Myself

A DEAR IN HEADLIGHTS | 2025-07-20

It appears as though we’re in the midst of another summer of bars, ladies and gentlemen. With new full lengths from everyone from Rome Streetz, Wayne, Kevin Abstract, Boldy James, Clipse, Open Mike Eagle, Tyler the Creator, Freddie Gibbs & Al, Joey Bada$$, and JID all within the span of two months and change, there sure remains little room during the year of our Lord 2025 for any other outings to stick their head out. Unless they’re… head-lights. Very unassumingly, 32-year old American musician, producer, and singer-songwriter Alex G, a proud Philadelphia native, dared to swing his indie toy axe at the moon and challenge the aforementioned hip-hop avalanche by revealing his tenth studio LP Headlights right in the midst of that enemy crossfire. We’re pleased to report that both him and his music came out unscathed.

The project was released this past 18th July, couched right in-between the hallmark summer rap drops of Clipse and Tyler, the Creator, amongst others—not exactly two negligible acts at the turn of this decade. Believe it or not, Headlights is Mr Giannascoli’s major-label debut, marketed by Sony Music-owned RCA Records, and it follows the iconic and accomplished four-album deal run on British indie stalwart Domino Recording Company, between 2015 and 2022. That particular stint included perhaps his best overall, 2019’s House of Sugar, and culminated a few years ago in what at the time was his most well-rounded and wholesome effort with God Save the Animals. His latest offering is twelve tracks long, and clocks in at just about forty minutes of runtime: Alex G self-produced most of it himself, with additional help recruited in Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s bass guitarist Jacob Portrait (who had previously worked with Giannascoli on his aforementioned previous two studio albums). Less excitingly, before kicking off the Headlights cycle, the artist FKA (Sandy) Alex G also found time to score two official soundtrack albums for Jane Schoenbrun’s indie flicks We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2022) and I Saw the TV Glow (2024).

On this record, Alex G confirms he’s a naughty, albeit friendly, singer/songwriter. One that very deliberately exhumes public images of himself as if shunning away from the spotlight, and perhaps even suffering from it—all the while appearing more comfortable with this laidback set up than diving headfirst into the distribution and promo machinery that a major label would call for. Mind you, this is not inherently bad, and he is well within his rights to spin doctor such a framing onto his prime creative endeavor, particularly as it fits a narrative continuum started fifteen years ago. Hear us out on this though—as anticipatory singles for this project he plucks “Afterlife“, a pretty and catchy gem out in late May alongside the project announcement (featuring the drumming of none other than the E Street Band‘s Max Weinberg!), the kind “June Guitar” a month later, and finally the soft-spoken “Oranges” a day before street date. Are these three the best tracks on Headlights by quite a margin? Yes, probably.

Who does that, though? Who picks the cleanest, lushest, and glossiest numbers and de-contextualizes them from their housing record as teasers, if you’re Alex G? Everything from the gentle acoustic and electric guitar flourishes, the enveloping strings, and the timeless piano keys on these three cuts are something to behold. Were they a short single bundle issued by, like, James Taylor or Neil Young, people would scream for them to put out a whole album’s worth of this shit. Truly, all three are incredible exploits of pristine folk-pop, without Alex G’s trademark homespun low-fidelity enriching or spoiling them—depending on what side of the lore fence one stands on. Moreover, their lyrical ineffability transcends anything he has done before: “Love ain’t for the young anyhow / Something that you learn from fallin’ down“, “Let me write down / Every word / Once I was a mockingbird / Not an angel / But I’m your man“, and again “Wash in the river with the one I love / Every good thing with a little bad luck / You can cry baby, now, I ain’t bluffing / Wash in the river on bended knee“. I mean, come on?

One can tell Headlights is an Alex G record by the LP’s vicarious middle section, though. It’s the Pepsi test. Cuts like the loose and scattered “Spinning” sounds uncannily like a House of Sugar-adjacent cutting room floor extra, while the following “Louisiana” at number six on the tracklist harkens back to the legendary pre-Domino era of self-released hypnotic Bandcamp drops. It’s so direct and on the nose that one would think it’s bidding farewell to that DIY zeitgeist, for good. Perhaps it is. Regardless, it fits on the record, and it matters. Meanwhile, “Bounce Boy“, at number seven, comes close to us fantasizing how Alex G saw fit to dust off some of the guitar effects and pedal pre-sets he so unceremoniously championed on Frank Ocean‘s Blonde and Endless almost ten years ago. Yet he’s doing so in a self-referential and, yes let’s use that word, experimental way. Bottom line is, can anyone name us any major label artist who puts something like “Oranges” and this thing on the same marquee record? Well, in 2025 that might be less of a tall order, but still. You get the point.

What hasn’t changed throughout Headlights is Mr Giannascoli’s childlike naïveté, the earnest innocence at the core of these sound recordings. And yes, his extremely pleasant to the ear melodic layering is still in these tunes, too. Such pureness continues to belie distinct creative choices, though. For instance, he chiefly misses the mark on the record’s third act. But that’s ok. For we’re not going as far as declaring the tangible drop in quality from track number nine onwards as intentional, because that’s precisely Alex G’s inscrutably mystical quality. He comes across as knowing better than committing to tape the nasal and contrived vocal delivery on “Far and Wide“, yet does he really? Absent the self-indulgent and rowdy live take of album outro “Logan Hotel“—he isn’t new to bookending a project with a live version, see House of Sugar—and conceding that the title track is a bit of a grower with inherent replay value, “Far and Wide” and penultimate cut “Is It Still You in There?” are simply too lukewarm for his standards. Let us not forget, this is his tenth studio album after all.

Yet, part of it is what makes him so endearing and gentle to the outer world. Deep down we (wanna) know he does have the full album of pristine folk-pop in his bag, but either willingly or unwillingly, he opts for linear evolution over abrupt revolution. However, does he realize he’s playing in the major label leagues now? Most likely. On the dire and forlorn front-end standout “Beam Me Up“, he nods both that degree of revelatory self-awareness (“Some things I do for love / Some things I do for money / It ain’t like I don’t want it / It ain’t like I’m above it“), and sketches a long-shot metaphor borrowing from American football, not a foreign signifier to him: “Coach, I’m on the rocks / Coach, I’m threading needles / I leave it on the field“. We like to think that the titular headlights he finds himself surrounded by are the ultralight beams of the mainstream music circuit—while for someone like him it would be tempting to withdraw and burrow even more deeply, he instead chose to fight back with love and kindness. This album is proof.

We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

CLIPSE’S LET GOD SORT EM OUT IS SYNTHESIS PERFECTION | 2025-07-13

Veteran hip-hop fraternity duo Clipse (Malice and Pusha T) put out their fourth studio full length, Let God Sort Em Out, just a few days ago, and a sudden underground thrust imploring us to chuck down a few words about it immediately took over. We were all powerless to deny it. The LP marks the rapper pair’s first project as Clipse since 2009’s Til the Casket Drops, which preceded the tectonic industry splashes of Lord Willin’ (2002) and Hell Hath No Fury (2006). In the sixteen years since their last full length, everything but the kitchen sink has happened. Senior bother Malice quit the group in 2010, briefly changed his stage name to No Malice by virtue of his conversion to Christianity, only to reappropriate his original moniker a few years ago. King Push, on the other hand, went on to successfully pursue a consummate solo career that involved the release of four records as well as a couple high-profile rap feuds. The storied Virginia outfit then saw fit to reunite in 2019 for a guest version on none other than Kanye West‘s Jesus Is King—which kinda leads us to this thing coming out earlier this month to great anticipation and acclaim, after about two years of gestation.

Longtime collaborator and early DMV scout Pharrell Williams—who lent his production duties on each of the previous three Clipse albums—returns for Let God Sort Em Out, having overseen each of the thirteen cuts back-to-back, for a total runtime of just over forty minutes. The former Neptunes and NERD record producer extraordinaire also doubles as a featured guest on wax, together with a slew of marquee collaborators including John Legend, Kendrick Lamar, Nas, Stove God Cooks, The-Dream, and Tyler, the Creator. Lead standalone single, the ominous and engrossing “Ace Trumpets“, first arrived in late May, alongside with the project announcement, while non-streaming promo-only single “So Be It” was initially released as a music video halfway through June. A day before the album dropped, Malice and Pusha windowed two more cuts from the big joint exclusively to Apple Music: the highly-anticipated K Dot-featuring “Chains & Whips” (also sporting some gnarly guitar work by Lenny Kravitz), and “So Far Ahead“. Oh yeah, and the album was low-key subsidized by leading French international fashion house Louis Vuitton (it was recorded at their Parisian headquarters). If you still hadn’t guessed it, this thing is a big deal in hip-hop.

