34 BEATROUTE JULY <strong>2019</strong> ALL AGES!
MUSiC ALBUM REVIEWS DANIEL CAESAR CASE STUDY 01 Golden Child Recordings Toronto’s alternative R&B neo-soul king Daniel Caesar dropped his sophomore project CASE STUDY 01 as a surprise on a packed release day, but still managed to grab all the much deserved online attention. After his excellent breakthrough, Freudian, fans were left waiting for more of his high-concept songwriting and aching falsetto. The album opens with American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer’s famous atomic bomb speech, and Caesar satisfies those desires by dropping the musical equivalent of one immediately after. In true Torontonian fashion, CASE STUDY 01 is an eclectic mix of sounds, mostly staying true to his passionately crooned slow burns while honoring where Caesar came from with a couple of other welcomed diversions. Jamaican music is a huge part of the Toronto scene and Caesar has Jamaican roots. Hearing this side of him on “Cyanide” is almost as nice as his return to the gospel music he grew up on, with a soulful choir enhancing tracks like “Open Up” and “Restore The Feeling.” It wouldn’t be a Caesar album without some deep ruminations on life either, as he ponders the heat death of the universe, scientific phenomena, and – most affectingly – struggles with staying true to his faith on “Too Deep To Turn Back.” . Best Track: Open Up Ben Boddez K.FLAY Solutions Interscope/Night Street K.Flay is finished caring what anyone thinks. Solutions, her third full-length offering, is a 10-track altpop hip-hop album whose singles hint at a project brimming with catharsis. She wrote the album after returning home from her last tour and finding herself in a dark headspace. After revisiting what made her happy in childhood, before vices like drugs and alcohol made emotional suppression easier than self-reflection, she was inspired to return to that mindset through doodling, long phone calls with her mom, and reconnecting with music in its purest form. Solutions is the result. The album opens with “I Like Myself,” an affirming anthem about accepting the fact that maybe we’re all more average than we present ourselves to be on social media. K.Flay slows down and gets more pensive on “Nervous,” which is a just-as-synthy but less bassheavy exploration of the nervous excitement of a new relationship when that uncertainty over where things stand still lingers heavily in the air. Solutions uses instrumentation sparingly in a way that complements K.Flay’s confident vocals and refined lyricism, which weave the album together from track one to finale “DNA.” The project is a personal one that offers an intimate glimpse into the mind of an artist whose energy is palpable. Best Track: Nervous Jordan Yeager BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN Western Stars Columbia Records Western Stars is a 180 degree departure from Springsteen’s recent studio records, shifting the emphasis from bass, drum and guitars to lush, rich and elegant orchestral arrangements. They reverberate from the Southwestern States combining Springsteen’s brisk acoustic work with the sweeping, country-pop overtones of Jimmy Webb’s stellar LA studio hits from the late 60s. The production is majestic and panoramic — a soundtrack arching across the desert floor and open skies cast upon Hollywood’s big screen. While melodies swell, sometimes stratospheric, Springsteen’s storytelling pulls it all down into quiet, intimate pockets. Many characters bare a resemblance to those found in 1987’s Tunnel Of Love, with lives burdened and broken by choices made that can’t be undone. Yet there’s also the freewheeling hitchhiker, first to appear on the record, who’s got no destination in mind except raking in the experience of each ride. At the desert cafe, truckers and bikers meet, the roadhouse overflows with drink and dance where “summer girls in the parking lot slap their make-up on and flirt the night away.” Western Stars is a complex landscape, optimistic and joyous as it is desolate, fatalistic and bittersweet. In it Springsteen draws on people and places as well as his own history grounded in that corner of the universe resulting in a remarkable concept album where the magic flows once again. Best Track: Moonlight Motel Brad Simm GIRLFRIEND MATERIAL Cool Car Dine Alone Led by Tokyo Police Club keyboardist Graham Wright, Girlfriend Material fleshes out the sounds from the band’s 2017 self-titled EP with jangly pop hooks and plenty of lyrics about relationships, breakups, and recoveries. These songs effectively portray a confidence for the here and now, rather than an aching for what should have been. First single, “First of the Month,” recalls the fantastic guitar licks and tempo changes that made TPC’s debut album so fun to listen to, retaining a youthful cynicism about the world today. Maturity also shines through on Cool Car. With experienced musicians like fellow TPC member Josh Hook and Hollerado’s Jake Boyd rounding out the project, Wright is confident and free to write songs from the heart. Sonically, it’s not too far from anything we’ve heard from Tokyo Police Club or Hollerado before, but the songs on Cool Car display an energy and infectiousness that will have you bobbing your head and singing along. If you’re looking for a side hustle to complement your rotation of Can-rock faves this summer, Cool Car is the pimped out Toyota Tercel you’ve been waiting for. Best Track: First of the Month Trevor Morelli THOM YORKE ANIMA XL Recordings Some dream theorists suggest that within our unconscious, dwell alternate versions of our personalities. One such logician, Carl Jung, conceptualized the idea of “Anima” as representing the unconscious feminine qualities of the male psyche. This approach seems fitting for the title of Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke’s new solo album, whose falsetto voice and undiscerning vulnerability has always been the focal point of his music. ANIMA is an electronic record, like his last release Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes. Opening track “Traffic,” begins with a simple UK House beat but becomes chaotic and busy as Yorke’s tender vocals weave in and out between inconsistent patterns. The tracks aren’t messy; the production remains calculated, but the unpredictable trajectory of the songs keeps them exciting. It’s not all overly complicated though. Tracks “Twist” and “Dawn Chorus” ditch the club vibe for more delicate melodies, further exploring Yorke’s feminine dreamscapes. But this only lasts until the album’s final track, “Runwayaway,” which meshes nightmarish ambient rhythms with electronically altered vocals, leaving you gasping for air upon awakening. For a full scale experience, check out the album’s visceral accompanying short film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, available now on Netflix. Best Track: Impossible Knots Jeevin Johal JULY <strong>2019</strong> BEATROUTE 35