KONGOS - Lunatic: Half of this album is very strong, the other half is fairly weak. It’s interesting hearing what weird indie rock is like in South Africa (the album’s genre is listed as “Kwaito”, hell if I know if that’s accurate or not), and it’s pretty damn intense in a great way sometimes. Namely “Come with Me Now”, which is my favourite. They can do pretty as well, though, as “As We Are” proves. Good stuff.
Lights - Little Machines: Doesn’t quite reach the high bar that Siberia set for me, but it’s nice to hear Lights back at her synthpop form. Her foray into heavier electronic stuff was far better than I expected, but even if I am slightly let down at how safe this album is, it’s still really nice to have seeing as Owl City is deciding not to be good anymore. Synthy Lights can sort of fill that void, especially in songs like “Portal”. My favourite here is “Muscle Memory”, which is really sad but lovely. Tied for second are “Portal”, “How We Do It” and the purely lovely “Don’t Go Home Without Me”, which gave me a flutter in my heart I haven’t felt in a long time, not since first hearing Fun.’s “The Gambler”
Angels & Airwaves: I haven’t listened to Love, Part One and Love, Part Two in their entirety in quite a while, so I’m not sure how to compare this to them, but it feels like an anomaly from what I know of AVA. What I know of them is grand, overdramatic space rock chock-full of epic themes and way over-aggrandized tales of love, spirituality and being kind of nervous and stuff. It was great. This album, however, is far more grounded. It’s still a bit out-there, but it feels less inspired in parts. The Love series made me feel like Tom DeLonge genuinely believed his music was some incredible message that had to be sung to the world. This seems more like a typical album with more typical singing.
That said, there is some real good here. “Tunnels” and its one-tone pounding drum throughout the song was a pretty great reimagining of their music, and “Kiss with a Spell” marks the first time I can think of that I’ve really liked a chorus more than a song itself. The real highlight for me, though, is the closing track, “Anomaly”. It’s got a small hint of the space rock/electronic vibe they have, but it’s way more stripped down and bare. Not about vast themes, just a simple written story about being nervous about falling in love. I like it a lot.
Imagine Dragons - Smoke + Mirrors: At the start I was worried, but damn this was a solid album. Not quite as musically varied as Night Visions, where basically every song was an experiment, but really, really good nonetheless. It’s a little more consistent, but definitely has its weird moments (the slow, deepness of “Gold” and the heaviness of “I’m So Sorry”). I don’t understand why this band gets such bad reviews, I was sorta shocked when I saw the scores they got on Metacritic. I don’t particularly care, it just baffles me. Oh well. I’ll keep on enjoying them. My favourites were “Gold”, “I’m So Sorry”, “Hopeless Opus” and the magnificent closing track “The Fall”. They seem to be really good at closing albums. The bonus tracks weren’t amazing. The only ones really worth the listen are “Second Chances” and “Warriors”. While the latter is a bit tainted for me by being written for and about a League of Legends championship, taken on its own it’s a pretty damn good song.