Bon Iver - 22, a Million (2016)

1) 22 (OVER S∞∞N); 2) 10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄; 3) 715 - CR∑∑KS; 4) 33 "GOD"; 5) 29 #Strafford APTS; 6) 666 ʇ; 7) 21 M◊◊N WATER; 8) 8 (Circle); 9) ____45_____; 10) 00000 Million

Another album, another re-invention - abstract and electronic, yet impossibly human. Vernon tries to make sense out of the world within himself, while giving the door to the listener to do the same.

Key tracks: "10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄", "666 ʇ", "8 (Circle)"

2016 in retrospect was a watershed year for a lot of the personal and collective anxiety many of my generation and the later ones have been experiencing. It's when dodgy, out-of-touch politics really reared their ugly head in force all around the world at once and many of the issues of late 2010s (and probably the foreseeable future, 2020 writing here) became a tangible part of reality. It was a year of turmoil and it launched a lot of people into a spiral of discordant thoughts, muddled up and trying to figure out their place in a world that had stopped making sense.

Justin Vernon didn't mean to do it, but he inadvertently created the right album for these wrong times. 22, a Million began as a dream-like log of one man's struggle to balance between his public role and his personal feelings - the change from the one-man cabin operation of For Emma, Forever Ago to the wide open breakthrough fame following Bon Iver, Bon Iver was never going to be a comfortable fit for a man so obviously introverted, and once the Grammy appearances and high-profile collaborations had quieted down, Vernon went on a hiatus. The future of Bon Iver as a project became a series of vague umms and ahhs from Vernon, completely uninterested in returning to mass adoration and uncertain what he'd do next. It wasn't until a moment of clarity during another self-imposed exile that Vernon returned to his main project, and in hindsight it's all really obvious that the next step for Bon Iver would be to obscure things from view. Cryptic visual design from the symbol-heavy artwork to the surreal lyric videos, the even more cryptic song titles, Vernon insisting on covering his face on every single promo picture - all built up to a sound that would be as far a stretch from the warm and rich double self-titled as that was from For Emma's sparseness. Reflecting on the relationship between the huge global audience of "a million" that he had somehow cultivated and himself - the "22" - Vernon decided that the only way for him to reconcile with his new visibility was to take things down and rebuild them all over again.

22, a Million is chopped-up and fragmented: it plays around with sound levels, samples and song structures while Vernon twists and filters his own voice to inhuman levels. The preceding album's warm soulful anthems are still clearly there in the very heart of Vernon's songwriting, but he has broken those recognisable elements into tiny pieces, distorting the resulting shrapnel and glued them back together into new shapes. Synthesized falsettos, skittering samples and frantic drum loops coat the album's sound world, the production busily stretching itself to create a hedge between Vernon and the listener. You can peak through the gaps but there's a lot of noise on the way - less a maximalist production, and moreso one that's simply hectic with details and trace elements. With that, Vernon's lyrics have also become increasingly more oblique, littered with made-up words and non-sequiturs to the point that even if you see eye-to-eye with his musical vision, the actual meaning of the songs can still remain a mystery. It wasn't an album made for you, it was an album made for Vernon to sort out his own chaotic thoughts into something coherent, and in turn the music reflected the same process.

Despite the cautiously confrontational nature and his radical reinvention, what's been left completely intact is Vernon’s otherworldly way to tap into something universally beautiful with his music. In-between all the at-first seemingly chaotic elements, there are masses of incredible melodies, heavenly harmonies and and the kind of human warmth that no laptop wizardry can take away. 22, A Million is an intimate but inviting experience that hides a lot more within it than the first glance, solely focused on its attention-grabbing sound (and those song titles), would reveal. The same songwriting foundations that brought the immediately captivating, anthemic power of the likes of "Holocene" and "Flume" are still making its presence known throughout, and Vernon himself has stayed the same. Still impeccably earnest and totally living each note of each song through his entire being, his honest love for his own music leads him to infuse 100% of himself into it; that belief in your own craft is impossible to hide, even when he's obstructed by technology. So much in fact, that I'd argue this is Vernon at his most personal: it may be far more collaborative in nature than the one-man show of his debut, but its search for clarity and that you could hold onto comes completely from its creator, and he makes it audible that it all comes directly from the heart. 