The high anticipation for the drop was in no small part due to the fact that Let God Sort Em Out was allegedly initially slated for a 2024 release. Yet, in a turn of events that has had the music industry up in arms since the nuclear Drake–Kendrick Lamar rap battle last year, the album was stalled for a long time as Clipse’s then-imprint Def Jam Recordings—owned by major label Universal Music Group, this will become important in a minute—reportedly requested Kendrick Lamar’s guest bars on “Chains & Whips” be either censored or else they wouldn’t drop the record. Although the official explanation for the failed truce remains unclear, Pusha T publicly claimed in multiple interviews that UMG’s boycott stemmed from his and Kendrick’s ugly brawls with Canadian megastar rapper Drake—most notably via Pusha T’s 2018 diss track “The Story of Adidon” and the aforementioned generation-defining beef from last year. Crucially, a few months ago Drake filed a self-referential defamation lawsuit against UMG for its promotion of K Dot’s beef coup de grâce “Not Like Us“. Refusing to acquiesce, Clipse agreed to pay a seven-figure sum to stunningly buy themselves out of the Def Jam album deal, instead self-releasing Let God Sort Em Out via a distribution agreement with Roc Nation. Wow.

Now, with a few paragraphs of introduction out of the way, let us cut to the chase: this record is a near perfect hip-hop coalescence. More than any this decade, hell arguably since Kanye West’s Yeezus, this collection of tracks is a true blue masterclass display of sonic synthesis, sound curation, and creative extraction—at least on the mainstream front. We don’t jive with numerical scores over here, but this album is wall-to-wall rap enchantment, and would see it fly damn real close to the 10 sun. Malice and Pusha T’s bars are so carefully selected and lyrically impactful that virtually not a single word or ad lib is wasted on the album. Both of their enunciated, matter-of-fact flows coast in and out of pockets making each stanza sound like the most important thing you’ll need to hear this year. Pharell’s backtrack beats are so linear, synthetic, and one-dimensional that silence and space become fruitful allies in this no-waste mixing approach. That’s how even the slightest beat switch, such as on “P.O.V.”, feels like entering into a whole new dimension of sound. This is outta sight.

Nearly each single one of the thirteen numbers features a lone driving beat motif that gels its track from front to back. Whether that’s bass, piano, horns, strings, or percussions; everything sounds so necessary. And sanitized. The refrains are so few and far in between that not only do they feel like they could get modularly stitched to any of the songs on the tracklist, but they become so memory-engrained and sticky it’s ironic for an hip-hop outfit known for its hardcore rapping, anti-earworm chorus stance. Clipse have always heavily relied on their grooves, beats, and production, but this exploit feels like they have finally perfected their acclaimed trademark songcraft. The music on Let God Sort Em Out is all-enveloping, hypnotizing, ethereal, and just so damn thick. There’s a gelid, cold industrial tapestry that bookends the forty minutes of material. And precisely because one is to assume there are so few individual tracks in each of the record’s partial stems, this kind of overture allows for each sonic pillar to crank up to eleven, and go assemble a muscular gesamtkunstwerk that lines up thirteen architectural marvels on the tracklist.

As most people undertaking creative endeavors know, reducing and essentializing a work of art is so much harder than adding bells and whistles to it. As celebrated American writer, humorist, and essayist Mark Twain famously said “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead”. Less than an artistic compromise, knowing how to cut what fat and which darlings to kill oughta be seen as a purifying act of love toward the art being made. In the Apple Music interview hyperlinked above, the Virginia Beach duo revealed how nothing was left on the studio’s cutting room floor—the thirteen records that made Let God Sort Em Out were all they wrote. A rarity in today’s bonus tracks/B-sides/deluxe version streaming obsessed climate. This is a pursuit of clarity and distillation. We can’t think of a rap outing that hasn’t done that better than this album in a long, long time. Naturally, by virtue of spacing out the recordings so much and weaving constituent room for certain segments to breathe, the Thorton bros rhymes stand out like crown jewels. On this album, the vocals are so front and center it’s not even funny.

When Malice dedicates all his bars to this old man on the parental tribute opener “The Birds Don’t Sing”, he achieves spiritual heights on passages like “I can hear your voice now, I can feel your presence / Askin’ “Should I rap again?”, you gave me your blessing / The way you spelled it out, there’s an L in every lesson / ‘Boy, you owe it to the world, let your mess become your message’“. Conversely, King Push’s articulation on track number seven “M.T.B.T.T.F.“; “My presence, your plеasure / Peasants, he’s prеssure / I been knee deep, ki deep / We at ZZ’s, me and Lee Lee / Get you fronted for the summer so easy” is so cold-blooded and sinister that quite literally no one else could deliver it the same way. What’s even more remarkable is that unlike the reputation that precedes them, Clipse manage to pull such a compound stunt off while keeping cocaine bars to a bare minimum—instead opting for obscure financial report jargon on the unforgiving “E.B.I.T.D.A.” (acronym for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization).

The latter is arguably one of the fastest beats Pusha T ever laid vocals on. And yet, in spite of—or precisely because of—the heightened BPMs, the 48-year old former GOOD Music label president manages to invokes the central mantra that underpins this album: “I need more space to make pace“. Every his wish is Pharrell’s command. With a producer-rappers chemistry completely off the charts, for God’s sake, these gentleman are literally related and from the same childhood neighborhood, it’s no wonder each piece of music on here sounds indispensable. This is an outstanding project in the mainstream hip-hop space precisely because it stands out from the pack so much. Alas, the intention with which each single sonic nook and cranny is perfected feels like a lost practice, a manufacturing no longer worth engaging with. Well here we are stating the opposite: this shit still matters. Mostly because it sounds so freaking good. Mark our words—not Pitchfork‘s—this record will land in the upper single digit rankings for most of the Albums of the Year lists you’ll be checking out this November. Let God sort those out.

We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

THOUGHTS ON SPRINGSTEEN’S LOST ALBUMS | 2025-06-26

The Boss is back in towns. Bruce Springsteen and his E Street Band returned to the road earlier last month for their only as-of-yet scheduled shows this year, bringing what has been re-dubbed the grand Land of Hope & Dreams Tour to more than half a million fans in six countries throughout summer, after being forced to cut short their European leg due to illness last year. Beginning with a three-show run in mighty Manchester, UK, these re-scheduled dates serve as the culminating finale to the two-year-long run of what were Springsteen and co’s first live performances in almost seven years. And while an E Street Band roadtrip is always sure to turn a fair amount of industry heads, particularly when your ringleader is 75, this latest one managed to garner an extra notch of attention thanks to some inadvertent promo from none other than the sitting President of the United States.

During his tour opener, on 14th May, Springsteen let out a few less-than-flattering speeches about the current executive branch governing his home country. In response, US President Donald Trump posted an unhinged statement going at the Boss’s appearance and intelligence, while also demanding an investigation into former Presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s endorsements that came from Springsteen himself, as well as a slew of other A-list celebrities. Not even a full week later, the New Jersey success story saw fit to release a whole brand new live EP—conveniently titled Land of Hope & Dreams—taped at that momentous Manchester tour opener. And yes, he included those ad libs. As the good people over at Apple Music put it: no shade to the four defiant songs captured during the gig, but this may well be the first live record surprise-dropped for its stage banter.

We might’ve buried the lead though. For the real kicker this #BruceSummer have got to be the seven previously-unheard studio full lengths dropping for the first time tomorrow, Friday 27th June. The widely-rumored, long-anticipated Tracks II: The Lost Albums—a spiritual successor to the 1998 cult four-disc Tracks collection that has become the ultimate non-studio album fan favorite over the years—is a gargantuan set spanning 83 songs (74 of which never-before-heard). Conspicuously filling in essential chapters of Springsteen’s expansive timeline, Tracks II arrives in limited-edition nine LP, seven CD, as well as all the obligatory digital formats—including custom packaging for each of the seven records-in-record, with a 100-page cloth-bound, hardcover book featuring rare archival photos, liner notes from essayist Erik Flannigan, and a personal introduction on the project from the Boss himself. A more digestible and chart-friendly companion bundle—Lost And Found: Selections from The Lost Albums—will instead feature twenty highlights from across the full tracklist, also out the same day on two LPs or one CD.

Upping the overall B-sides count by a generous 17 offerings, compared to the 66 off the first Tracks instalment, Tracks II maps a creative trajectory that includes writing sessions ranging from 1983 to 2018. For the project, Springsteen and longtime producer/multi-instrumentalist sideman Ron Aniello polished the sound quality and sparsely added instrumental enrichments here and there to the old tapes. The bulk of the material does stem from the Boss working as a one-man studio band, as he has since the 1980s. The umbrella front cover for the vault collection—linked at the end of this piece—lets us deduce that the top-to-bottom chronological order in which the seven projects are listed should refer to their gestation period over the projected 35-year range (i.e. with LA Garage Sessions ’83 being the oldest, and Perfect World the one compiled in 2018). As of the time of this writing, just mere hours away from the big reveal, Columbia Records and the Springsteen camp have been unleashing six standalone teasers from as many distinct discs within the coveted assemblage, with the inaugural LA Garage Sessions ’83 LP remaining the only one without advance listening (safe for an elusive low-fidelity 20-second teaser on the box set’s splash website).

