Lorde, Virgin ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Lorde is back with her fourth album. She’s had a strange career in my eyes. Her debut album was huge, everybody loved her, and even David Bowie christened her the “Future of music.” But I feel like since then she’s never really gotten back to that point. Not that her work has been bad, it’s always been good. But she always waits four years between albums, and nowadays with pop culture moving at hyper speed that might as well be a decade. She’s just never built the momentum she initially had back up. But, with that being...

HAIM, I Quit ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ HAIM is back with their fourth album, and first since 2020. HAIM is one of those bands where it seems like people either love them or hate them. I really don’t have strong feelings either way. I remember them being a breath of fresh air when they first emerged back in 2013, but since then I’ve been pretty neutral. But this album makes a pretty convincing case for why you should love HAIM. This album is full of hooks and melodies you’ll be humming for days and weeks to come. The songs are absolutely infectious.  And...

Neil Young and The Chrome Hearts, Talkin to the Trees ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️❌ The ever-busy, ever-working Neil Young is back with a new album. This is his first album with new backing band, The Chrome Hearts. I went into this asking how this new band would affect his sound. And the answer is it put him in a time machine. This sounds like 1970s Neil. Musically this could easily pass as a follow up to Tonight’s the Night or American Stars ‘N Bars. The slow songs have that very folksy, almost whimsical effect, and the fast songs have a rough edge to...

Finn Wolfhard, Happy Birthday ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️❌ Finn Wolfhard, yes, Mike from Stranger Things, has dropped his first full length album. He is the third Stranger Things cast member to do so, following Maya Hawke and Joe Keery (AKA Djo). I mean, they must have plenty of time on set to work on music since it seems to take them forever to make a new season of that show. The final season is coming out this year, and the “kids” are all damn near middle aged at this point. All jokes aside, this album is really solid. I’m always skeptical when an...