Friday 12 February 2021

BEST AND WORST NEW TRACKS OF THE WEEK 12/02/2021: Slowthai, Tkay Maidza, Serj Tankian and more...


No romantic songs this year in the lead up to Valentine’s Day? Where is the love???

THE BEST:

‘CANCELLED’ – Slowthai ft. Skepta

UK grime artists Slowthai and Skepta deliver this fiery attack on cancel culture (I know that Slowthai got cancelled last year, but when did Skepta get cancelled?). The track should probably read ‘Skepta ft. Slowthai’ as he seems to dominate the track, however both rappers are sounding equally fierce and the bass is so savage it will clear your bowels. The horror theme to the video is also pretty cool.

‘KIM’ – Tkay Maidza ft. Yung Baby Tate

‘BITCH I’M BITCH I’M KIM’. This hook is utterly dumb, but I don’t care – the Aussie artist’s latest banger has me addicted. Tkay’s rapping is killer and the beat goes ridiculously hard (the last track I featured from Tkay was a chilled-out bossa-nova flavoured pop song, so I was not expecting this!). It’s also fun to see her and Yung Baby Tate dress up as various Kims in the video. Sad to see there’s no love for Kim Jong Un.

‘Opus’ – Black Country, New Road

London experimental rock band Black Country, New Road just dropped their debut album For The First Time and I cannot wait to give it a listen. This suspenseful eight minute cut from the record may well be their magnum ‘opus’. Instrumentally, it consists of eerie guitars and shofar-flavoured trumpets that rise and fall like Swans playing at a Bar Mitzvah. Singer Isaac Wood continues to sound like he’s on the edge of committing a school shooting, closing the track by manically roaring ‘I guess I’m a little bit laaaate to the paaaartyyyyyy’. It’s exhilaratingly terrifying.

‘What Is Next?’ – Lucy Francesca Dron

Brisbane artist Lucy Francesca Dron blends jazz-flavoured vocal cadences and guitar chords with alt-rock-flavoured distortion and drums on this exciting track ‘What is Next?’. It’s a combo that probably shouldn’t work, and yet it does – Lucy’s competence as both a jazz singer and rock guitarist result in a track that’s both graceful and gritty. The singer/guitarist plans to drop an EP some time later this year.

‘dice’ – youngdumblovers

This track starts off unassumingly as a minimal moody UK rap song. It then transitions unexpectedly into ethereal James-Blake-esque electropop. The explosive indie rock guitars that come in towards the end serve as an added extra twist, at which point I was well and truly won over – this track is a total adventure. The members of this collective have been keeping their identities a mystery. I’m excited to hear more from them – whoever they are.  

THE WORST:

‘Elasticity’ - Serj Tankian

While I usually don’t mind Serj Tankian’s wacky delivery, the vocals are so excessively cartoonish here that I actually found them to be quite annoying. I’m also pretty peeved that System of a Down will no longer be reforming for another album.