Things kicked off early into April, along with the first project reveal, when a debut look at the series came in the form of “Rain in the River“, a blistering and expansive Perfect World cut that aptly encapsulates that project’s arena-ready E Street blend. Halfway through that same month, the synth-heavy and drum machine-programmed “Blind Spot” was served to quench the longstanding thirsts of all those salivating over Springsteen’s allegedly mythical ‘hip-hop influenced loops record’—ours included. As it turns out, that collection of ten numbers has now been billed as the Streets of Philadelphia Sessions, perhaps the most highly-anticipated of the seven LPs, if you ask us. Curiously enough, the previously available “Missing“—from The Crossing Guard OST—remains true to its title and does not in fact appear on the tracklist of what would’ve felt like its perfect home album.

Meanwhile, on the 1st May, the The Lost Albums roll out added another notch to its cowboy belt, by completely switching up the mood: “Faithless“, the titular song of the 11-track third disc in the catalog, is a reserved, husky, and unplugged country Western affair. Not the most immediate and ear-catching jam in the Springsteen lore—particularly considering his accomplished foray into the genre on 2019’s Western Stars—but one that rewards patience and repeated listens by way of a more focused TLC. This collection of songs was actually initially meant to soundtrack a ‘spiritual Western’ motion picture based on an unidentified book, started in 2005. Springsteen wrote and recorded the music all by himself in a matter of weeks, building on a foundation of spiritual piano and bluesy slide guitar—twenty years later, the film is reportedly still ‘in development’. Somewhere North of Nashville‘s “Repo Man“, released two weeks later on 14th May, pulls another 180° on the promotional roll out sonics, with its lively, saloon-y, and galloping blues-country flairs, couched in an infectious immediacy that is poised to make it a catchy live staple (tall order, we know!).

A couple weeks after that, Mexican ranchera-disc 5 Inyo‘s unplugged preview came through in the shape of “Adelita“, a soft and gentle ode to Mexico’s ‘soldaderas’—women who played a major role in the country’s fight for independence. Lastly, but not least of the advance pack, this past 12th June the Boss unwrapped the subdued piano-jazz brushed “Sunday Love“, a final teaser off the Western Stars-cutting room floor exhumed retro-pop affair Twilight Hours. The major 7th chords-record is a collection presenting a window into the ‘what-if’ the 2019 country folk outing were a double album instead, offering the New Jerseyan’s take on a softer, more jazzy revisitation of the storied American songbook. In a recent press release about the tune, Springsteen says, “I love Burt Bacharach, and I love those kinds of songs and those kinds of songwriters. I took a swing at it because the chordal structures and everything are much more complicated, which was fun for me to pull off. All this stuff could have come right off of those ’60s albums.” Sure, but it also still sounds a lot like Springsteen, and like a cut that wouldn’t have been too out of place on 2002’s The Rising.

In summation, over the course of almost three full months of promo we’ve been fed with six previously unreleased Bruce Springsteen rarities, amounting to about 23 minutes of new material. Tracks II is 83 songs long, and a quick inferential stunt on account of this initial sample suggests we could expect something in the region of 320 minutes (or more than five hours!) of runtime. That’s an inordinate amount of never-heard-before music to sift through, let alone for somebody with 21 studio albums already in the catalog. It’s a barrage of music that would put whole careers’s worth of tracks by average artists today to shame. All (re-)released on one day. We’re no doubt living in times of Springsteen abundance—and we have no complaints over that. Oh, and didn’t we mention last month’s live EP that was basically taped and released overnight?

In case you were wondering, we’re going to catch Bruce and his E Street Band live in a matter of days in Milan, Italy, as part of one of those rescheduled tour dates from last year. The chances of hearing a cut off Tracks II performed live when you have a cherished catalog of almost 400 to pull from are slimmer than your average American’s budget left at the end of the month, but hey we’ll keep you posted in case he does. As a consolation, we’ll have seven new studio LPs to savor wall-to-wall as early as tomorrow morning. Speaking of which, here’s how we’d rank them in order of anticipation and excitement, before hearing any more of the whole thing:

  1. Streets of Philadelphia Sessions
  2. LA Garage Sessions ’83
  3. Perfect World
  4. Twilight Hours
  5. Somewhere North of Nashville
  6. Faithless
  7. Inyo

No empirical rhyme or reason over this; just gauging the enjoyment the various teasers have been providing hitherto, and knowing Bruce Springsteen a little bit. Yet, clearly not enough to predict what happened next. In a recent video deep-dive into the genesis and design of Tracks II, the 75-year old New Jersey native came through with a cold-blooded twist right at the end: there exists a Tracks III collection. And it’s apparently already finished. He went on to explain that ‘[Tracks III] is basically what was left in the vault‘, including outtakes from as far back as his 1973 debut, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. and as recent as last year: ‘so there was a lot of good music left. There are five full albums of music‘. It might just be true that all good things come in threes, after all.

Streets of Philadelphia Sessions

“Sometimes if you lock into one song you like then you follow that thread. I had this song ‘Blind Spot,’ and I followed that thread through the rest of the record.” — BS

Faithless

“Faithless was a piece of work I took (on commission) for a spiritual Western film that was preparing to be made around 2004. In Hollywood, I have found, you can disappear into “development” for long periods of time so I thought I would release these now and let you hear my results of this interesting project.” — BS

Somewhere North of Nashville

“I wrote all these country songs at the same time I wrote ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad.’ Those sessions completely overlap each other. I’m singing ‘Repo Man’ in the afternoon and ‘The Line’ at night. So the country record got made right along with ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad.’ Very similar to ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ and ‘Nebraska’” — BS

Inyo

“‘Inyo’ was a record I wrote in California during long drives along the California aqueduct, up through Inyo County on my way to Yosemite or Death Valley. It’s one of my favorites.” — BS

Twilight Hours

“At one time, it was either a double record or they were part of the same record. But I separated the ‘Western Stars’ material out and what I had left is ‘Twilight Hours.'” — BS

Perfect World

“‘Perfect World’…is a record I pieced together from work I had held for this project…I wanted just a little fun, noise, and rock ‘n’ roll to finish the package.” — BS

We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

REPENTANT SINNERS | 2025-05-31

[***spoiler-free***]

We went to see the movie Sinners in theaters. Twice. We’ll watch it again. We’ve also been listening to the Ryan Coogler and Ludwig Göransson-supervised Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, acting as the commercial companion to the incidental Original Motion Picture Score (fully written and arranged by the award-winning Swedish composer—it has gotten a fair amount of spins itself). For the uninitiated, the blockbuster opened in theaters on 18th April, and is a US Southern gothic supernatural horror joint by 39-year old Californian film director, producer, and screenwriter Ryan Coogler—of Black Panther and Creed fame. Starring Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, and Jack O’Connell, the movie is distributed by Warner Bros Pictures and at the time of this writing fares as the seventh highest-grossing film of 2025, having received widespread acclaim from audiences and critics alike.

The motion pictures narrates of identical twins Smoke and Stack Moore returning to Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1932, after a multi-year stint working for Al Capone in Chicago. Leveraging illegitimate funds stolen from outlaws up in Illinois, they acquire a decaying sawmill from local racist landowner Hogwood, with the intention of converting it into a blues-infused juke joint for the local black community overnight. Their cousin, ‘preacherboy’ Sammie, a gifted and aspiring guitarist, joins them despite his pastor father Jedidiah’s warnings that messing with blues music means invoking the supernatural. The twins also go on to recruit blues pianist Delta Slim and singer Pearline to boost their line up—as well as Smoke’s estranged wife Annie as cook, local Chinese shopkeepers Grace and Bo Chow as suppliers, and longtime field worker Cornbread as door bouncer.

On account of this premise, the full movie takes place over a narrative arc of 24 hours, from dawn to sunrise, as it were. True to its loaded title, it leaves no character able to cast the proverbial first stone. Above all though, it recounts of the power of soulful, dangerous music, summoning ancient tales of Faustian bargains involving legendary bluesman Robert Johnson, as well as of grit, persistence, and defiance. In it, belief and damnation aren’t presented as a discrete dichotomy, but rather as a continuum into which different people can strive to insert themselves. Some of them will stick their landing more toward the hell-bent end of the spectrum, whereas others will manage to redeem themselves by doing good. Or at least, better. The film displays remarkable performance by a slew of extremely well cast actors, but its main protagonist is undoubtedly blues music.

