Hi, everyone! Welcome to another mini review post! 

As always, these are just my personal feelings on these albums. Also, I kept these reviews pretty brief for the most part, as I’ve had a busy week with a lot of college exams.

Alright, let’s start the reviews!

Jaime by Brittany Howard:

Brittany Howard is one of those artists whose name I’ve seen/heard a lot but whose music I hadn’t listened to … that is, until recently, as I decided to listen to her 2019 debut solo album Jaime a few times, although I still haven’t listened much to Alabama Shakes. Anyway, Jaime didn’t really click for me, but I was curious to hear this new album …

And I do like it more, but it’s not fully clicking for me, either.

Brittany Howard is a good singer, and I mostly like the production (although at points the instruments create a bit of a strange texture when you put them all together), but overall this often feels like it’s missing more stronger hooks and vocal melodies.

Lyrically it doesn’t feel super deep or anything, but I do mostly like it, with a variety of topics discussed, with some more uplifting songs as well as some more frustrated ones, with the title track showing the evolution of the narrator’s mindset after a breakup, and it would probably be my favourite song here if I liked it more sonically—as it is, “To Be Still” is my favourite track here.

I mostly like the percussion on this album, and there are some strong moments that really show a lot of potential in my opinion, but I don’t love this album. It’s a 7/10 for me.

Final Thoughts
Rating: 7/10
Favourite Tracks: “I Don’t”, “What Now”, “To Be Still”, “Every Color In Blue”
Least Favourite Track: “Interlude”

The Pilgrim, Their God and the King of My Decrepit Mountain by Tapir!:

This band was formed in 2019, and this is their debut studio album. I’d never heard of them until now, but I’ve seen this album getting a lot of critical acclaim …

And I’m not really sure what to say. I guess you could maybe call it an indie folk album—or something like that—and it’s got a similar sound to it as a lot of super critically acclaimed albums, with the crisp percussion, the breezy acoustic guitar, and the way the instruments kind of blend together almost to the point where it feels like just one instrument making all the sounds … okay, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration, but I think it gets across what I’m trying to say.

And it’s a sound that I’m just not really a huge fan of. The production doesn’t have the prettiness that I usually like in this style of music, and I’m not all that wowed by the vocal melodies, either.

There seems to be some sort of story throughout the lyrics about a pilgrim on a journey, and I’m not sure I’m totally following along with it, and also some points feel overly simple … that’s probably just a me thing—there may be way more to this than I’m giving it credit—but it’s not really resonating for me. I guess I’ll give this a 6/10. I guess I might like it as background music, but I don’t think I’m going to go out of my way to listen to it much.

Final Thoughts
Rating: 6/10
Favourite Tracks: “The Nether (Face To Face)”, “Act 2 (Their God)”, “Untitled”, “My God”
Least Favourite Track: “Broken Ark”

Hall by Flophouse jr:

This is the newest album from a very underground act whom I’d never heard of until recently, and you probably haven’t heard of, either. But a friend of mine recommended this album to me, and I decided to give it multiple listens …

And unfortunately it’s not really clicking for me. I mean, I like some of the funkier moments, and there’s some good melodies, but the percussion often feels clunkier than I would have liked, and the production can feel a little overpolished to me at points.

The basslines have some nice melody to them but also can feel a little out of place with these songs in my opinion, and some of the kind of buzzing sounds here are a little distracting.

I didn’t dislike this, but I also don’t think I’m going to go back to it much. I guess I’ll give it a 6/10. It’s got the occasional catchy moment like “Between”, but as a whole this isn’t really for me.

Final Thoughts
Rating: 6/10
Favourite Tracks: “In The Beginning/How it’s Going to End”, “Between”, “You Tried”
Least Favourite Track: “Listening”

Snow as a Metaphor for Death by SENTRIES:

I’d never heard of this band until very recently, and I don’t think a huge amount of people had. This is the second studio album from this noise rock band from BC, Canada (I’m mentioning this because I’m also from BC—not really all that relevant, but I just felt like pointing that out), following their 2023 album Agonizer, which I listened to once in preparation for this review. And while I didn’t follow along with the lyrics or anything, and I only listened to it once, on first glance it didn’t really seem like it was for me.

