the Tall Grasses" - 4. "Pennsylvania Furnance" (4 / 5) - 6. "The Sacres Linament of Judgement" - 7. "Perpetual Flame of Centralia" - 8. "Man Is Like a Spring Flower" - 9. "The Solitary Brethren of Ephrata"

4th studio album by Lingua Ignota (aka Kristin Hayter) following two years after Caligula (Jul. 2019) is once again with Hayter herself in multiple roles as technical staff, photographer, and producer. The album is partially made in collaboration with sound engineer and producer Seth Manchester, but otherwise it's exclusively Hayter as vocalist, instrumentalist, and composer. As Lingua Ignota she continues in the apocalyptic style with a less hard-hitting industrial tone than what characterised the predecessor, and instead there is room for a greater musical scope, which suits her expression. Additional stylistic features creep in from traditional folk, Americana, experimental music mixed with pervasive classical notes. On a first listen, it may sound a much like produced on the same thematic pot, but where she focused on Satan on her previous album, she now confronts God and blind believers. The lyrics revolve around Christian liturgy, sin, punishment, death, revenge, and to a lesser extent, the theme of forgiveness.

The album has generally been met by positive reviews, much like Caligula did. If you're not familiar with Lingua Ignota, it might be a bit of a frightening acquaintance at first with her obvious fascination for hard-hitting thrash metal and the death metal realm, but if you're able to stay in the intrusive brutal darkness, you may notice how other tones are present and open up. It's in the counterplay between the beauty and the ugly that Hayter moves confrontationally in and out of moods. Under the moniker of Lingua Ignota, Hayter released her debut album Let the Evil of His Own Lips Cover Him via bandcamp.com in Feb. 2017, and already with the follow-up All Bitches Die (Jun. 2017) just five months later, she had become an international name. The album Caligula from 2019 is her first with a record company to back her up. She is trained in classical music, and stylistically, she skilfully mix elements from experimental popular music with classical music and thus has a natural kinship with Diamanda Galás. Both play with the brutal confrontation with Christian ideals in experimental classical processing. Here, you'll also find links to more recent neoclassical music such as Chelsea Wolfe and Swedish artist Anna von Hausswolff, who both experiment with a mix of popular music, and especially darkwave style, with classical compositions and furthermore exploit tensions between beauty and ugly. Hayter still sounds like no one else, because she is also an artist who seems more deeply rooted in alternative noise styles and more experimental approaches.

I can easily imagine Lingua Ignota as a highly original and fascinating artist, but focusing purely on the music product, her expression with strong bonds to a thrash metal and black metal scene then places Hayter in the periphery of what I basically understand works as good music.

However, Sinner Get Ready is Hayter's most nuanced and complex album and it's definitely worth to know.

Recommended.

[ bandcamp ]

[ Gaffa.dk 6 / 6, Pitchfork, The Guardian, PopMatters 4 / 5 stars ]

Efterklang "Windflowers" (2021)

Windflowers

release date: Oct. 8, 2021

format: digital (9 x File, FLAC)

[album rate: 2,5 / 5] [2,64]

producer: Efterklang

label: City Slang - nationality: Denmark

6th studio album by Efterklang following two years after Altid sammen, entirely held in Danish and exclusively produced by the trio, which currently has been associated with the label City Slang.

On the predecessor, it was something completely new with lyrics in Danish only, but here they have taken the leap back to the English language. Musically, the band has always tried to push the boundaries to a stylistic expression grounded in the ambient department of electronica. Efterklang has released music with neo-classical elements, large-scale orchestral arrangements, music with a greater focus on bass and drums, and they have released music with experimental organic touch. It has always been clearly based on ambient, and that is also the case here on this one. On the other hand, it has become the English language again. And unfortunately, I'm tempted to say, because on Windflowers they no longer sound quite as unique as they beautifully succeeded with the predecessor. It's a collection of compositions with lots of music in major notes and a sense of uniformity creeps in quite quickly in all of the bright candyfloss. The music is large-scaled, with high-to-the-ceiling synthesizers and pompous arrangements, and lead singer Casper Clausen glides merrily into the sky in a hot air balloon through chamber pop pink and light blue clouds.

Sorry, but it wasn't this way, boys! After a few listens, I must state that Efterklang does not, as usual, manage to successfully explore new boundaries within the band's musical landscape. They recycle too much what they may think the world is longing for. It is without nerve, and the end result is reminiscent of a product from the cookie factory Karen Volf: too much sugar, too little originality, but in return lots of added filling.

Ikke anbefalet.

[ bandcamp ]

[ Gaffa.dk 5 / 6, The Line of Best Fit 4 / 5 stars ]