BeatRoute Magazine B.C. print e-edition - January 2017

Fancey, Love Mirage
J. Cole, 4 Your Eyez Only
Kid Cudi, Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin’
stuck to his shadowy roots, while also maintaining
his current push for more pop accolades, it would
sound a lot like this EP. As if not to agitate the
dehydrated brain after a night out, the production
on this album is reserved and calming, yet the lyrics
linger like a headache, persistent in subject matter
and tone.
“I forgot about them things you did in college.
Can you forget about them things I did last night,”
asks The-Dream on “College Daze.”
The lyrics on this project range from symbolic
like “the sunlight brings out everything” to how
we all know a girl that flexes like Rihanna. The
dichotomy in these two different types of lines
is what keeps Love You To Death so engaging.
Production-wise, the EP plays it safe, but it works
as a concise package, proving that The-Dream is still
as memorable on his solo projects as the songs he
features on so frequently.
• Paul McAleer
Fancey
Love Mirage
Self-Released
Love Mirage is the new album from Todd Fancey,
the lead guitarist of The New Pornographers. To be
honest, I don’t think I’ve ever actually listened to
The New Pornographers. I decided to review this
album because my editor told me there was disco
involved. This is actually true to a large extent.
There is a substantial amount of disco involved, just
not the kind that I was thinking of. If there’s any
one term that can be used to describe this album it
would probably be “baroque pop,” a type of indie
that channels white, pop disco acts of the 1970s
like the Bee Gees and Electric Light Orchestra.
Fancey recorded the album with vintage
keyboards and synths, which is probably why
on tracks like “Carrie,” I legitimately thought I
was actually listening to ELO for a second.
Although there’s tempo variation
throughout the album, with slow crooners like
“Turn Around Baby,” and the upbeat roller-discomontage-worthy
“Witch Attack!,” it overall maintains
the same cheerful, airy spirit throughout the whole ten
tracks.
Those who aren’t fans of baroque pop will
probably find this album ironic at first, but we live
in an age where irony inevitably gives way to postirony,
so you might as well hasten the process and
check this one out.
• Jonathan Crane
Flower Girl
Tuck in Your Tie-Dye
BUFU Records and Designer Medium
With Tuck in Your Tie-Dye, NYC-based five-piece
Flower Girl have created a potent argument that
the best course for modern malaise is a giant grin
and a tie-dye shirt. Like a jubilant, jockish Stephen
Malkmus, Flower Girl leans heavily on a poppedup
imitation of Pavement, or early Wilco. Often,
Flower Girl sound like fellow NYC transplants
in Parquet Courts, blending Americana with an
indie, slacker ethos.
With the lead-off title track, Flower Girl
set a lackadaisical pace with a gentle, acoustic
guitar chunk and a heady, half-baked-but-extraobservational
vocal turn from frontman Nick Morris
that rests throughout the rest of the 12-track LP.
“Lets Build a Fort,” is another paisley-speckled
piece of sonic special brownie, combining clean
electric guitar with a deadpan vocal that makes
everything seem pseudo-serious. Really, that’s the
best way to experience this album, with a tongue
in cheek and not a care in the world.
• Jamie McNamara
J. Cole
4 Your Eyez Only
Dreamville/Roc Nation/Interscope
When J. Cole released 2014 Forest Hills Drive
with virtually no promotion, the album had to
be something special and the music would have
to speak for itself. 2014 Forest Hills Drive, as every
Cole fan will remind you, went double platinum
without any features, exceeding all expectations
and carving Cole a spot beside some of the hottest
rappers in the game.
With his latest record, 4 Your Eyez Only,
Cole attempts to reuse the formula that made
his previous album so successful. He uses the
same ingredients: a surprise release, no noticeable
features, and a documentary leading up to the
album release, but he forgot about delivering on
the music side of things.
While the majority of 2014 Forest Hills
Drive featured memorable hooks, versatile bars,
and conductive production, 4 Your Eyez Only is
boring, dull in comparison, lacking energy in every
extent in favour of telling a story. The concept
behind the project is about Cole’s friend who died
and the album is directed at his friend’s daughter.
The narrative is endearing, but the execution
is nowhere near Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A
Butterfly, an album that Cole may think he’s
competing with on 4 Your Eyez Only. While there
are great songs on this album like the title track,
“Neighbors,” and “Immortal,” there are too many
tracks in-between that water down and sabotage
the entire record.
With his sales lifting him up, Cole is
unrelenting in letting his listeners know that he
is one of the greats, but saying it does not make
it true; the music has to speak to the claim too,
something Cole has clearly forgotten with his
latest release.
• Paul McAleer
Kid Cudi
Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin’
Wicked Awesome / Republic
Following the backlash towards 2015’s Speedin’
Bullet 2 Heaven, it’s no surprise that Scott Mescudi
a.k.a. Kid Cudi would try his damnedest to revert
back to the sound by which he originally made
his name, though to do so in such a spectacular
(see: incredibly monotonous) fashion, may have
ultimately been his downfall.
Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin’, his latest
effort, is a four-part, 86-minute expression in
phonetics featuring his archetypal wails, hums,
and haws, slowly spread over nineteen (nineteen!)
near-indistinguishable tracks ranging from long
and drawn out, to slightly-shorter and drawn out.
If the title is any indication, his recent
rehabilitation for depression earlier this year
seems to have directly influenced Passion,
Pain & Demon Slayin’, with many of its tracks
featuring Cudi confronting some of his issues
head on, but it poses the question: What else
can be said about Cudi and his demons that
hasn’t already been said over six albums and
a mixtape?
The main issue with Passion, Pain &
Demon Slayin’ is that it’s an amalgamation
of all the Cudi tropes: highly viscous
production, fogged-out vocals, and even his
at-times clever lyricism can’t save what is
essentially a lacklustre, if not incredibly long,
performance.
It’s no Speedin’ Bullet, thankfully, but
Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin’ leaves the
listener hoping that the man on the moon
finds a better place to land sometime soon.
• Alec Warkentin
January 2017 reviews
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