John Mayer - Battle Studies

8.5/10

Damn. Just when I was starting to doubt him, he drops this album and does it again. Battle Studies is John Mayer's 5th album, and I'd probably say its his second best, maybe third. Sorry, but I don't see anything beating out Continuum, it was just too perfect. He went for a more mellow vibe on this album, which I was skeptical about at first, but it ended up really working well.

The album is trimmed down perfectly. At 11 tracks, 46 minutes, you get your fix and then it's over before you get bored. Lyrically, John still knows how to write some great songs. I love the whole war theme in "Battle Studies", with tracks like "Heartbreak Warfare", "War of my Life", and "Assassin". He said he was going for a Tom Petty style approach to the music, and wanted to make something that would last forever, and I really think he did. Instrumentally, he's still one of the best guitarists alive right now, although he doesn't show it quite as often as I would've liked. As I mentioned in my album preview on here a few weeks ago, I really wanted more upbeat fast songs that would set up crazy guitar solos, but that didn't happen. There are a few short solos, which do enough to show that he's still got it, but really leaves me wanting more. I can't wait to see what he will do with these songs live. The only other letdown, for me, was "Crossroads". I thought for sure that a John Mayer cover of a classic Cream song (actually a Robert Johnson song that Eric Clapton/Cream decided to cover) would be amazing. But it was kind of awkward. The Cream version of the song is already basically perfect, so I didn't think it could be better, I just wanted it to be different. I wanted to see what John could do with it, and it was kind of boring. It sounded overly synthy and weird. Oh well, can't win them all. So even with the flaws, I think the album really flowed, and after giving it a few listens to grow on me, I couldn't put it down for weeks. Definitely one of my favorite albums of the year.

Listen to my 2 favorite songs, "Perfectly Lonely" and "Assassin" here:

(Also don't forget that I posted "Who Says" and "Heartbreak Warfare" back in the album preview post)

Perfectly Lonely

http://www.zshare.net/audio/69506948f856abe3/

Assassin

http://www.zshare.net/audio/69506986f636c9bc/

Felt 3 - A Tribute to Rosie Perez

8/10

"Them Felt boys are back." I don't know if I've ever said this on here, but my absolute #1 favorite hip-hop group is Atmosphere, Slug (the rapper) and Ant (the producer). Felt takes Slug and pairs him with Murs, who is also pretty dope, although I never got into his solo stuff or Living Legends stuff. They have a different producer do each album, and make it a tribute to some sort of fallen star actress. So here we have Felt 3: A Tribute to Rosie Perez, produced by Aesop Rock.

As far as Felt goes, in general, I just love the way that Slug and Murs seem to bounce off of each other. It's never really formulaic, like Slug Verse, Chorus, Murs Verse, Chorus. They go back and forth, and I love that. (It's what makes me excited for the Nas & Damian Marley album, Distant Relatives.) They're both great rappers, and they continue to show it here. Felt seems like a fun sort of release for Slug. A lot of the Atmosphere stuff is a little more serious and toned down, and Felt is where he can just have fun and say whatever he wants. It's really cool to hear another side of him. The production on the album is where it falls short, believe it or not. I really like Aesop Rock, he's a cool guy who does his own weird style of rap and pulls it off pretty well. And as much as I think a lot of the songs on the album are well-produced, they don't fit Slug and Murs. There are several points in the album where it sounded like the guys' flows didn't match the beats at all. It was like they didn't really know how to rap over some of the stuff that Aes gave them. Some of the songs sound great, and they match up well, but there's just those few that don't work. And it's not like they couldn't have cut them out. The album is a little too long for me, going just over an hour. I think cutting it down to 45-50 minutes would've really helped the flow. Personally, Felt 2 was my favorite, but that's really just because Ant (the other half of Atmosphere) produced the whole thing. Still, it's a good album, and definitely worth listening to.

Check out 2 of my favorites, the first single, "Protagonists", and "Henrietta Longbottom"

Protagonists

http://www.zshare.net/audio/6950634044f3d1f9/

Henrietta Longbottom

http://www.zshare.net/audio/69506369ce176f17/

Brand New - Daisy

9/10

This one took a while. It came out way back on 9/22, and I didn't feel right reviewing it until now. I really didn't like it all that much at first. Not that I thought it was bad, it just wasn't what I was expecting and it's not the type of music I usually listen to. Brand New is actually the only band I can tolerate with any sort of screaming. Anyways, after I got over the more heavy vibe and screaming on the album, it really grew on me. It's just the right length, not too long and not too short, and each song is really there for a reason. The tracklist was made perfectly, and the album flows really well. As a matter of fact, I think one of my favorite things about the album is the fact that it's so cohesive. The intro and outro clips are old, creepy music, and there are a few portions in the middle of the album, such as the beginning of the title track, daisy, that have the same type of clips. There is a really creepy feeling to the album, and I actually really love it. Instrumentally, it's Brand New. It's a little more intense and hardcore than their previous albums, and while it's not extremely intricate or anything, there are a lot of layers and pretty awesome riffs on the songs. Something that I still don't know how I feel about is the songwriting. The guitarist, Vin, took over lead songwriting duties on this one for the first time. While I don't think that he is nearly as talented of a songwriter as Jesse Lacey, I do think it gave a nice change to the usual Brand New songs. Kind of a breath of fresh air. The album just really clicks. There's not a single change I would make. I read something a while back where Jesse said that they were afraid the album might sound weird because they wrote the songs based on how they would sound live, which is hard to carry over to studio tracks. Well it worked. Everything sounds great.

I posted my two favorite tracks, "Daisy" and "Sink" below:

Sink

http://www.zshare.net/audio/69488866b653b8eb/

Daisy

http://www.zshare.net/audio/69488936109a893a/

Wale - Attention: Deficit

8/10

Great debut album. Almost better than Kid Cudi's, in my opinion. Cudi has one spot up on him on my list right now, and really it's only because he went and made an album with a style I've never heard anywhere before. But, back to Wale, this album is killer. I kind of expected less of him, to be honest. The dude's been putting out mixtapes like he has nothing better to do, and that material was really good (see: The Mixtape About Nothing), so I couldn't see him having anything left for the album, but I was wrong.

I wouldn't put it on the same level as something from Atmosphere or Mos Def, but it's not supposed to be as serious and conscious as those albums. It's just a good, mainstream rap album. With that said, its a little less mainstream than your everyday 50 Cent crap. (I'm not even listening to Before I Self Destruct, nevermind wasting time writing about it.) The production on the album is good, some songs better than others, particularly the two that Cool & Dre did. Lyrically, you have to listen to the album a couple times to be able to pick up on all of the great lines. My personal favorite, at the end of a verse in "TV in the Radio", goes "fat rhymes everytime, bitch, Roseanna Barrs". I mean, c'mon, that's amazing. Besides the fact that anyone under 20 probably doesn't know who Roseanne Barr is. The content isn't all fun and games, there are some more serious songs, like "Contemplate" and "Diary", which are also great. There are some good features, like K'Naan, J.Cole, and Pharrell, which significantly outway the bad, particularly Gucci Mane. Wale really proved himself to me with this one. You can tell he couldn't be happier with doing what he's doing. And he does it really well.

Check out these links to my favorite track on the album, "World Tour", and "Contemplate":

World Tour (ft. Jazmine Sullivan)

http://www.zshare.net/audio/69482839c9d4c24d/

Contemplate

http://www.zshare.net/audio/694828899a72b81f/