The tight production and great performances all around make this their best work since 21st century, and a sleeper for best albums of 2019.

When Foxygen announced their latest album, they said it would be a ‘goodbye album.’ Not as in a direct goodbye to the duo’s work together, but a metaphor for a lot of goodbyes in the band’s history. From the tension between Sam and Rado, this being the last album of their record deal, and them saying they are no longer touring, there is a lot of goodbyes to go around. But some things they didn’t say farewell to on 

was the tight production from Rado, their 60’s to 80’s styled tunes with a stylistic Foxygen twist, and their love for dramatic music.

Coming off their theatrical 2017 release, 

, where they toured their Broadway antics with an orchestra set up and lots of mic flipping, the group had deviated away from their roots of classic rock sound for a more soundtrack style of music. With their first two albums, 

We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors Of Peace And Magic,

 they took their influences of The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Velvet Underground, etc. and took a modern production approach to their music. Though many who go down this path end up as a flat, almost cover band (not pointing fingers but Getta Va….) trying to bring back the ‘old days’ of music past, Foxygen reinvents the sound with their own twists here and there. With the amazing instrumentation and production work from Jonathan Rado and the theatrical vocal performances from Sam France, Foxygen makes this style of play work, and work really well.

, they combined their love of reinventing old sounds with their latest soundtracky style and created a packed, though short, 37 minutes of tight production and performance. The singles from 

really hyped up the album with all three bringing something different to the table. With a dramatic performance from France, and great backing string parts composed by Rado, the lead single “Living a Lie” shows the theatrical flavor and subtle instrumentation touch ups that they were going for in this latest release. “Face The Facts,” my personal favorite on the album, brings the more goofy side of their work up front and center. The catchy and explosive chorus along with the carefully placed string parts fill out this song to be a complete three-minute journey of excitement, goofiness, and introspection. “Work”, the least exciting of the three singles, is a little cluttered at times, but the introspection of how they write songs and the catchy chorus makes it a great opener.

This album is a bit of a compilation album of the old styles that they like put together as Foxygen songs. From “The Thing Is” which sounds like something out of Grease, to “Mona” with its 80’s synth and bass sounds, and “Flag at Half-Mast” where they just really really really want to make a song that sounds like “Wild Horses” by The Rolling Stones, there’s a lot to unpack. Not a lot of bands right now are adding instrumentation jams to fill out their music, and Foxygen nailed this on 

. The breakdown in “News” brings back motifs from earlier in the song but it starts with smooth singing that breaks out into a distorted guitar solo and dramatic vocal performance ending in a homage to the songwriting of the 70’s.. The ending instrumentals to “Flag at Half-Mast” has this interesting mix of the styles of Tyler the Creator and Santana, which sounds like it should be a mess, but they piece it together real smoothly.

There is a lot to love about this album, but at the same time it does have its faults. With every song being a different flavor, it is hard to piece all the songs together smoothly. I could listen to this album on shuffle and it would have the same completeness as listening to the songs in the original order. Also, the closer track, “The Conclusion”, does not do the rest of the album justice at all. It is by far the weakest of the bunch and it sounds more like a transition track then a closer. The only thing that makes it a fitting closer track is its title.

Overall, Foxygen uses their versatile playing styles to create a genre packed album that is both original while still paying homage to their classic rock influencers. Taking risks with going back to their old style of play, along with creating more instrumental parts pays off for them on 

. They created a goofy, but still deep record that brings something new after each listen through

The tight production and great performances all around make this their best work since 

Foxygen reinvents goodbyes in ‘Seeing Other People’

Mac has released his most laid-back, repetitive album yet.

 in 2017, it seemed as though he was finally maturing in his sound and lyrical quality. But with his newest album 

, he has simply recycled the 2017 record’s style and process, resulting in a project that sounds like a complete rewrite of 

 Despite the lack of evolution in Mac’s sound, there are definitely some chilled-out catchy tunes on this LP that stand out in the Mac Demarco discography. Unfortunately, a lot of the tracks feel like leftovers from his previous efforts; the lack of substance in a lot of the songs makes the album as a whole feel flat and mildly boring.