Music not only low-key furnishes utilitarian plot elements that weave together a robust, catchy, and well-rounded narrative, but acts as a fourth-wall of sorts, upon which rests a whole Stranger Things-esque premise of good vs evil. Unlike the Netflix teen-horror sensation, in Sinners the upside down is journeyed through the conjuring of otherworldly blues music. Music with a message, with a heart, and with a purpose. Music that served as triage for a peoples faced with all systemic injustices and structural exploitations of this world. Thing is: when played by the right person, blues riffs and licks crack open the Venn diagram separating heaven from the abyss. More often than not, with unintended consequences that tally up in communal baggages carried on by generations.

That’s what so relatable about the screenplay and its execution. Absent the cinematic bells and whistles tied to folkloric allegories that envelop the aptly unraveled story, the movie tells of a time and a place that occurred not even a century ago. Memories of societal textures, political orders, and civic mechanisms are still vivid in a lot of people’s minds, especially those of African American descent. Sinners presents us with a window into a slice of society whose perspective was completely negated at the time, and in doing so offers us a restaurant menu from which we can cherrypick who and what we want to see ourselves in. This thing has black people, Asians, native Americans, and of course the white. In many ways, the juke joint launched by the Moore bros can act as a Petri dish for the many communities we live in. The storytelling device of setting it during the segregative Jim Crow-era US South renders it poignant and important, but the greed, selfishness, and self-righteousness of most characters is timeless.

The feeling of belonging and the fight for self-preservation run deep in the thick plot—yet incidentally, those are two of the main motors that power the engines of blues rock. Most music stemming from heart-on-sleeve honesty, truly. Case in point: when local pastor Jedidiah bestows the cautionary tale upon his preacherboy son about the dangers of ‘bringing evil home’ by playing blues on the cursed guitar, he appears to be doing so while well aware of the artistic might of the music style in question. Unwavering, Sammie politely listens to his father’s dire warning, but still proceeds to join Smoke and Stack in their entertainment venture. In Sinners, much like real life, everyone has their own self-centered agenda, and is ready to go quite at length to impose its devils unto others. Whether in a dignified way or not, that’s for Belzebuth to determine.

The movie is far from a survival of the fittest, winner-takes-it-all parable though. Compassion and humanity surface to the top for a sizable chunk of the characters, good or bad may they be. This dynamic renders them well aware of the misdeeds they are committing, albeit not quite while they are committing them. L’esprit d’escalier. Without giving anything away, after repeated screenings of this flick, the sensation is that the sincere power of community—brought together inside the juke joint by the Moore twins—enacts a vessel that helps demystifying the cynicism of everyday life, bringing patrons and owners alike to the realization that their lives are more than the sum of their daily decisions. Uncompromising and unapologetic with respect to staying true to their innate identities, various protagonists in the feature film do seem to want to do the right thing. When amongst peers, they become selfless and free; all of a sudden their thirst for petty revenge fades into the background.

In typical Göransson fashion, the commercial-leaning soundtrack LP he curated features as a diverse an array of acts as trap singer Don Toliver, blues mainstay RL Burnside’s grandson Cedric Burnside, English alt-pop giant James Blake, Alice in Chains-founder Jerry Cantrell, Chicago Blues godfather Buddy Guy, as well as disgraced R&B singer/songwriter Rod Wave—who penned the official lead single for the Various Artists compilation. Blues is by definition anti-snob music. Blues is lunch pail and shovel music. Reflectively, Sinners is for everyone. The incidental original score by the 40-year-old Swedish musician, composer, and record producer is gripping and asphyxiating, whether synched to the moving images or listened to in audio-only isolation. Yet it is none the less an evocative recall of the range and dexterity of the underlying blues music.

“All money come with blood, baby“, says Smoke to Annie at one point in the movie, as she questions him about the dubious provenance of the cash stash he brought back from Chicago. Seas of blood and violent deaths are certainly not in short supply in here—yet the most lethal weapon of them all might just turn out to be a six-string with the right chord progression.

We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

GENTLEMAN GIANNIS | 2025-05-01

More than half of the 2025 NBA Playoff First Round match-ups have already been sorted out. In less than ten days of scheduled playtime since the official kick-off of the ‘postseason that counts’, five teams across the Eastern and Western Conferences have already taken care of business, securing a landlocked spot in the Second Round. Two series sweeps, seeing each Conference’s top seed flat-out ridicule their fellow lowest-seeded Play-In Tournament hopefuls (Oklahoma City Thunder and Cleveland Cavaliers versus the Memphis Grizzlies and the Miami Heat, respectively), one giant upset (sixth-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves dethroning the LA Lakers), as well as a couple predictable verdicts, albeit not without late clutch play drama (here’s looking at you, Indiana Pacers—more on this in a jiffy). Amidst it all, there isn’t even a need to front here: our predictions have so far left a lot to be desired—see bracket below; the 19th April Bluesky timestamp is proof…

Were the Nuggets, Rockets, and Knicks to go on to win their respective series tie in the next couple days, that would leave our bracket accuracy attainment rate at a measly 3/8 correct guesses. That’s a laughable 37%. Achieved by guessing that OKC, the Cavaliers, and the Celtics would win their charitable trips to the Semis, no less—wow. Geniuses. What’s troublesome too here are two deadpan implications from these first ten days of Playoff action: our presumptive NBA Champions Lakers are already on their way to Cancún as of 1st May, and this year’s wishful Cinderella story—the unlikely thrusting of the living-breathing scaffolding Milwaukee Bucks all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals—well, ain’t happening either. Nostradamus would be proud of us.

When your biggest postseason’s brag is that you predicted that the defending NBA Champions Boston Celtics reach the Eastern Conference Finals again, you should definitely stay away from sports betting. Frankly, even a 100% correct bracket guesses should, but that’s a story for a different day. And yet, we really believe(d) in our earnest predictions when we first filled them out. Did we go out on a few limbs here and there, just for fun? Of course. Comment this post if you also had the Lakers making it all the way to raising the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy this year. Or if you too were hopelessly optimistic that Damian Lillard’s miraculously unprecedented return from his blood clot issue would be the decisive X factor that could bring a somewhat disgraced franchise to unthinkable heights this season, only to capitulate in a seven-game series loss against the reigning champs.

Yes, they were both stretches, but not entirely unfounded. The Lakers won seven out of their ten final Regular Season games—including a marquee triumph against the top Western seed Thunders—and finished third with their best record in six years (50-32, .610 win percentage). Oh, and they low-key pulled off the biggest blockbuster NBA trade of this century, acquiring Slovenian superstar guard Luka Dončić in a multi-pawned deal that sent veteran center Anthony Davis to the Dallas Mavericks. Also, Austin Reaves was on a sensational ascent. And this might be LeBron James’s last season, so why wouldn’t he do everything in his power to tip it off with at least one last Finals appearance? It all kind of made sense.

Not dissimilarly, the Milwaukee Bucks wrapped up the Regular Season with eight straight wins, that arithmetically pulled them out of the Play-In relegation slump, and officially set them apart enough to lock in the official fifth seed vis-a-vis the unlikely All-American success story of the Detroit Pistons. Considering how brutally disappointingly the 2024/2025 season started for the Giannis Antetokounmpo-led franchise, there was a great deal of new wind in their sail that would have allowed us to fantasize about them at the very least making it past the fastidious Indiana Pacers in the First Round (yup, even we’d have to acknowledge that beating the Cavaliers four times out of seven was perhaps too prohibitive and likely not on the cards for this year…). So, about that Bucks-Pacers series…

On Tuesday 29th April, Tyrese Haliburton and co. officially took care of business by eliminating Milwaukee 4-1 in a frankly pretty one-sided best-of-seven series. Pacers in five. The game ended 119-118 in dramatic fashion in overtime, and while the Bucks would probably have deserved to win the game and force a game six back in Indianapolis after blowing multiple double-digit leads, it’s what transpired in the moments immediately following the final buzzer that took on a whole other life of its own. To recap the succession of events for the uninitiated—right after Indiana clinched the series, Tyrese Haliburton’s father John Haliburton, sitting courtside, entered the floor during the celebrations. He then walked up to a petrified Giannis Antetokounmpo and proceeded to wave a towel featuring his son’s face, before directing provocative remarks at the Greek Freak. Giannis then confronted John, leading to a brief but tense exchange before teammates intervened to dissuade the situation.

There is so much that can, has been, and will be written about the altercation. For starters, the public embarrassment expressed by Tyrese over his father’s actions, indicating in a postgame press conference that he had had a conversation with his father to address the situation while also planning to speak with Antetokounmpo at a separate time. Tyrese’s awkwardness was followed by John’s too, who took little time to issue a forced public apology on social media, acknowledging how his behavior did not reflect well on himself or his son. As if it were not enough, it’s news as of 1st May that after conversations with John Haliburton, the Indiana Pacers front office saw fit to ban Tyrese’s father from attending the team’s home and road games for the foreseeable future. And yet the teachable, noble moment here comes from the former NBA MVP and Champion himself. Let us unpack the complete answer Giannis gave during his own presser after the game, when asked to speak on the incident:

All I’ll say is that I believe in being humble in victory. That’s the way I am.

