Music journalism is going to the wall, and places for sensible, well-informed, nuanced takes on the latest releases are dwindling. So we thought we might as well put the final nail in the coffin.

Read all of August’s album reviews here, here and here.

Turnstile
Never Enough: Versions
Roadrunner Records
This new album of remixes, covers, and collaborations from Turnstile, the Baltimore band which has, perhaps regrettably, reconfigured our understanding of what hardcore is, comes on like a genre reveal party. They’ve pulled a genuinely deranged gang together: Slayyyter swapping those “brand new chanel$” for a pair of Converse All Stars, Four Tet chopping up his three-chord adolescence, and, at the age of 79, Elton John finally joining a youth crew. Getting 22 of your most talented friends to reimagine your songbook, fiddling about with all your stem files and lyric sheets, is a true test of the source material. And though, on the original record, Turnstile strays dangerously close to nu metal, Never Enough: Versions is a serious upgrade on the dismal efforts slopped out by the biggest alternative acts of the early 2000s—in fact, I absolutely prefer it to the original release.

Stripped of cowbell and detuned guitars, the melodies stand out defiantly, not least on Porches’ gentle rendition of the record’s title track. And Floating Points’s pulsating take on “Sole” goes—unironically—harder than anything Turnstile has put out in years. Sure, there are moments that you make question how much these disparate elements and influences truly belong together. Luckily, the tracks are ordered well, dear sweet Panda Bear is there to play peacekeeper, showing up to stop Dying Fetus ritualistically disemboweling poor old Elton as he bellows his way through “Seeing Stars”, like he’s trying to get a circle pit going at Princess Di’s funeral.

8/10
JELO BIPHORIA

Czarface and Frankie Pulitzer
Czarface Meets Frankie Pulitzer
Silver Age

What is Tom Hardy if not a collection of silly voices in a nice flesh suit? From the start of his acting career, he was blessed with a lethal face card, and at the peak of his fame, he had a truly terrifying physique, but his accents always felt like the purest expression of his being; the savage theatrical eloquence of Charles Bronson; his weird Welsh-Indian thing in Locke; whatever the hell is going on with Bane. If he didn’t look so good on screen, he could’ve had a career as a rapper. Off the back of this hookup with rap supergroup Czarface, I’m not saying quit the day job, but his turn as Frankie Pulitzer makes for an entertaining enough second act. You think hip-hop is your ally…

5/10
PISS BANE

LA Priest
Into the Sky
Domino
Great work: just had an acid flashback. I was gazing at the artwork for Into the Sky—the sleeve appears to show an egg(?) suspended in the air above a snare drum—letting the fried-out synths run all over me when it hit. Suddenly, I was back in that Californian squat, convinced my skull was made of shell shards and my soul was an uncooked yolk floating in the gelatinous fluid of my ego. Then I fell off my chair and was convinced that my entire being had shattered open and run all over the dirty floor. Well, that’s your brain on LA Priest.

6/10
HUMPTY DUMBASS

Dinosaur Jr.
There Near
Jagjaguwar
You’ll never listen to indie rock in the same way once you realize “it’s all Neil Young.” The Canadian musician has sired a wistful dude ranch of yearning singer-songwriter stallions—MJ Lenderman, Modest Mouse, Wilco, and Jason Molina, according to this meme. But Dinosaur Jr. are at least partially responsible for wrangling a little of this influence down the years, taking his country rattle and ramming it through a fuzz pedal and out of a Mesa Boogie amp. And even if you feel the same way I do about guitar solos (Kurt might have stolen a few of their tricks, but this was one area where he had the right idea), you can’t deny their potency.

They’re still choppin’ after all this time. Is it better to burn out or to fade away? Who cares, just keep shredding and pray the rust never catches up.

6/10
SEBADO’S AND SEBADON’TS

Saul Williams
Leap Life
Big Dada
The new album from Saul Williams, his first solo full-length in seven years, is awash with spirits. The musician and poet communes with the dead on this fortifyingly righteous record, which is imbued with the many horrors of our current decade—murder, brutality, and all the other things that make me want to start drinking heavily and never stop. Abstract and full of incantations, while I was listening, I thought I might be having the kind of shamanic experience that inspired Leap Life, and was promptly sick all over myself. I don’t know if it was my inner demons or the MD 20/20, but I had a real sense of man’s inhumanity to his fellow man as I scrubbed the vomit from my brand new Nikes.

7/10
EBENEEZER BAD

Trippie Redd
#NDA
10K Projects
#Fuck #knows #why #Trippie #Redd #has #released #another #record #of #underwhelming, #if #at #times #entertaining, #emo #rap #just #a #month #after #his #last #one, #which #had #basically #the #same #name #only #without #the #hashtag. #Maybe #it #has #something #to #do #with #SEO #and #the #idea #that #if #you #flood #the #timeline #with #content #then #more #people #are #going #to #pay #attention (#let #me #know #if #I’m #doing #this #right) #or #maybe #he’s #just #lost #all #sense #of #quality #control—#letting #fans #vote #on #artwork, #what #was #that?—#in #which #case #I’d #be #happy #to #offer #my #editorial #services #on #a #consultancy #basis. #Trippie #if #you’re #reading #this #I’ve #sent #you #an #invite #to #connect #on #LinkedIn

4/10
#I’M #A #SAAS #MAN

Prince
Timeless
NPG Records
My ex-girlfriend always loved Prince more than me. He just about outlived our relationship, so fortunately I didn’t have to be there to console her when he died—it was bad enough when MJ OD’d (if you’ve not already realized, she had appalling taste in men). I’d love to know what she thinks of this long-awaited compilation album, with nine studio recordings and one live recording, covering the entirety of his career, but we don’t talk anymore. It’s a shame, but for her the grudge runs deep, just like Prince’s vault of unreleased material, and as long as there’s posthumous stuff left to put out, she’s not about to forgive me.

In summary, this isn’t a particularly worthy addition to Prince’s precious back catalog—this review just one more thing she can hold against me.

5/10
NEUROTIC CITY CAME ALIVE

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