#2
The Beths - Future Me Hates Me
107 points, 6 votes
Ranked Highest By: Nick Vermeil, D_House, steelcitysledgehammers, Northern Voice, El Floppo, Eephus
Review:
A wonderful little record that never lets up, piling on unassumingly buzzy fun until you start realizing you might be in the presence of a true power-pop monument. The Beths are from New Zealand, so singer-guitarist Elizabeth Stokes’ accent might make you think of Courtney Barnett a little – especially when she’s firing off auto-critical logorrhea like “you’re in my brain taking up space / I need for remembering pins and to take out the bins / And that one particular film that that actor was in I see your face superimposed over everything / It ain’t right.” But the Beths are more a band-band and a song-band than a singer-songwriter-band, brilliant at bright guitar frenzy, instantly memorable melodies and tune-mad group sing-alongs with the joy of Sixties bubblegum rock; there’s a real love at solving pop formula here (they’ve got a song called “Uptown Girl,” for gosh sake), but they never lose the sense of discovery at heart of rock and roll. Stokes sings about the usual self-doubt and affliction without getting bogged down in the sads, punching through pain on songs like “Great No One,” “You Wouldn’t Like Me” and “Happy Unhappy” with the help of lead guitarist Jonathan Pearce, whose sunny squall suggests a ritual sweetening of Bob Stinson’s AOR god-barf. On “Whatever” love gets her so mixed up she threatens to swerve her car and you with it right into the water (“and wait for the maker”) but the song is as sleek as, well, the Cars themselves.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/review-the-beths-future-me-hates-me-is-a-power-pop-monument-711511/
#1
Parquet Courts - Wide Awake!
121 points, 9 votes
Ranked Highest By: El Floppo, Northern Voice, E-Z Glider, D_House, Jaysus, The Dreaded Marco, Eephus, ericttspikes, steelcitysledgehammers
Review:
At the conclusion of "Total Football," the captivating introduction to Parquet Courts' wondrous and outspoken new album, Wide Awake!, there's a lyrical barrage worth contemplating: "Swapping parts and roles is not acting but rather emancipation from expectation / Collectivism and autonomy are not mutually exclusive / Those who find discomfort in your goals of liberation will be issued no apology / #### Tom Brady."
The abrupt shift from empowering manifesto to nihilistic provocation is in keeping with the kind of agit-prop Parquet Courts are up to on this, their seventh proper album. Wide Awake! is a letter-perfect musical contemplation of modern times, where social uprisings are actually affecting positive change. It's urgent and potent music that's thought-provoking and danceable, and whose rage is measured by a pointed optimism. As such, an easy corollary can be made between the album's coy title and being "woke."
The kind of conscious protest music that Parquet Courts have crafted for Wide Awake! is certainly punk-infused in spirit, and it's also refreshingly anchorless rock'n'roll. Produced by Danger Mouse, the band's gritty, open-minded aesthetic is intact, with elements of almost every (good) genre signifier you can name: "Mari Gras Beads" evokes the contemporary country of the Sadies; the title track is a block party funk workout worthy of Talking Heads; and "Violence" has a breakdown with a synth line that Dr. Dre would contemplate copping, evoking the band's recurring interest in hip-hop.
With the kind of cultural reflection and commentary going on here, it's no accident that in the midst of a socio-cultural sea change among young people investing in their own future, Wide Awake! has floated to the surface, and is just waiting to get you through some ####, like a beacon.
https://exclaim.ca/music/article/parquet_courts-wide_awake
