The Commute 2021: Q2 (2/3)
Featuring albums from Shelley FKA DRAM, Morray, Miranda Lambert, J. Cole, Panopticon, Olivia Rodrigo, twenty one pilots, Dayglow, and Cole Chaney.
May
Shelley FKA DRAM by Shelley
Best Songs: “The Lay Down” w/H.E.R. & watt, “Exposure”, “Rich and Famous”, “Cooking With Grease”, “Something About Us”, “All Pride Aside” w/Summer Walker
For those unaware, Shelley isn’t technically a new artist on the scene. You likely know him as DRAM, a rapper who had a major break in 2016 thanks to “Broccoli”, which to this day is one of my favorite rap hits of the past ten years. Ever since his debut album Big Baby DRAM, Shelley has taken some time to reevaluate his career to see where his passions take him, and that long break created a brand overhaul that’s only now turning over. Now he goes by his first name, Shelley, and makes golden age soul and R&B with a hint of funk. It’s not that much of a style overhaul, as he’s had soulful songs like this on Big Baby DRAM, but still, it’s interesting to me to see an artist previously set to build himself as a rising artist take a few years to readjust and reinvent himself.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this change was a bit of a left turn for some people. I mean, I really liked DRAM’s rap side myself. But I also wasn’t going to object to Shelley becoming a more soulful, elegant R&B star when he’s already proven he could do that really well. As a result, I really loved Shelley FKA DRAM from beginning to end! Honestly, I dare say it is overall better than Big Baby DRAM! It doesn’t do anything all that innovative, but its simplicity is where it succeeds. Shelley has a uniquely beautiful voice that can be soft and sultry in one moment and big and romantic in the next. He clearly LOVES singing these songs. He puts so much love and passion into his performance, it reminds me of how much his infectious personality made his debut so likable. Even if it’s not in the same form on this album, this is still definitively Shelley. Plus, there are some fantastic individual songs here! “Exposure” is a wonderful little sex song, the Daft Punk cover of “Something About Us” translates to soul REALLY well, the encore song “Rich and Famous” brings back that infectious DRAM-like personality through a killer funk hook, and “The Lay Down” with H.E.R. and watt is one of the best songs of the year (yes I know it’s technically from 2019 I literally reviewed it that year) with that insane guitar solo alone. Apparently, we’re getting a second album dropping in the fourth quarter of the year, and I’m really excited! It tells me Shelley has a creative drive going and that we could see an even better album in the near future!
Street Sermons by Morray
Best Songs: “Quicksand”, “Nothing Now”, “Trenches”, “Can’t Use Me”, “That’s On God”, “Switched Up”, “Better Things”
I saw something special in Morray when he first blew up thanks to “Quicksand”, a song that has rapidly become one of my favorite songs of the entire year. I loved Morray’s jovial, bouncy flow and infectious delivery with some incredibly tight and impressive flows that have kept me coming back again and again. In a way, he reminded me of the two Rods of the trap world, Rod Wave and Roddy Ricch. He had Rod Wave’s tough love experiences on the streets while having the skill and dexterity of Roddy Ricch. Thankfully, those two comparisons fade with the release of his debut mixtape, Street Sermons, where Morray gets a pretty immediate grasp of his style and tells his own stories of growing up in the hood and eventually getting out of it. There’s more optimism in his lyrics that tries to find the moments and the people who make getting through the rough patches worth it, and every song is delivered with a big ol’ smile on his face. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t experience that pain of growing up in a dangerous environment, of course. The album’s strongest songs I feel are the ones that take in that pain and try to make something better out of it. The latter half of the album especially is a lot more bogged down by its vices and the hurt of betrayal that Morray has experienced from people he trusted. Still, by the end, there’s a sense of relief that he was able to make it out okay, and even if things aren’t ideal, he’s doing way better than he is last year. The short length also makes this album incredibly easy to come back to. I’d put it right up there with SoulFly as one of the best trap projects of the year.