Now, there are a lot of people out there that can say, ‘No. When you win, you gotta talk shit. It’s a green light for you to be disrespectful towards somebody else. I disagree. I have won a championship. They haven’t. That doesn’t say anything. I’m not trying to minimize their effort, but I remember when I won, my mom, she’s never missed a game from February 11th or 13th when she came to Milwaukee against the Knicks, she’s never missed a game. When we won a championship, I remember my mom was scared to cross. She was like, ‘Am I allowed to come and hug my son?’

Except now my brother does media this year. He wants to come back and play, but like, except Thanasis, you’ve never seen my family sit in a courtside seat. This is not something that we do. We don’t. I try to keep my family away from the game.

But losing the game emotions run high. Having a fan, which at the moment I thought it was a fan, but then I realized it was Tyrese’s son, which I love Tyrese – I think he’s a great competitor – he was his dad, sorry.

Coming in the floor and, um, showing me his son a towel with his face. ‘This is what we do. This is what we f**king do. This is the f**k we do.’ I feel like that’s very, very disrespectful.

You know, my dad, my dad if you guys go and ask and learn my dad’s not with us no more. My dad used to come in the family room and was the most respectful person ever. You know when you come from nothing and you’ve worked your whole life to sell stuff in the street and your whole life you’ll be scared of the police of deporting you and sending you back to your country. You have to protect your kids with all means. You create this mentality of being humble your whole life.

To not kind of disrespect anybody, not make the tension high, the emotions high, so anybody can you know snitch on you, say something bad about you. So when he came here I remembered I was like, ‘Dad, why are you so humble? Why are you going to the family room? You don’t even say a word. You sit in the back. Why, why, why are you like that?’ ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry about it. Don’t worry.’ That’s how I grew up. That’s what I had around.

So when I see other dads, which don’t disrespect, maybe if my son play basketball, I might be in the court. I might be the one on the court and like 20 years later you can play this interview and say ‘Giannis, you’re contradicting yourself.’ But we’ll see in 20 years, but I’m talking about right now how I feel. You know having somebody’s that which I’m happy for him and I’m happy for his son and I’m happy that he’s happy for his son. That’s how you’re supposed to feel.

But coming to me and disrespecting me and cursing at me, I think it’s totally unacceptable – totally unacceptable. OK, and … I’m not the guy that points fingers because in my neighborhood snitches get stitches. So I don’t want to say something you know for him to say to get fined or anything, but it’s not respectful. I talk with him at the end and we huh, I think we’re in a good place.

For the record, John Haliburton’s social media handle is @PapaHaliburton. Please. Like, who does that? How much more obvious can the familiar vestibule guised as genuine grassroots support get? While it’s evident that the Haliburton-Antetokounmpo incident has sparked welcome discussions about appropriate conduct for family members and fans during professional sporting events—highlighting the importance of sportsmanship and respect—we claim no better metaphor could be realized to capture the modern day’s delusion of spoiled nepotist entitlement. The kind that involves parents as chief architects of it. And honestly, the Haliburtons embody so much of that. Incidentally, 25-year old guard Tyrese, a two-time NBA All-Star, just won the Most Overrated Player in the NBA award this year in a recent anonymous player poll by The Athletic, receiving 15% of the votes (ironically, good guy in this story Giannis Antetokounmpo finished tenth on the same list).

This story basically writes itself—Haliburton is a non-factor Olympic gold medalist, too. Last summer, he was drafted as part of Team USA’s men’s basketball roster at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where the selection managed to secure the highly coveted gold medal (all the while this season’s NBA Clutch Player of the Year, the New York Knicks’s Jalen Brunson, stayed home to record podcasts…). However, unsurprisingly, Haliburton’s on-court contributions were limited. He merely appeared in three of the six games, totaling 26 minutes—the fewest among all players on the roster. He did not step foot on the hardwood floor in either of the games past the group phase (the semifinal against Serbia and the gold medal game against France). Granted, he was a good sport about it all, tipping off the experience with legitimately funny humor on social media (posting ‘When you ain’t do nun on the group project and still get an A‘). But this also kind of makes sense. Doesn’t it?

Go back to Giannis’ integrity lesson for a second. Re-read it in full. This doesn’t all happen in a vacuum. John Haliburton doesn’t walk up to Giannis with hostility at the buzzer, before even hugging his own game-winning shooter son, had he and Tyrese not perfected the gold digging upwards mobility of ‘take your dad to work’ models. Heritage, respect, and sacrifice typically don’t fail people in moments of need. They don’t get washed away by ’emotions’. They either pre-exist, or they don’t. The Nigerian-Greek power forward is obviously one of the greatest basketball players of all time. Arguably the greatest and most incisive player of the last decade. Since his 2013 debut, the guy has been sporting a career average 24 points per game (accompanied by a 55% field goal percentage), with a peak 31.1 points-per-game registered during his 2022-2023 season. As he reminded the audience during the press conference, he is the one with NBA Championship and three MVP titles, not them. Still, Giannis’s most honorable achievement to date might just have come off the court. Yes, Giannis Antetokounmpo is a gentleman, and a damn good basketball player whilst at it.

We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time. Oh and yeah, we do root for the Knicks over here at EMS, but these Pistons man…

AV

DETROIT PISTONS: AMERICA’S TEAM | 2025-03-28

As of Friday 28th March, with less than ten games left in the 2024/2025 NBA Regular Season, the Detroit Pistons have officially established themselves as franchise basketball’s America’s Team. Michigan’s Motor City team currently sits as the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference, sporting a .562 winning percentage and an overall net record of 41 wins and 32 losses hitherto. Not only would this ranking translate in the Pistons clinching direct playoff access for the first time since 2019, but the existing match-up picture would see them face the certainly not-unbeatable Indiana Pacers in the first round. All of a sudden, the Eastern Conference Semifinals aren’t a pipedream anymore. Granted, there are another nine games left in the regular season—incidentally, tonight Detroit is slated to face the projected Eastern Conference champions and undisputed season revelation Cleveland Cavaliers, at home—and lots can still change between now and mid-April. Yet, their performance so far this season reflects a historic and unprecedented improvement, transforming the franchise from the league’s lowest-ranked team to unwavering playoff contenders.

As a refresher, it’s worth reminding that last year, during the 2023/2024 NBA Regular Season, the Pistons finished dead last with a measly league-worst record of 14 wins and 68 losses (.171 winning %). Two seasons ago, same thing—they closed off with 17 wins and 65 losses (.207 winning %). This year alone, the club has already tripled the amount of wins from last year, with another nine attempts to go. Earlier in February, they even recorded their longest winning streak (eight games) since the golden franchise era of the 2006/2007 season—and as of their 73rd game of the season, they improved their average points per game by 6 (up from 109 last year), their field goal percentage by more than 1% point (47.8% compared to 46.3%), and elevated their three-point field goal percentage by nearly 2% points (36.3% over last season’s 34.8%). And although their free-throw percentage is dipping slightly compared to twelve months ago (a current 77.6% vis-a-vis 78.5% in 2023/2024), they are tracking better stats than in previous years across the whole front and backcourt: steals per game, blocks per game, total rebounds per game, and assists per game.

What’s not to love obsessively about this? How can the country not root for them? For those needing more convincing; so far this season their effective field goal percentage (adjusted field goal % to better account for three-pointers) jumped from 52 to 55%, while their offensive rating—ergo, points scored per 100 possessions—improved by more than 5. Defensively, they are par for their reputational Bad Boys course again, having ameliorated their defensive rating (points conceded per 100 possessions) bringing it down from 118 last year to this season’s 111, not unlike their opponents effective field goal percentage, which has seen a near 2 percentage points drop from last year (decreases mean good, in the latter two cases). All from a team that has consistently finished in the bottom three of the Eastern Conference in the last five years, with a meager all time high of 23 wins in a single season (2021/2022). A proverbial all-American redemption tale if we’ve ever seen one.

From blowout red carpets, to serious Eastern Conference Semifinal contenders. From near laughing stock of the league, to top ten NBA team in rebounds per game and field goal percentage. All in less than twelve months. But what’s to thank for this remarkable transformation? Well, quite a bit. First and foremost, re-signing core talent during the offseason. Securing a contract extension with franchise cornerstone and legitimate Most Improved Player-candidate Cade Cunningham in July last year ensured dexterity, leadership, and continuity on the court. Secondly, placing a few strategic free agency acquisitions on the chessboard: scoring veteran forward Tobias Harris as well as signing sharpshooter and living-breathing mascot Malik Beasley provided offensive versatility and experience. Moreover, absorbing Tim Hardaway Jr via a trade with the Dallas Mavericks ensured consistent perimeter shooting and yet more veteran presence, further addressing the team’s need for reliable scoring options. Similarly, the recent addition of reigning FIBA World Champion and tournament MVP, Germany‘s Dennis Schröder, increased depth at the point guard position, dishing solid experience and facilitating mad ball handling movement.

