VICE Album Reviews, August 21: Brandon Flowers, Sam Smith, GB and More
· Vice
Music journalism is going to the wall, and places for sensible, well-informed, nuanced takes on the latest releases are dwindling. So we thought we might as well put the final nail in the coffin.
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Read this month’s previous album reviews here and here.
Brandon Flowers
Thrasher
Island
Listen, if you’re going to call your album Thrasher, I expect at least one moment of shredding guitars, double-kick drums, and lyrics calling Jesus a prick. But we’re talking about the Mormon frontman from the Killers here, so this ain’t gonna be God Hates Us All. No, disappointingly, there’s not even a hint that anyone involved in this record is going to Hell—instead, Brandon Flowers’ third solo record draws heavily from his experiences growing up as a kid who was exposed to “both genres”: country and western.
As such, I feel short-changed. Imagine walking into a metal bar as some guy onstage tells a crowd of devil worshipers they’re in for 40 minutes of “honky-tonk ragers, highway rambles, and winsome ballads,” culminating in a song where he’s visited by Elvis Presley while driving a Tesla? Imagine growing up as a teetotal LDS kid wanting to be drugged-out, androgynous David Bowie; becoming a millionaire in your thirties and getting hit by a sudden thirst to be working-class hero Bruce Springsteen; then cosplaying as Johnny Cash as you turn 45, when all along, everyone has felt deep down that the one guy you most resemble is Tom Cruise?
And now I’m thinking that maybe the title refers to Brandon being thrashed by his own merciless self-image, as he throws punches at his reflection in the cover art, lost in a slam pit of one.
On the plus side, the song “Paradise” is a real toe-tapper.
5/10
MR. BLIGHTSIDE
Sam Smith
Hazel Eyes
Capitol
The cover art for this sweetly indulgent set of love songs looks like it’s been put through a stinky brown Instagram filter, which makes the record easy to review, as the vibe is reminiscent of the time I went to an old-fashioned ball with my wife and knocked back 12 pints of Guinness—one, coincidentally, for every track on this album—and was overwhelmed by a need to void my bowels so intense, so desperate, that I could only peer into her hazel eyes and say “I’m sorry,” as I used part of her outfit to catch the treacly black mess. That’s right… it was an iron shit in a velvet glove. And if you don’t like this joke, I’m going to take it as yet more evidence for the slow creep of authoritarianism.
3/10
PAWGY AND BAES
Wild Pink
Still Coming Down
Fire Talk
On this wilfully grungey new Wild Pink record, John Ross sings, “I don’t know what my idea of fun is anymore,” capturing a little of the burnout neurosis that passes as entertainment in this, the year of our Lord, 2026. This track, “Round of Applause at the End of the World”, name-checks murdered politicians John and Robert Kennedy, and gunmen Sirhan Sirhan (“likely hypnotized”) and Jack Ruby (“a patsy killed a patsy”), wearily recounting these thrift-store conspiracy theories as though they’re the plotlines of old TV shows. The coarse, hazy storytelling later moves on to memed or maligned movies like Heat, Moneyball, and Waterworld (what I wouldn’t do for some gills right now), and it’s like you’re sinking cold ones at a dive bar that’s yet to be rehabilitated by Reels and slowly losing all sense of what does or doesn’t pass for history. And if you’ve got a better idea of fun than that, please let me know.
8/10
THE COSTNER LIVING CRISIS
Black Marble
Life in Small Spaces
Sacred Bones
While making music as Black Marble, Chris Stewart spends his time hunched over machines “that warm to the touch when turned on”—well, same here, and no, I’m not talking about my trusty desktop computer. I’m talking about this hands-free, AI-synced, waterproof male masturbator. But where the New York multi-instrumentalist now has another record of yearning, swoony nostalgia pop to show for his efforts, I’ve got nothing but horrific chafing injuries. High-five, brother!
8/10
DEATH IN GOON
GB
Herzsprung
AD 93
With cut-up newspaper lyrics and live takes recorded on a 24-track tape machine, Danish experimental pop musician GB’s approach to songwriting is intriguing, as is the press photo of his smashed-up face after crashing his bike—actually a very difficult thing to do in his home city of Copenhagen, given it’s one big grid full of traffic lights, and a population of prissy little prefects who look at you like you’re Charles Manson if you cross the street without the green man’s permission. Oh how superior I saw myself, until I went out for a tebirkes listening to Herzsprung and was so mesmerized by the tumbling guitarwork I plowed my fixie straight through the window of a nearby natty wine place. So much for my new clean-girl aesthetic.
8/10
CARRIE BUZZSAW
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