First Thought Fridays is a (mostly) weekly column offering quick-hit takes on some of the albums released this week, serving up first impressions, favorite or least favorite songs, and whether or not they’re worth a second listen. Check back for more each Friday night or Saturday morning.
If the first few weeks of this column gave you the impression that it was going to be nothing but raves, this week’s edition should prove amply otherwise: two albums I really, really loved, one that did absolutely nothing for me, and three more kind of in the middle. Which ones fell where? Read on for my thoughts on the new releases I checked out this week, in the order in which I listened to them:
Peel Dream Magazine, Taurus (Topshelf Records): I got a little bit of a head start on this week’s column, as this one dropped on Wednesday. Last year, Peel Dream Magazine released Rose Main Reading Room, an album I called “Simply a gorgeous listening experience” when I put it at #6 in my top 25 albums of 2024. Thirteen months later, the trio returns with Taurus, an 8-track, 23-minute EP of songs from the same sessions. These are no mere leftovers, but a continuation of that album, particularly its organic, heavily-Belle-and-Sebastian-inspired side. The best songs are the ones with a bit of spring in their step like “Venus in Nadir,” “The Band from Northampton,” and “Seek and Destroy” that play like outtakes from B&S’s If You’re Feeling Sinister or Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter, though the gentle acoustic guitar roll of “Letters” is also a highlight. But the peak track is the de facto closer “Believer” (there’s also a piano demo of the song “Take It” tacked on afterwards, which is merely okay), whose just-above-a-whisper vocals, lush arrangement, and heavy use of vibraphone sound so much like Sufjan Stevens that you’ll be ready to plan a road trip to Chicago. Every Peel Dream Magazine release sounds completely different from one another, but Rose Main Reading Room was so great that it’s amazing that we’re blessed with more songs that are in the same style and, for the most part, every bit as good. Will I listen again?: Absolutely.
Rocket, R is for Rocket (Transgressive Records / Canvasback): Sometimes, a band comes from out of nowhere and just blows your mind. That’s the case with Rocket, an L.A.-based quartet who dropped an EP back in 2023 but have leveled up in a major way on their debut full-length. R is for Rocket is a beautiful record, but it’s also one best listened to loud: Baron Rinzler and Desi Saglione’s distorted guitars soar and stomp in equal measure, Cooper Ladomade pummels out the beat, and floating above it all are bassist Alithea Tuttle’s ethereal, echo-laden vocals. It’s the sound of Ride’s Nowhere, of Rival Schools’ United by Fate, of Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream, of Hum’s You’d Prefer an Astronaut, of Cave In’s Antenna, of Soccer Mommy’s Sometimes, Forever, of Momma’s Household Name. Best songs: “Act Like Your Title,” the stomping guitar riffs and yearning vocals of the Soccer Mommy-esque “Crossing Fingers,” “One Milion.” The penultimate track “Wide Awake” didn’t do much for me, but the other nine tracks are pure ‘90s distorto-guitar ear candy. Will I listen again?: Absolutely.
Taylor Swift, The Life of a Showgirl (Republic): Just what everyone on the internet was waiting for: a fortysomething dad’s thoughts on the new Taylor Swift album! I’m not particularly well-suited to review this album either, as I think I’ve only heard two of her albums in their entirety (Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department) and my general taste leans more toward the idea of her making dad rock with The National’s Aaron Dessner than her making a(nother) pure pop album with megaproducers Max Martin and Shellback, which is what The Life of a Showgirl purports to be. But hey, the whole idea of this column is to engage with new music, and Dua Lipa, Olivia Rodrigo, and Sabrina Carpenter (who guests on the final, title track) have cracked back open the door to my appreciation of pop music, so why not give it a shot?
The thing I find most interesting is that this album is not a big pop move in the way I expected it to be when I saw Martin’s name attached. Yes, it’s entirely poppier and more radio friendly than her last few albums have been, but it’s not big, dancey pop aimed at the charts or the dancefloor—it’s not 12 new “Shake It Off”s. The first few tracks move the furthest in that regard, but then comes what’s probably my favorite song on the album, “Eldest Daughter,” a piano ballad with a verse about receiving slings and arrows from internet trolls, which sounds like the most insufferable thing for the most famous musician in the world to sing about but it ends up being pretty heartfelt and affecting—I can see that one being a big emotional moment in a live setting. Sonically, much of the album from there on is more “radio ballad” than “radio banger,” with lots of middle-of-the-road tempos, piano-driven melodies, and passionate vocals.
Speaking of vocals, Swift’s voice sounds particularly great on this album, especially when she stretches into the deeper parts of her range like the husky verses on “Opalite.” In the more mid-tempo back half, she seems close to going back to her early country days with her delivery without ever quite going there. She does spend an unfortunate amount of the album singing in more of a pop chirp that’s multi-tracked into oblivion, a sound that’s definitely suited to the current state of pop music (again, it reminds me a lot of Carpenter) but doesn’t play to Swift’s strengths as a vocalist.