The Michiganian franchise also showcased and proved their sharp ability to grow in-house talent and draft promising prospects. Sourcing small/power forward Ron Holland II as the 5th overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft infused young incisiveness with significant potential into the roster, while the definitive explosion of young center Jalen Duren as well as evil twin Ausar Thompson as Swiss-army-knife small forward this year are other significant contributions to the team’s unlikely success this season. All this notwithstanding the fact that one of their most impactful players between October and December, former Purdue shooting guard Jaden Ivey, has been sidelined since 1st January after sustaining a season-ending injury in a nasty collision with Orlando Magic guard Cole Anthony. Last, but definitely not least, appointing former Cleveland Cavaliers head coach JB Bickerstaff to lead the team in the offseason—someone known for his effective communication and leadership skills—introduced a new strategic vision and leadership style, enriching the team’s improved impact. And although it’s harder to gauge, Trajan Langdon’s hire as the new President of Basketball Operations before last summer surely enhanced a front-office overhaul able to respond to a multi-year Playoff drought.

As Detroit Bad Boys reports, the Pistons will officially finish the season above .500 for the first time in a decade with just one additional win in their final nine games. While that win might not come tonight, against projected title contenders Cleveland Cavaliers, were they to eke out four more before the postseason, Detroit will go as far as securing their best regular season record since 2007-08. Not to mention the fact that so many of their wins happened in clutch time (final 5 minutes of the fourth quarter with a score differential of 5 or less). We haven’t checked this, but the Pistons have got to be a top five NBA team in terms of clutch games this year. What’s even more impressive, as the same article puts it, America’s team miraculous turnaround “is already among the biggest in NBA history. If Detroit wins just three more games [before the regular season ends], they will have the seventh-biggest jump in wins from one season to the next“. Before adding important context: “if you look at the top six turnarounds in NBA history, they are all built on major talent infusion and return from injury“.

We would be remiss not to finish off singing the Pistons praises by focusing on their best player, former NBA first overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft Cade Cunningham. The 23-year old point guard was deservedly named an NBA All-Star for the first time this past February, and makes for a more than plausible All-NBA Second Team hopeful, when this season is in the books. The Texas native is basically a walking averaging double-double, with a current trading of 25.7 points, 9.2 assists and 6.1 rebounds a game. These numbers are up from 17, 19, and 22 points per game in his first three seasons, respectively. He’s already played more individual games than in any single season before (66), averaging 35 minutes a match up on a roster not exactly devoid of options and bench depth. He’s even managed to turn around his +/- ratio for the first time in his professional career, recording a net 2.7 points when he’s on the floor after three years in the minus. Plus the guy’s hella likable, plays with unique calm, collection, and poise, and makes it look like he’s having a lot of fun while at it. That, and so much more, is why the Detroit Pistons are America’s Team.

We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

2025 IS REVIVAL SEASON | 2025-02-28

When it comes to spitting dexterity on the mic, one would be hard-pressed to name anyone with more natural lyrical prowess than Columbus, GA-native rapper Brandon ‘BEZ’ Evans (B Easy). One half of the recently minted experimental/electronic hip-hop duo Revival Season, jointly with beatmaker Jonah Swilley, the gifted wordsmith has been at the rap game for about a decade at this point. Sporting a five-project strong solo discography of his own—with 2023’s Trap Sabbath as the clear standout amongst it—the MC managed to turn industry heads in spades at the beginning of last year, as he and Swilley dropped the exceptional Golden Age of Self-Snitching.

Revival Season’s 14-track debut LP clocks in just shy of forty minutes of runtime, and it’s an all-killer no-filler exercise in alternative hip-hop, with several indebted nods to electronic, funk, and dub music. Handily one of the most exciting rap debuts in the first half of the 2020s decade, Golden Age of Self-Snitching introduced the erratic duo to the world by way of zany, catchy, and carefree rap cuts more akin to cypher-like streams of consciousness, than cohesive label concept tapes. Owing their creative footprint to Linkin Park, Kendrick Lamar, Fever 333, Black Thought, and Mach-Hommy all in equal measure, the record pierces through the listeners’ sonic membranes like the warm hug of an earwormy fire alarm sound.

The project was puzzle-pieced together entirely self-sufficiently, written both remotely and in person, and recorded in different makeshift locations—including a health centre and an ad-hoc setup in Swilley’s house. BEZ’s bars take your breath away, precisely because he is low-key delivering them breathless himself. Sample “Barry White” at number two on the tracklist, a joint that has the MC dish out one 16 after another like his literal life depended on it—not without subdued Kanye West hat tips (“penitentiary chances”, “Brandon”)—on top of what sounds like Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” iconic six-string lick. The grandiose and spacey “Message in a Bottle“, on the record’s same front-end, carries more unhinged Yeezy worship (peep the “ultralight beam” refrain), but mostly turns into what’s perhaps the most immediate and irresistible groove on the whole album.

By contrast, the feet-swinging and heavenly “Last Dance‘ at number five would stand the test of time as a Petri dish of how to finally get the exhilarating EDM/rap crossover right—in spite of all the many kitsch attempts out there. If you only source one tune off Self-Snitching, we implore you to make it this one. In a different vein, the following “Boomerang” brings all the funk to the fold, and then some. Whether intentional or not, BEZ’s delivery on the tune seems to harken back to an early BROCKHAMPTON-era Merlyn Wood flow. The defunct boy band’s influence is immeasurable and contains so many multitudes at this point, we wouldn’t be shocked to find out that some of its ethos might have bled into Jonah Swilley’s DAWs and record plates. In the same breath though, switch your ears and attention to “Propaganda“, and you’d be forgiven to think that you’re hearing Mach-Hommy spitball over a lost Bob Marley instrumental—all the while A$AP Rocky jabs loose ad-libs from the other side of the studio.

Yes, Revival Season is that left-field. Testing never seems to come at the expense of social consciousness or thematic poignancy, though. It’s evident that BEZ holds Philly’s finest The Roots’ Black Thought in the highest of regards, and nowhere is that inspiration more present than on the gorgeous penultimate track “Eyes Open“. Flat-out lead rap hit material. Speaking of which, Heavenly Recordings, the PIAS-distributed UK imprint earmarking Revival Season’s debut full length, must have struggled big time when combing through potential lead singles for this thing. As a matter of fact, none of those that ended up chosen as part of the official rollout in 2023 (“Chop“, “Everybody“, and “Pump“, featuring Shaheed Goodie on guest vocal duties), actually received any mention in this piece yet. Talk about an embarrassment of riches.

What I came up listening to turned out to be so pivotal. I was in Georgia during the time of Dungeon Family coming up, and that turned out to be a big shifting point in hip-hop. We heard a lot of this stuff before the world, the way of thinking, the way of dress, the movement, the sound, we were there for it… Prior to that the South was really gated out, and as time has progressed it’s become more of a dominant sound, where almost everything in the genre comes from that time period and the sound and the attitude that was built there. All that stuff was on the back of really strong principles, on the back of the home-cooked, country-fied, soulful background that was added into the hip-hop formula from the South.

So the spitter-in-chief, with respect to how the duo continues to forge its singular sound. Since dropping Golden Age of Self-Snitching in February of last year, the outfit has further kept pushing the envelope by teasing new music—presumably leading up to their next yet-to-be-announcet exploit. Last summer they released the deliciously addictive standalone single “Dim Sum“, and followed it up later in October with a collab joint co-signed by Japan-born, Los Angeles-based alternative rapper Shamon Cassette, titled “WHITE HOUSE BLACK“. Since then, the USA and the Western world have, well, changed materially for the worst in too many ways. Revival Season are hereby officially being summoned to return to the scene, continuing to strike while the iron (and the planet) is hot.

Yet, outside of a one-off show scheduled in Oregon this summer, little is known about the 2025 plans of self-ascribed “non-religious rap entity“. In times of slim pickings, we’d be remiss not to resort to the clue in the band’s own name. More than ever before, there is no time like the present to reanimate spirits, re-mobilize civic action, and reclaim human rights. If it’s true that the coming together of Brandon Evans and Jonah Swilley was a “a divine appointment … [f]oreseen by oracles and foretold by angels”, then such protracted Godsend intervention is of the utmost urgency. After all, it’s no secret that B Easy and his DJ were religiously moulded by Georgia׳s slew of Pentecostal churches—if Self-Snitching is the deliverance right out of the gate, we can’t imagine how good the New Testament is going to sound. 2025 has got to be Revival Season.

