Weekly Rundown: 3/29/18-4/6/18

Welcome to the first weekly rundown, where the most recent records making an impact in the music industry are reviewed in brief and suggested at will. On this weeks rundown: everything from Pop Country to revivalist Shoegaze. Let's get into it.

Artist: Kacey Musgraves Album: Golden Hour Genre: Pop Country, Singer/Songwriter, Dream Pop Score: 9.0 Perhaps the most cliched and ill informed reply to the question 'what kind of music do you like' goes to the typical response of "anything but rap and country". Many music fans and critics outright dismiss both genres simply due to a minimal and negative experience with them and never bother to further explore both genres. This is a truly ignorant viewpoint to have as it discounts many fantastic and important albums, such as Kacey Musgraves' new album 'Golden Hour'. In a genre which has been all but dominated in recent years by a turn towards mainstream pop and hip-hop released by the Luke Bryanites of the industry Kacey Musgraves shines as an artist truly invested in her own artistic body rather than a lopsided approach towards a bigger paycheck like many of her fellow labelmates on MCA Nashville have. Rather than falling into common cliche Musgraves makes a determined effort to shatter the artistic ceiling of what constitutes good and marketable Pop Country by providing listeners with a deeply atmospheric, wonderfully melodic, and layered record that draws more influence from the body of work found in Mojave 3 than her more recent contemporaries attempting to keep Country relevant at all costs by slamming together different genres in a confused way. Golden Hour is a sunny, happy, and vibrant Pop album that has a mindset of its own separate from anything else even slightly comparable. Kacey Musgraves truly has struck gold on this record and it worth a listen even if you belong to the 'anything but rap and country' crowd. Perhaps this record might change your mind.

Artist: Frankie Cosmos Album: Vessel Genre: Indie Pop Score: 5.0 Believe it or not according to Spotify, Frankie Cosmos is the most listened to artist involved in the nebulous and increasingly aesthetic based scene of 'Bedroom Pop' music. Just as surprising is the fact that Cosmos is only 100,000 monthly listeners shy of Car Seat Headrest's amount. This is no minor accomplishment when considering how prolific Car Seat Headrest actually is at the current moment. Vessel by that standard should be considered Frankie Cosmos first real walk into the limelight of mainstream 2010's Indie Rock-a rather desolate scene filled with Mac DeMarco followers, Jangle Pop revivalists, and now full fledged industry plants such as Clairo. In essence the current state of Indie not only prides, but rewards, a false DIY narrative, Lo-Fi recording techniques just for the look, and if you can make the most middle of the road, bland, and inoffensive cutsey and relatable pop music as possible. Yes, the Indie Music scene of the 2010's has become the Bro-Country of kids into pastel blues and pinks, Tumblr, and memes about being depressed. Frankie Cosmos should do just fine, at least with keeping her current fans, because Vessel is just that-truly middle of the road. Vessel attempts to combine the lo-fi Indie Pop which Cosmos became well known for into a much more polished body and the end result is an album that feels like gold gilded lead; it has the aesthetic going for it but when you bite into it all that aesthetic fades away and you are left with a dreadfully over polished record.

Artist: Kraus Album: Path Genre: Shoegaze Score: 8.5 2018 has so far been a tour de force of consistently great albums from those who you'd least expect to put out great albums. The big names seem to be flailing in a sea of mediocrity, especially in this years Hip Hop scene, yet the Indie Rock kids not invested in the aesthetic based side of it all are dominating the critical consensus. Make no mistake, Path is one of those deeply invested and inviting albums on the right side of the fence and is perhaps the best nu-gaze album released since LCD and The Search For God's self titled debut last decade. Kraus finds his success in channeling the high-velocity guitars of Path into a bombastic and uniquely based sound creating the kind of feeling one would get from listening to Brand New or Bandcamp Emo and Pop Punk bands with a much more raucous attitude (The Hotelier). It is a interesting brand of Shoegaze that taps more into a particular feeling of Suburban angst than the archetypical feeling of "dreamyness"that many other Shoegaze bands find themselves creating. Path is fast paced, full of memorable moments of compositional and atmospherical strength ('Bum'), and even vocally, Kraus puts himself a leg above other modern Shoegaze artists with his distinct whiney and off-kilter style of singing ('Reach'). The rest is a very memorable album in a scene where most releases get buried due to their mediocrity.