EGN NEWS DESK
The title of “I Am Not Okay” — a music Jelly Roll unveiled final month on “The Voice” — solely tells half the story. It’s the sort of bruised, long-suffering, self-doubting, painfully open and high-drama testimonial that has turned Jelly Roll into a rustic star. He sings about sleepless nights and “voices in my head,” with manufacturing that rises from acoustic choosing into stolid Southern rock behind his grainy voice. But quickly Jelly Roll invokes a group — “I do know I can’t be the one one who’s holding on for expensive life” — and the promise of salvation: “The ache’ll wash away in a holy water tide.” Whether it’s on this life or past it, he declares, “It’s not OK, however we’re all gonna be all proper.” It’s an arena-scale homily.
NxWorries — the partnership of the producer Knxwledge and the rapper and singer Anderson .Paak — ponders the deeply blended feelings of having fun with success whereas figuring out how arduous former friends are nonetheless striving. “When you stroll on by, you’ve received shades to cover your eyes,” the refrain chides. The observe is a relaxed, quiet-storm groove with tickling lead-guitar traces, but it surely supplies distinction, not consolation. “No one has a clue what we needed to do to outlive,” Anderson .Paak raps, and provides, “When they ask me how I’m doing, I really feel responsible inside.” Earl Sweatshirt admits he’s “lived too many lives faraway from the strife.” But earlier than the music ends, Rae Khalil sings for these left behind: “I really feel like ain’t no one caring/Everybody’s scared,” she laments.
Zsela, ‘Not Your Angel’
With her low, smoky voice and her coziness with synthesizers, Zsela has realized fairly a bit from Joan Armatrading. “Not Your Angel,” from her new album “Big for You,” is a love music that begins with tentative, stop-start arpeggios and destructive declarations — “I’m not your good/I’m not your fantasy” — and shortly reveals its romantic aspirations: “Would you judge me if I can’t wait to be?” As the observe unfolds, diffidence provides approach to keen longing and the music opens up: Pinpoint syncopations are joined by cushiony chords, and brief, hopping vocal traces broaden into melodies.
“Boys are too straightforward,” Tanner Adell taunts in a music that fuses nation with digital dance music. It begins with an old-timey fiddle and mentions candy tea, fishing and the proverbial “first rodeo.” But the beat is a kick-drum thud and the manufacturing stacks Adell’s voice right into a banshee refrain, then pitch-shifts it at whim, a good distance from a hoedown. PARELES
The Decemberists, ‘Burial Ground’
With brightly chiming Byrds guitars and comradely Beach Boys harmonies, the Decemberists go to a graveyard and critically contemplate whether or not loss of life can be a reduction in “Burial Ground,” from their new album, “As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again.” Colin Meloy sings, “This world’s all incorrect/So let’s go the place we belong.” Morbidity hardly ever sounds so jolly.
Hello Mary, ‘0%’
Hello Mary, a three-woman New York City band, whipsaws by means of a raucous embrace of uncertainty in “0%.” It peaks with the drummer and singer Stella Wave screaming, “I don’t know! I don’t know!” But inside lower than three minutes the observe additionally jumps amid spindly indie-rock guitar chords, a bruising one-note bass riff and an sudden dip into folky choosing joined by a plinking vibraphone — all whereas making a waltz sound feral.
Hermanos Gutiérrez, ‘Sonido Cósmico’
Hermanos Gutiérrez — the guitar-playing brothers Estevan and Alejandro Gutiérrez, rooted in Ecuador however based mostly in Switzerland— got down to merge rockabilly reverb and undercurrents of flamenco. Their revivalism-twisting producer, Dan Auerbach from the Black Keys, eases in a beat on their new album, “Sonido Cósmicos” (Cosmic Sound). The Gutiérrez brothers are keen on minor keys and subdued rhythms, and “Sonido Cósmico” is a waltz with a pensive melody sustained over perpetual-motion choosing. It’s unhurried, atmospheric, a little bit melancholy and greater than prepared for a soundtrack sync.
Khalid, ‘Adore U’
It’s arduous to inform which Khalid cherishes extra: the lady who’s a thousand miles away however “nonetheless in my coronary heart,” or smoking weed. “Adore U,” a glacial ballad with some ratchety entice percussion deep within the combine, is lavish in its reward and much more lavish in its vocal harmonies. The verses pour out how a lot he longs for her; the refrain vows that once they reunite, “We ought to simply smoke, we must always get excessive.” And the vocals simply multiply.
Slic, ‘Weeeeu’
Slic — a Brooklyn-based digital songwriter who was born in Venezuela — conjures a mercurial, sensual minimalism in “Weeeeu.” In a wispy however earnest deadpan voice, processed by means of assorted filters, Slic sings a couple of relationship battle — “Wish that you may see you’re on the identical aspect/You might really feel proper, higher take off the armor” — whereas insisting that reconciliation is feasible, with the chorus, “We might make one another really feel good.” The observe makes use of terse, mutating little synthesizer beats and riffs, stripped down but in addition fraught with internal pressure and antsy momentum.
Nubya Garcia, ‘The Seer’
The English saxophonist Nubya Garcia and her quartet begin “The Seer” at full tilt, with splashy modal chords and glissandos from Joe Armon-Jones on piano and hyperactive drumming from Sam Jones. Garcia joins the brawny, big-toned custom of tenor saxophonists like John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, spelling out her melodies in broad, decisive phrases. Near the tip, she abruptly steers the group right into a bluesy, extra relaxed postscript over Daniel Casimir’s strolling bass line, maybe to ease again earlier than one other observe. The full album, “Odyssey,” is due in September.