Swift is most often praised as a lyricist, but more lines here jumped out at me for being cringe than did for being profound. (Granted, some of that is probably from writing this after just one spin.) On “Father Figure,” which borrows a little from the George Michael all-timer (but maybe not enough?), she rhymes “I drink that brown liquor” with “I can make deals with the devil because my dick’s bigger” which, um, wut? Tabloid tea leaf readers will find a lot more to dissect than I did—I was not up enough on the lore to have a clue that “Actually Romantic” is a Charli XCX diss, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what the groan-inducing, unnecessarily horny “Wood” is about. “Honey” is pretty much just as horny but works a lot better as a song. Still, the super horny pop song racket is best left to Sabrina Carpenter.
On balance, the album is…fine. If I were a diehard fan, I could see things to get excited about. As a more casual one, eh…I would probably leave any song from this on if it came on the radio, but I can’t imagine seeking the whole album again. Will I listen again?: Probably not.
Bryson Tiller, Solace & The Vices (RCA): Another one I’m probably not fully qualified to review: prior to listening to this, my only exposure to Bryson Tiller was “Down Like That,” the song he recorded for Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie. (Did I mention I was a dad?) The song was kinda cheesy and generic, sure, but it’s the kind of song that’s so catchy that your kids are singing along to it before you’re even done listening to it the first time. It had hooks.
On this album, though, I’ve gotta ask: where the hell are the hooks?! Solace & The Vices is a sprawling double album, 24 tracks over 59 minutes split into two LPs, an introspective mostly R&B affair (Solace) and a more rap-oriented set (The Vices, which was first released in August but is now paired with Solace as one giant playlist on the streamers). The songs on Solace are super short, mostly around two minutes, and Tiller seems to have taken the opportunity those short run times give him to, um, only write verses, apparently? It takes until track 11—11!!!—before any of the songs have a discernible chorus. Instead, the songs just sort of putter along on skittering, unmemorable beats while Tiller hits them at one of two speeds, a repetitive mumble or a keening vibrato croon. The approach wears out its welcome fast. The Vices is a little better in that at least some of the songs remember to have hooks, but it’s still all pretty one note, with only “Mini Kelly” (with Rick Ross) and “Last Call” managing to be sticky at all, and neither is good enough to get that excited about. A lot of Tiller’s approach on this album seems to be aped from The Weeknd, and if I had to make a choice, I’d much, much rather listen to his Hurry Up Tomorrow than ever spin this again. Will I listen again?: No.
Idlewild, self-titled (V2): Scottish quintet Idlewild have been making music for most of the last 30 years, and while I would hardly call myself an expert on their discography, I have tons of time for 2002’s The Remote Part and 2009’s Post Electric Blues is one of my favorite albums of the century so far. The bigger they got in the UK, the more Idlewild embraced an anthemic, stadium-filling sound to their songs, and the first three songs on their first new album in six years fit that bill nicely with driving rhythms, endlessly building guitars, and singer Roddy Woomble’s everyman croon, with ”It’s Not the First Time” adding a beautiful circling piano melody to the mix. The sound is how I imagine the Killers’ Sam’s Town might have sounded if they were really into The Joshua Tree instead of Springsteen. The rest of the album uses the same ingredients but didn’t quite grab me nearly as much as those first three tracks, though “Writers of the Present Time” is pretty decent and “Permanent Colors” has a pleasantly snaky bassline (very mid-’80s Cure) and a nice, prickly guitar solo. I wouldn’t say the album has any clunkers necessarily, but it didn’t grab me as much as their best albums have in the past. Will I listen again?: Front to back? Probably not any time soon.
Arthur Buck, Arthur Buck 2 (Lonely Astronaut): Arthur Buck is not a person but a band, or rather a duo comprised of singer-songwriter Joseph Arthur and R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck, reteaming again seven years after their self-titled debut. Does it sound like R.E.M.? Well, the very first seconds of opener “Everywhere” rings and chimes so familiarly that you’ll want to sing out “The wooorld is collapsing around our ears…” And while the best songs are tailored towards Buck’s strengths, on balance the album sounds more like a Butch Walker solo album—that is, alt-rock that wears its ‘70s classic rock influences on its sleeve. “No Answer,” for example, could be a Cheap Trick song, while “Sleep with One Eye Open” is surprisingly bluesy and “Love at First Sight” and closer “Not So Modern Man” lean heavily on Bowie-isms. It is a little wild hearing Buck playing on, say, a song with the lyrics “Your body, made of sin/ Your booty banging again,” but Arthur has enough swagger to pull it off. Will I listen again?: It’s not leaping to the top of the pile, but it’s fun enough that I’ll probably listen again at some point. | Jason Green
