Music reviews: Playboi Carti, Charley Crockett, and Throwing Muses

‘Music’ by Playboi Carti

Playboi Carti “couldn’t be a normal rap star if he tried,” said Tom Breihan in Stereogum. On his long-awaited new album, the man who invented the rage-rap subgenre “seems to work entirely on impulse,” switching flows and vocal styles as the spirit moves him, and “if you’re willing to embrace the chaos,” the music on Music is “truly exhilarating”—“like running directly into a hurricane.” Carti is not a master of speech or message, and “from all available evidence,” he’s “not a good guy.” But “his electrified jabber is a whole new instrument, a vehicle for drug-dazed death-drive energy,” and “you can’t ignore Carti and remain fully tapped in with the things that are currently happening in popular music.” This star-studded record, his first album since 2020’s revolutionary Whole Lotta Red, “has real problems,” and not just that it’s overlong, said Mosi Reeves in Rolling Stone. The lyrics, which can be both ugly and mundane, describe a world “where coercion and violence dictate who wins.” But “for Carti’s fans, his words are just ear-tickling frisson.” It’s the surface of the music that’s worth hearing, because it’s “utterly engrossing.”

‘Lonesome Drifter’ by Charley Crockett

“Lonesome Drifter continues Charley Crockett’s white-hot run of records that are remarkably even-keeled,” said Ben Salmon in Paste. “Like his fellow Texans in Khruangbin,” the 40-year-old country-blues veteran is “ultra-consistent, highly listenable, and effortlessly cool.” On his first album with a major label after releasing 14 independently, he’s still staking his claim where country, folk, and blues meet soul, and because “self-reliance and a healthy suspicion of The Man have been recurring themes in Crockett’s songs,” he gets only one song into this album before taking a shot at Nashville record execs. “You didn’t hear it from me,” he sings. “They can’t stand to see you free.” With “hooky songs about hardscrabble romance and life on the road,” Crockett “continues to advance his persona: rambling man, raconteur, philosopher,” said John Amen in No Depression. Drifter “doesn’t quite exude the magic of $10 Cowboy,” the 2024 Crockett album that “conjured Las Vegas as much as the Grand Ole Opry.” Still, “it does spotlight Crockett’s consistency,” as this is “another set of deftly crafted songs that are as tried and true as grandma’s pound cake.”

‘Moonlight Concessions’ by Throwing Muses

The new Throwing Muses album is, like much of the band’s earlier work, “beach music for an eclipse,” said Bill Pearis in Brooklyn Vegan. Formed in Rhode Island in 1981, the storied alt-rock group has endured through lineup changes and evolving styles, even a turn to mostly acoustic guitars on this record. Still, “the through-line remains Kristin Hersh’s off-kilter melodies and vocals that often feel like she’s channeling spirits from the beyond.” Despite sunny titles such as “Summer of Love” and “South Coast,” Moonlight Concessions has an “eerie, nocturnal vibe” owing to bluesy progressions, prominent use of cello, and Hersh’s usual “slightly sinister” delivery. She continues to be “a force of nature: ungovernable, volcanic,” said Stevie Chick in The Guardian. “Drawing on her inextinguishable survival instinct,” she sings of love and obsession, addiction, and desperation. On the title track, which closes the album, she howls about “breaking down then cracking up” while Pete Harvey’s cello provides a “churning undertow.” As they have for four decades, Throwing Muses conjure a “profound and thrilling” soundscape, with Hersh “snarling until the last breath.”

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