It would be difficult to come up with a better title for ScHoolboy Q’s second album, Habits & Contradictions. The album mixes second-nature stoner anthems with sophisticated struggles, lulling you into a hazy calm before pulling you out with a spitfire verse or a hyperactive beat. It’s a calming album at times, but leaves the listener’s pulse racing, even after 17 tracks and over an hour of music.
I was never too keen on much of the emo themes thrashed out by Fall Out Boy circa 2007. But that famous Top 40 line “This ain’t a scene/It’s an arms race”, as contrived as it is, still rings true to the ever more nouveau niche indie genre. Now with more digital bells and whistles to play with than ever, nearly all buzz songs from last year were drenched in synthesized arpeggios or awash with lo-fi fuzz. �
It’s a mark of how awesome Schoolboy Q’s new record Habits & Contradictions is that “Hands on the Wheel,” the A$AP Rocky-featuring, Lissie cover of Kid Cudi-sampling banger that we guarantee will spawn your new catchphrase (that’d be “life for me is just weed and brews”) might not even be the best track the album has to offer (or maybe we’re just too busy flipping our shit over the Menomena sample on “There He Go”).
An Album by Korallreven is the unimaginatively titled debut from Swedish dream pop duo Korallreven, but don’t let it fool you – this record is far from unimaginative. Daniel Tjader and Marcus Joons (of The Radio Dept.) have used their vast imaginations to record an eclectic, psychedelic, genre-defying album. After a few minutes of listening, the real reason for the title starts to become clear: Tjader and Joons are refusing to take things too seriously.
A- | 11.15.11 | Young Money Cash Money | Stream | MP3 | CD | Vinyl
Aubrey Graham didn’t claw his way up through rap game like the legendary moguls before him. He grew up in a posh Toronto neighborhood. He attended an esteemed private academy. He had a bar mitzvah. Compared to the fictional Papa Doc, Drake’s street cred is lacking to say the least. But in reality, he had to grow up just as fast as any other kid who’s innocence was snatched away from them prematurely. His parents divorced when he was three, leaving him to deal with his mother’s debilitating rheumatoid arthritis. Much like Lenny Kravitz, he reconciled with the permanent social handicap of never being black or white enough. That’s where he found his hunger. You don’t need exit wounds or a prison sentence to gain respect — just raw talent — which has aged to a fine cream right before our eyes. �
Parallax is a displacement in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight. Bradford Cox’s third album as Atlas Sound (a musical moniker he’s used since he was ten) is all about this type of cosmic perspective. If you follow just one of the acoustic boundaries laid before you, there’s no telling how far it will take you down the rabbit hole. Any wave of modulated sound will either go on for eternity or come to a digital halt. These are some rather risky games to play with the listener on what is essentially a contemporary pop album. Fortunately we’re rewarded with a harrowing sonic adventure that retains all the expected stark undertones with a greater penchant for incredibly lucid stream-of-consciousness.