'Star Line' by Chance the Rapper
★★★
Chance the Rapper's signature shout-out "And we back!" has "never meant more than now," said Cory Woodroof in USA Today. Six years after releasing The Big Day, a genre-crossing album whose "unexpectedly bubbly spirit" turned off many "day-one Chance fans," the 32-year-old Grammy winner has delivered a follow-up that recaptures "the sonic excellence and lyrical ambition" that made him a 2010s sensation. From bar one, we hear "some of the crispest delivery Chance has unleashed," plus the "battle-tested introspection" that comes from a career fumble and the failure of his marriage.
"Star Line is a feast, from start to finish," said Robin Murray in Clash. While The Big Day has become "emblematic of his decline," the new album "contains some career-best work." Early on, we get "No More Old Men," a "superb" collaboration in which he and Jamila Woods unspool "supremely soulful poetry" over a jazz-inflected beat. "The Negro Problem" is "a daring look at Black American identity," tracing the impact of generational trauma. Such moments rival Chance's previous best while "still feeling like the work of an older artist."
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'Interior Live Oak' by Cass McCombs
★★★★
Cass McCombs' new album "does little to dispel the illusion that it could have been made by Gordon Lightfoot in 1974," said Brian Howe in Pitchfork. Even so, every well-honed detail of the 47-year-old's throwback folk rock feels "distinctly his." Having now served for more than 20 years as a torchbearer for Boomer greats such as Lightfoot, John Lennon, and Warren Zevon, he has graduated from being quixotic to being simply great, and "greatness makes inherited things seem invented."
Loaded with "gorgeous melodies" and "brilliant rhetorical mechanisms," this album comprises 16 songs in all, and there's "not a throwaway among them." You could even imagine Tony Bennett or Frank Sinatra singing some of the well-crafted slower tunes here, said Ben Beaumont-Thomas in The Guardian. But all of these songs feel "wonderfully unhurried," affording McCombs room to reminisce about his youth in Northern California or ruminate about a lost love. An album that runs 74 minutes may sound like too much. Yet when the title track's "nervy Dylan-esque fuzz-rock" closes out the set, "74 minutes doesn't feel remotely long enough."
'So Long Little Miss Sunshine' by Molly Tuttle
★★★
Molly Tuttle's new album "may not make her into the next Taylor Swift," said Mark Deming in AllMusic. But "by all rights," it should win her a larger audience. Tuttle, a "superb" guitarist and expressive vocalist, is, at 32, "one of the biggest names in contemporary bluegrass." But she's never been a genre purist, and her fifth solo LP turns out to be "that rarity—an acoustic musician's big pop move that fully succeeds without throwing away the virtues of her previous work."
The addition of drums, keys, and electric bass on tracks such as "Easy" and "The Highway Knows" brings out the songs' "keen melodic hooks," making them sound "radio-ready" while in no way compromising Tuttle's artistry. A couple of the tunes "have a dreamy warmth that recalls Kacey Musgraves," said Amanda Hatfield in Brooklyn Vegan. Meanwhile, "That's Gonna Leave a Mark" and "Story of My So-Called Life" are "as catchy as anything from Swift's earlier country-pop era." The most novel track, though, has to be Tuttle's slow cover of Icona Pop and Charli XCX's "I Love It." While "barely recognizable as the original banger," it's "awesome and distinctive in its own way."
