3 albums I was interested to hear today.
Ellie Goulding's "Higher than Heaven" - I've always been a fan of Ellie, I found her sound to be unique when she first burst onto the music scene. That with her special singing voice and ability to build addictive hooks, made pop-synth worth spending time to listen to. This album, however, is pretty much purely a dance record and she doesn't stray too far outside of those constraints so it hits more like a straight pop/dance record. In the end, I only found 5 songs that were really worth re-visiting and the rest would be filler for the die hard fan to keep around.
Highlights: Midnight Dreams, By the end of the Night, Waiting for It, How Long and Tastes Like You.
I'd say it is probably the worst Ellie Goulding album in her discography. But not a bad album overall.
Lights' "Ded" - This is a re-imagination of her most recent release "Pep", turning all of those high energy songs into stripped down, stretched out, total moods. Pep was such an incredible album and while I would say it would be hard to digest Ded from front to back other than in chill moods, a sex playlist, etc. it is truly a very beautiful album. What strikes me about Lights is just how much she's evolved not only as an artist (musically and visually), but how she's transformed herself into a really, really good singer. Only a couple of the re-imaginations didn't grab me and the fun thing is that some of my least favorites on Pep are my favorites on this version. Grip slays both ways, though.
Highlights: Grip, Prodigal Daughter and Beside Myself.
Daughter "Stereo Mind Game" - It's been a wait since the last Daughter release and even then it was their sound-track to 'Life is Strange', while a good album, it was not as realized as an album vs. a soundtrack.. so I've been waiting for this for awhile now. Elena is one of the most beautiful singers that you'll find out in music right now. While the 3 singles "Be On Your Way", "Party" and "Swimback" were really good songs, I was a little hesitant that the singles didn't showcase a song that I thought was unbelievable. Thankfully, the songs they didn't showcase were absolutely gorgeous and incredible. They approached this album from different angles around a central theme and their creativity, layering, and piecing of different introduced parts altogether at different moments was truly mind blowing. This is legitimately one of the best albums released in a long time.
Highlights: Neptune, Junkmail, Future Lover and To Rage. Though literally the whole album is a highlight.
