Tag: review

#1 Anna von Hausswolff: ICONOCLASTS (Best Album of 2025)

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

A lot of these songs are about love, in various ways, but I wanted the album to feel like a battle cry. It felt urgent to me to express a sense of wanting things to change and actually taking steps towards that change. 

Anna von Hausswolff to The Line of Best Fit 2025/10/27

The foolish hope of great eternal beauty
This shit breaks my heart

Facing Atlas

Of course, this is Anna von Hausswolff we’re talking about, so that line in Facing Atlas comes attached with that voice, that incredibly powerful and borderline counter-musical battering ram of an instrument, perhaps one of the only human talents on Earth that could ever hope to position itself among the maximalist sturm und drang of Von Hausswolf’s music and not be immediately crushed to pieces by the musical waves crashing all around it: “This shit breeeeea-a-ye-aaaaaaaaaayks ma heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar…!!”

I’m scaring my sister and my mom

3 FKA Twigs: EUSEXUA

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

Yeah, that’s right, I’m going to start my post on the Scientifically Proven™ third greatest album of 2025 by slagging off Beyoncé’s ‘Renaissance’ for the third fucking time.

Both Beyoncé’s 2022 critic stupefying event album and FKA Twigs’ third proper record were heavily influenced by dance music. Beyoncé referenced a lot of post 70’s black dance crazes – with close attention paid to early 90’s House music and Detroit’s best -while Twigs was enchanted with the techno music she heard when she relocated to Prague to – don’t laugh – film ‘The Crow‘.

I’m a dog for you

𝟸̶𝟼̶ 16 Blondshell: If You Asked for a Picture

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

How bad does it have to hurt to count?!
Does it have to hurt at all?!
I’ll come back if you put me down two times!
You try hard to make me yours!
But once you get me I get bored!
I’ll come back if you put me down two times!

Two Times

Aaaah mate, buddy, pal, 朋友, amicus, amiga! You might have dropped a pretty massive 24 places since I was charmed enough to name you the second best album of 2023, but – bah Gahd! – can you still ignite those cursed feels when you feel in the mood??

OK, step back, hold it up now, back it up – beep beep beep – re-rewind, when the crowd say Bo Selecta…

With Craig David all over your BOINK

36 Tame Impala: Deadbeat

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

Dude, mate, bro: did you know that Tame Impala was just one guy? And he’s Australian? Mind: blown, right? Wait until I tell you who’s the brother of Big Mo from Eastenders.

Mate (maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate!), is that your daughter on the cover?? No. Don’t like it. That feels creepy and wrong, and brings in all sorts of questions of ethical consent. But now that’s dealt with, I’m not sure I can think of any other reason to dislike this album. It’s perhaps no way near as expansive, trend-shitting or potentially influential as his (it’s just one guy!) previous work, but it’s still an incredibly strong collection of brilliant electro pop with melodies to absolutely die for.

Do you want my love? Is it obsolete?

38 Clipping: Dead Channel Sky

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

opening line of William Gibson’s ‘Neuromancer’

C-c-c-c-c-c-c-cyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyberpuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu̸̖̬͑͑u̴͇̍̌͂ů̵̢̼̳u̷̮͑ů̵͖u̶͉̐̒u̸͙̱̾ṵ̵́͗̚u̶͕͙̽̑͝ṷ̸͓͌ṳ̶͉̊̈̓ụ̵̢̃u̶̗͋͘u̶̡̗͊̍̇n̴̫͕͆k̴̢̃͘!̶͇̭̹̎!̵̨̭̬̀͐!̴̲̙̂͝

*start up modem noises*

Aw, dude, in the future you’ll be forced to eat algorithms, which will be injected straight into your anterior insula and be called “structuralising the framework”. You’ll be able to choose your newborn baby’s sex, race, Twitter handle and initial .README file, and births will instead be called “Day One Updates”. And these day one updates won’t come out your fanny like before, they’ll be shared through ethernet cables and your happy day will be marked by receiving a Steam download key. And and and and and people won’t even have sex anymore, they’ll just… like… merge their Javascripts or some shit. You want to do some shopping? Club Penguin. File your taxes? Club Penguin. Carry out a terrorist attack? Club Penguin. We may currently live in the age of ‘Everything Computer‘, but the future will be Everything Club Penguin. Billy Idol tried to warn us but we didn’t want to listen.

Like a shock to the system

The Decline and Lull: The Manics Grow Dull Gracefully on ‘Critical Thinking

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

The Manic Street Preachers’ fifteenth album is one that is extremely easy to appreciate, so long as you’re ready to accept an entire trolley worth of caveats.

Firstly, this is the band’s 15th [FIFTEENTH] album. Few bands with any kind of success ever get this far, never mind a band that started out already preplanning their self-destruction, and coming 34 years after a debut-album the band promised would be their last. And, hey, for a group of three men in their mid fifties this ‘Critical Thinking’ is a great accomplishment. My colleague at work recently had her 50th birthday, and would she be able to produce an album of this quality? Highly unlikely.

Imposter syndrome, fuck that!

#2 Tyler, The Creator: CHROMAKOPIA

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

See, I’m a Westside nigga from the zone (What’s goin’ on, nigga?)
Knock, knock, knock, knock, knockin’ at the door (I’m knockin’ at the door)
I keep them mink-minks on hip ’cause I keloid my fists (Mm)
Nigga, give a fuck ’bout pronouns, I’m that nigga and that bitch

Sticky

Aw, mate, this album is so fucking good. It literally hurts my soul to have it as low as second. And you all know what’s first now, don’t you? Yeah. I tried so hard to be different from the Normies but some things are just undeniable…

First of all, can we just all stand back in wonder at how big a deal Tyler Gregory Okonma is? They might have started out more concerned with working how best to work rape, gore and incest jokes into consistent homophobia, but starting with 2017’s revelatory ‘Scum Fuck Flower Boy‘ they have grown into one of the most dependable and consistent lightly experimental and occasionally avant-garde musicians in the game. Or, as Tyler themselves might put it:

Asia Hussein Ahmed Hamad

#7 Young Jesus: The Fool

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

God damn it…

Yeah, I was insanely sick the past couple of days. It started when a toothache started to really make itself very noticeable while I was writing my JPEGMAFIA piece on Thursday. I phoned up the emergency dentist and made an appointment for the next day, for the second time in the past ten days. “But Alex”, I hear you cry, “Why aren’t you registered to a regular dentist? Or why haven’t you even gone to the dentist in the previous decade??”. To which I reply: shut up, mum! Anyway, soon after I made that appointment, my toothache became unbearable. Paracetamols were no good, I’m apparently not supposed to take ibuprofen because of my ulcerative colitis, so I was running out of options. Until I remembered that I used to be prescribed codeine! I rooted through all my old medications until I found a pack, and then munched down about a thousand of them! This kinda sorted out my toothache, but at the same time fucked me over in every other sense. The next day, I could barely get out of bed, cancelled my Chinese class in the morning, and honestly tried to write this fucking post, but my head felt like all my brain synapses had been placed inside an oil drum that had been violently kicked off the top of the K2. The effort it took to exist yesterday was already unbearable, never mind write this dumb list that nobody reads.

Which is a shame, considering that this is the only album on the list so far that actually has a song on it written about me. No, honestly, it does. Yeah, I know that sounds crazy, but it’s not, don’t put in the paper that I got crazy.

Hala Yasser Hamed Al-Sinnwa