Semipop Life: Take the power back

Megan Thee Stallion, Run the Jewels, Jason Isbell, Little Big Town, and more!

ALBUM OF THE MONTH: Megan Thee Stallion: Suga

I don’t know if Megan herself would agree, but I think her output these last couple of years has matched Missy’s or Nicki’s best runs (maybe not Roxanne’s.) As released, this album doesn’t quite make that case: it lacks the #1 Beyoncé remix of “Savage”, nor does it have soundtrack collaborations “Diamonds” and “Ride or Die”, though digitalists can and should sub/add these. What there is: diversity in rhyme schemes, diversity in penises and sometimes none at all, contrasting models of drunk-with-agency from her and Kehlani, and the strongest reclamation of b-i-t-c-h to date, which also happens to be a more efficient reclamation of Tupac than K. Lamar managed. Backing her up are expensive beats from the Neptunes and (remember him) Timbaland, and better beats from Tee Grizzley associate Helluva. All done in 24 minutes, and she’s already started restocking for a real album for after she sorts her label problems out.

Grade: A MINUS (“Captain Hook”, “B.I.T.C.H.”, “Hit My Phone”)

Run the Jewels: RTJ4

A tick better than their last one, which was plenty good. Mike is square when he’s not talking politics, El-P jokes like a Dragonball Z character trying to make King Kai laugh, the buddy show conceit shows how hard it is to imagine a 21st century revolution that isn’t televised, and the pair of them remain more samey than complementary. Does any of that matter? Not much, because as we know, everything is politics, mass media can drive change if you’re good at co-opting it, and sledgehammers have long been an appropriate tool for breaking things like, say, police power, such that adding Zack De La Rocha’s additional hammer just speeds the job. And if your jokes still mostly involve dick and drug references, then sure, they’re funnier if you deliver them with a massively inflated power level.

Grade: A MINUS (“JU$T”, “A Few Words for the Firing Squad”, “Holy Calamafuck”)

Cadence Revolution: Disques Debs International Vol. 2

Mostly post-mini jazz, pre-zouk bands from the Lesser Antilles taking advantage of Disque Debs’ then-state-of-the-art recording facilities in Guadeloupe. The collection starts off heavy on percussion-forward groups with “Combo” in their name laying out “cadence-lypso”, showing close connections to Haitian compas. It soon gets idiosyncratic, with excursions to the big band past (Ti Céleste’s beguine) and to points further north (one’s called “Disco Funk”) and west (in addition to a straight Jamaican-style track by Dominica’s Midnight Groovers, there’s more than a whiff of second-hand smoke floating around), aided by lotsa horns, lotsa cymbals, some cowbell. The major selling point throughout is the intensity of rhythm, best displayed in the Henry-Wenceslas Thenard Band’s “Good Trip”, where even as the instrumentation gets dinkier (tinny hi-hats, ’80s keyb-organ), the groove deepens.

Grade: A MINUS (H.W.T. Band, “Good Trip”; Typical Combo, “Piensalo Bien”; Guy Conquette, “Ping Pong”)

Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit: Reunions

Since he became an ex-Trucker, I’ve found him worthy but square. Yet though the differences between this and his previous six albums are minor, this one I’ve connected with. Perhaps I’m just a tune nerd—the verse melodies melt into the choruses like a Dreamsicle liquifying into a dream of an absent father. Okay, maybe not, but there’s an improved clarity at mid-tempo and low-to-mid volume, so credit where it’s due to Dave Cobb for making the songs sound distinct. The writing, as ever, is strong: the tangibility of his nightmare in “It Gets Easier” makes it impossible to dismiss it as just a self-help song. “Be Afraid” is just a self-help song, but these days you should take all the help you can use, not least from yourself.

Grade: A MINUS (“Dreamsicle”, “Be Afraid”, “It Gets Easier”)

Shopping: All or Nothing

I can live with Pitchfork calling them “disco-punk” as a consequence of bassist Billy Easter tightening up again. Their attention to the erosion of civil liberties notwithstanding, they haven’t suddenly become Gang of Four, though their lyrics have become a little more polysyllabic—words in titles include “initiative” and “apologies,” the latter preceded by a “no,” of course. Amidst this anti-minimalism, it’s a relief that Rachel Aggs can still create a memorable guitar part out of three notes. The band makes better use of dual vocals than they have previously, with one singer droning an idea while another intones something equally repetitive in a conversation that goes nowhere, blessedly fast.

Grade: A MINUS (“Initiative”, “No Apologies”, “Body Clock”)

Al Bilali Soudan: Tombouctou

A teharhent is basically an ngoni, and once electrified, I don’t even know if I could distinguish either from a guitar played with a consistently bright ringing tone on all strings. Non-rock scales aside, the two-and-a-bass teharhents sound at times like early Velvets noise: sometimes settling into repeating droning patterns, sometimes executing riffs that could perturb Slash’s hat, like the lightning intro to “Djaba”, which threatens to settle into a relatively simple motif but keeps evolving. They’re at least as fun when the calabashes are further forward and the band blasts away at the groove, letting dissonance prevail without any loss of control. Proto-punk?

Grade: A MINUS (“Apolo”, “Mariama”, “La Paix”)

Ashley McBryde: Never Will

If you thought Girl Going Nowhere erred toward overstatement, you’ll be disappointed to hear Jay Joyce turn the rawk dial up yet another notch: there are guitar solos without a hint of irony, and the ones with dynamics show off the loud parts better than the quiet parts. But the melodies and metaphors too are extended further, not entirely thanks to the limited involvement of Drs. Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, though the latter is one of three hands in single/standout "One Night Standards", which is extremely casual about casual sex, though don’t get her wrong, she’ll still at least consider murder as retribution for adultery (for the woman.) “Styrofoam”, by the late Randall Clay, is the other memorable one, disposable yet useful and maybe not even that anti-ecological in the scheme of things.

Grade: B PLUS (“One Night Standards”, “Styrofoam”, “Never Will”)

Dave: Psychodrama

The most cerebral of the current Brithop insurgency, often compared to Kendrick by the UK press, presumably some of whom have heard more than two rappers. His flow, determined but not without urgency, gets his race-proud and class-aware points across concisely, save for a long closer featuring his imprisoned brother and a longer harp-assisted one describing an abused woman that has a realness to it despite not really getting inside her point of view. He deftly sketches the contradictions of black life in South London and the mental toll that processing them takes, and comes to conclusions rather than epiphanies. His Brit Awards line “our Prime Minister’s a real racist” suggests the latter may not be long in coming.

Grade: B PLUS (“Streatham”, “Black”, “Lesley”)

Little Big Town: Nightfall

There’s reassurance in listening to these middle-aged parents who have been singing together half their lives, in the ease with which they perform together—like Fleetwood Mac without the IRL melodrama. In the album’s first half, the band shares leads on the happy and sad love songs and happy and sad drinking songs, all of which are excellently harmonized. In the second half, first-among-equals Karen Fairchild gives free rein to her compassionate Christianity; the couplet that’s got attention is “I’ve heard of God the Son and God the Father/I’m just looking for a God for the daughters”. Don’t know which book of the Bible the same song’s “Damn, I look good in this dress” is from, but it’s more directly inspirational.

Grade: B PLUS (“The Daughters”, “Sugar Coat”, “Problem Child”)