LCD Soundsystem - 45:33 (2006)

1) 45:33 (Pt.1); 2) 45:33 (Pt.2); 3) 45:33 (Pt.3); 4) 45:33 (Pt.4); 5) 45:33 (Pt.5); 6) 45:33 (Pt.6) Bonus tracks 7) Freak Out / Starry Eyes; 8) North American Scum (Onanistic Dub); 9) Hippie Priest Bum-Out

Murphy and co get to make a LCD long-form dance jam without any constrictions or inhibitions.

Key tracks: If you want to split the main song, parts two and three.

James Murphy was explicitly commissioned by Nike to create 45:33, but he likely had something like this in his mind regardless and getting asked to do so was just a fortunate twist of fate. Ostensibly designed for a jogging promotion campaign, Murphy got to indulge in his dream of creating a single, album-length song and the true nature of 45:33 is in fact to be the most uncompromised incarnation of the standard long-form LCD Soundsystem jam track - this time running for nearly 46 minutes. Mostly focused on rhythm and groove and sustaining the energy for as long as possible, 45:33 is the dancefloor jam to end all jams - and just to make it clear, this is probably the purest indie disco soundtrack filler that Murphy has ever released, all four-to-the-floor and none of the introspective lyrics.

Whether coincidental or not, the six untitled parts which make up the complete composition vaguely follow the form of a standard exercise routine. Part 1 is little more than a gentle warm-up intro, parts 2 to 4 make up the body of the work-out, 5 is the last intense push and the final part is the wind-down. The part splits aren't particularly precise and in some formats it doesn't exist to begin with (instead served as one long 46-minute piece), but cutting this into chunks was never the intention either way; 45:33 is intended to be a singular session and its various sections exist solely in context with one another rather than to stand out individually. The only real exception to that is part 3 and that's completely retrospective in nature: Murphy repurposed the particular section into "Someone Great" from Sound of Silver, and because of that familiarity it now sticks out from the rest of the composition here, like it's unintentionally gatecrashing a party it wasn't aware of. For the most parts though, all the parts are built on the same ideas: mechanically precise drum hits, groove-driven bass, the occasional odd vocal sample (from Murphy or one of his friends - the second part's "shame on you!" being a particular favourite) and lush but carefully concentrated additional keyboard and synth accompaniments, served in varying tempos. While varied, once you've heard the first section you have a rough idea where the rest of it's going to go, even if there are a few minor swerves in the way.

Regardless, purely from a compositional standpoint 45:33 succeeds remarkably, in that Murphy has managed to build a long-form song that holds up together for its entire duration. While there aren't any central melodies or leitmotifs that spring throughout, each part builds on from the previous one, taking its core and spinning it into another route, and the end part of that route is then transformed by the next section; while the sections therefore are ultimately 'individual', they share so much of the same DNA throughout that you get that they're part of the same song. And perhaps the only reason I notice these sections so clearly is because I happen to own this on a format that marks them separately - maybe if I had this as a single track, I wouldn't pay so much attention to this? Still, some of the indicated parts work better than others, admittedly: the cool cat lazy funk of Part 2 is a particular favourite, while the athletically energetic 5th part - which is all racing rhythm sections and quick horn stabs - gets a bit too samey already a few minutes in.

All that said, while it all holds up together well this isn't the kind of epic showcase that many other artists' album-length songs are. In the end it's a piece set to accompany a work-out session rather than careful listening, and so its aim is to keep a set pace rather than offer all the things you'd normally find in a LCD Soundsystem release. Its main importance to the greater mythos is that that arranging this arguably helped pave way for Murphy to utilise the tricks learned in his later dancefloor-ready cuts - as an actual song, it's an enjoyable ride but not one that's so striking that it really justifies a 46-minute listening session on its own. It's background music - foot-tapping, head-bopping background music of course, but still something to occupy a space where your focus is on something else. Its impressive in many ways, but not as a song per se.