But this new album has been getting a lot of critical acclaim, and while I wasn’t feeling too confident I would love it, I wanted to give it a chance … and once again, I’m not really all that wowed.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s got some nice intensity to it, with some powerful basslines that I really like, and the band sounds pretty locked in with each other musically, without being afraid to experiment.

But at the same time, this doesn’t feel all that out of the ordinary for noise rock, with the drum grooves and distorted guitars often feeling reminiscent of a lot of other albums in this style. And that’s not always a bad thing, but there’s not much else here to make up for it in my opinion.

The lyrics feel very abstract and hard to piece together, and while I’m fascinated by them at points, overall this album didn’t do a whole lot for me lyrically. Yes, that’s a me thing, but once again I’m just sharing my personal feelings on these albums.

I like the feeling of tension building in “Séance”, the percussion sounds great in the mix on “Entity/Selector”, and I also like the let loose energy of “Force”, and there are other moments here that I like, too, but I also don’t think I’m going to go back to this much. I’m going to give this a 6/10—I think it shows some promise, but I had a hard time getting into this.

Final Thoughts
Rating: 6/10
Favourite Tracks: “Entity/Selector”, “Force”, “Séance”
Least Favourite Track: “Witches”

VENUS by Zara Larsson:

This is the fourth studio album by Zara Larsson, and it’s the follow-up to her 2021 album Poster Girl, an album I don’t really remember liking when it came out. Now, I was planning on listening to her first two albums before posting this review, but this week has been really busy for me and instead I just re-listened to Poster Girl once, as it had been years since I’d heard it and I was still very much discovering my musical taste in 2021—I mean, I still am now, but I think you get what I mean. But after revisiting it, I still think that album is mediocre or maybe even kinda bad. The hooks didn’t stand out to me much at all, the production felt overpolished, and the lyrics felt very generic.

And after giving this new album a few listens … wow, I’m surprised just how much I ended up disliking this. In my opinion, this is awful. The production sounds super messy, including the mixing, with certain elements feeling really overpowering, and the clunky percussion choices really don’t help.

And once again, the lyrics and vocal melodies just don’t impress me at all. It all feels so generic to me, barely doing anything that I personally find interesting at all.

And the vocal production really holds this back for me too, because while I think Zara is a really good singer, it all sounds so overprocessed and it’s got this mushy feeling to it that I find really off-putting.

There’s the occasional moment that I don’t really mind, such as the opening and closing tracks which at least are pretty decent compositionally, but even at its best moments this album doesn’t really have much to offer to me personally.

I don’t want to come across as being mean or anything. At the end of the day it’s just how I personally feel, but I did not like this album at all. I’m going to have to go with a 3/10. Aside from what I’ve already said as well as that I think this sounds like a bad attempt at making an Ava Max album, there’s barely anything for me to say about this. I mean, I could try to go more in-depth if I really wanted to, but I’d rather just give this some brief thoughts and move on. I don’t want to listen to this any more.

Final Thoughts
Rating: 3/10
Favourite Track: “Can’t Tame Her”
Least Favourite Tracks: “On My Love”, “Ammunition”, “None Of These Guys”, “Escape”, “Sountrack”, “Venus”

New Last Name by Courting:

Courting are a British post-punk band formed in 2018 whose debut album, Guitar Music, was released in 2022. And while that album had its strong moments in my opinion, it didn’t really click for me all that much as a whole.

And I’m feeling similarly about this new album. At points I really like the vocal melodies, and the production, while inconsistent, sounds awesome at its best moments … and Sean Murphy-O’Neill is a fantastic vocalist with a ton of personality behind the mic, and the emotion really shines through!

But at points this album can feel a little forced, like the band is trying so hard to make something ‘unique’ that it can just feel a little corny. I mean, I’m not really sure what they were trying to do, but I’m just telling you how I hear it.

There are some interesting lyrical moments, though, that I think fit well with the music a lot of the time, often seeming to be about the complexities of human emotions.

So, overall … just like with their debut, I mostly like it, but I don’t love it. So, I’ll give it a 7/10.

Final Thoughts
Rating: 7/10
Favourite Tracks: “Throw”, “We Look Good Together (Big Words)”, “Emily G”, “Babys”
Least Favourite Track: “The Wedding”