The Marfa Tapes by Jack Ingram, Miranda Lambert & Jon Randall
Best Songs: “Breaking a Heart”, “Am I Right Or Amarillo”, “In His Arms”, “Tin Man”, “Two-Step Down to Texas”, “Ghost”, “Geraldene”, “Homegrown Tomatoes”
One thing I really like seeing from country artists, especially those in Nashville, is when they branch off and just make a passion project. They don’t really care about how it does commercially, it’s just something fun to do while a single is in rotation or they’re in between mainstream releases. Such was the case with Dierks Bentley and the Hot Country Knights, now we have Miranda Lambert teaming up with two of her songwriters and recording a very lo-fi setup of them simply singing campfire songs. Some of them are original songs they made for this session, others are acoustic versions of songs they’ve written before like “Tin Man” and “Tequila Does”. I love this album a lot, but it’s a very specific vibe you have to be really into to fully enjoy it. There’s very little studio editing to these songs. The vocal production can be spotty, the production consists of an acoustic guitar and nothing else, and these are all done in mostly one take. Meaning even if the performers screw up in some way, they laugh it off and keep playing. It gives the whole album a personal, down-to-earth atmosphere where it feels less like an album and more of a session between friends, just singing songs they love and letting the night pass them by around this crackling fireplace. I don’t usually mention the cover art when discussing these albums, but I think the one for this album sets the mood of the album perfectly. Those beautiful shades of purple, pink, and orange in the sky, while everything is covered in shadows, and the only light source comes from the warm glow of the fire is exactly the comforting environment that these songs provide me. Maybe they aren’t as good without the proper polish, but again, it’s the atmosphere that matters with this album. I say they nailed it.
The Off-Season by J. Cole
Best Songs: “my life” ft. Morray & 21 Savage, “100 mil’” ft. Bas, “95 south”, “close”, “amari”, “pride is the devil” ft. Lil Baby, “hunger on the hillside”
I am what the kids call a “centrist” when it comes to J. Cole discourse. Calling him the best in the game is definitely a stretch in my eyes, but I also think the guy is more talented than his detractors give him credit for. I’m in that weird middle ground where I dislike his “intellectual” raps and find his attempts to be the wise middle man of rap to be really obnoxious and preachy, but I also think his best song is “No Role Modelz” in spite of its abhorrent sexism. I have no horse in this race because I actually have two horses competing at once. The horse that won out for The Off-Season turned out to be the horse that likes J. Cole! It’s not better than 2014 Forest Hill Drive, but to me, it’s honestly kinda close? I always felt J. Cole was at his best when he didn’t overthink his music. When he didn’t feel the need to prove himself or try to be a role model for his audience. It exposes a lot more about his persona and his come-up than I think he wants us to see, breaking the illusion that he was a rags to riches person still in touch with his humility. Even on this album, he lets the illusion slip when taunting his haters for being poor, flying in the face of his mantra that money corrupts from Born Sinner.
Still, outside of little moments like that, I have to admit I like cocky, on top of the world Cole more than I like wisdom grandpa Cole. His flows on this album are on-point, and the outside help from producers giving him that extra bite and furiosity in his beats make for some of the best bangers of his career. Something as simple as Cole chanting “one hundred mil’ and I’m still on the grind” over the sound of marching drums and whistles does the job so effectively that for a moment I really do buy that he’s the biggest rapper in the world. That might be the secret to this album! You know how I claimed that Cole trying hard to prove himself comes off as obnoxious? The Off-Season prevents that by being effortless. These bangers and even some of the more somber moments work so perfectly because Cole doesn’t second guess himself or try to put himself in a position of superiority. He just lets his words fly off the page, and that confidence makes this album incredibly easy to come back to as opposed to the slogs of KOD and 4 Your Eyez Only.
… And Again Into The Light by Panopticon
Best Songs: “Moth Eaten Soul”, “Rope Exit Burn”, “Dead Loons”, “The Embers At Dawn”, “Her Golden Laughter Echoes”, “And again into the light”, “Know Hope”
With how much I love the idea of folk-influenced metal, you’d think I would have gotten into Panopticon sooner. A band literally built on combining bluegrass, homegrown beauty with the harshness of black metal. They’ve always been on my radar, but I hadn’t really had the urge to check them out until their album announcement this year. Honestly? Not quite my favorite act in this niche subgenre. Not that I didn’t think the albums were good, far from it. I’ll dare say Autumn Eternal is one of the best metal albums I’ve ever heard. But I also wished that the metal and bluegrass elements worked with each other rather than mostly being separate. I like black metal sounds, but it’s always been the melodic elegance of folk instrumentation that floors me with bands like Saor and Dzo-nga. Autumn Eternal gets it right the most, but there were still moments where it felt like some songs were the designated black metal songs and some were the designated bluegrass songs.