The CD version also features a handful of Sound of Silver b-sides as bonus tracks (also released separately as the Confuse the Marketplace EP). "Freak Out/Starry Eyes" is another long-form LCD jam: the "Freak Out" half is slow and thick, all deep bass, sultry synths and funk horns, while "Starry Eyes" sounds like a synth remix of the first half. It's fine, but maybe not 12-and-half minute fine, though it's best of the three. The Onanistic Dub remix of "North American Scum" is your average kind of remix, i.e. one that's listenable but where barely any of the original track remains and which goes on for at least five minutes too long. "Hippie Priest Bum-Out" relatively speeds by in comparison to the other two songs, but while it's a nifty little instrumental jam with a particularly involved percussion section, it sounds like a sketch or a demo for something that would be developed further later on. For a completionist it's nice to have the b-sides but what Murphy showcases in the two originals, he's done it better on the actual albums.

Rating: 7/10

Sonic Team - Sonic Adventure 2 Cuts Unleashed: SA2 Vocal Collection (2001)

1) It Doesn't Matter (Theme of Sonic); 2) Escape from the City (for City Escape); 3) Believe in Myself (Theme of Tails); 4) Unknown from M.E. (Theme of Knuckles); 5) Fly in the Freedom (Theme of Rouge); 6) Throw It All Away (Theme of Shadow); 7) E.G.G.M.A.N. (Theme of Eggman); 8) Live & Learn (Main Theme of Sonic Adventure 2); 9-16); Instrumental versions

The vocal themes from the game where the series grew a beard and got more serious. Still cheesy and lovably so, but with a serious focus to the craft. 

Key tracks: "Believe in Myself", "Unknown from M.E.", "Live & Learn"

Sonic Adventure 2 was released on Sonic's 10th birthday and as the anniversary game it aimed to deliver everything in a bolder, more epic way than ever before in the series: including the series' first steps into more serious themes in contrast to the usual Saturday morning cartoon plots. SA2 does a better job of balancing that inherent mismatch than many of the little more misjudged attempts since, and that same balancing act applies to the vocal theme songs that had become a new feature for the series with the first Sonic Adventure game. There is no escape from the inherent cheese in Sonic vocal themes (which is partly the reason why they can be so lovable), and the songs on the Sonic Adventure 2 themes on Cuts Unleashed aren't attempting to fight against it either. Even if these are rock songs about neon-coloured animal characters, they can still try to take themselves seriously within their own world; the source material doesn't have to mean you can't try to say something about the characters.

The three hero side songs (the game splits its length between the good guys and the anti-villains) demonstrate this refined approach pretty well. The songs for Sonic, Tails and Knuckles are all remakes of their themes from the first Sonic Adventure, and where the first game openly and blissfully waded into the cartoon cheese, the versions here buckle up and try to take themselves a little more thematically seriously. "It Doesn't Matter" now has a pop punk pace to it, replacing the original wind-in-hair highway rock and its carefree attitude suits Sonic's character far better. "Believe in Myself" is now an A-grade pop/rock anthem with a fire in its belly, featuring some lush arrangement details that wonderfully underline the song's upbeat ideas. I'm not afraid to admit I have an irrational adoration towards the song, but it's a fantastic representation of the mix of cartoon wholesomeness and genuinely quite excellent hooks that Sonic themes often aim for. It's "Unknown from M.E." that truly takes a leap as a reimagination though. For some reason Sonic Team decided on Sonic Adventure that Knuckles' chosen musical style is hip-hop and his theme in Sonic Adventure has the slight clunkiness of people with no hip-hop past trying to fit that genre into Sonic the Hedgehog; for SA2 the team went all-in and honed down on their approach, smoothed all the rough edges off, and realised how to pull it off the best. The SA2 version of "Unknown from M.E." features slicker rap sections, smooth RnB-flavoured choruses, a fantastic vocal interplay between the leads for the respective sections and a constantly shifting and evolving production that gets increasingly more exciting. Replace the lyrics with something less geeky and all three songs could stand up on their own two feet - a case in point that just because you're doing game themes, it doesn't mean you can't take the craft seriously.

