Immersive Squad
The End of Their World Is Coming!
The mutated sounds of Ryan Mahan’s new electronica project are both a soundtrack and a manifesto. This is the Algiers bassist’s first solo endeavor, and though Dead Meat maintains the Atlanta group’s obsession with concept and bold political energy, it’s a completely different beast. While not as monolithic or contiguous as an imagined film score, The End of Their World Is Coming! wraps the listener up in visceral sounds and a unifying symbology that transports them to a fucked-up world that blurs the lines between the real and unreal. The resulting cassette bristles with all the mystery and electricity of an overlooked bargain bin VHS tape. – Russell Rockwell
Read the full review of The End of Their World is Coming!.
Requesting Validation
Requesting Validation is a record that deals in manipulative partners, teary-eyed Taco Bell confessions, fuck boys, and just wishing people would be NICE for a change. If anything is clear after soaking in this LP, it’s that Gabbie Rotts feels more sure of her endearingly irreverent artistic identity than ever. Take “It Means Something,” where she shouts, “I know it meant something / if it meant something to you.” On an album full of dark humor and wariness of the world, it’s a powerful tribute to friendship and what we mean to each other. Rotts may still be trying to untangle her chaotic life, but there is something is soothing in how she has blended all parts of herself—the ugly and imperfect included—into a stunning work. – EF
Blood, Piss, Religion, Pain
Life is messy and complicated. We do our best to force it into neat compartments, to bring rational order to chaos, but life always resists. On a basic macro level, albums are often an attempt to give voice to some unifying theme or confluence of ideas. That can take the shape of a guiding philosophy or a formative experience or an overarching aesthetic. As listeners, we instinctually seek out that underlying thread, a string we can tug on to tie it all together. As we pull, what’s bundled within is a piece of existence laid bare for probing and examination. The more of it we recognize and understand, the tighter we yank our knots.
Listening to the sprawling new full length from Karaoke, it’s evident this is a record that resists such snares. It’s an album that thwarts expectations and defies easy categorization. There is no single thread to pull and when you do draw on one of its gauzy cords, it only yields more slack before fading into mist. – GC
Read the full review of Blood, Piss, Religion, Pain.
Angelic Hoodrat
This is the album of the year. And not just Atlanta, either. To put it plainly: No other record in 2020 felt as urgent and vital as Angelic Hoodrat. Listening to it the first few times was like hearing someone blossoming into greatness in real time. When I think of Kenny Mason, it’s no longer about “next up” or “on the rise.” Mason is already above all that. Instead I’m reminded of giants. Drake. Kendrick. Kanye. Not necessarily in sound or stature, but in the way those artists can shape the world around them and bend it to their will. Kenny’s got that magic. It’s in the way you can never hear this LP the same way twice. There’s far too many levels to this shit. Too many bars to unravel, break apart, and examine. The future of Atlanta? Most certainly. But don’t forget about the present too. – AS
Lowtown
I’m not sure what intrigues me more about Lowtown’s self-titled debut—its raucous four-on-the-floor verve or its gloomy intensity. But the fact that the Atlanta foursome can combine both aesthetics on a single track (see opener “Jesus”) is the real cause for awe and celebration. Dark yet ecstatic, the six-song EP teeters between these two extremes, balancing its tumultuous energy on an axis of dour dirges and incendiary jams. Its takes some nerve to make a record for whiskey-pounding revelers and mascara-streaked goths alike, but Lowtown prove they have the guts and the will to pull it off. – GC