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Molek FMJUICE’s July ’14 Review Roundup
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Reviews by Chris Ujine Ong
Every month JUICE highlights some of the albums we’ve been listening to with a truncated impression of each one of them.
This month we look at white men, a heartbroken Swedeheart, enjoyable but dated music, Chris Martin’s constant moping, an irrelevant pop princess, euphonic horrors, sunny side up heart pain, and accessible quirk.
LYKKE LI
I NEVER LEARN
[LL]
HEARTBROKEN SWEDEHEART
Heartbroken Lykke Li is all torn up (looking like a cross between an Addams Family bride and an unmade up Lady Gaga on the cover), diving into a cave to sing her heart out. Sink into her sullenness on the title track and ‘No Rest for the Wicked’, two in a well of studio-produced artful boom-gloom. When Li is left with just voice and guitar on the ‘Love Me Like I’m Not Made of Stone’, you just wanna damn the bastard who broke up with her.
LISTEN TO: ‘No Rest for the Wicked’
IF YOU LIKE THIS YOU’LL DIG: Devon Seven
RATING: 3 ½
CHROMEO
WHITE WOMEN
[ATLANTIC]
WHITE MEN
Chromeo digs all kinds of women, not just White Women, the brazen title of the electro funk duo’s fourth album. But do women trust a pair of shaded and suited white men, armed with ’80s-style kitschy synth pop come-on songs, called Dave 1 and P-Thugg? We say yes to the two: easy to like on the poptastic ‘Jealous (I Ain’t With It)’, and even easier to love when they get sensitive with Solange on ‘Lost On The Way Home’ and Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig on ‘Ezra’s Interlude’.
LISTEN TO: ‘Lost on the Way Home’
IF YOU LIKE THIS YOU’LL DIG: Toba
RATING: 3 ½
BRIAN ENO & KARL HYDE
SOMEDAY WORLD
[WARP]
DATED BUT ENJOYABLE
One’s a legendary ambient music maker who’s produced albums for Coldplay and David Bowie, the other’s the frontman of one of techno’s most esteemed acts, Underworld; both men given to experimenting with sound. They meet in Someday World, Hyde coming in to help complete Eno’s inchoation of sonic ideas encased in a found hard drive. An enjoyable, if dated and rudderless run at a collaboration, the best forms of which are found in ‘When I Built This World’ and ‘Daddy’s Car’.
LISTEN TO: ‘When I Built This World’
IF YOU LIKE THIS YOU’LL DIG: Both acts individually
RATING: 3
COLDPLAY
GHOST STORIES
[PARLOPHONE]
MORE MOPING
Now that Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow have decoupled, everyone will put Coldplay’s latest under a tinted lens to see if Chris is gonna throw shade or just mope; bad news, he just mopes more than usual. The band’s known for marrying mass appeal emo with grand, pop melodies, but this time, they dialled down the volume, with the lovelorn lyrics still mediocre (even if the feelings aren’t). An ambient surprise still, with ‘Magic’ and ‘Midnight’ showing just how Martin can turn grief into gold.
LISTEN TO: ‘Midnight’
IF YOU LIKE THIS YOU’LL DIG: Keane
RATING: 3