When the album’s first single ‘Nobody’ came out, there was a noticeable style that Mac was going for. He wanted to use the slacker type of songwriting where whatever is being repeated is just interesting enough to keep the listener vibing with the tune. With ‘Nobody,’ this style works, with its wobbly sounds coming in and out and a little mix up with the short, unsettling and melancholy chorus that fills out the song. But for most of the non-singles, the tunes just aren’t quite there to use this style. From the almost meme-like song ‘Choo Choo’ to the slower ‘Heart to Heart’, the repetition completely ruins what the song had going for it. There is nothing wrong with repeating parts of a song, and some of these tunes are the most catchy and interesting Mac has ever written, but they just linger on way too long. The title track has a very catchy, little country style groove and is interesting for the first 20 times he repeats the riff and the line “Here comes the cowboy,” but two and a half minutes in it gets flat and boring. It seems as though he might have just been caught up in his slack-rock style a little too much here. It is also not like Mac was not capable or not talented enough to add more to the songs as many songs on here have many sections and layers to them.

When Mac does hone in on his songwriting skills, he pops out some of the best tunes he has ever put out. As each single came out, each one seemed to get more layered and interesting. With the second single ‘All Of Our Yesterdays,’ the catchy chorus and the rock-based vibe really adds depth to the album. With the third and last single ‘On The Square,’ the song’s groovy bass and well placed synth fills make this my personal favorite on the album. It even has multiple sections to the song which to me is a delicacy on any song. Another stand out track is ‘Finally Alone.’ Even though it just sounds like an outtake of his last album, it would have been a single-worthy outtake. Lastly, the album ends on a great note with ‘Bye Bye Bye.’ It’s got a great song structure to end the album. It starts with a country groove, then on to the laid back and melancholy chorus, and then an ending two part jam that makes this the most layered tune on the album.

Mac has released his most laid-back, repetitive album yet that has enough standout tracks to keep it afloat. The singles got me excited to see the more layered and repetitive side of Mac, but I was left with a little too much repetition and not enough layers that created a bunch of flat and boring tunes. The entire time I’m listening I can’t help but notice how similar it is to 

 and it makes me want to listen to that album more than it makes me want to listen to more of 

. But tracks like ‘Bye Bye Bye’ and ‘On The Square’ keep this album from being completely flat and DeMarco manages to keep a certain vibe throughout that makes each listen feel complete and finished.

Mac DeMarco is a little too comfortable on ‘Here Comes The Cowboy’

When one steps into the gizzverse, you never know what you’re gonna get. After the prolific five-album-in-a-year 2017, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard took 2018 off and then released their 14th studio record, 

in 2019. With King Gizzard, the style of any forthcoming record is always up in the air. Known more for the harder garage rock part of their discography, they can still cook up some fine indie pop folk albums, such as my personal favorite of theirs, 2015’s 

. With this latest record, they had the time to piece together a pleasing 42 minutes of nicely paced folk-boogie. Despite this, the album can sometimes get a little tiring as it lacks diversity in its melodies and instrumentation.

When the singles first came out, they all seemed to have different tastes and it was difficult to imagine how they were going to all piece together. From the pop-folk opener “Fishing with Fishies,” all the way to the last track and lead single “Cyboogie”, I was excited to see what they could pack in between. The result was an album that is spent piecing together transitions between tracks that constantly shift from style to style, but still stick relatively close to their previous efforts in the folk-pop genre. The only track that threw me off guard stylistically was “Acarine,” which seems to serve exclusively as a way to transition from the main bulk of the album to the final track. The song is an anomaly to the rest of the album, featuring groovy synth loops It reminds me a lot of “Any Colour You Like” off Pink Floyd’s 1973 album 

 in purpose and in sound. This track really shows how they can use their versatile styles to make the album pop more as a whole.

