Staff Pix 3/21: New Releases
Here’s the new that the Milk Crate staff’s been listening to from the beaches of Miami. Happy Spring Break!
“Unforgivable” by Alexandra Savior
Doo wap sha blam sha boom! She’s back! “Unforgivable” officially breaks Savior’s five-year-long release drought. It’s a kind tune, notably less complex and heavy than hits from 2017’s Belladonna of Sadness and 2020’s The Archer. Savior’s vocals flitter over tangy horns and weeping acoustic guitars. The track never reaches a full instrumental climax, instead building to an earnest bridge, saturated with darning declarations of regret and anger. She leaves us where we need to be, both singing and screaming at us with the same sentiment: “It’s unforgivable!” —Sofia Giarrusso
“This Is Real” by Feeble Little Horse
Returning with an incredible force that drives straight into a sprightful and ever-changing rhythm, the Philadelphia-based band steps back into view. After two years of silence, “This is Real” is a single that dedicates itself to the art of shape-shifting. The track in its final form is equally, though not all at once, joyous, menacing, existential, nervous, and loud. “This Is Real” exists in three-parts, leading its triptych self into an entirely refreshing experience when compared to pre-existing Feeble Little Horse tracks. Creating a uniquely malformed tune that may be the band's best so far–simply for its confidence in facing the unknown– questioning what is and isn't inherently real. Exhausting the idea that nothing is real at all. Which naturally leads to a satisfying climax that the band has yet to reach up until this very song. That feeble little horse we all knew is now a stallion, back and better than ever!Returning with an incredible force that drives straight into a sprightful and ever-changing rhythm, the Philadelphia-based band steps back into view. After two years of silence, “This is Real” is a single that dedicates itself to the art of shape-shifting. The track in its final form is equally, though not all at once, joyous, menacing, existential, nervous, and loud. “This Is Real” exists in three-parts, leading its triptych self into an entirely refreshing experience when compared to pre-existing Feeble Little Horse tracks. Creating a uniquely malformed tune that may be the band's best so far–simply for its confidence in facing the unknown– questioning what is and isn't inherently real. Exhausting the idea that nothing is real at all. Which naturally leads to a satisfying climax that the band has yet to reach up until this very song. That feeble little horse we all knew is now a stallion, back and better than ever!—Mateo Krygowski
“Sugar water cyanide” by rebecca black
Was she ever really just “Friday”? American pop songstress Rebecca Black’s reputation has seen the last decade and a half spent in the shadow of that campy, defining piece of early-2010’s electropop – released when she was only 13 years old – and yet, Black has hardly ever rested on her laurels in spite of that setback. Rather, the California artist has spent much of that time since “Friday” on the grind, churning out banger after banger and seeing her pop-world esteem slowly rising from the pits (even though “Friday” wasn’t even that bad in the first place). But Black’s latest record Salvation, and “Sugar Water Cyanide” alongside it, may be her watershed moment. A real banger, bubblegum bass so pure and so danceable that it almost harkens back to the early works of pioneers like A.G. Cook; “Bass gonna do what the bass always does, chew on my waist like bubblegum,” chants a chipmunk-voiced chorus of Rebecca Blacks, in sharp contrast to the speaker-thumping 4-on-the-floor pulverizing its way through the mix. Black makes it all sound easy, flowing like water (or sugar, or cyanide) from sickly-sweet pop hooks to stankface-worthy bass before finally synthesizing the song's two disparate halves into a moment of inexorable club euphoria. This ain’t the “Friday” girl; this is Rebecca Black. —Lucca Swain
“TOXIC” by Playboi Carti (feat. Skepta)
New Music Friday was violently dismantled on March 14th when Carti finally unleashed MUSIC onto our feeble brains. It doesn’t matter how you perceive it, it doesn’t matter if you like Carti, and it doesn’t matter if you write like a profound critic or shit, or even if you think the album is good. What matters is about halfway through “TOXIC,” Skepta rips into the track with a raunchy verse that undoubtedly matches the energy of the classic “Lean 4 Real” off of 2018’s Die Lit. At the end of the day, I tossed on my opium-colored glasses and basically had a physical meltdown in the room with my friends at the start of each beat, and the unveiling of each track’s feature. —Samuel Shipman
“The Landkeeper” by Men I Trust
“The Landkeeper” from Men I Trust’s new album, Equus Asinus, is a dreamy combination of all of their best qualities. With a bass line slowly dancing back and forth with an airy synth and a muffled harpsichord in breaks between chorus and verse, the melody is rather simple. It’s traditional Men I Trust fashion for a song to be so stripped of instruments and backing vocals but somehow they always make it work seamlessly. Beyond the instrumentalism, the track’s lyrics are evocative of a changing landscape, one that marks the boundary between life and death. Emma Proulx’s delicate vocals bring to life these mentions of “nurtured hearts” and “gentle hands” with the onset of Spring upon us. The album stands out as a continuation of the sound they set for themselves years ago yet each new track’s pairing of instrumentalism and lyricism seems fresher than ever. —Sophie Parrish
“Delete Ya” by Djo
Djo has struck gold again, following up lead single “Basic Being Basic” from his upcoming album The Crux with a banger of a song in “Delete Ya.” Djo perfectly captures the regret many people feel after a breakup, wishing they’d never opened their heart in the first place. Opening with melancholy remembrance, Djo sings of the strike of pain that comes from thinking of a past lover: “Back in the city, no longer my home / Trying to let it go.” Papercuts of memories all but rub salt in the wound and Djo perfectly captures the seething sensation in lyrics such as, “Then there's a lyric that, in context, stings / The immediate pain it brings / That song that you used to sing. This song’s power ultimately comes from its freeing and unapologetic regret that spools in the catchy chorus: “Oh God, I wish I could delete ya / 'Cause nothin' can compete with ya / I replenish and repeat ya / A heart excretes only one of us, only one.” —Heather Thorn
“Ran Out” by JT
Ever since I heard the glossy clomp of her smash “Sideways,” I knew the world was in for something special. Since departing from City Girls’ fame, JT’s morphed into one of music’s coolest, pumping out nasty bars with a near comical elegance. A JT rap is ripe with fruit, “Fuck him like a rabbit, he pay me in carats”; or no, how about: “ He like my perky breasts and her on a Percocet / We ‘bout to have some sex, yeah, we havin’ Perco-sex.” Whatever the occasion, JT’s has a quippy one liner ready to toss like a dart. “Ran Out” is no exception. Over a quirked up 808-ladden beat she does what she does best, backed up by a Greek chorus of adlibs: “I don't do coke, but I don't judge, boo / I met a cool white bitch in the bathroom (Hi) / Glock came designed like Angela Simmons / Me and my bitches tight like Lululemon (Squad)” — Nathan Hilyard