VICE Album Reviews, September 4: Rebecca Black, Amyl and the Sniffers, Chat Pile 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.
Read last month’s album reviews here, here, here and here.
Visit fish-roadgame.com for more information.
Rebecca Black
Age of The Exhibitionist
Self-released
Silence, clout-demon streamer—Rebecca Black is talking, and make no mistake: she intimately understands how deranged this new age of exhibitionism truly is. At just 13, Rebecca achieved the increasingly rare distinction of becoming instantly famous without debasing, demeaning, or otherwise destroying herself when she released the devastatingly popular YouTube track “Friday”. This was (as she recently told Billboard) a one-time deal, and the incredible viral success she experienced in 2011 would no longer be possible today. Fifteen years on, this innocent little single about looking forward to the weekend resembles the apple in the Garden of Eden.
Today, fame has truly become the snake that eats its own tail, and the closest thing to being a pop star now involves catering to reptile-brained subs on OnlyFans. To be fair to Rebecca, she’s chosen the most interesting career path for someone with an origin story like hers; she’s become an independent artist who has no shame about laying into what it means to wear your image like a skin. On this second studio album, she peels back some of the layers of our modern preoccupation with seeing and being seen, casting her eye over what it means to be a private person with a YouTube view counter embedded deep within your very sense of self.
That Rebecca Black wasn’t burned alive by her early encounter with celebrity is the reason she’s here releasing 12 cuts of soft-core pop. There’s a meaty dance-floor sensibility sweating inside plastic, chart-ready packaging, but this record would hit harder if she offered more of her perspective on the immolating realities of life online. Or say something about what it would take to be a viral sensation in 2026, when you can be filmed setting yourself on fire only to be forgotten by the following weekend.
Amyl and the Sniffers
Truth or Consequence
Rough Trade Records
Before the miraculous revival of country music, breaking a banjo string at a summer festival was something that would only happen during a particularly aggressive handjob. And there’s a rough pleasure to Amyl and the Sniffers’ new live record (sorry mom). Truth or Consequence captures the Australian punks performing a stripped-down, dust-covered rendition of their dirty, raucous pub rock at El Coyote in Los Angeles. There’s an accompanying concert film, shot by John Angus Stewart with a grainy, blown-out charm. The whole package is almost enough to convince me that Stetsons and cowboy boots are back for good. Now, who knows a good frenulectomy surgeon?
6/10
BONER TOMAHAWK
CHAT PILE
Who Loves The Sun
The Flenser
Contrary to what many would have you believe, life is great and actually very beautiful. This is decidedly not the impression you get when listening to Who Loves the Sun, which billows out of the speakers, noxious and savage, gobbling up every available scrap of light. After listening to this acrid vision of “an age marked by ceaseless torrents of algorithmic slop, technological overreach, and the cold, crestfallen state of society,” I had to go outside to see if the world had ended yet. Surviving a Chat Pile record gives you the same sense of relief as when the clouds part after a long storm, so I’m going to celebrate by sunning my balls because I read online that this is the secret to a long and healthy existence.
7/10
CIRQUE DU SOLAR ANUS
Mykki Blanco
Café Paradiso
Transgressive
What’s your emergency career change, then? My getaway plan is retraining as a chef. I’ve also fantasized about going back to school to study fine art—something Mykki Blanco has spent the last few years doing. This seasoned master of reinvention has thankfully returned to music with a zigzagging collection of genre-fluid heaters. Café Paradiso is a sassy record with a sweet heart; soulful and epicurean, it’s a perfect accompaniment for all manner of escapades and escape acts. This one comes on strong but is never overcooked, which more than I can say for the French sea bass à l’orange I’ve spent the last five hours prepping.
7/10
CARMY’S A BITCH
Johnny Foreigner
Forwards!
Alcopop! Records
I never expected to be here, writing about this record, just down the road from where they buried Søren Kierkegaard, who once said that life must be lived forwards but can only be understood backwards. Johnny Foreigner is still the best pop-punk band with math-rock guitars ever to come out of Birmingham, England, a city where I used to live and will probably visit again. It’s true that this is the sort of place that “everyone who can afford to leaves,” but it’s given them enough material for two decades’ worth of songs. The band has survived hiatus and heart attack, and this record echoes with the ghosts of their best moments, full of floating recollections from the suburbs where I saw their earliest shows. So I’m putting an old flannel shirt and a pair of skinny jeans on the wrong way round, sticking the car in reverse, and driving at full speed toward Spaghetti Junction. I’ll be running right over who I used to be.
6/10
CAP’N JIZZ
Natalie Imbruglia
Algorithm
Landgirl Records
The internet is inherently psychotic; it’s been hardwired to give everything a sense of the coincidental. So, of course, moments after seeing a post about Natalie Imbruglia’s 1997 smash hit “Torn”—a song I’d somehow managed to forget—I learn that she’s releasing Algorithm, her first record in five years (although, to be fair, the fact that she’s been putting out music all this time came as a surprise to me). The Australian pop star is a “deeply spiritual person” and wants to get a conversation going about the “psychological warfare” being waged against us. For a moment, the record’s brooding, digital glossolalia had me convinced I was receiving the light-language alien-landing codes—maybe Natalie’s right: Jesus is on Mars, and he’s coming back soon. Then, thank God, the slow-release Seroquel kicked in, and the music faded gently into the background as I returned to watching soothing video footage of A-10 Warthogs refueling in midair.
5/10
SHANIN BLAKEMINK
Follow Adam on Instagram @yungtolstoi
The post VICE Album Reviews, September 4: Rebecca Black, Amyl and the Sniffers, Chat Pile and More appeared first on VICE.