The Weeknd-After Hours:
Reaching the milestone birthday of 30 has seemed to cause some change in The Weeknd's attitude. After cultivating an image based around nihilistic behavior, After Hours sees the R&B superstar breaking out of that sex-and-drug-fueled haze to explore the pain he's caused himself and others by living that lifestyle. The largely new wave/synthpop-inspired production and muted vocals, sometimes aided by well-deployed effects that really mesh with the tone of the album, create a melancholic universe where his deep-rooted feelings of regret really gets magnified. Even the more upbeat numbers ("Blinding Lights", "In Your Eyes", "Save Your Tears") contain a longing for the type of meaningful relationship he's deprived himself for so long underneath the bright chord progressions. While emotional pain has always played a sizable role in The Weeknd's music, taking accountability for his past recklessness and romantic missteps shows off a vulnerability that has never really existed.
Remarkably despite the generally depressive atmosphere, After Hours also features some of the catchiest music he's ever created. The icy, complex melodies come together in beautifully haunting fashion and the hooks of both the flashy ("Scared to Live", "Heartless", the aforementioned "sunny" tracks) and restrained variety ("Too Late", "Snowchild", "Until I Bleed Out") that emerge at various points of these unconventionally-structured tracks are home runs. Being able to create a project that is so emotionally transparent without sacrificing its more traditional pop sensibilities is exactly why After Hours is the first time he's achieved top-to-bottom excellence for the first time since House of Balloons.
Grade: A
Standout Tracks: 1.After Hours 2.Too Late 3.In Your Eyes
Dua Lipa-Future Nostalgia:
After a very solid self-titled debut in 2017, Dua Lipa has quickly graduated to greatness with Future Nostalgia. This is a brisk (just under 37 minutes in length!), toweringly confident record that rides its thumping vintage disco-meets-modern electropop production, powerful hooks and gusto-filled vocals to its neon-drenched finish line without losing any of its bubbly edge along the way. Future Nostalgia is the type of consistent, bop-filled release that can elevate a popular young artist to international superstar status and if another single or two take off to the degree that "Don't Start Now" has, Lipa will hit that benchmark by the end of the year.
Grade: B+
Standout Tracks: 1.Hallucinate 2.Levitating 3.Cool
August Burns Red-Guardians:
As boring as they are write to about, August Burns Red's consistency remains very impressive. They've established a sound that works for them (progressive metalcore) and every couple years they hammer out some new tunes that operate within that framework. That approach or the quality of the results that come from them once again remained the same on Guardians. Outside of a couple of minor changes (scaling back a bit on the extended melodic interludes that they've utilized on their past few efforts, utilizing more of the clean-ish vocals they introduced on Phantom Anthem), Guardians is just another sturdily-assembled collection of passionate, melodic anthems from the grizzled Pennsylvania outfit. It's not their best effort nor is it their worst, but the general enjoyability of their music as well as their unblemished discography remains in tact-which is really all that matters.
Grade: B+
Standout Tracks: 1.Extinct by Instinct 2.Empty Heaven 3.Ties That Bind
The Black Dahlia Murder-Verminous:
2017's Nightbringers was an unexpected masterpiece that saw The Black Dahlia Murder put forth one of the finest efforts of their career thus far after slipping into a state that at least resembled complacency on their prior two releases (Everblack, Absysmal). The follow-up Verminous sadly sees the group regressing back to the form they showed on Everblack and Abysmal. This isn't to say that Verminous is bad. To be honest, it's even not close. Black Dahlia have been consistently producing punchy melodic death metal tracks for nearly 20 years now and Verminous' 10 tracks show that their steady, workman-like approach can still yield compelling results. The problem is that Nightbringers was an electric offering that saw the group embracing a faster, more relentless sound that put a refreshing new spin on their established strengths (big riffs, sweeping solos, breakneck drumming, Trevor Strnad's menacingly chaotic vocals) as a group. By returning to a more deliberate, ominous sound that's especially akin to Everblack, those strengths aren't as well utilized and make it feel like they're holding back a little. I realize that it isn't totally fair to dump on Black Dahlia for simply returning to a sound they've embraced extensively in the past, but it's hard not to feel kind of cheated and disappointed when they just how showed you have a bigger, better collection of stuff lurking in the depths of their unholy musical arsenal.
Grade: B+
Standout Tracks: 1.Child of Night 2.The Wereworm's Feast 3.Sunless Empire
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