 
When the album was finally released, at the tail-end of 2016, the world as a whole needed that kind of moment of clarity amidst all the overload of bad news and bad times. I needed it - I'm projecting a lot here because 22, a Million became a sort of a sonic wall to lean into while convalescing from the world around me. That its beauty hid within a Geocities gif storm production was - and is - essential: because when the clouds clear away and those different strands find their connection point within the songs, the bits where the disarray starts forming into shape, it's breathtaking. The first two records might have made it more obvious but it's very, very hard for Vernon not write beautiful songs, and I'd say that's the strongest reason why he's gained a following; with every song a soul-searching ballad begging to form a bond with the listener, but transformed along the way into different shapes through the collaborators he brings with him and the changing visions he has for his path. The ones chosen here may be a little unorthodox compared to the first two records, yet the bliss remains.

And 22, a Million is, by far and most of all, a very beautiful album. "33 "GOD"" and "666 ʇ" are anthems that embrace the world within their soaring arms while big drum beats crash and pound - they're those epic communal moments of the previous album finding a new form and understanding of dynamics. "29 #Strafford APTS" is the opposite, a folky campfire song that harks back to Bon Iver's roots, a tranquil and straightforward piece where the only trace of the rest of the album is its infrequent vocal manipulation, but its contrast to the rest is soft and comforting. "715 - CR∑∑KS" and "21 M◊◊N WATER" are in a practical sense just interludes - passages of music that bind the album's movements together - but they're integral moments of stillness in the high-speed attention race of the rest of the album, with the former in particular taking the experimental nature of the Blood Bank EP's "Woods" and creating a song that's a catalogue standout despite being a vocoderised a cappella cut. The tribal march of "10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄" (where its drums sound like they're coming from somewhere beyond) is brief but powerful, its horn rise towards the end threatening to become colossal before the song cuts itself off - following the quiet scene-setting intro of "22 (OVER S∞∞N)" it's a wall-shattering alarm clock into the real world, and the transition between the two is still incredible. 

By the end, the album's restless nature finds its peace. The stunningly disarming couple of "8 (Circle)" and "00000 Million", as well as the brief bridge of "____45_____" that binds them together, is an incredible closing set: they're the sound of all the weight in the world being lifted from one's shoulders. "8 (Circle)" ascends into the heavens sounding pure, free and wholly released as horn sections and layered vocal harmonies trace its journey. It's where the album's hectic heart starts beating slower, its in-this-context massive five-minute length a serene trail without a single interruption. "00000 Million" lays the album to rest with a gentle piano and hymnal vocal, in what is one of Vernon's most touching and starkly, emotionally naked songs. There's this clichéd feeling where a truly great album closer can really feel like the closure of a journey, the credits roll that gives you the tools to reflect on all you heard before and bringing it all together: "00000 Million" absolutely hits that ideal and quietly wakes one up back into reality again, refreshed and anew.

It's what Vernon needed. It's what I, as a listener needed. And it's why 22, a Million is such a powerful album. It's hit the point where the personal becomes truly inseparable from the pretendingly objective. The songs are fantastic, quirks and all - it's Vernon's peak in terms of both the writing and his arrangements coming together to create something bigger than the two parts alone, an album with a true vision. But it's also an immensely resonant album, the sort of record where its creator has poured blood, sweat and tears into it because he needed to, and that emotional force is an integral part of the material. It lifts a great record into something important - something that stays with you for a long, long time after it's gone. The first two albums had the sound that they would always become someone's classic album - the deconstructed version Vernon laid out here has become mine.

Rating: 10/10

Blossoms - Blossoms (2006)

1) One Night; 2) Downtown; 3) Sonando de la Luz; 4) Dust to Dust; 5) Love Me for a While; 6) Get Laid; 7) Celebration; 8) Go Get It!; 9) Skyhigh; 10) Beach

Not the British 2010s crew, but a group of wild-spirited party monsters from mid-00s Finland with an infectious groove and floor-filling jams to back it up. 

Key tracks: "One Night", "Love Me for a While", "Beach"

There are party albums - records that go down a storm in any social gathering - and then there are albums that sound like they're part of the party. Each song is a sensory experience that takes you right in the middle of the crowd full of frenetic energy, soundtracked by someone's friend's band playing in a packed-up corner and making joyous noise that everyone is lapping up - and the band is actually good as well. Blossoms' (not that more famous British band from the 2010's) debut sounds like the ideal kind of house party that only exists in someone's exaggerated imagination, and its greatest feat is how just tangible that feel is in their music.