While I don’t think this is quite as good as Autumn Eternal, in an ironic way it fixed the few problems I had with Panopticon in general. The shifts between black metal and bluegrass felt a lot more natural. In previous albums, the burst of energy from the guitar chugging was exciting, but at times abrupt. Especially since they had radically different tempos to the soft guitar picking of the bluegrass songs. It feels like a smoother transition here, to the point where every song connects to one another so seamlessly you don’t even realize you’ve moved on to the next song. It’s hard for me to come back to these songs individually because I feel their full impact far more within the scope of the album as opposed to on their own. Like, the build-up from the somber reflection on the title track to the eventual explosion intensity on “Dead Loons”? Absolutely phenomenal. It’s an album that demands you to view the full picture rather than confining it to a single moment. In a way, the album is its own therapy session. One where frontman Austin Lunn crawls out of the darkest period of his life, very nearly on the verge of losing all hope and doing something drastic. But the album opens once he’s out of that pit, saved by the support of his family and friends. As such, the bellowing roars over the furious riffs feel less like screams of agony, and more like screams of catharsis. Letting the last of your darkest thoughts out as you look towards better days. Unfortunately, the lyrics to this album are unreleased at the moment, so I can’t fully understand what specific pains he screams about on the album. But the power of music is being able to feel that emotion, regardless of if the lyrics are direct or vague. I revisited this album while sitting out on my porch after a rainstorm, watching the sunset on the golden skies and the sunshine reflect onto the greens around me. Each surface bursting with brightness and color as my earbuds play the beautiful wall of guitars, strings, and drums. I don’t feel dread listening to this album’s harsh sounds and explosive melodies. In a strange way, I feel comfort.
SOUR by Olivia Rodrigo
Best Songs: “traitor”, “good 4 u”, “drivers license”, “brutal”, “jealousy, jealousy”, “hope ur ok”, “happier”, “favorite crime”
Part of me wanted to talk about Olivia Rodrigo more when I reviewed “WITHOUT YOU” and dug into my buried teenage heartbreak emotions. “drivers license” alone would have given me a lot to talk about, but that turned out to merely be a fraction of the Olivia Rodrigo phenomenon. It’s one that reminds me of the unexpected rise of Billie Eilish, and how her unconventional approach to pop music ended up resonating with teenagers and young adults in a way I hadn’t seen, maybe ever. But Olivia’s music isn’t unconventional. In fact, it’s VERY conventional. SOUR is essentially a modern-day Taylor Swift album. A bold take would be that this is a passing of the torch moment, where Taylor decides to settle into her newfound love of indie-folk as Olivia Rodrigo now takes the mantle as the voice of teenage melodrama. Of course, that means inviting a lot of bad faith hot takes about Olivia and her music, with cynics defaulting back to 2000s era sexism and claiming there’s nothing special about her and all she does is whine about the same ex for half an hour.
But I’m here to argue that there is something special about her. “driver’s license” and “good 4 u” getting the meteoric rise they got was no accident. I myself am right in between the ages where this is the soundtrack of my youth AND I’m getting too old for this shit. I still consider this the best pure pop album of the year so far. Honestly, it’s incredibly easy to pin down why. Teenage melodrama can be a tricky line to balance, as you don’t want to make the emotions and pain overdramatic, but you also don’t want to undersell it. Olivia accomplishes this really well, but weirdly enough she did it by leaning hard toward one side. These emotions are very raw and very real, to the point where it almost invites you to tell her to get over herself. If you’re looking for maturity on this album, you’re looking in the wrong place. Olivia can be spiteful, selfish, melodramatic, whiny, and pathetic. Then again, she’s eighteen. When you’re experiencing heartbreak for the first time, those ugly emotions will get the best of you, and whether you hide from them or not, they will always be there when those strong emotions flood your body. And yeah, maybe sometimes, it’s all you can think about. No matter how many times you try to get the upper hand, the memories still linger and those emotions will become a part of you.
Olivia captures that so well in her music. Better than even early Taylor Swift did. Though, that might be a generational thing for me, seeing as I’m more in line with Olivia’s generation than Taylor. Still, I’m in the middle of this generation of teenage heartbreak, and I still knew Olivia believed every word she sang. Even if she’s a product of the Disney Channel, she has so much talent and promise as a songwriter that I can name several songs here that I’m positive will become landmarks of Gen Z pop music. Not even just the singles! Songs like “traitor” and “favorite crime” are doing incredibly well for themselves a month after the album’s release! And they deserve it because there isn’t a single song on this album I’d call even close to a dud. It’s a perfect pop album.
Scaled and Icy by twenty one pilots
Best Songs: “Shy Away”, “Saturday”, “Good Day”, “Never Take It”, “Redecorate”, “Formidable”, “Mulberry Street”, “Choker”
There isn’t much I can say about this album that I haven’t covered at length in my review from a month back. Certainly one of the most interesting and underrated albums I’ve heard this year. Kind of sad that the consensus is firmly against this album too. There’s a lot of vivid imagination and potent songwriting on here that deserves to be seen on the same pedestal as Trench, even if the songs are a little bit weaker. Ah well. Can’t be helped.
