Tag: Indie

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New Music

Raveena – Lucid

Indian-American songstress Raveena has released her debut album Lucid. This soulful record is a fantastic follow-up to the singer’s well-received 2017 EP, Shanti. Raveena has shown incredible potential on this project with a near-flawless vocal performance across all 12 tracks. She flows smoothly over instrumentals full of warm synths, mellow drum beats, and the occasional psychedelic guitar chord. Each song immerses the listener in a location crafted by Raveena herself, with tracks like Stone setting the scene of a rainy Sunday morning, and others like Bloom eliciting feelings of walking through a park on a Summer day. On Mama, the songwriter contemplates about her mother’s life before giving birth to her in a unique and touching track released before the album on Mother’s Day. The sole feature of the album comes from Hope Tala on Floating, her voice complimenting Raveena’s incredibly well to form one of the most enjoyable tracks on the album. The album ends on a high note with Petal, where the beat consists solely of an ethereal vocal loop, a synth, and an intermittent reese bass. The vocal loop repeats the word “high”, creating a mesmerizing refrain that drives the song and closes out the project.


Categories
New Music

Mac Demarco – Here Comes The Cowboy

As much as I hate to say it, the new Mac Demarco project is a dud. As a Mac fan of many years, and a massive fan of his previous album, This Old Dog, I had high expectations going into Here Comes the Cowboy, but was definitely let down. To put it lightly, if the album art was alive and listened to this album, it would not be smiling for long. The album begins with a three-minute track of Mac repeating the phrase, “here comes the cowboy” over and over again, which speaks to the level of excitement the listener feels throughout much of the album. Don’t get me wrong, the album definitely has standout tracks with Nodody, On the Square, and All of Our Yesterdays containing elements of a great project, but unfortunately, every other song is either mind-numbingly boring or lacks that signature Mac Demarco flare that his fans know and love. The most egregious sin of the album, in my opinion, comes on the final track, where Mac and a chorus sing “bye bye, baby bye bye” incredibly poorly over a cacophonous mess of twangy instruments. This was a perfectly terrible ending to a perfectly terrible album. 

Categories
New Music

Faye Webster – Atlanta Millionaires Club

Faye Webster has released her sophomore album, bending genres and creating a project with a unique blend of folk, R&B, and everything in between. The album opens with a twangy track titled Room Temperature, where Webster states constantly, “I should get out more”. This pseudo-folk sound carries into the rest of the album, giving one the impression that if Stevie Knicks were to make music in 2019, it would sound similar to Atlanta Millionaires Club. Pigeon has vocals and a bassline that truly show the R&B influence that Webster has so often cited, accompanied, of course, by twangy guitars and melodic keys. This is a deeply personal album, with Webster covering topics ranging from breakups, seeing her dad cry, and longing for a lover that’s miles away. No song embodies this as much as Jonny, where she discusses how she’s lonely, her dog is her best friend, and how she questions if her ex ever really loved her. Flowers features ethereal vocals from Webster, and an oddly placed feature from the founder of Awful Records, and fellow Atlanta native, Father. This album is beautiful, emotional, and perfect for a rainy day or getting through a breakup.