The three dark side songs are all brand new compositions and highlight the expanded genre palette of SA2, where each character was paired up with a distinctive sound for all their levels, and where the themes are a logical follow-up of that. "Fly in the Freedom" is a smoothly floating, jazz-flirting pop tune which is once again an arranger's playground, from its suave guitars to the underlining backing vocals; out of all the songs here, it's the song that's least like what you might stereotypically imagine as game music and it's kinda impressive in its own way. Over on the complete other side, "E.G.G.M.A.N." is a hammy cartoon bad guy anthem and relishing in it: it's by far the most outrageous song of the lot but it's captivating much like a great villain song should, and it's laden with the kind of hooks that keep your foot tapping for days. "Throw It All Away" is the weakest of the lot: its moody techno goes a bit over the top in its attempt to sound dark and edgy, but ultimately its main crime is that it's twice longer than it should be, its couple of good building blocks repeated ad infinitum without much change and in comparison to all the other themes, comes off very one-note. A lot of Shadow's gameplay segments feature songs in a similar style and with vocals to boot, but they all do the same thing better than his actual main theme does.

In addition to the six character songs, the mini-album also features the game's main theme and one of the stage songs. "Live & Learn" has become more or less the definitive vocal theme song of the series and the equivalent of a signature song for Sonic Team's house band Crush 40, and it's really obvious why. It's a fist-pumping anthem loaded with energy, packed with a powerful signature riff, featured Johnny Gioeli's best vocal performance in the Sonic history, and just when you think it's reached its peak, the song shoots out one level higher for the last chorus in a brilliant example of a key note change done right. No Sonic main theme has ever come close to "Live & Learn" and it may as well be the series' main theme for what it's worth. The inclusion of "Escape From the City", the song from Sonic's first stage, is a little random but practically an act of precognition: time has turned the stage into an iconic Sonic moment and simultaneously turned the song itself into one of the series' all-time classics, and so its inclusion feels almost justified here as if Sonic Team anticipated it would become one of the game's big songs. And it is a great song, of course - super-addictive feel-good pop punk with one of the franchise's best choruses. By the end of the album you also have instrumental versions of each song, which aren't really a positive or a negative thing: they help to hear the production details but like most instrumental versions, mainly get shelved after one listen.

I'll share an anecdote. I used to be a fairly massive Sonic fan, but there was a point in time where I had ended up losing touch with the series. Where at one point I had been listening to random Sonic soundtracks on a nearly daily basis, I had also started to become more obsessed with music general and finding myself in love with new bands and artists at an exponential rate, and thus listening to this music and playing these games had fallen off my radar nearly completely. One day, the SA2 version of "Believe in Myself" came up on a music player shuffle and on that very instant, as the song played, every single memory I had of playing the series and listening to the music in my more formative years flooded back into my mind. When I got home, I pulled the game back out of the shelf and started it for the first time in ages and went on to relive through it again - a moment that essentially solidified my love for the series once again (even if I'm hardly the same fanatic today as I was back in the days). Everything on this album is very close to my heart, as ridiculous as these songs can be. You most likely don't feel the same in the slightest should you listen to any of these songs without any connection to the games - you might wonder what exactly I'm rambling about in the paragraphs above. As such, I'm not going to say that you should listen to these songs even if you know nothing about the context; I mean you might get a kick out of them but I'm not going to bet on that. Instead, I'm going to finish this by simply saying that to it me it doesn't matter these are from a game about a blue hedgehog and his friends: there's a meaning here that's long since become something bigger than the source material.

Rating: 9/10

Bright Eyes - A Christmas Album (2002)

1) Away in a Manger; 2) Blue Christmas; 3) Oh Little Town of Bethlehem; 4) God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen; 5) The First Noël; 6) Little Drummer Boy; 7) White Christmas; 8) Silent Night; 9) Silver Bells; 10) Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas; 11) The Night Before Christmas

The Christmas record for anyone who lost their presents and who are now drinking mulled wine all by themselves in their cold apartment.

