Music reviews: Cardi B and Wednesday

‘Am I the Drama?’ by Cardi B

★★★

It took seven years, but Cardi B’s second album is finally here and counts as “a massive comeback triumph,” said Rob Sheffield in Rolling Stone. The Grammy-winning Bronx rapper, now 32 and a mother of three, is “out to remind everyone she’s still looser, wilder, just plain funnier than anyone in the game,” and for 23 tracks, she does just that. “Whether she’s celebrating domestic bliss or leaving heel prints on her rivals,” she’s as brash as ever.

Lizzo, Selena Gomez, and Cash Cobain are along for the ride, as are two smash singles, “WAP” and “Up,” that are both more than four years old. “Neither sounds dated,” though, “because everyone else has spent the past four years imitating them.” Still, plenty of critics “have their knives out,” said Tom Breihan in Stereogum. Why include two old tracks? Why tout a Janet Jackson feature that simply samples “The Pleasure Principle”? And how could Cardi make Lizzo sing the “eternally grating” chorus of 4 Non Blondes’ biggest hit? Drama “seems destined to go down as a sophomore slump,” but in truth, it’s “a solid major label rap album” featuring “a handful of great moments.”

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‘Bleeds’ by Wednesday

★★★

Karly Hartzman is the rare contemporary songwriter whose lyrics are truly special, said Mark Richardson in The Wall Street Journal. The leader of the “alternately twangy and punkish” band Wednesday writes songs that unspool like narrative poems. “One moment you’re enjoying Hartzman’s eye for the comically surreal, and the next she’s describing someone face down in a puddle of blood.”

On the Asheville, N.C., band’s sixth album, it’s unfortunately “becoming an issue” that the music retains “a grimy demo-like quality,” because Hartzman’s writing demands something richer. “A bright red yarn of heartbreak wends its way between these songs,” said Walden Green in Pitchfork. Bleeds was recorded after Hartzman and guitarist MJ Lenderman chose to keep working together but end their relationship. Though Hartzman often writes about other characters, the breakup informs Bleeds, which “takes a relationship that crammed work and life into close quarters and burns down the whole building.” The music is a match. In fact, despite the rupture at the quintet’s heart, “Wednesday has never sounded more like a band you want to be in.”