I saw Blossoms live shortly before the release of this album and while the stage was tiny and the audience almost as small, they commanded the vibe to perfection and turned a mid-day open air stage into what felt like a tight nightclub set. The greatest thing that the self-titled debut does is what so many albums try but never quite grasp, and that's perfectly capturing that raw power and chemistry the band had while performing. The songs are straight-forward and to the point, there's no messing around and nothing to hide in - the rhythm section keeps it four-to-the-floor while the band flick between funkier rock and groovier pop, the hooks are underlined for obvious sing-along purposes and everything leads to the big obvious chorus designed to get the audience jumping. But Blossoms know what they are doing and the band operates on a telepathic level to pull it off, and the album captures that completely. A lot of it is thanks to frontman Aki Toivoniemi: his Nordic accent is strong but so is his charisma, and it's that party ringleader aura that pulls the brash and bold album together. If there is one main takeaway here, it's that Blossoms were natural born stage commanders.

Two of the songs here are already familiar (to a tiny subsection of people like me): "One Night" and "Beach" were both found on the band's also self-titled debut EP and have been re-recorded here on account of becoming the obvious standouts of the EP, and both sound better than ever. "One Night"'s girl-boy cruiseship disco duet sounds bigger and bolder, and the promising could-be-hit has now gone through a training montage and is now kicking down doors to claim its throne, with a beefier backbone powering the great melodic strength of the original. The original duet partner Sara Nurmi reprises her role as well which is a delight, because her chemistry with Aki is perfect: it's equally great that she is almost part of the band throughout the record, with her vocals appearing throughout the album and working so well with Aki's with their intertwining vocal hooks. "Beach" is the one moment where Blossoms get a little more serious, closing the album with a yearning and intense rumination on life's fleeting nature: it's atypical for the band, but it's a powerful, crunchy rock and roll finale that's as close to perfection as the album gets. Of the wholly new songs, the sweat-dripping dancefloor cruiser "Get Laid" and the pogoing "Downtown" with its Britrock-flirting chorus are instant standouts; the real big one is "Love Me for a While" though, which builds from its suave string-accentuated funk rock into a series of jam finales which each could go on for minutes alone, tightening the groove bit by bit. On an album full of house party anthems, it's a giant destined for a larger stage.

The ten feel-good anthems presented here are consistent throughout: Blossoms have a clear formula that they know how to pull off and which the album barely ever deviates from. The thing with having such a clear chosen direction is that it makes the difference between the big keepers of the record and the rest that much clearer, and so is the case here too, but it's nothing to the extent that would break the tone. The album gets a little newspaper bop on the head from the faux-Latin flair of "Sonando de la Luz", whose occasional charms aren't enough to overcome my allergy for cheap Latin references, but that's the album's only real tripping point. Even on the rare occasion where things aren't necessarily quite as exciting (e.g. "Go Get It!" is a bit of a lesser retread of the relentless energy of "Downtown" and "Get Laid"), Blossoms' wild spirit picks things up - it really is an album where the interaction between everyone participating in its recording absolutely shines, and it always takes me back to that brief live appearance I saw. I'd wager that even without that personal reference point, it's clear just how captivating the band's energy throughout the record is.

Blossoms feels like it could have been the first steps of a future cult next big thing but for reasons unknown the band ended up on near in-definite hiatus following this and that alternate timeline never happened (and I would have called it a split had I not learned of the surprise follow-up album roughly a decade after this one). Very few seem to be aware of this ever existing but given its strengths in what it does, it's become a regular entry in various party mixes, playlists et al I've had a hand in over the years. So, at least in a microscopic scale Blossoms' talent for a good celebration still makes itself known. There are musically greater albums than this that sound less convincing about their creators' chemistry than this low-key self-release, and that's always going to be to Blossoms' credit.

Rating: 7/10

Peter Buck - Peter Buck (2012)

1) 10 Million BC; 2) It's Alright; 3) Some Kind of Velvet Sunday Morning; 4) Travel Without Arriving; 5) Migraine; 6) Give Me Back My Wig; 7) Nothing Matters; 8) So Long Johnny; 9) L.V.M.F.; 10) Nothing Means Nothing; 11) Hard Old World; 12) Nowhere No Way; 13) Vaso Loco; 14) I'm Alive

Peter Buck is bored after the R.E.M. retirement, records an album for funsies. No more, no less. Leave all expectations behind and you might find something to raise a smile.