Key tracks: "Blue Christmas", "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" / "The Night Before Christmas"

A lot of people seem to regard this as the world's most depressing Christmas album, or something along those lines; one of my friends memorably described the version of "Little Drummer Boy" as the only Christmas song that's made him want to slit his wrists. But I don't think that's quite the right take for this. No one who wants to make something genuinely sad decides that the best way to go about it is a Christmas album, especially wholly one made out of seasonal classics. Playing festive tunes in minor scales and downbeat tempos isn't something you do just for the sake it it, it's a conscious twisting of the familiar melodies. It might just be my skewed understanding of what sad is (thanks, years of emo white guys with guitars in my CD player) but mopey as it may be, the Bright Eyes Christmas album is hilarious in its wallowing. It sounds like Oberst taking his reputation as a depressing singer/songwriter and deciding to have a laugh with it, by creating a Christmas album so over-the-top in its moodiness it's borderline comedic. I don't know the true story behind the album's creation, but given he included a self-ridiculing fake interview just a few albums back, being a little cheeky about his own sound is par on course by now.

Besides, the sadsack Christmas tunes are only one facet of A Christmas Album. There's a decent amount of variety across the songs here: the electronically buzzing version of "Little Drummer Boy" sounds like a sneak preview of Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" stomps like an angry reindeer, "Blue Christmas" has a lithe country twang to it, "Silver Bells" is a Sufjan Stevens Christmas song before those became a thing. Oberst is also far from the only singer on the album and on some tracks he doesn't say a word, his friends getting the spotlight - unfortunately the album's credits are very vague in terms of direct crediting, but many of the women assisting Oberst with the vocal duties across the album have gentle warm voices, perfect for the ideal cosy Christmas evening. When Oberst and his friends do jump into the black Christmas tree territory, it's pretty good in all honesty. "Silent Night", "The First Noel", "Away in a Manger", etc all work really well with a frown on their face, and as established before, are actually rather entertaining in their melodrama.

It's hard to understand how these could be considered genuinely sad but if you don't find the tongue in the cheek here, there's really little here to savour completely on musical terms alone. It is after all just a brief set of old school evergreens: no matter what you do with them, you're never going to get anything you haven't really heard before. There's no left-field deep cuts or any Bright Eyes originals either, as enticing as an idea of a true Oberst Christmas carol sounds like. That said, the version of "Blue Christmas" is now a mainstay in my Christmas mixtapes because it nails the recipe while having a really solid performance and arrangement behind it: its hint of the blues is present but not without going too far, reaching for that gentle wistfulness that a lot of really good Christmas songs have going on for them. The biggest surprise though, and my actual favourite part of the record, lies right at the end. The stark piano-and-cello version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is honestly beautiful on its own, but it then segues into an orchestrally flaired, comfortingly narrated reading of "The Night Before Christmas". It closes the record in a beautiful and unexpected manner, and it manages to conjure a little magic in as it captures that very special Christmas feeling completely genuinely: it's the Hollywood camera pan-out from Oberst's moody den to the pristinely white winter wonderland outside, snow gently falling to the ground, as the credits roll in.

I get why this can be so divisive, but the whole concept of "early-period Bright Eyes doing a Christmas album" should be a dead giveaway of what's in store, and taking it at face value misses the target entirely. If you're like me and you love both Christmas as well as mopey emo singer/songwriters, this is a delight - it's also a great contrast to so many other indie Christmas albums, which ensures that this gets wheeled out every year (much to the misery of the people I've lived with), especially during the days when all you get is another downpour of rain instead of snow. Plus, it's funny... or I'm just really disjointed myself, either or.

Rating: 7/10

R.E.M. - Collapse Into Now (2011)

1) Discoverer; 2) All the Best; 3) Ūberlin; 4) Oh My Heart; 5) It Happened Today; 6) Every Day Is Yours to Win; 7) Mine Smell Like Honey; 8) Walk It Back; 9) Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter; 10) That Someone Is You; 11) Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando and I: 12) Blue

For their last hurrah R.E.M. sum up their entire career in 12 songs, interpreted through their recently rejuvenated form. It's both an apt goodbye as well as a little hit and miss.

