Listen "Out": Music reviews

By Jason Agan Drewry
Music Critic

Allie X – Super Sunset (Analog)

Canadian singer Alexandra Hughes, better known as Allie X, has released a reworked mini-version of her previous album of the same name, and it sounds fantastic.

Collecting all five singles from Super Sunset, the analog version manages to sound even more 80s – authentically so – than the original. The first half is the singles above, all in their reworked analog versions: the Lana Del Rey-esque Not So Bad In LA, Little Things, which recalls Utada’s Stateside forays, the loping beats and aggressive synths of Science, the bopping Girl of the Year, and the strumming midtempo Focus.

The remaining four tracks are “digital concert” versions. GotY and Science get digital treatments, along with the Melanie Martinez-sounding Can’t Stop Now and the ambitious and triumphant Little Things.

The analog version transforms an album which was quite good on the whole, but with a few distracting elements, thankfully not included in this collection.

Leo Kalyan – Trevi Fountain

London-based gay Muslim artist Leo Kalyan was one of the first publicly out South Asian artists. Now, inspired by a trip to Rome with a best friend, he gives us Trevi Fountain, a joyous celebration of the bonds we as LGBTQ+ people build with our chosen families, which sometimes occurs at the behest of our natural family’s rejection.

Kalyan’s aspirational lyrics soar over a pulsating, dreamy R&B track that easily recalls heady and cerebral artists like PM Dawn. The track feels lost in a time warp of sorts, at once bristling and fresh but nostalgic and comfortably familiar all the same. 

Over the bubbling, dripping production, he sings, “Let me fly, let me fly, throw a coin into the Trevi Fountain / Let me try, let me try 'cause I feel alive.” His musical style has been described as dream pop, and this delicious track is just the latest fantastic tale.

Cub Sport – Cub Sport

On their eponymous new release, Brisbane, Australia-based Cub Sport have given listeners an exhilarating and lush collection of songs about love. Whereas their previous record, BATS, chronicled singer Tim Nelson’s embrace of his sexuality and beginning a relationship with bandmate Sam “Bolan” Netterfield, Cub Sport explores the intense intimacy of loving someone, as well as the uncomfortable elements that come with that love.

Chaos and vulnerability still feature heavily in Nelson’s lyrics, because they still feature heavily in his life. Cub Sport is a record, much as their earlier works have been, rooted in the realities of life – the joys, struggles, and milestones we all encounter. 

Lead single Sometimes is an open-hearted lament on the painful joy of love, while on the sleek Limousine Nelson confesses, “I’ve done a bunch of things wrong, and I’m still righting it / I’m still fighting it.” I think we can all identify with that.

Solange – When I Get Home

While her critically acclaimed 2016 album A Seat at the Table was a treatise on blackness and black power, Solange Knowles’ newest record is a cerebral head trip; a sort of psychedelic meditation that unfolds over half an hour. In fact, it’s tempting to think of the album as one long fragmented track.

It’s also a figurative return to her hometown of Houston, with numerous tracks named after city throughways (see Almeda and Beltway). The album is unhurried and exploratory, bubbling over and slinking around for what feels far longer than its scant running time. 

While she has largely ditched traditional song structure here for free association, that’s not to say the album is inaccessible. Hardly. The songcraft is superb, even if the theme of the album is somewhat ambiguous. In the end, When I Get Home is more a thought piece than a proper pop album.

Copyright The Gayly. 4/20/2019 @ 10:58 a.m. CST.