My Chemical Romance, ‘The Foundations of Decay’
My Chemical Romance — the New Jersey band that fused the
momentum of pop-punk, the crunch of hard rock and the opulent productions of
glam — announced its breakup in 2013 and released its last new song in 2014.
Although the band reunited to tour in 2019, “The Foundations of Decay” is its
first new material since then. There’s no punk sarcasm for now; as the music
builds from measured dirge to pummeling anthem, the lyrics both recognize and
rail against the ravages of time, even on the verge of a new tour. —
JON PARELES
اضافة اعلان
The Smile, ‘The Opposite’
On its debut album, “A Light for Attracting Attention,”
The Smile is Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead joined by a different
drummer: Tom Skinner from Sons of Kemet. The new band’s ingredients add up
largely as expected: a leaner take on Radiohead’s long-standing thoughts of
alienation and malaise, pushing rhythm into the foreground. Skinner starts “The
Opposite” by himself, with a sputtering, shifty funk beat that is soon topped
by an accumulation of overlapping, stop-start guitar riffs, each one adding a
new bit of disorientation. Yorke might be describing the track itself when he
sings, “It goes back and forth followed by a question mark.” — PARELES
lack midi, ‘Welcome to Hell’
“
Welcome to Hell” announces the third album by black midi,
“Hellfire,” due July 15. It’s a jagged, funky, speed-shifting minisuite, by
turns brutal and sardonic, with lyrics about the dehumanization of a soldier.
“To die for your country does not win a war / To kill for your country is what
wins a war,” Geordie Greep sings. The music is exhilarating; the aftertaste is
bleak. — PARELES
Kendrick Lamar, ‘The Heart Part 5’
Kendrick Lamar has made a series of songs called “
The Heart” to
preface his albums. “The Heart Part 5” arrived a few days before his new one, “Mr.
Morale & the Big Steppers.” As always, Lamar’s work is multilayered,
self-questioning, thoughtful, rhythmic and bold. The track’s jumpy, insistent
conga drums, bass line and backup vocals come from Marvin Gaye’s “I Want You,”
a title that Lamar repurposes to address his fans. On the sonic level, Lamar’s
fast-talking vocals challenge the congas for syllable-by-syllable momentum. His
mission is to “Sacrifice personal gain over everything / Just to see the next
generation better than ours.” The song’s video clip uses deepfake technology to
make Lamar look like-charged cultural figures such as O.J. Simpson, Kanye West,
and Nipsey Hussle. This is hip-hop working through its own implications,
contradictions and repercussions. — PARELES
Flores, ‘Brown’
Flores’ voice has luster, but she can also envelop messages of
pain and pride into moments of gentle acuity. On “Brown,” from her debut EP
“The Lives They Left,” she meditates on her upbringing on the El Paso,
Texas-Juárez border: the violence of government agencies such as Immigration
and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, as well as the small
joys of quotidian life, what she calls “brown trust” and “brown love.” A lonely
saxophone resounds under the production, as Flores reflects on the resilience
of the Indigenous ancestors that preceded her: “When they ask you where you
people come from / 16,000 years we here / Valleys stained of blood and tears /
Mexica let ’em know / This the land we’ve sown / Laid the seeds that
grow.” — ISABELIA HERRERA
Remi Wolf, ‘Michael’
“Michael” is a relatively subdued song for an artist as antic
and kaleidoscopic as Remi Wolf, but she puts her stamp on it nonetheless.
