One deliberate week off and I already feel like I’m getting my weekly review mojo back, but let’s not be hasty. Tom deserves a break now and then. More “now” than “then”, but I’ll be the last person to really admit that. I do have three new reviews today (“today” defined loosely because it’s already literally 11:40pm) and TWO of them only came out less than two weeks ago. I formed opinions already! That’s how you know they’re good! Or bad! Or neutral! I guess you can never tell, can you?

Wet Leg, Cosmic Putrefaction, and Arcade Fire. Fuck, marry, kill? Which ones would you choose? Send your submissions to TuckerCarlson@foxnews.com!

Wet Leg – Wet Leg
(April 8, 2022)

Yeah, this was the one everyone was waiting for in the indie circles and it turned out to be a minor disappointment. Big whoop. It’s a tale as old as time! Move on with your lives.

Ever since “Chaise Longue” was dropped last June and became an international sensation, people have been salivating over the eventual release of their eponymous debut. SALIVATING! DROOLING! Hype hype hype hype! Was it their cheeky take on melodic post-punk? Was it their relatable self-deprecating mode of expression? Was it the fact that they’re from the Isle of Wight? Who can say! Hopefully it’s not the third thing, that’s not that interesting at all even though I keep hearing it being brought up by boring people like me.

After “Chaise Longue”, a few more singles trickled in through the rest of 2021. Wet Leg’s debut was going to be THE album of 2022! And here it is, it was released over a month ago, it got fair-to-great reviews, and everyone already forgot about it because it was underwhelming to the base at large. People were expecting the next Dry Cleaning, and maybe it is to some degree, but 2021 is a tough act to follow for post-punk debuts. I think much of Wet Leg‘s songs are airy in a way that feels like a throwback to early childhood pop/punk sensibilities instead of propelling music as an artform forward in any meaningful way. I know that’s a tall order for any band, but therein lies the unfortunate byproduct of hype.

It’s completely unfair to judge the music on the unfulfilled hype, so how about I put it this way: Wet Leg is enjoyable and brimming with diverse musical ideas, but much of it is padded with flimsy concepts and shallow philosophy. The worst offender here is “Oh No”, which is supposed to be about smartphone anxiety, I guess. Doesn’t sound like there’s much real social commentary behind half-hearted barely-rhyming phrases like “Oh my God/Life is hard/Credit card/Oh no — You’re so woke/Diet Coke/I feel gross/Oh no“. Most of the rest of tracks are barely a notch above this. You’ve already heard the “Chaise Longue” innuendo.

But yeah, maybe a lot of it is just angsty and disillusioned, and that’s fine too. But even with respect to that I hear a lot of David Bowie and Alvvays and Björk and Yeah Yeah Yeahs and White Stripes. And I think I just want to know what Wet Leg sounds like when they’re being Wet Leg. I don’t think we’ve really heard that yet.

Early Verdict:

Cosmic Putrefaction – Crepuscular Dirge for the Blessed Ones
(May 6, 2022)

Gross, yet vaguely metaphysical band name? Check. Gross, yet vaguely metaphysical album name? Check. Ominous, not really gross, but vaguely religious and/or spiritual album art? Check. I know what to expect, and I already know I’m correct.

This is an approachable dissonant death metal album that focuses its sound more on mind-bending methodological song structures than merely brute force and disgusting, pus-and-blood themes. Usually, in my experience, these more cerebral themes are reserved for the black metal end of the extreme metal spectrum, but there’s nothing black metal about Crepuscular Dirge for the Blessed Ones at all. Pure, chunky death metal with a dash of psychedelic seasoning!

This is one of the first death metal records of 2022 that really caught my ear immediately. It brings to mind Blood Incantation (at least the album from a few years ago, Hidden History of the Human Race, not so much the one that just came out in February). A galactic perspective on a usually terrestrial metal subgenre. For example, I really like those soaring synth notes that pop up from time to time, like at the end of “Sol’s Upheaval Debris” and “Cradle Wrecked, Curtains Unfurled”. It gives the beefy riffs a strange vibe, like you’re being briefly jaunted through another dimension. Momentarily untethered from reality.

I have the most fun with “Amniotic Bewilderment”, which spends a good portion of its duration alternating between calculated, accessible melodic phrases and frenetic, urgent cacophony. They eventually overlap as the powerful lead guitar fights to be heard. I can’t get enough of this track.

So, yeah, I’m pretty gung-ho over this album already. Crank up the volume and tear into a huge chunk of raw meat on a Friday night.

Early Verdict:

Arcade Fire – WE
(May 6, 2022)

Do you remember when Arcade Fire put out an album in 2013 and some people were a little disillusioned by the dance-rock direction? Do you remember when Arcade Fire put out an album in 2017 and some people hated that the band leaned harder into the dance-rock direction, almost forgoing good taste altogether? Well, my loyal Tom Writes About Stuff constituency, I liked both of those albums. And I don’t like this one at all. Proceed with caution.

I’m already annoyed with the two-part opener “Age of Anxiety”. Between the awfully suspicious new age spiritual energy and cheesy melodrama, the weird huffing and panting in the first track and the tastelessly stark disco of the second track, I’m getting the worst of the nauseating late ’80s/early ’90s radio balladry from a once-groundbreaking rock band. “End of the Empire I-IV” is absolutely dull as shit, too. Irredeemable crescendocore adult contemporary pap and plodding piano-driven slow “soulfulness”. Is this like when classic rock artists got really shitty en masse in the ’80s? Is this what just happens to a 20-year-old band whose salad days are so far in the rearview mirror that the concept of gracefully adopting current musical trends is bewildering to them?

The highlight, the only highlight, is “The Lightning Part II”. Vestiges of the old Arcade Fire come out in full force here in ways I haven’t heard in over a decade. It’s the only enjoyable section of the album, but you have to get through Part I first and endure its embarrassingly sappy repeated desperate pleas of “We can make it if you don’t quit on me” scraping across your brain.

Where’s the passion? Where’s the excitement? It’s all so soulless and neutered. Rife with cringe topical references that will age like milk, like “New phone who dis” and “We unsubscribe/Fuck season 5“. This established indie pioneer should know better. I’m mad at them for this.

Early Verdict: