MUSIC REVIEWS
Lucy Dacus Home Video (Matador)
This is what the world of teenagers sounds like — intense, earnest, funny and sometimes beautiful.
On “Home Video,” 26-yearold Lucy Dacus revisits her adolescence, and in this case, intimate introspection makes for moving music. She shares recollections in a casually conversational style, writing mostly in the second person with an appealing specificity about young love and friendships.
“You told me to skip school to go with you to the movies,” goes the opening couplet on “Brando.” “You knew you were uncool, but you thought you could fool me.” Elsewhere Dacus sings about vacation Bible school, murder fantasy and forbidden love.
Like the lyrics to “Brando,” Dacus’ arrangements are cinematic, with a soft focus framing her honest alto. She goes for washes of synthesizers, strummed acoustic guitars and gauzy harmonies. The pretty pleas on the breakup ballad “Please Stay” benefit from the vocal assistance of Dacus’ boygenius bandmates, Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker.
Dacus smartly varies the dynamics, opting at times for big drums and bass, and even Slayer-style electric guitar. Because every adolescence should include some Slayer. —Steven Wine, The Associated Press
Doja Cat, “Planet Her”
(Kemosabe/RCA)
Not to be totally catty, but Doja Cat’s third album starts poorly. The first four songs — “Woman,” “Naked,” “Payday” with Young Thug and “Get Into It (Yuh)” — are half-baked tunes mimicking beats and vocals from Nicki Minaj or Rihanna. None are noteworthy. It’s depressing.
What happened to the artist behind 2019’s “Hot Pink,” a sonic breath of fresh air? What happened to the Doja Cat whose electric performance of “Say So” at the Grammys was reminiscent of Missy Elliott’s futurism?
Just wait.
The fifth song, “Need to Know,” is a superb, steamy sex tape of a song (with Dr. Luke co-writing and producing) and the sixth, “I Don’t Do Drugs” featuring Ariana Grande, is airy and confident with heavenly harmonies. “Love to Dream” follows, a slice of dreamy pop, and then The Weeknd stops by on a terrific, slow-burning “You Right.”
The Cat is back.
From then on, the 14-track “Planet Her” rights itself with whispery pop songs and the envelope-pushing “Options” with JID, climaxing with the awesome “Kiss Me More,” the previously released single with SZA that has a Gwen Stefaniish refrain and must be considered a strong contender for song of the summer.
Despite the weak start, Doja Cat fulfils her promise on “Planet Her,” with an exciting, unpredictable style and a vocal ability that can switch from buttery sweetness to cutting raps. Just don’t start at the beginning. —Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press
Modest Mouse The Golden Casket (Epic)
Uh-oh. It’s not a good sign when any band starts referencing death right from jump. Modest Mouse have placed an open coffin on the cover of its latest album and have called it “The Golden Casket.”
Relax, fans. Inside the 12-track album is a band true to its quirky alt-rock soul and having kooky fun. It may be commercial enough to attract new listeners and yet still embrace enough of the bizarre to satisfy longtime admirers. If this is a eulogy, it’s a terrific one.
In fact, a resigned tranquility runs through the band’s first album since 2015. In the song “Wooden Soldiers,” frontman Isaac Brock sings “just being here now is enough for me” and in “We’re Lucky,” he’s happy to be between the stars and the seas: “It takes a lifetime to ever figure out/That there ain’t no lifetime that is ever figured out.”
Modest Mouse wouldn’t be Modest Mouse without some weirdness and there’s plenty of that. “Transmitting Receiving” is mostly a list of things — “mustard seeds, turtles, weeds” — that goes into the trippy space of The Flaming Lips. A cosmic understanding also resides in the terrific, funky “We Are Between,” which positions mankind “somewhere between dust and the stars.”
Many of the songs are excessively overcooked, like the unnecessary flourishes on “We’re Lucky,” and some are undercooked, like “Lace Your Shoes.” But some are just right, among them the driving “Back to the Middle,” “The Sun Hasn’t Left” and the opening song, which is what an acid trip must sound like if it was set to music.
The album was produced with Dave Sardy and Jacknife Lee and the range of instruments is astonishing, from shakers and marimbas to “paper bags filled with wood.” On one track, Brock is credited with “soft drink percussion,” “spacephone” and “vibraslap” — which is very Modest Mouse.
Whatever he’s playing, it’s good to have Brock’s droll, word-stretching, warping vocal delivery back, together with Modest Mouse’s fondness for odd and explicit song titles and a top-notch band always making interesting music. — Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press