Harmony House by Dayglow
Best Songs: “Crying On The Dancefloor”, “December”, “Into Blue”, “Moving Out”, “Medicine”, “Close To You”, “Like Ivy”
I feel like there should be more of an embrace of comfort music. A lot of critics, myself included, can get hung up on the idea of albums that are important to the zeitgeist, or at least what we interpret it as. I’ve said it before that we like seeing our favs thrive and when they do we’d like to think this means they’re going to be tastemakers and innovators in the near future. But sometimes it’s nice to just have an album that you like because it just makes you feel good. It won’t revolutionize a genre or maybe even share a spot on other critics’ lists, but you like it and it’s not rocket science to figure out why. Such is my relationship with Dayglow, an alternative pop artist who makes lighthearted dance-pop that constantly sounds like a guy nervously trying to impress a girl he likes. His debut Fuzzybrain is incredibly good, with tons of great hooks and easy-to-like songs that kept me smiling the entire runtime. Harmony House isn’t quite as good, but it’s still great in a very similar way. I’m always smiling listening to these bouncy retro grooves, especially when the grooves are amped up and we get some incredibly catchy melodies from the lush synths or jazzy saxophones. It’s a pretty blatant pastiche admittedly, and Dayglow himself isn’t a performer to ride home about, but again, that doesn’t matter to me when these songs act as comfort food. A sound that easily gravitates towards me and makes me happy. I don’t need anything else.
Mercy by Cole Chaney
Best Songs: “The Air Between”, “Coalshooter”, “Another Day In The Life”, “Ill Will Creek”, “Back to Kentucky”, “The Flood”, “Humble Enough To Hear”, “Leave”, “Silver Run”, “Wishing Well”
Country music’s run this year, mainstream or otherwise, has been… weak. I guess between the lack of releases the first quarter and everyone waiting until lockdown restrictions cooled to start touring again, most of the country I’ve heard this year has been good, but rarely great or matching the heights of the best of the last few years. I remember thinking sometime in May how disappointing it is that I have no real grasp on what the best country album of the midyear was going to be. Cast Iron Pansexual was probably it, but even then that was the only contender for a while.
And then Cole Chaney happened. A guy so underground that finding information on him is pretty difficult. And yet, thanks to his Appalachian sound, he’s built a pretty sizable following and has been getting attention from a lot of country critics as the easy stand out of the year. First time listening, you’ll probably note how similar in sound and voice he is to country’s biggest non-industry star, Tyler Childers. But the more you go into Mercy, the more you see a songwriter with incredible potential already being realized. Not to mention some of the most beautiful and rich organic textures I’ve heard in years. This isn’t a high-production album, but these incredible arrangements will make you believe it is. And honestly? In just a single album, I already think Chaney has surpassed Tyler Childers’ best work. Make no mistake, this album is PHENOMENAL, and without question the best album of the midyear. It’s not just the beautiful harmony of strings and acoustics that make this album worth the listen. Chaney’s voice has the warble of Childers, but with a stronger baritone that can be romantic and sensitive in one minute, and sinister and foreboding in the next. Chaney’s lyrics act as folk tales of his hometown, talking about the places he grew up, the stories he heard, and the work he puts in day and night just to provide for his family. There’s a lot said about the coal mining industry in particular, and the quiet resentment of the danger and exhaustion that the job brings to the people who dedicate themselves to it. “Coalshooter” in particular is a harrowing story of a child who takes up coal mining to help provide the family with his father, and it describes the many ways the boy endangers himself every day, inching closer to death as the caves threaten to swallow him into their darkness. It almost reads as a warning to those who try to take up such a ruthless job to provide for their families, because if that child dies, it’ll all be for nothing.
But it’s not just an album of darkness and fear. If anything, where this album shines is in its optimism. Being able to appreciate where you are and remember why you’re putting yourself through hard times. Because when you have that moment to breathe and be thankful for what you have, that hard work suddenly doesn’t seem so bad. That carries through especially in songs like “Back To Kentucky”, “Another Day In The Life” and my current song of the year, “The Air Between”. Whether they’re about people important to you or the hometown you grew up in, everyone has a reason to put one foot in front of the other. And the beautiful acoustic melodies and fiddles are the warm, homely feeling you need after a long day of work. Essential listening.