Short Attention Span Record Reviews, Jan 25

ETHEL CAIN – Perverts
Having received critical acclaim with a gothic Americana debut, Ethel Cain decides to alienate all the fans she won with an industrial/noise follow-up. (7)

EMEL – MRA
One that I missed from earlier this year because Emel dropped the last name (Mathlouthi) just to mess with me. I love this NY-based Tunisian and this album turns out to be one of 2024’s best world music albums, merging Arabic sounds with EDM and hip-hop and featuring guest female MCs from Mali, Iraq, Ukraine and Nigeria. (8)

GOUGE AWAY – Deep Sage
Another one I missed from earlier this year, which would have probably made The List! An impressive hardcore attack knowingly nodding towards 90’s indie rock and melodic flourishes. (8)

BRIDGET HAYDEN AND THE APPARITIONS – Cold Blows The Rain
Noise/experimental artists ventures into folk, recording eight traditional English, Irish, and American songs dating from the early 20th century, with mostly acoustic drone-y accompaniment. She’s from Yorkshire, and sounds like it. (7)

KENDRICK LAMAR – GMX
Better, and more fun, than his last one. Probably the best hip-hop album of the year. (8)

THE LAST POETS & TONY ALLEN ft. EGYPT 80 – Africanism
Septuagenarian proto-rappers re-record tracks off their first couple of albums from the early 70’s with contributions from Fela Kuti’s legendary drummer and a bunch of jazz cats. They sound totally different but just as fresh and exciting. (8)

PAINKILLER – Samsara
Wow, didn’t see this one coming – legendary grind/noise/jazz trio (John Zorn, Bill Laswell, Mick Harris) return to the studio after a 3-decade hiatus. They still sound as extreme as their grandchildren (e.g. Imperial Triumphant) and Zorn’s sax skronk is pure joy. (8)

SOUL COUGHING – Ruby Vroom [30th Anniversary Edition]
One of the best debut albums of the 90’s gets a revamp with unreleased and rare tracks. A truly unique band. Doughty’s smartass hipster persona remains highly entertaining, the rhythm section of Sebastian Steinberg and Yuval Gabay grooves like a motherfucker, and the sampler guy’s work still sounds innovative 30 years later. (10)

WHITE DENIM – 12
Not a very smart idea to release a great album in December after all major print and online music publications have already compiled their year-end “best of” lists, but this is exactly what happened here – a fantastic “70’s-soft-rock-meets-90’s-indie” record will probably go unnoticed. (8)

VARIOUS ARTISTS – The Devil Rides In: Spellbinding Satanic Magick & The Rockult 1967–1974
A 3-CD compilation that manages to fit in everyone from Atomic Rooster, Coven and Comus to Genesis, Curved Air and the Easybeats under totally arbitrary but fun imaginary genres/labels like “Phantom Sabbaths”, “Popular Satanism”, “She Devils”, “Evil Jazz”, and “Beelzefunk”. Brace yourself for an overdose of Hammond organ and a few bongos. (11)