Key tracks: "All the Best", "Ūberlin", "It Happened Today"

Here it is. After fourteen studio albums and thirty-odd years, R.E.M. present their curtain call. Collapse Into Now wasn't announced as such (the actual news hit roughly six months later), but it was intended to be one: R.E.M. knew it was time for them to bow out and ride the high wave of their autumn years into the sunset. In retrospect it's obvious - the lyrics skirt around the issue in a manner that's so clear in hindsight (I'm looking at you "All the Best" and your lines about showing the kids how to do it one last time), and the band even wave goodbye right there on the front cover. But at the time very few people had any idea that it'd be the case, and Collapse Into Now certainly didn't show any signs of the group stopping. Quite the opposite in fact: it felt like the band were continuing to sail with the new wind of energy that Accelerate had brought over.

Beyond that, Collapse Into Now also sounded like the band didn't want to focus on any one particular idea to go forward with - and so they went with everything. Once again, perhaps in hindsight it was a way to sum up what R.E.M. stood for musically as they were ready to place the final full stop at the end, and so Collapse Into Now goes a little all over the place. It's still firmly centered around the muscular and guitar-heavy direction familiar from the previous set of releases, but every other song they keep splintering away from it in various ways. So much of R.E.M.'s past vibes makes a cameo appearance throughout Collapse Into Now, although reflected by where the band were standing at the present. Even Buck's mandolin makes a return after several records of absence, giving a respectful nod to how it became the band's semi-signature instrument for a time. R.E.M. never were a purely nostalgic band and even when they openly dug up their own past (like with Live at the Olympia) they did it in a way that honoured their present - likewise, the familiar elements here are flashes rather than direct throwbacks. It's R.E.M. of 2011 clearly in the lead, but you can tell where the keyboard-heavy dreamers, acoustic ballads or other sudden sonic textures popping up throughout originate from. 

That variety comes with some inconsistency. For their last record, R.E.M. pull out a first for the band in creating a record that wildly swings from brilliant to awkward from one song to another (or even within the same song), in a manner that goes beyond the intentionally incohesive vibe the song selection has. It's an album that's difficult to build a consensus on, because how could you make up your mind when even the album itself can't. "That Someone Is You" and "Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter" are irreverent punk fun but border on throwaway, and then they're situated right next to rock anthems as full of life and vigour as "Mine Smell Like Honey" (a chorus so effortlessly soaring it comes out of nowhere) and the self-snarky "All the Best", which put the "kick" in kicking the bucket ("it's just like me to overstay my welcome, bless"). "Every Day Is Yours to Give" tries to be atmospheric but slows things down to a slog with little beyond the surface textures, yet "Oh My Heart" is a genuinely elegant and beautiful plaintive lament, taking its melodies from its direct Accelerate prequel "Houston" but removing the tension surrounding them, allowing the grace of it come to front. For every striking success there's a sudden clumsy step tripping over around the corner.

Within the up-and-down lot there are two rock solid classics which solidly slot into the greater canon, and go a good way in boosting Collapse Into Now's role in the greater whole. "Überlin" is the big one, though it never makes it out to be the case. It's almost dangerously unassuming, keeping things close to the ground and carries itself largely by its simple acoustic riff and steady beat. It conjures an impeccable atmosphere though, conveying getting lost in an urban metropolis and finding amazement from the sheer size of it through a dream-like sway, offering an evocative tone the rest of the album intentionally steers away from. Most of all, it's loaded with killer vocal moments, from the constant interplay between Stipe and Mills to the superbly strong chorus with a great melody and touching bittersweetness, and the little twists and turns that drill into your head (the interjecting "that's astounding!" where you can practically hear the parentheses is my favourite). It's an undeniably signature-like R.E.M. song in how it's grand without ever making itself intentionally so. 

"It Happened Today", meanwhile, is pure catharsis. Its first half doesn't make it out to seem so, admittedly: musically it's a neat throwback to 90s coffee shop alternative but not in such a standout fashion you'd highlight it specifically, and Stipe's lyrics could be seen as another self-deprecating nod to the split but other songs do it better. The big thing here is that Stipe leaves his lead spot halfway through to the song, and that's where the tune lifts off: a group of wordless vocal harmonies layer one on top of another, filling the song with counter-melodies and vocal tones and giving it wings, the music shooting off accordingly. The initial light touch turns out to be a build-up for something greater, and for that second half it's a song of pure jubilation - a hint of bittersweet ache haunting in the background, but drowned by the sheer power of a number of voices shouting into the skies in unison. It's a Moment. 

