ALBUM REVIEW: "RELAXER" by Alt-J

RELAXER, the third full length from UK trio alt-J, is anything but relaxing, and a tight 40 minute exploration of sonic weirdness, catchy hooks and odd songwriting. It feels a lot more concise than 2014's This Is All Yours, which while being certainly ambitious was too long for it's own good, unnecessary weight washing out the great songs into an exhausting 55 minutes. RELAXER is a slim 8 songs at about 40 minutes, and benefits greatly from this extra layer of efficiency. The depths of the spiralling madness, sinister soundscapes and occasional menace are made more immediate and sharp simply by cutting the run-time; there doesn't seem to be a single second on RELAXER that could be cut. Despite this continuation and development of the more experimental side of alt-J's hard to pin down sound, they have retained a strong sense of melody across onto this new album, and it's this balancing act between the accessible and the weird that keeps the album always interesting but never completely alienating. RELAXER really is an album you can get your teeth into, with dense soundscapes you can pick apart time after time and keep pulling out new things. Despite being typically grandiose, there is an intimacy to the songs that underlies all the experimentation and eccentricities and is in sharper focus than on any of alt-J's previous releases. A really strong release from a group that are determined to keep following their own rules.

Favourite Songs: In Cold Blood, Hit Me Like That Snare, Deadcrush and Pleader

Least Favourite Song: House Of The Rising Sun

Rating: A

Comments

A Response To 'Christian' Views On Secular Music

Is there such thing as music that Christians shouldn’t listen to? Should we be dismissive of music with either explicit language or sexual, violent or substance oriented themes? Should anyone even be telling anyone else what they can and can’t listen to? These are questions that are thrown around a lot in Christian circles, and given what I do here on this blog and how that overlaps with my job working for the church, I thought I would share my thoughts on this topic. I’ll say this at the outset so that we’re on the same page – I think any attempt to dictate what people should and shouldn’t listen to is stupid and disrespectful on a fundamental level. I’ll go into detail about why I think that later on, but for now here are some thoughts I have on some of the “Christian” opinions I come across pretty regularly. The first and most ludicrous thing that seems to follow me around is the idea that because I listen to underground genres, particularly on the heavy metal ...

1 YEAR LATER: "22, A Million" by Bon Iver

Bon Iver's third studio album turns 1 in about a week (where did that year go?), so I thought it would be interesting to talk a bit about how my impressions of the album have changed - or how they haven't - over the last 12 months. When this album was released I was more excited than I think I ever have been to hear a new album. For Emma, Forever Ago is one of my all time favourites, and I love his self-titled second album too, so I had huge expectations for this album, but was also wary that expectations might ruin my experience of the music. This was particularly the case for 22, A Million , because it is unlike anything else Justin Vernon has released. There have been hints at this more processed, electronic direction previously, like the song "Woods" on the Blood Bank EP and occasional flourishes on Bon Iver , but 22, A Million is a drastic departure from the Bon Iver sound we had grown accustomed to at this point in time. Or at least, that's what I thought...

Should Brand New be in my top 20? (CONTENT WARNING: sexual abuse)

For those who read both top 20 albums lists that I did - one here on thatmusicnerd and one over at Kill Your Stereo - you will have noticed, I'm sure, that one had The Ongoing Concept's album Places at number 1, and the other had Brand New's Science Fiction at the top. Full disclosure, I initially had Brand New at the top of just the one list, but the readership of Kill Your Stereo reacted very strongly against the allegations of sexual misconduct against Brand New frontman Jesse Lacey and so I removed it entirely. In fact, none of the KYS contributors' top 20 lists featured Science Fiction at all. Of course I was happy to follow the general consensus in regards to whether or not an artist accused of such things should be promoted by a music publication, but I still stand by my opinion that Science Fiction was the best album of 2017 and as such it was number 1 on my thatmusicnerd top 20 list. 2017 has been a pretty crazy year in terms of the ...

Read Poets Society

Search This Blog