Born Free, But the Album Isn’t

M.I.A.’s ///Y/ was the most anticipated record of my summer, which is exactly what made it hurt when it turned out to be what it is. Arular rewired something in how I thought about music. Kala expanded it further. ///Y/ had the weight of both pressing down on it from the moment the title leaked, and she responded by retreating into an experimental murk that sounds less like bold choices and more like avoidance. Instead of channeling whatever she’d absorbed into something with her usual force, she disappears into a production haze that’s intermittently interesting and mostly frustrating. "Born Free" is still an extraordinary track—confrontational, huge, fully alive. "XXXO" works as a pop song. The rest I’m making my peace with not loving.

Bombay Bicycle Club apparently heard I Had the Blues But I Shook Them Loose and thought: what if we removed everything that made that interesting? Flaws is their acoustic record, stripped back to guitar and voice, and the result is relentlessly gentle. Not melancholic in any way that actually lands—just soft. Sunday morning music for a Sunday when nothing is wrong and nothing is happening. "Ivy & Gold" gets mentioned because something has to be mentioned. Everything else sounds more or less identical. Sad, but not in the way they intended.

Wolf Parade, at least, show up. Expo 86—their third record, out of Montreal—isn’t a party album, but it’s an honest one. Good rock music with atmospheric keyboards that argues its own case without announcing what it is. "Ghost Pressure" and "Little Golden Age" are both the record’s obvious standouts. This week needed them.