ajcollins15 | Sputnikmusic

	Touche Amore Lament Every time a Touché Amoré I pray that I will understand the hype with this band. On one hand, I see the lyrical appeal because they are not on the emo bandwagon with basic and cringy lyrics. They present some quality poetic emo lyrics in the vein of Silent Planet, Emery (older emery at least), American Football, and even PUP. But, sonically every album, and their fifth full-length Lament here, is so sonically safe for the screamo and melodic hardcore scene. Everything about this album seems unoriginal or already done. But whatever maybe in four years on their sixth album it will catch onto me.	2.5 10.13.20
	Machinedrum A View of U Travis Stewart comes through with his 10th (or 11th) full-length album and I have to say it is a really solid future bass and footwork album with many great nods to classic UK bass and drum-n-bass. For 35 minutes you will find energy packed beats and production. My biggest complaint is I wish the songs were flushed out and expanded on more. Also, this album suffers from things sounding a bit claustrophobic at times.	3.5 10.13.20
	Metz Atlas Vending I see the hype with this album. It?s the best the band has ever sounded, and they took a huge step forward with the noise rock sound they have been kind of using the past 12 years. However, this album suffers from what many noise albums are suffering from as of late?they really wanted to replicate Daughters 2018 magnum opus You Won?t Get What You Want. Every song on here sounds very familiar and the nagging feeling of, I would rather listen to Daughters, persists. Not to say there aren?t some good qualities and again it is the best the band has sounded all together. Also, who the hell mixed this album. For a noise rock album, I want my instru	2.5 10.13.20
	Reason New Beginnings The sophomore record from one of the newer additions to the exclusive Top Dawg Entertainment record label and I have to say someone has to be at the bottom of the barrel for the label and REASON, aka Robert Gill, is probably the bottom of that barrel. Not to say this album is bad, because it's not; there are some solid sonic landscapes here and some really great features from other TDE artists (Rapsody, Ab-Soul, ScHoolboy Q, and even Kendrick is sampled on here). However, REASON has such a dry flow and it?s not a good sign when I look forward to the features significantly over REASON himself. It is also not a good sign when your features comp	3.0 10.13.20
	Eartheater Phoenix: Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin The appeal of this fourth LP from the NYC based artist makes sense. It blows her previous records out of the water with dense and complex avant-folk with so much lush and yet harsh instrumentation and she weaves through these sonic landscapes so fluently that it is pretty scary. However, for me, this record just is so badly recorded. Everything is so quiet and subtle that I have to blast this album to hear anything. Also, the record doesn?t go anywhere. Everything sort of mesh together with no front or back. I forget about the sound of the record as soon as it is over. But it is still a great progression and I hope she can clean up the record	3.0 10.13.20
	Billy Lemos Wonder The Chicago based producer comes through with his debut album and it is a sonic wonder of modern pop music that continues to show that we are seeing a new third wave of trap artists that are taking the genre down new sonic sounds. Some really solid ideas and brings a lot of interesting new rappers and singers. For only 30 minutes there is a lot of good stuff packed in this album. The biggest negatives are that many of the songs end when things were really getting good, so I hope into the future he lengthens things out a bit.	3.5 10.13.20
	Thunder Jackson Thunder Jackson I really want to like this; it?s bland indie rock with some interesting synthpop influences that sound like every other indie rock band/artist you hear on your local alternative radio station.	1.5 10.13.20