One non-single on the album that consistently caught my attention was “Real’s Not Real.” This song perfectly blends the styles of King Gizzard’s past efforts along with their great talent in creating a poppy melody. This song almost has more instrumental diversity in its 3.5 minute running then the whole rest of the album. The great mix between the hard-cutting distorted guitars to the glissful bass and harmony driven verses, that is followed by a great guitar and harmonica jam at the end, shows what King Gizzard can do with their versatility. Other than this track, the only other one that I can remember standing out after numerous listens was “This Thing.” This track has a groovy and catchy chorus, but it suffers from a lack of experimentation and sticks to the same harmonica riffs that the band has used so many times in the past. “This Thing” just needed maybe to cut out some parts for more style mixing like in “Real’s Not Real” and it could have been a real King Gizzard stand out across their discography with how great its bridge and chorus mixing is.

Overall, King Gizzard stick to their roots on this album to create a groovy, well paced album. The cost comes in the form of a lack of experimentation. The singles from this record got me excited to see where they would explore in their wide range of styles and style mixing they have done in the past, but instead they just made a more updated version of their past pop folk albums. Though a pleasant listen all the way through, not much pops out. With all that said, this album is one of their best overall efforts and it gets me excited for their next venture, whether it comes in two months or two years.

Not much pops out on King Gizzard’s ‘Fishing for Fishies’

Coming off three innovative, creative and original albums in a row, in 2009, Animal Collective had almost nothing to prove to their fan base. They were about emotional, driven, catchy, but still extremely experimental albums that each had their own flavor. From the folky and fast

, then to a mix of electronic folk with sprinkles of punk with 

, it seemed almost impossible that the band would release a fourth album with the same prolific originality. But if you thought that they couldn’t top those releases, you’d be dead wrong: 

With Animal Collective, what you hear from album to album doesn’t just change the genre, but personnel. With 

, guitarist Deakin (Josh Dibb) was not part of the recording, so the group went a more electronic route, trying out more sample-driven music. The result was their catchiest and most accessible album. With previous releases, the experimental aspect can turn a lot of people away from their music, for example, having one song end by repeating the phrase “I need mouth water” for two minutes (“Mouth Wooed Her,” from 

, they honed in on more straightforward beats and songwriting, making this release their poppiest album they would, and probably will ever, release.

The album starts off with their signature mix of sounds, creating an ethereal and psychedelic soundscape in “In the Flowers.” Halfway through the song, they explode with passion, with rhythm-driven and beautifully produced wobbly synths that let the listener know that they mean business on this album. The song glides smoothly into the next, “My Girls,” the biggest hit the band ever wrote. Named the best song of the year by sites like 

, the song put the indie band on the map. It perfectly combines the experimental side of Animal Collective with their new, poppier sound: The ethereal synth loops get layered with contagious drum beats and an explosive chorus that’ll stick in your head for days. All the tracks that follow are put together nicely, with the ending of every song smoothly transitioning to the next, perfectly complimenting the smoothness of their music.

While the songs flow together nicely, there is still a lot of variety across the 55 minutes. The slower, atmospheric love song “Bluish” beautifully describes being with a significant other without ever using the word “love.” This track blissfully transitions into the surf rock song “Guys Eyes,” which in turn flows into the more electronic “Taste.” Another standout is the tension-building “Daily Routine,” with its weird time signature and interesting play on lyrics.

 could have its own Wikipedia page full of information and analysis. From “Brother Sport,” the song 

 (Noah Lennox) wrote to support his brother through the death of their father, which is arguably the greatest ending to an album ever, to “Also Frightened,” with its haunting lyrics and most explosive chorus on the album, every song could be someone’s favorite.

 brought Animal Collective from dreaming about playing at the arena the album is named after, to actually doing it (in support of their next album, 

 would be the peak of Animal Collective, as their subsequent albums would never get close to the same praise and cult status. Though this was the ending of the heyday of Animal Collective, it was their best effort. This album is a staple of indie electronic music that has had so much influence on the genre in the decade since its release. The way they put their Animal Collective touch on the album has not, and will never, be repeated again.

Animal Collective’s ‘Merriweather Post Pavilion’ Turns 10

Going into any Animal Collective album, whether it’s the group together, or in this case a solo venture, there are expectations of experimentation and original, never-before thought up sounds. With 

, Panda Bear tries almost the exact opposite.