There's a lot of those Moments throughout Collapse Into Now, and it's amusing that in an album which frequently changes its tone so obviously from song to song, it's the small moments that really stand out instead of the great sound switches themselves. Even in its weaker moments, something inevitably jumps out: e.g. with "Every Day Is Yours to Give" it's that small bridge after the second chorus where the beat intensifies and carries the vocal melody for a short while. Some are big like the stand-out chorus of "Mine Smell Like Honey", others fleeting such as the beautiful string part of "Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando & I" (which is otherwise a perfectly serviceable mood moment but nothing too excellent) or the moment the guitar melody emboldens and begins to carry the verses properly in the pretty but inessential "Walk It Back". Even "That Someone Is You", in all its throw-away nature, gets its own moment when Mike Mills shouts "You! You! You! You!" repeatedly, which is simultaneously hilarious, stupid and hilariously stupid fun. There's at least something in every single song, even when the rest of the tune falls short, and that keeps the album running and adds to its hodgepodge feel.

The overall way that Collapse Into Now's stop-start flow is constantly throwing one off the wheels is fun in a way, and it's certainly a stubbornly playful way for the band to refuse the listener a tragic end: Collapse Into Now honestly doesn't sound like the last album from an iconic band, it's too irreverent for that. No sad tears, no dramatic goodbyes, and most of the time the subject is vaguely touched upon the band actively ridicule themselves for staying together this long. The actual finale, the very last song on the very last R.E.M. album, plays around with the idea too. "Blue" is a heavily textured, almost discordant spoken word piece featuring Patti Smith's haunting wailing (which in itself is another flashback to the past), and it could almost pass as the final end of a sentence if left as is. But then after a brief moment of feedback, it kicks into a reprise of "Discoverer", the thunderous (and great) stadium call the whole record started with, and the album loops unto itself, the finale just going back to the start all over again. It absolutely works: it's a fantastic in-album throwback and one of those big Moments you'll take away from the album, simply because how smoothly "Blue"'s chaos transitions to the fist-pumping clarity of "Discoverer", with the latter giving the former its own closure. It's also another cheeky way for R.E.M. to not go down the way you'd have expected. They've delivered the perfect way to end an album that only serves the record itself; it doesn't matter that it's the last time they'll ever deliver one and the slot practically begged for a career-wide statement. 

That attitude, which is honestly charming, certainly doesn't excuse Collapse Into Now's flaws, and it certainly has them - it's far from the upper echelon's of R.E.M.'s discography with its varying quality of songwriting and it's maybe a little disappointing that I have to say that about their last ride. And yet it still stands out, makes a fuss and refuses to simply fizzle out into nothing: flawed or not, there's much to remember within it, even if sometimes it's just a short moment of brilliance within something else. It is maybe most of all a fun album, even with its occasional somber moment. For the album's creation they largely got together in the studio to play absolutely anything they wanted with little greater plan or consideration for any next steps; from the beginning they chose not to even think about touring the album. As such, it's charmingly casual. By intentionally stepping away from the shocker news that would follow it, it gives way for a genuinely natural ending: friends playing whatever they wanted together in a room, just like how it all started back in the day. Warts and all, it's a graceful bow-out to a long career.

Rating: 7/10

John Frusciante - Enclosure (2014)

1) Shining Desert; 2) Sleep; 3) Run; 4) Stage; 5) Fanfare; 6) Cinch; 7) Zone; 8) Crowded; 9) Excuses

Frusciante nearly masters his new electronic sound finally, but sadly doesn't quite deliver on the actual song front.

Key tracks: "Sleep", "Fanfare"

When John Frusciante first announced his electronic reinvention, he posted a public letter describing his vision, the sound he aimed for and the ways he'd reach it. The releases that followed weren't quite there: for all the good parts, the EPs and album following the release all sounded like public practice sessions, to various degrees of success. They featured Frusciante bouncing around ideas, testing out new production methods and stretching his songwriting style to meet these new guises. After all that practice, Enclosure comes close to reaching that goal; for the first time, the music Frusciante's producing sounds like it's fully in sync with his vision.