Key tracks: "10 Million BC", "Nothing Matters", "Vaso Loco"

Despite his public persona being Mr Grumpypants, Peter Buck's solo debut is actually a fun, lighthearted effort - and it's not too surprising that's the case. Buck's attitude to music has always been very grounded - rather than go on about artistic merits and deep concepts behind each note, he's the kind of guy who plays music because he finds it fun. He's never been one to take the lead or complain that he didn't get enough creative spotlight in his former day R.E.M. day job. He's also expressed his dislike of the typically lengthy and detail-focused album recording process several times in the past, preferring to record things quickly and by the gut. Thus, Peter Buck turning out to be a lighthearted, quickly recorded set of songs written and recorded purely because he found it fun to play some new tunes with his friends, with the spark of inspiration being Buck's battle against boredom rather than anything more auteur-like, makes perfect sense.

Because of his cooperative role in R.E.M., the question of what a Peter Buck solo album would sound like has never had even hint of an answer. As it turns out, it contains a lot of things. Rough garage rockers, The Velvet Underground-pastiches, hip-hop loops, keyboard ambiance, novelty covers and sweet singer/songwriter pop all all appear in semi-random fashion, peppered throughout by random banter ("if that ain't art, I don't know what is"). The plethora of guest vocalists contribute to the patch quilt feel and the album comes closer to a ragtag compilation of obscure songs from the 60s and 70s than to something largely helmed by one artist and his vision. The occasional lead vocal from Buck himself, gruffing and huffing his way through a distorted microphone, is there mainly just to give the occasional reminder on whose name the album is released under. 

Take it only by its songwriting and it's hardly an impressive album, even less so if you expected Buck to bring over anything even reminiscent of the R.E.M. catalogue here. There's a few songs where it feels like some time was actually spent the writing of the song, such as the upbeat shout-along "So Long Johnny" and the psychedelic rock offshoot "Nothing Matters", though even they feel a little like pastiches rather than something to judge on their own merit. But taking the album at that face value almost feels like missing the actual point. Peter Buck - the album - wasn't created out of artistic expression and it's not going to offer it. It's silly and it's fun, and it never tries to be anything beyond that. Its best parts are the ones that represent that side of it the most: the ridiculous hip-hop loop "LVMF", the punk rock freakout "Vaso Loco" and the infectious hard rock of "10 Million BC" are the most memorable takeaways from the album, none of them anything to write into a review about as songs but all surprisingly infectious stupid fun nonetheless.

The album's random nature, the incredibly limited release and Buck's own motivations for doing it all speak for it being a deliberately low-key release made purely for personal kicks and laughs. But it has its simple charisma I can't deny, even if it'll likely take me the same five years between now and the next time I play it as it did between now and the last time I listened to this. It's the kind of album you completely forget about but which will one day turn up in a shuffle and get you smiling for a moment, because it's goofy enough to charm you for a while even if it's a complete throwaway otherwise. I wouldn't be surprised if Buck himself thinks the same way, either.

Rating: 5/10

Manic Street Preachers - New Art Riot EP (1990)

1) New Art Riot; 2) Strip It Down; 3) Last Exit on Yesterday; 4) Teenage 20/20

Sloganeering naïve punk with no subtlety but some fun hooks.

Key tracks: "New Art Riot", "Strip It Down"

I'm probably approaching this from the completely incorrect angle but even though this is the debut EP (following a couple of limited print singles) of a group of politically aware young Welsh punks wanting to disrupt the pop culture system, it's just so gosh dang adorable. The young Manic Street Preachers are fiery and hungry for glory, but the future powerhouse vocalist James Dean Bradfield is still bright-eyed and squeaky-voiced, the songs are simple chug-along riffs full of energy and devoid of nuance (and they don't care one bit), and the lyrics are more akin to a selection of wannabe-activist slogans strung together than anything coherent. If there's such a thing as charmingly youthful, then this is it. The baby photos of your favourite band.

