Photo of Graham Coxon courtesy Transgressive Records
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.
Next week, I’ve flagged a whopping 11 albums for potential coverage. This week, though, I had literally nothing on my list prior to Monday. What I did find ended up pretty far outside this column’s usual lineup: hyperpop hip hop! Hip hop hardcore! A cast recording for a play that doesn’t exist yet! And, for the second time this year, I, a casual Blur fan at best, am in love with a Blur side project! Let’s get into it, shall we?
Graham Coxon, Castle Park (Transgressive Records): In 2011, Graham Coxon wrote and recorded a set of 20 songs that split neatly into two distinctive moods. The following year’s A+E included the more aggressive songs, the ones based around synths and distorted bass and snarling guitars. Plans to release the other half as a companion album were put on hold, though, when Coxon decided to reunite with his main gig, a little band called Blur.
Now those songs are finally seeing the light of day and, my GOD, how did Coxon keep a set of songs this strong just sitting on the shelf for 15 years? This is Coxon at his Beetlebum best: catchy, bouncy, mod-inspired melodies built around guitars that jangle and chime and a rhythm section that bobs and grooves like Paul and Ringo. The best songs conjure the spirit of mid-era Beatles (Help-Rubber Soul-Revolver) when the band’s growing ambitions were still served up in radio-ready form: peep the “Taxman” groove of “Billy Says,” the Spoon-meets-Kinks “When You Find Out,” the garage-y groove and boy-girl call-and-response of “There’s a Little House” (featuring Lucy Parnell on guest vocals), and the Let It Be-era throwback soul of “Forget Today.” It’s not all ‘60s worship, though: for some variety, there’s also the Spanish guitar ballad “Dripping Soul” and the wordless, downright gorgeous harp/violin/cello instrumental “Mélodie Pour Christine.” Will I Listen Again?: Definitely.
Big Freedia & SOPHIE, Released at Last (We Are: The Guard): Also sitting in reserve for years, this three-song EP is the result of a 2016 collaboration between rapper Big Freedia and the late groundbreaking hyperpop DJ SOPHIE, who died in 2021. This is my first exposure to either artist, but I do have to say that Freedia’s barking delivery, SOPHIE’s bold beats, and the way Freedia’s vocals are clipped and sampled make for a combo expertly crafted for dancefloor euphoria. (It’s slightly less suited to sitting at your desk under fluorescent lights staring at a computer, haha.) Opener “Let Me See Ya” adds the ethereal vocals of indie rockers MUNA to the mix, while “Blaze That A$$” uses the word “baby” more times in a single song than I would have thought possible. The songs are repetitive as all get-out, but in a hypnotic rather than obnoxious way. Will I Listen Again?: Maybe.
Casi, self-titled (Carpark Records): Rap/rock hybrids have been a thing for so long that I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that someone would finally blend hip hop with modern indie rock and hardcore sounds, which is exactly what Spanaway, WA duo Casi accomplish on their self-titled debut. This new twist on nu metal ends up being pretty compelling, especially on tracks like “I’m Hungover and Went to Church” and closer “Bridges” that sound like Refused as a rap-rock band. Eli Edwards and Xay Young’s vocal delivery is equal parts aggressive and playful, exemplified by this fun set of rhymes: “I was playing Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh/ Then I traded in my cards to hit the studio/ My professor shit on my portfolio/ Now these n****s playing Casi on the stereo.” (Shit on your portfolio? Professor Oak would never!). The album slows down a bit toward the end and those songs, particularly the emo-ish ballad “ELEVEN87,” didn’t grab me nearly as much on this first listen through. But as a whole, this album is ear-catching and original enough that I want to give the whole thing a chance to grow on me. Will I Listen Again?: Yes.
Caesar: The Musical studio cast EP (Center Stage Records): Yeah, yeah, everyone’s excited for Christopher Nolan’s new movie version of The Odyssey, but if you have any theatrically inclined, terminally online teenagers in your life, you probably know that the youths were way ahead of the Homer appreciation curve thanks to EPIC: The Musical. A sung-through musical adaptation of the epic poem, writer Jorge Rivera-Herrans developed the project over a period of years and released the songs as they were created via TikTok and other internet video platforms. The play has yet to hit the actual stage, but it has a sizable devoted audience that religiously streams the songs (to the tune of 2.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify) and creates memes and amateur animated tributes to its characters.
Singer-songwriter Grace Yurchuk developed her own sizable online presence by posting short-form videos of original piano and vocal compositions recorded in the NYU practice room while she was a student there, big brassy numbers with a Broadway attitude. Yurchuk’s first major project after graduating is taking that aesthetic, the inspiration from EPIC’s DIY creation, and a page from The Bard to craft an all-woman musical adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, releasing the demos as they’re created and developing the show in full view of her audience. This EP, featuring six of the play’s songs, was successfully funded via Kickstarter as the first step in hopefully a path to Broadway, and if these six songs are any indication, I think it has a shot. These are big, bold compositions meant to be belted out to the balcony, and like good musical numbers, they also manage to convey plot and character without getting bogged down by them, ably keeping their musicality intact. A cast recording is very different from a staged production, of course, but Yurchuk and her fellow castmates all have beautiful, professional-grade voices and the instrumental arrangements are bombastic but sized well for the stage. This is only a sampler, of course, but you can see the potential and it’ll be interesting to see how it develops from here. Will I Listen Again?: Broadway cast recordings aren’t a genre I return to often, but I definitely look forward to seeing how this story develops. Hail, Caesar! | Jason Green