The reason for this is that if the experiments of the prior releases had the uncomfortable habit of slipping into borderline amateurish execution occasionally, on Enclosure Frusciante has figured out the formula of how to marry his new sound with the way of writing songs he's comfortable with. While Enclosure retains some of the quirks of the past few releases, it sounds consistent and thought-out, instead of just him recording and releasing any odd idea he's halfway done tinkering with. Even the actual lyric sheets are back: there's just a single instrumental among the songs ("Cinch") and everything else is atypically wordy for this period of Frusciante, although his lyrics have started to become increasingly more obtuse and resembling a word salad, and in places they get downright questionable ("I'm in the zone, nigga" is one dubious way for a white guy to open a song). Enclosure has a clear intent behind it, like an actual album rather than a collection of takes.

Musically, Enclosure is an album of little extremes. On one hand, I do appreciate a lot of what Frusciante does here sonically: some of the synth sounds he's picked are particularly delicious, veering towards lo-fi analogue vibes with a particularly atmospheric touch, almost reminiscent of old game score sound sets. It's the kind of album that makes you appreciate very particular sounds, and it works particularly well with a good set of headphones when you can pick those apart. But then, Frusciante hasn't quite shaked off the weakest parts of the prior albums. He's still obsessed about drum loops and switching between them on a fly, at worst nearly every ten seconds. For the most part Enclosure isn't quite as bad about it compared to some of the previous works and some of the tonal and tempo switches are actually decently executed. The drums for the large part don't sound quite as out of place either, but sometimes it all comes tumbling down - e.g. the acid house drums of "Stage" actively distract from the rest of the song and become its sole, jarring focus. On a couple of occasions the entire production aesthetic starts to falter, in particular on "Run" which sounds like a demo version of the boss theme to some late 90s video game. It's not as cool as it sounds; it's a lapse in judgement after the album had started so promisingly, through the moody buildup of "Shining Desert" and the following "Sleep" where those ever-changing drum loops actually really work for the first time.

For the most part though, the extremes of Enclosure meet to create acceptable averageness. I'm glad Frusciante's gone back to making songs rather than sound tests, and I enjoy the ones on Enclosure, but they're far, far away from his most memorable work - and a lot of the time a fair distance away from being properly memorable to begin with. There's a single song I'd place anywhere near a Frusciante essentials list and that's "Fanfare", a moody anthem of sorts where the production tricks (and especially the drums) calm down from the way of a solid core melody and an underlining, evocative tone with a little bit more oomph than anything else here: it sounds like a classic kind of Frusciante song, just with a new set of clothing on it. But while the majority of the rest please in terms of their production and mood, they're deceptively weak as actual songs. Frusciante rambles his litanies, occasionally stumbles across a good melody and then buries it away. There's nothing to take forward, bar the thought that something at some point sounded good but you can't quite remember how it goes. Some songs get close, particularly "Sleep" that has liveliness and fire that's anything but its namesake, as well as "Zone" which oversteps its clunky start with its near-anthemic rise on its latter half. Frusciante can still do some strong melodies, he just also knows how to brush them away just as quick.

Maybe Frusciante himself realised that in some level as well. After another prolific handful of years, Enclosure has the distinction of closing another particularly prolific era for Frusciante, and beginning a long hiatus. Following its release, we wouldn't hear back from him again properly for a while: he released some material under the Trickfinger alias and cleared out the archives with a couple of compilations of unreleased sketches and demo material available for download, and then disappeared largely off the record; even the second Trickfinger album published some time after was just a collection of outtakes from the first record. Later on he'd publicly state that he was content with just making music for himself, with no wider audience releases in mind. At the time of writing this review, in 2019, Enclosure is the last real album Frusciante's released and there has been no sign of another coming anytime soon. Sadly, for being an album that sounds like a culmination of the work that came before it and potentially the last thing we'll hear in a very long time, it ends the era by uneventfully fizzling out.

Rating: 5/10