Written with Porches mastermind Aaron Maine — their first time working together
— and Wolf’s touring guitarist Jack DeMeo, the track is a sing-songy depiction
of romantic desperation, with Wolf singing from the perspective of someone
clinging to an obsessive relationship she knows is doomed. “Michael, hold my
hand and spin me round until I’m dizzy,” she begs atop a murky electric guitar
progression. “Loosen up my chemicals.” — LINDSAY ZOLADZ
Julia Jacklin, ‘Lydia Wears a Cross’
Australian singer-songwriter
Julia Jacklin’s music is a gradual
accumulation of small, sharp lyrical details, and “Lydia Wears a Cross,” the
first single from her forthcoming album “Pre Pleasure,” is full of them: Two
young girls “listening to ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ soundtrack”; a child
“singing every single word wrong” on a parade float; a catechism teacher
instructing her pupils to pray for Princess Diana. Such snapshots create a
larger atmosphere of religious indoctrination and Jacklin’s youthful
questioning: “I felt pretty in the shoes and the dress / Confused by the rest,
could he hear me?” The arrangement is sparse — drum machine, echoing stabs of
piano — to spotlight Jacklin’s storytelling, but a subtle unease creeps in when
she gets to the haunting chorus: “I’d be a believer, if it was all just song
and dance / I’d be a believer, if I thought we had a chance.” — ZOLADZ
Death Cab for Cutie, ‘Roman Candles’
Ben Gibbard sings about numbness and detachment — claiming “I am
learning to let go / of everything I tried to hold” — in “
Roman Candles,” the
preview of an album due in September. But the music belies any claim to
serenity. Drums, bass and guitars all overload and distort, pounding away in a
relentless two-minute surge. — PARELES
The Black Keys, ‘How Long’
There’s usually some angst tucked between the brawny
classic-rock riffs on a Black Keys album. The duo’s new one, “Dropout Boogie,”
includes “
How Long,” a betrayed lover’s confession of desperate devotion. Just
two descending chords, a cycle of disappointment, carry most of the song, with
layers of guitar piling on like heartaches. “Even in our final hour / See the
beauty in the dying flower,” Dan Auerbach sings in the bridge, but the
obsession isn’t over; the song ends with the narrator still wondering, “How
long?” — PARELES
Joy Oladokun, ‘Purple Haze’
It’s not the Jimi Hendrix song. “You and I know that love is all
we need to survive,” Joy Oladokun insists in her own “
Purple Haze,” preaching
togetherness in the face of dire possibilities. A syncopated acoustic guitar
and Oladokun’s determined voice hint at Tracy Chapman as the song begins; more
vocals and guitars join her, insisting on optimism even if “maybe we’re running
out of time.” — PARELES
Ches Smith, ‘Interpret It Well’
There’s a nervy, bated-breath feeling about the music that
drummer and vibraphonist Ches Smith is making with his new quartet featuring
Mat Maneri on violin, Craig Taborn on piano and Bill Frisell on guitar. It’s
not fully dread, but not simple anticipation either. For an LP led by a
drummer, “Interpret It Well” is full of extended passages with no drumming;
latent tension hangs where the percussion might have been. On the title track,
Smith taps the vibraphone in a pattern of resonant octaves, and the rest of the
quartet grows restless behind him. A bluesy aside from Frisell sends the band
into silence, and Taborn plays a long cadenza. By the end of the nearly
14-minute track, the four are charging ahead together. This is the peak, but
the stench of expectation still lingers, as if something else even louder — or
completely peaceful — waits just ahead. — GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO
Jacob Garchik, ‘Fanfare’
Trombonist and composer
Jacob Garchik treated his new album,
“Assembly,” as a canvas for some impressive formal experiments, and there’s
rarely a dull moment. Its tracks include spontaneous improvisations reframed
via overdubs; complex compositions mixing two different tempos; and dissections
of pieces of the jazz canon. On the fast-charging “Fanfare,” as Garchik and
soprano saxophonist Sam Newsome harmonize on a series of descending and
ascending patterns, the rhythm section’s off-track backing gives the illusion
that things are speeding up. Then, suddenly, a long, cooled-out passage begins,
just trombone and piano, with Garchik sounding as buttery as Tricky Sam Nanton
over changes borrowed from Duke Ellington’s “In a Sentimental Mood.” —
RUSSONELLO
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