We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

I USED TO BE IN TAKING BACK SUNDAY | 2025-01-24

This site started a decade ago because of Taking Back Sunday. For God’s sake, its name is literally a portmanteau of two songs off their 2009 studio LP New Again, “Everything Must Go” and “Swing“. As Mark O’Connell, the muscular longtime drummer of the band, announced his departure over ‘creative differences’ and a ‘lack of support’ earlier this month, it felt like a proper watershed moment for the Long Island outfit. Following the similarly unceremonious split from founding rhythm guitarist Eddie Reyes back in 2018, Mark’s quitting strikes as the kind of coup de grâce that would do in any mainstream group. That said, not only did Taking Back Sunday not yet comment on the fan-favorite stickman’s breaking news, but they instead doubled down by announcing a 2025 North American co-headlining tour with Coheed and Cambria in the ensuing days.

This turn of events leaves lead singer Adam Lazzara as the sole member having been present on every single major studio album since their seminal emo-rock debut Tell All Your Friends in 2002. Harkening back all the way to the band’s founding in 1999, a whooping eleven musicians have been in Taking Back Sunday in some official capacity at one point or another. And this excludes staple touring members such as Nathan Cogan—accompanying the band as live guitarist since 2010—as well as one Mitchell Register, who incidentally stepped in to sub Mark on percussions for most of last year’s live dates. Yet what’s worse than the New York alt rock veterans’ silence over O’Connell’s exit, are the looming slights and innuendos peppered throughout the drummer’s Instagram profile, leading to assume plenty of resentment and unfinished business toward the remaining members.

What’s more, Mark’s mention of the group’s lack of support on his journey to sobriety lurks back to similar sentiments expressed by Eddie Reyes in the years following his own departure, citing multiple times the need to step away from the band’s environment in order to stay true to teetotalism. A particular recent instance that comes to mind—and one that might’ve tipped the scale for Mark, considering he was still part of the official line up then—was Taking Back Sunday’s surprising partnership with whiskey manufacturer Three Chord Bourbon for a special edition blend just in time for the holidays. In truth, that was only the last of a recent spat of questionable business decisions the outfit had been making. It all started with that Steve Aoki collab and remix stunt a few years ago, followed by getting billed for a host of cringeworthy nostalgia-stricken festival appearances. Even the choice of mainstream pop vagabond Tushar Apte as executive producer for their latest eight studio LP 152 raised more than one eyebrow among the fanbase. Luckily, that bet pan out better than expected.

Another loaded and duplicitous move the band made recently was the decision to reunite with former cult lead guitarist Fred Mascherino for the first time in 17 years at their latest Holidays shows at Starland Ballroom, New Jersey. Obviously, speculation runs amok as to what such an olive branch might mean—and one’s to wonder whether it was another one that foreshadowed Mark’s decision to quit a couple weeks later. Mascherino notoriously split from the line-up in acidic terms back in 2007, while Taking Back Sunday was arguably at their peak mainstream fame, following the release of their Billboard-charting record Louder Now. As of this writing, no official announcements have been made by the TBS entourage to back such theory up; their line-up is presently being broadcast as only featuring Lazzara, lead guitarist John Nolan, and bassist Shaun Cooper. Yet, considering that the second guitarist spot has been vacant since the departure of Eddie Reyes—only made worse by the unjustifiable lack of promotion of Nathan Cogan as core member—bringing Mascherino back into the fold wouldn’t be so unthinkable anymore.

No more Mark O’Connell hurts, though. He was not only the longest running member of the band, but also one of its most important songwriting contributors. Often unsung and underrated, in spite of his indispensable role behind the drum kit, the 43-year old Long Island native was actually the author of some of the outfit’s most iconic opening guitar riffs, such as “Cute Without the E” and “This Is All Now“. It’s thus no surprise to learn that he wasted little time to announce his new solo venture—having released his hardcore punk debut single “Brain Dead” on New Year’s Eve, off a yet-to-be-announced project titled When I Grow Up. On it, the former TBS member appears to be playing every instrument and even lend vocal duties to tape—in a twist of creative fate that would make a young Dave Grohl extremely proud.

Mark appears to be serious in his new solo endeavor, too. He’s been spotted shopping around for label representation in recent days, and even seen recording new music with Reyes himself as part of a few Stories shared on Instagram. On top of the aforementioned “Brain Dead”, he’s also already shared either full recordings or teaser snippets of a number of additional records already in the can. These include one titled “Crazy“, “Follow the Money“, a not-so-veiled diss addressed to Taking Back Sunday frontman Adam Lazzara (…), a slower ballad called “Better“, as well as a catchy earworm dubbed “Same Old Story“. Withholding judgment on the inherent quality of these recordings, this feels like something Mark needs to do now, in order to work through the motions that leaving a successful rock and roll band after a quarter of a century entail. We’re here for it, and genuinely happy for him.

With regards to Taking Back Sunday, well this ain’t their or our first rodeo. Half a dozen different official band formations over the span of a little over twenty years are a lot to take in, but at the same time they have also provided for a consistently excellent and varied back-catalog. The assumption is that their recent deal with Fantasy Records—the Concord-distributed California imprint that issued their long-awaited 152 album after the dissolution of their previous agreement with Hopeless Records at the turn of the 2020s—might stipulate the fulfillment of multiple studio albums as part of its terms. However, if we’ve learned anything as fans of Lazzara and co. over the past couple decades, it’s that Taking Back Sunday is a pretty monolith band. When they tour, they just tour. When they meet up in the studio to write new material, they just write new material. Considering the previously mentioned time on the road in the USA starting this summer, it’s unlikely Adam, John, and Shaun can find the time to dish out something concrete in terms of new sound recordings before then. It’s not exactly smooth sailing over at the TBS camp right now.

As far as we’re concerned, the best we can hope is that regardless of whether it’s coming from Taking Back Sunday or Mark O’Connell, it’s the music that will do the talking. That’s what this rotating group of individuals has always done best. They and their management are most welcome to take all the time they need. Hell, we’d happily wait another eight years for their next release, if that meant that’s what’s right for the music. We’ll even go ahead and chalk that recent string of corny decisions up to the collective derangement brought about by the 2020 global pandemic. All is forgiven. The next time we’re writing about the whole entire reason this website even exists in the first place, it better be with some new tunes.

We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

HOLIDAY KNICKSTAPE | 2024-12-21

As we’re typing this on 21st December, planet earth is celebrating its second ever World Basketball Day. A momentous and historic observance not only reflecting the global significance and impact of what is for all intents and purposes the fastest growing mainstream game, but also its power to unite people worldwide. Crucially, basketball is the first ever team sport to get such a UN recognition. At the time of writing, the 2024-25 NBA season has officially completed around a third (27-28) of its regular season games (82), which provides as good a round-up checkpoint as any to start drawing some insights about what to expect next year.

The New York Knicks, reinvigorated and with plenty of wind in their sail after the blockbuster summer trades of Karl-Anthony Towns aka KAT and Mikal Bridges—as well as a new-found blue collar captain hero in Jalen Brunson riding on the coattails of his explosion last year—are currently faring with an encouraging 17-10 record (.630%). This places the group in solitary third seed in the Eastern Conference, behind this year’s unlikely revelation Cleveland Cavaliers (24-4!), and the predicable arch enemy Boston Celtics at number two (21-6). After a perhaps slower and rockier start than most would’ve predicted through mid-November—rendering a below .500 record going into their 15th-17th November double header against town derby rivals Brooklyn Nets—coupled with struggling performances from the aforementioned Bridges as well as Josh Hart, the Knicks managed to course correcte over the subsequent thirty days.

Since those Nets games, Brunson and co. managed to win twelve out of the following sixteen match ups, including statement victories against the Phoenix Suns (122-138), the recent NBA champs Denver Nuggets (118-145), as well as two times versus fellow Eastern seed rivals Orlando Magic (106-121 and 91-100). Such performance tightening and renewed focus allowed them to climb into reputable top 10 league averages as a team in terms of points made per game (7th), points conceded per game (8th), as well as assists per game (9th). During the same time span, the Manhattan franchise also succeeded in winning its NBA Cup Group A in the East, with a perfect record (4-0), only to capitulate to the Atlanta Hawks in a disappointing loss at home in the quarterfinals (100-108).

Now, it’s prohibitive to assess whether these first two months of Knicks basketball are more encouraging or cautionary to fans. While it is true that at the end of December last year, coach Tom Thibodeau’s line-up had a more meager 17-15 winning record, it was also plagued by more intermittent injuries and, crucially, had not yet traded for franchise-changing small forward OG Anunoby. At the end of the regular season, thanks in no small part to their unprecedented January run (14-2), the The New York Knickerbockers saw fit to level up to a comparably robust .610%—not to mention their commendable playoff exploit reaching the Eastern Conference Semifinals for the second year in a row (ended by a surprising effort by the Indiana Pacers).