Maybe that does New Art Riot EP a little dirty because it has its musical charms too. The Manics showcased here are still far, far away from where they'd be even the following year when they would release their first landmark single "Motown Junk"; these are simple, one-note songs where the sole idea they have going for them is usually presented within the first 30 seconds. But they're catchy songs in a purely primitive fashion. The title track threatens to become almost anthemic in its chorus and has the clearest The Clash influence of the lot, "Strip It Down" is a speeding car heading hundred miles an hour towards the nearest wall and has a ton of fun with it - both are a load of fun in the right mindset. The latter half of the EP isn't quite as up to scratch, though the "we're dead end dolls and nothing's moving" refrain of "Teenage 20/20" ends the EP with a dose of excellent teenage arrogance. "Last Exit on Yesterday" is the obvious slip between the cracks because it's just kind of there, doing the same as the other three songs but without the one big hook that'll lodge it in your mind unexpectedly.

New Art Riot isn't a classic or even a particularly noteworthy debut EP, but it's where the Manics get themselves together for the first time. The singles before this aren't acknowledged or remembered by anyone but the hardcore fans and there's a very good reason for that. This still isn't the grand arrival of a new musical force either, but for the first time there's a hint of the bratty attitude of the early Manics actually mixing up with something musically interesting, and that serves as the launch pad for the real noteworthy singles released up next. New Art Riot meanwhile is a fun little thing best enjoyed by the fans who are hungry enough to get this far down in the discography: there's a certain naïve joy to hearing the future rock powerhouse being a wild bunch of young punks.

Rating: 6/10

Red Hot Chili Peppers - By the Way (2002)

1) By the Way; 2) Universally Speaking; 3) This Is the Place; 4) Dosed; 5) Don’t Forget Me; 6) The Zephyr Song; 7) Can’t Stop; 8) I Could Die for You; 9) Midnight; 10) Throw Away Your Television; 11) Cabron; 12) Tear; 13) On Mercury; 14) Minor Thing; 15) Warm Tape; 16) Venice Queen

A mature, introspective work from... Chili Peppers? It works far better than you'd think.

Key tracks: "Dosed", "Can't Stop", "Venice Queen"

By the Way, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ eight studio album, is effectively an album by two people.

One of them is John Frusciante. The tale of of Frusciante’s near-death and rebirth is a part of modern rock history: his return to the Peppers all sobered up in the late nineties was a large part of the band becoming one of the biggest in the world as his rejuvenation had blessed him with creativity and talent that made him the one member even the haters admired. Frusciante was in fact so overflowing with creativity that he could barely contain it. The first half of the 00s features an insane burst of activity in his solo career and in the band he started upsetting the formerly iconic harmony between its members. By the Way, the second album of Frusciante’s second coming, is the ur-example of it.

For all purposes it’s as much a John Frusciante album as it is a Red Hot Chili Peppers one: his touch and direction are everywhere from the dominating layered guitar melodies to the carefully arranged keyboard flourishes, and his backing vocals have such a great presence throughout the album that you could argue he’s become the co-lead vocalist in the band. Peppers had always been a band where four clear individuals used their individual talents in brotherly harmony - this time they had a clear leader. Sound-wise it’s not too a long distance away from Frusciante’s 2004 solo release Shadows Collide With People, in fact - you’d be surprised how much the two albums share in common in their DNA.

The other person is Anthony Kiedis. Kiedis’ reputation is somewhat that of an anti-Frusciante: his technical skills aren’t really much to praise for and he tends to be seen as the group’s biggest liability. Unfairly so, because he is undoubtedly the Peppers’ frontman and a large part of the band’s charisma throughout the years has come from him. He may not be much of a lyricist or a perfect singer but he’s always been the heart and soul, the connecting thread between the eras. He’s always operated his duty with bravado and pomp, only leaving himself emotionally vulnerable at the rarest of times which has worked to the band’s advantage: it’s made the rare personal moments all the more special. However, around the By the Way sessions he had found himself in an unusually introspective mood. Drug relapses and subsequent recoveries, loss of a close friend and general weariness of age had started to get to him and had left him contemplative. For the first time Kiedis didn’t want to just jump around and share his love of California, and he approached the next album sessions with a different kind of mindset.

By the Way began as another Peppers album of funky basslines and powerful guitars, but Kiedis’ wistfulness made natural friends with Frusciante’s wish to go to a more melodic direction and soon they began to take over the show; Flea has later reminisced that this was the album he felt the most creatively dismissed and isolated on, being shafted aside as the good ship Frusciante took over the wheel. The vast majority of the songs on the album are driven by Frusciante’s keen ear for melodies and the arrangement while keyboards play a bigger part than they ever have on a Peppers album. These back an unusually somber Kiedis who reflects on life, death and love - his typical random word generator ramblings are still present but half the time even then he croons them out in a way that indicates that at least for him there is a real meaning there.