, the sixth solo album from Panda Bear, is a dull mess with very few high points. Better known for his days with Animal Collective, Panda Bear keeps some of the features of his old sound, but mostly tries something entirely new on this project. He has stated that with 

 he wanted to create a sound that would feel familiar to a young person’s ears, which he accomplishes in part with a more straightforward structure and production style that ventures into pop and away from his usual experimental tunes. Although that makes this a pleasant listen, the album is a repetitive mess that lacks enough layers or originality to hold up the weight of the new sound.

Going into any Animal Collective album, whether it’s the group together, or in this case a solo venture, there are expectations of experimentation and original sounds. With 

, Panda Bear tries the exact opposite. Though he does keep his style of using repetitive samples, he doesn’t really do much on top of the loops. Tracks such as the lead single “Dolphin” or “I Know I Don’t Know” and “Crescendo” keep the same samples going for most of the song and have so much empty space that it makes it hard to get through the whole track. It is absolutely okay to have simple sounding music, but if the lyrics don’t have much impact, the sounds of the album are pretty familiar and the music doesn’t stand out as original or new, then you run the risk of isolating your audience. There is just no substance to it. Thirty seconds in, all the samples and song structures that he is going to use have been heard and leave little reason to listen all the way through. The structures of the tracks are as straightforward as straight looping, sometimes with an additional chorus that is such a derivative of the verses that if you weren’t actively listening you probably couldn’t tell the difference.

The tracks that I loved the most on this album were those that stayed true to the old Panda Bear sound. “Token” has an underlying sample that is smooth and clean, but at the same time dizzying from the constant pan changes and commentary vocals. The weird sounds that fill the space between the vocal lines keep the listener continuously invested and make the track very catchy. The tension-building bridge with its rising feeling synths make “Token” a standout in terms of structure. This track is the only one with a bridge at all, and it makes me wonder how great others could be if he experimented with the song structures more. “Inner Monologue” showcases the acoustic guitar skills present on much of Panda Bear’s work. I really enjoyed the sounds I could only describe as women noises that kept me wanting to listen even closer to the extremely beautifully played guitar part. “Home Free” and “Master” are also tracks that have layers of sampling that kept me invested in listening, but still have major repetition problems.

 has some high points, but also a lot of low points. Even though it never got unenjoyable to listen to, a lot of it was boring. With a length of 31 minutes and a weak closer, the album feels very incomplete. After the last track ended the first time I listened, I thought that my headphones had stopped working or the music was paused. Usually, I would want more than half an hour of Panda Bear’s music, but with the lack of substance here I can’t imagine what else he could have tacked on other than more filler. Overall, Panda Bear comes up with a pleasant sounding but repetitive set of tracks that could benefit from sticking with what Panda Bear does best. Instead, this new venture leaves gaping holes in most of the tracks that may make the listener doze off halfway through.

Panda Bear gets a little repetitive on ‘Buoys’

The laziness in the songwriting almost makes me believe that it is a parody.

, the band has released 34 minutes of the same old same old. If someone played me a part of this album and said it was one of those “how to imitate the sound of this band” YouTube videos for Vulfpeck, I would believe it. Across four studio albums (not including their EPs), I didn’t expect Vulfpeck to bring too much more to the table, but what I 

 expect was no experimentation, no new sounds, no new anything. Even though Vulfpeck is relatively new to the music scene, they might have exhausted their sound and have completely satisfied their album title and are over the hill.

Right from the start, the first few songs set the scene of the album, imitating their previous releases along with the 80’s funk scene with nothing more to add to their discography or the funk genre. They will never attempt to do much more than that for the entire run of the album. The first 20 minutes of the album from ‘Half of the Way’ to ‘Love is a Beautiful Thing’ just sounds like if the Wiggles or Sesame Street crossed with Michael Jackson for a dated crossover, but the worst part: it is 2018 and it is Vulfpeck.