At this point in the year, pound for pound we should be somewhat content and satisfied with the team’s current trading—yet let’s be honest how many of us would have signed for a 43% average field goal percentage after a two-day rest before the season kicked off, knowing four out of our five starters (Brunson, KAT, Anunoby, and Bridges) carry legitimate All-Star ambitions this year? Any year? Lest we forget, in less than thirty games hitherto, the Knicks have managed to lose to the Hawks twice, the Houston Rockets, Chicago Bulls, as well as last year’s laughing stock Detroit Pistons. Not exactly playoff contenders if you asked your pedestrian NBA fan. Nonetheless, knowledgeable hoops pundits seem to keep emphasizing process over results with this team, yet somehow not without incongruously acting shy of the realization that anything less than the Easter Conference Finals would be considered a flat out disappointment, considering the squad assembled this year.

To run the appraisal a smidge deeper than surface-level analytics, let’s talk about Thibs’s six/seven-man rotation for a hot second. How much longer exactly does he, can we, think we can get away with it? Mikal Bridges—who mind you hasn’t missed a professional basketball game since high school!—is averaging 38.3 minutes on the floor per game, in cold DECEMBER. I guess if anyone was to bet on which season would break his streak, make it the one in which Tom Thibodeau coaches him… Unrestrained floor demon Josh Hart follows suit with 36.8 minutes played each game, followed by OG Anunoby (36.6), KAT (34.5), and finally Brunson (34.3). By comparison, Sixth Man of the Year-hopeful Miles McBride averages a virtual ten minutes of fewer playtime than Brunson (25.3), whereas the only other notable second unit subs Cam Payne and Jericho Sims can only dream about even reaching twenty minutes a game (Precious Achiuwa does have better odds, although he just came back from hamstring injury and has only played in six games so far).

*Knocks on wood*. Granted, key chessboard pawn Mitchell Robinson is still yet to announce any comeback horizon from his fastidious ankle woes, and in 20/20 hindsight we really did not need that Landry Shamet’s shoulder injury against the Hornets in pre-season. Yet Thibs’s propensity to play with fire is beyond us. Are Hukporti, Kolek, and Dadiet that not worth giving Bridges and Hart an additional 2-3 minutes of benchtime each game? This is probably a good time to switch gears and focus on the joyous and celebratory topic currently on each Knicks fan’s mind: Bodega KAT. The Big Bodega. That is, in less than two months, the former Minnesota Timberwolves power forward has unequivocally proven to be the real NBA unicorn, putting in a significantly higher incisiveness than even captain Jalen Brunson at this point in the season.

This brand of Karl-Anthony Towns #32 is not only a guaranteed All-Star and All-NBA pick, but a genuinely realistic Top 5 NBA player contender, eyeing that coveted MVP title at the end of the season. He is currently leading the big men league in total rebounds per game—14.2, a whooping 1.2 more than the second ranked tie Sabonis-Jokić—and ranks an impressive third overall in efficiency rating (33.3), behind, guess what, two former MVPs; the aforementioned Jokić (42) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (36.6). The latter stat is presently faring a remarkable ten metric points higher than his 2023-24 season-end index of 23.4, placing him 28th in the league. Similarly, scoring-wise, so far this season Bodega KAT is cutting it just outside of the NBA’s top 10, sporting 25 points a game on average, compared to his 21.8 points at the end of last season. In this regard, Robinson’s absence is a blessing in disguise for the 29-year-old Dominican-American, as it enables him to act as false center in Robinson’s stead—except in a more positionless way, allowing him to alternate spaced out three-pointers with ruthless pick and roll screens, courtesy of Jalen Brunson.

As we all look to cut loose over the holidays here in the Western hemisphere, we’re inevitably being ushered into calling some sort of prediction over how far these New York Knicks can really go this year, with such a mob of talented hoopers. People are pointing at this team and this season as the kind of Godsend alignment of stars—pun intended—that could set a whole Big Apple on fire, heightening the hype and embrace to a level the city only last experienced in the 90s. In actuality, that might just mean making it to a best-of-seven game series in the Easter Conference Finals. Current NBA champs Boston Celtics still remain a notch above the rest league-wise, while these Cavs do not show any wavering sign whatsoever approaching their thirtieth game this season. On the other side, the Oklahoma City Thunder of former Knick center Isaiah Hartenstein seem to have constructed the kind of defense that could checkmate KAT and Brunson, whereby Ja’s Grizzlies are hella rancid scary too. Process over results, folks. Process over results. To the chagrin of all feline delicatessen mascots in New York City.

We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time. And happy holidays this time around.

AV

WE ARE KENDRICK LAMAR | 2024-11-30

Okay, then tell me the truth
Every individual is only a version of you
How can they forgive when there’s no forgiveness in your heart?

Kendrick Lamar Duckworth low-key stole Thanksgiving by surprise-releasing his highly-anticipated sixth studio album Grand National Experimental, GNX in short, halfway through the day on the Friday prior. Such an act of Congress evidently recalibrated the mainstream music discourse to its core, riding on the coattails of a momentously triumphant year-to-date for the 37-year-old Compton, CA native. Congruently to being unveiled without much fanfare, GNX is a relatively short and sticky musical affaire, considering the existing discography of the pgLang co-founder. Yet, its immediacy and appeal don’t come at the expense of its inherent messaging. One’s gotta dig though. It’s no spoon-feeding. What else did we expect, after all?

The opening salvo above, lifted from the LP’s pièce de résistance, “reincarnated“, which in turn tastefully and carefully flipped Tupac’s 1997 “Made N****z”, is a short sequence of bars that not only essentializes his creed, but goes as far as triaging one of the highest teaching from the Book of Kendrick (New Testament). In a late-stage capitalist climate that commodifies antagonism and seeks prize fighting, in a complete symbiosis with the rap game celebrating K.Dot as the undisputed heavyweight champion, he hits us with the softest, most passive-aggressive jab he can. After all, he’d already employed a whole double-album real estate to imperfectly sketch it all out raw for us, on Mr Morale & the Big Steppers.

By admitting that battling your competitors equals to battling yourself—not unlike Lacanian understandings of self-liberation perhaps best captured in mainstream through Fight Club—Kendrick exhumes a surprisingly inclusive message of universalism. Call it the law of our identity averaging those of the five people we spend most time with, chalk it up to affable Christianity; the cause here matters less than its effect. Here’s a tiny monition though: the former Top Dawg Entertainment recording artist can afford to seemingly contradict himself precisely because he’s the winner, not in spite of it. The implicit equity of a king admitting the peoples into the castle and telling them they’re all the same is outright superior to that of a moribund going out in spiritual style.

GNX is about agency and structure. It’s both an albatross and its excommunication. “wacced up murals” is its best tune, “squabble up” and “tv off” easily the funnest and stickiest, “heart pt. 6” perhaps the most gorgeous; yet if you only intend to press play on one of the cuts on this thing, make it “reincarnated”. It’s the study notes to Kung Fu Kenny’s whole entire career message. In our hyper-normalized, globalized, mediated landscape, most people can sure use shortcuts. The 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music winner stands as a symptom, as a reaction to the erratic world, the one agent purported to help dismantle its structuralism. We all know panaceas are not known for being pretty. They’re far from unblemished.

On that note, what a distinctive and subtle way to silence detractors, hypocritically pointing at the inherent contradictions of parts of his gospel reconciling with Kodak Black and Dody6 features, as well as Dr. Dre mentorships. Desertion from pretentious yuppie outlets abound—he who is without sin cast the first stone, anyone? Jealousy is presumably a big one, too. With some internalized racism sprinkled on top, just for good measure. How is any pundit to keep a straight face lamenting GNX‘s self-esteem as ghastly, while Post Malone and Taylor Swift win their umpteenth meaningless award? As fellow contemporary heavyweight crown contenders resort to puffy and sterilized exculpatory devices, Kendrick Lamar lays it all out bare.

The very notion of reincarnation comes up several times within the latest batch of Lamar oeuvre. It features in the creative powering through the literal half-hour of promotion before GNX dropped on the 22nd November—mind you, on a snippet for a record that didn’t even make the final cut on the official tracklist. It’s of course the titular theme on the aforementioned standout, but it’s also mentioned prominently on the “squabble up” bop. The Los Angeles rapper spends the whole of track number six dishing out the inevitability of death and rebirth (one could canvas this as “soul pt. 6”, to reference its heart-centric companion on the album’s back-end). The transformative cycle of life as the only trustworthy upcycling process—devoid of specific allegiances to preconceived cloths, in spite of its biblical references (“You fell out of Heaven ’cause you was anxious / Didn’t like authority, only searched to be heinous / Isaiah fourteen was the only thing that was prevalent / My greatest music director was you“).

What the former Black Hippy ringleader is telling us is that he contains multitudes, which in turn include a part of all of us (who here remembers the ‘I Am. All of us.’ from “The Heart Part 5“?). The good thing is that we are a version of him, too. I could tell you where I’m going / I could tell you who you are. Although it’s clearly him who’s at the steering wheel of our daily journaling 1987 Buick GNX, there’s plenty of room for all of us to ride shotgun. On two Kendrick world conditions; one, that shall remain the sole reference to weapons throughout. Two, he’s condignly in charge.

We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV