Aster Tracks

The following contains spoilers for Barbie and assumes, in discussion, that you have seen the film. If you wish to avoid spoilers do not proceed. My entire life I’ve defined my inner monologue and external expression via the music I listen to but recently my artistic consumption has become much more complex. These days film speaks to me a lot, a long way from where I was a year ago. Before I had seen very few movies and now, I have favorites. For a while I tried to start an AsterTracks movie blog and had a few outlines, but nothing ever came to fruition. The point is, I don’t really know how to talk about movies because I’m still sort of new to them.  I also don’t know how to write intros to anything. Our secret? Cool. I do, however, know how to talk about music, so here’s a review of a Barbie album. My friends and I saw Barbie completely by accident. We were enroute to see an old movie at a local theater when the plans derailed while we were in the car and went to see this instead...

I still haven’t heard High Road, the 2020 album by the LA born superstar, so to me the last one is Rainbow. Rainbow really won me over in 2017 with its inspirational message and push back against an abuser and I don’t think I realized at the time how important that would be to me. When it was released I was shown the record by someone who was also assaulting me. But also I felt a certain gender euphoria over some of the more party centric songs though I wouldn’t allow myself to feel that either for a few more years. Moving on though, immediately Gag Order is a much different record. Right from the offset with “Something to Believe In” it’s raw, it's haunting. Kesha lets you know from the project’s opening moments that this is an album where she’s working shit out again and the entire thing has that very energy and melodramatic structure. That effect continues right on into “Eat the Acid,” another piece of synth-based balladry. Here, Kesha warns you not to follow the path she’s been...

Growing up I always knew Gorillaz but outside of the hits I was pretty late to the party. I didn’t listen to the cartoon band's full discography until the release of Humanz where my roommate at the time took me through a crash course of all their music. I never explored Blur though, I knew the two had the same singer and “Song 2” but that was about it. To be honest, whenever I listen to a new album by an older rock band I expect it to be bland and in Damon Albarn’s case I really didn’t expect much of this new record considering how I felt about Cracker Island. On “The Ballad,” the almost-title track of Darren you get pretty much more of Cracker Island. This song sounds like you could have slapped it right on that Gorillaz record and that’s sort of how I feel about a lot of the songs here. Songs like “Faraway Island” not only share the record’s titular themes, but sort of feel like a lost chapter in the album’s narrative and share the exact sonics. I was already quite bored of the ...

These past couple of years it feels like every defunct metalcore band is making some kind of a comeback. Because of this, it always leaves me wary of the quality of the music they’re about to put out. I really hate using this phrasing but a lot of the times these comeback songs always sound like chasing a check with no real artistry. Even still, maybe foolhardy of me, I was really excited for a Jamie’s Elsewhere return. Frontman Aaron Pauley has come a long way since the more active days of his former band and he’s now the bass player and sole vocalist of Of Mice & Men, who have really come to rise in the past few years. Aaron isn’t dropping either band it seems and honestly I’m pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoy this new EP. A lot of the vocal melodies on Paradise are truly haunting. Aaron has really mastered this fine line between forlorn sad boy as well as strong and confident. On “Poisoning Eden” for example he’s layered over himself giving an absolutely crushing performa...

PVRIS are back with their fourth record and second since Lynn Gunn has declared it as mostly her solo project. I’ve never really been too invested in PVRIS’ music, especially after that little declaration. There’s just something off putting about anyone switching the entirety of their bandmates to a touring only status and then claiming you’ve always been the creative force as if credits on your past records don’t exist. Lynn’s attitude toward everything aside, their music never quite hit for me, at least not in an album sense. There’s always some songs on each PVRIS record that hit for me and EVERGREEN is no different, but it’s also no different in how I feel about the body work as a whole. The record opens on “I Don’t Wanna Do This Anymore,” a track that sounds stale on release with some tired verses and a chorus whose only memorable quality is how much it's drilled into your skull. Lynn does come through with some solid melodies on the bridge here but by that point it’s all sort...

The last two weeks of March were a lot. It felt like absolutely everything I wanted to hear in the year was locked to just those two weeks and as a result I didn’t actually review much of it, if any. I know this has never exactly been a rap blog but I’m trying to be more aware of things going on in the genre. I was really looking forward to this album like a lot of people online but felt like I missed my chance to talk about it. That is until the team-up of Peggy and Danny Brown released a “DLC” pack with four new songs to add to this record. To start, I actually really love the idea of releasing a sort of addendum EP as opposed to a deluxe record. “Where Ya Get Ya Coke From” is a great note to end Hoes on and I’m happy to see four new songs of this style. I don’t think these are better or worse than the actual record and whether or not you agree it's just nice to see these two stand together and create one last memento of their collaboration. That is to say that I don’t have much ...