‘For Survival’ is one of the most annoying songs I’ve ever heard. If a song is going to repeat a title over twenty times in a song, it should be something catchy or meaningful. Saying “for survival” after things is a hard feat to pull off, and they just couldn’t make it fit at all. The laziness in the songwriting almost makes me believe that it is a parody. But it is apparent that they are serious. The main way the song is written is what Lonely Island does with their songs. They say something and then say a common response back. While Lonely Island uses silly phrases like ‘Like a Boss,’ Vulfpeck tries to use this format without being serious enough to not sound as silly as it does, or silly enough to make it at least funny. After that song, most of the rest of the album are instrumentals. I can see why they went that route after ‘For Survival.’ The second half of the album makes this release not a total dud. Even though the instrumentals aren’t as prolific as previous releases or have any of their signature poppy funkiness, the instrumentals were at least mostly enjoyable to listen to. The only song that I would maybe revisit in the future is the last instrumental on the album ‘It Gets Funkier IV.’ Though the funky title threw me off, it’s the most creative and experimental on the album by far. It at least tries out new sounds that they weren’t just reusing from previous releases.

My problems with this album are not that it has bad sounding songs, most of them are pretty pleasant sounding, nor is the musicianship at fault. It’s just flat out boring and lacks creativity. I do not understand the audience for this record. It is not poppy enough to appeal to most people. It doesn’t have the instrumentation to appeal to the more musical attentive listener. It isn’t funky or original enough to appeal to people that want to hear an older style done in a modern way. Most of their previous full-length releases never really had a full album feel to them that showed any sort of completeness, although this might just come from their style of music. However, they at least had a few bangers off each previous release that I couldn’t help but revisit. Even though it has been years since I have listened to some of their previous work such as the poppy ‘1612’ or the catchy ‘Dean Town,’ which has some of the best bass playing on tape I’ve ever heard, I was excited to revisit their music. I was left just wanting to revisit their old work after 

Vulfpeck releases unimaginative full-length ‘Hill Climber’

Every time I finished the album I was left with one gesture: a shrug.

, the fourth album by Mumford & Sons, finds the group sticking with their roots after an experimental last release. The group gathered many sounds and genres for this album but did not excel or even succeed in any particular sound. Despite its faults, this album had heart and energy that made it more enjoyable than their previous albums.

The album starts off with ‘42,’ the 42nd song released by the group, which hints at the mix of flat folk-rock songs that follow in an attempt to be multi-genre at the cost of not developing the songs’ motifs and sounds. This song transitions into the most classic Mumford & Sons song on the album, ‘Guiding Light’—an underwhelming track with inspiration driven lyrics that don’t really hold much weight.

The album takes a detour into the third song ‘Women’, a soft synth and beat-driven song with an emotional vocal performance that makes it one of my favorites on the album. The song plays into the groups’ strengths from harmonies in the bridges that fill out the song’s strong structure to the clean sounding production that makes the song sound personal. With the next song ‘Beloved,’ the strong detour has an out-of-place, underwhelming following, which is present in the tracklist way too often. The group appears to struggle with deciding what should fill the soundscape of the song, and instead went the route of throwing everything into a mess of sounds and genres. The album then reroutes to another soft song with ‘The Wild.’ Although this song sounds similar to ‘Women,’ it does not bring the same emotion or solid song-writing to the track and becomes another wild mess of genres and sounds that lead nowhere.

With ‘Slip away’ and ‘Rose of Sharon,’ I was pleasantly surprised by the more Alt-J and Glass Animals styled songs that rounded out the variety of the album while adding songs with solid songwriting. The only song on this album that really stood out to me was ‘Darkness Visible.’ It sounded like if Animal Collective were handed Arcade Fire’s rig and told to write a song. The perfectly spaced and tense song redeems the album from full flatness. But this doesn’t last long with the follow-up being another sloppy soup of sounds. Nothing about ‘If I Say’ is particularly bad but, as with many songs on the album, as they start playing into the groove of a genre they fail to develop it anywhere.

Every time I finished the album I was left with one gesture: a shrug. Nothing about this album made me want to turn it off, but nothing made me want to turn it up. The group succeeds at an acceptable backdrop album. With some strong tracks, it makes me wonder how good the album could have been if the group put the effort from their long tracklist into a more perfected group of nine to ten songs that don’t sound like badly pieced together underdeveloped songs.

Vincent Costello