As a result By the Way is an album where the Peppers are reflective of their age and where two of them in particular are catching up to the craziness of their lives. In other words, it’s a mature album - in the genuine sense rather than as a lazy shorthand for the energy dropping down. Even the band photos inside are somber and melancholy, a far cry from the wild and colourful rock & roll craziness of the past. It’s a personal and emotionally open album - not their first of such kind as One Hot Minute made it there first, but where that album was aggressive and confrontational By the Way takes a more toned down and ultimately hopeful tone. It’s not a sad album full of middle-age melancholy despite the photos, but a lush and often quite beautiful one that’s full of world-worn positivity. It’s an album lead by two people who went through hell, survived and now reflect back on it while resting under the sun at last.

None of that means it’s an album full of ballads. Not only do the more melodic pieces vary greatly in tone and tempo, but there’s a decent number of more muscular cuts thrown throughout the tracklist. Some actively remind you of the past works to show they’re still the same band (the sudden funk rock attack “Can’t Stop”, jam-esque “Throw Away Your Television”, the Californication evolution “By the Way”), while others incorporate the new mood into the familiar rock aesthetics (the atmospheric hidden gem “This Is the Place”, the dark and brooding “Don’t Forget Me"). It’s as varied an album as anything the band have ever released, even if the percentage of midtempo cuts is higher this time - but they all sound distinctly different, and in all honesty they set up the standard this band should attempt to match with their other slower cuts. On the flipside, it’s also as overlong as anything the band have released since the 80s and comes with the usual filler caveat. The sixteen-strong tracklist could have been reduced by some for a better album, namely the overrunning novelty country shuffle (!!!) “Cabron” and the happy-go-lucky but somewhat throwaway ska-pop “On Mercury”, both of which seem like they were thrown in to lighten the mood when it wasn’t actually needed at all.

But it’s those mid-tempo tracks and the melodic emphasis where the real grandeur lies. John Frusciante was honestly a genius at this point, riding his imperial phase wave high and mighty as he glimmered with inspiration. By the Way is a genuinely gorgeous and beautiful album, which even now feels odd to say about a Red Hot Chili Peppers album but the evidence is right there. The approximately five million layered guitar melodies frolicing and dancing around in “Dosed”, the ethereal keyboards of “Warm Tape”, the sunset finale of “Minor Thing” or the majestic strings of “Midnight” - they’re all discography highlights when it comes to being honestly straight-up lovely and gorgeous, and just as well as songs in itself. Even the musically slightly weaker cuts like “Tear” or “I Could Die for You” are lifted up to something special as soon as Frusciante decides to step into the spotlight with his guitar, his keyboard arrangements and especially his vocals backing up Kiedis’ surprisingly suave voice. “Tear” even gives Flea his minor special contribution with a charming little trumpet solo that gives it that little something extra. “Venice Queen” at the end is the victory lap: half atmospheric and dreamy, half wild and energetic like a sudden wake-up call, building into a towering anthem of remembrance and celebration as the band and Kiedis in particular, in what is possibly his most invested vocal performance, bids farewell to Kiedis’ close friend who left this earthly realm before the album sessions. It’s easily among the band’s very best songs, and it sounds like it was the most effortlessly composed thing they ever did.

The same applies for most of the album. The band is clearly playing against their presumed type, but they go about it effortlessly and successfully. There is the obvious caveat that if it’s the energetic bouncers and funky basslines that you want and expect from a Peppers album, this isn’t it. By the Way is barely even a rock album and the funky monks are equally elsewhere. When the album was released this caused so much drift among fans, including some incredibly divisive opinion splits between my friends and myself back when we loved everything the Peppers had ever released to that point. But age has done nothing if not improve the album and point out its strengths. Both Kiedis and Frusciante were on the top of their game in both performance and songwriting and while taking such a creative control was ultimately a bad thing for the band - the rifts between Flea and Frusciante healed but never seemed to vanish entirely - it resulted in the most beautiful and sublime album they’ve released. It’s a different side to a band that’s often seemed one-dimensional to non-fans and downright revelatory in some ways. Above all else though, it’s a discography quirk that is in fact one of the best things under their name.

Rating: 9/10

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