Some quick takes on a few notable new releases.

01. Ignorance | The Weather Station
When the poet Adam Zagajewski invited us to “praise the mutilated world,” this may have been what he had in mind. The fifth album from The Weather Station offers tragic love songs for a planet in peril— like “Atlantic,” where the narrator is caught between rhapsodizing creation’s beauty and mourning its decline. There’s also “Robber,” which sounds like a twisted love song written to capitalism, where consumer culture itself is a relationship as abusive as it is inescapable. And “Loss” offers a lament unadorned by metaphor: Brokenness is brokenness and the end of the world is the end of the world, whatever other life lessons you try to extract from them. In other words, Tamara Lindeman has basically written this year’s soundtrack for Lent, and an anguished summary of the Fall: How brokenness and corruption have dysfunctioned our relationships with the planet and with each other. (As the prayer book says, Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.) She honors her grief by refusing to sugarcoat it, and she makes it palatable through dusky, late-night grooves with subtly dramatic arrangements. Supported by crisp drums, pristine piano, and the occasional moan of wind instruments, Ignorance boasts a mastery of tone and perfection of narrative momentum; and Lindeman sings her songs of grief as though they’re really anguished torch songs, which of course they are. I haven’t even mentioned “Heart,” where she’s unwilling to surrender love to apathy, no matter how much it pains her to keep caring. It’s an ache that anyone who’s ever loved will recognize all too well. 

02. Not Your Muse | Celeste
A lovelorn R&B record for the wee small hours of the morning. Young in years but old at heart, Celeste is obviously smitten with vintage styles, yet she never seems like she’s trying to sound retro, much less nostalgic; cliches though they may be, timeless and elegant feel more apropos. She sounds great on a clutch of glistening bangers, preferring coyness and intimacy over the raw power you’d get from, say, Adele. But what clinches it are the smoldering, threadbare torch songs that open the album (“Ideal Woman,” “Strange”), which show where her power really lies—vulnerable storytelling, grounded in the quiet embers of her voice.

03. FLOWERS for VASES/ descansos | Hayley Williams
The Paramore singer’s first solo album was the kind of sturdy, autobiographical pop record that seemed predestined to make a big splash; naturally, its rollout was swallowed by the dawning pandemic. You can hardly blame her for keeping the follow-up a little looser, more ragged and instinctive. Recorded during quarantine and performed completely alone, FLOWERS for VASES feels homespun and demo-ish, a set of melancholy acoustic guitar tunes buoyed by gurgling electronics. It’s a great showcase for her robust melodies and unguarded singing, and for lyrics that process divorce while cycling through grief and acceptance. Includes an album-opening line that many a country singer would kill for: “The first thing to go was the sound of his voice…”

04. Sound Ancestors | Madlib
The celebrated hip-hop producer releases an arresting, mostly wordless suite of beats, samples, and juxtapositions— a smorgasbord of sounds that reflects deep musicianship, insatiable curiosity, and a skill for paying close attention. There are some vintage R&B and soul samples that prove emotionally load-bearing, but I’m just as fixated on “Loose Goose,” where a disembodied Snoop Dogg speaks affirmations over what sounds like a symphony of bird calls, and “Riddim Chant,” a hypnotic odyssey of percussion.

05. Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan! | Aaron Lee Tasjan
Initially I was put off by how precisely Tasjan replicates the glossy production style of Jeff Lynne (think Tom Petty, Traveling Wilburys). Why invest so much effort in what’s effectively cosplay? But then I found myself laughing out loud at “Feminine Walk,” his salute to rock and roll androgyny— a real hoot. And I’ve been singing the tune from “Up All Night” for days. So I started to wonder: Maybe historic reenactment is how this guy’s mastered his craft, in much the same way that tracing letters has taught my five-year-old son how to write freehand. And maybe Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan! is something special: An homage that doubles as a showcase for its auteur’s tunefulness, whimsy, and humor.

06. Medicine at Midnight | Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters are one of the last big bands to remain so admirably, stubbornly, deludedly, quixotically committed to the idea of rock and roll; not even U2 are as set in their ways. It’s almost funny that their idea of shaking things up is to try their hand at disco, something The Rolling Stones did more than 40 years ago, but I’ll say this for Medicine at Midnight: Both rhythmically and melodically, this is about as hooky and engaging as the Foo Fighters have ever sounded, a party record from our most duty-bound crusaders. It’s just a shame their rock and roll conservatorship forces them to be so risk-averse; you can practically hear them straining to avoid developing a real point of view.

07. OK Human | Weezer
You can take away the guitars, you can strip out the power chords, you can gussy everything up in lush orchestral arrangements… but at the end of the day, for better or for worse, the songs of Rivers Cuomo are always going to sound like the songs of Rivers Cuomo. That means OK Human is consummately tuneful, unabashedly nerdy, and problematic any time it unfurls a proper noun. It’s not enough for Cuomo to make an album indebted to Serge Gainsbourg and Harry Nilsson; he has to reference them by name, making his intentions just a little too clear. And when he name-drops the Audible app, it doesn’t feel like writerly detail so much as crass product placement. What’s most impressive about the album, besides its inspirational title, is how Weezer can make an album utterly distinct in its character yet still of a piece with all their others. The more things change, the more things stay the same.