Good morning. This week’s free letter is a going to be a little lighter than usual. I spent this week rehearsing for my first musical theater gig since moving back to Chicago. Plus, I have been intentionally scaling back my writing this summer to devote more time to other projects that may or may not also include writing. Point being, I’ve been busy. All good news, personally speaking! This week features no introductory essay, but it will include your regularly scheduled Listening Diary. I always plan those in advance. I typically also plan my Micro Reviews in advance but after years of steadily archiving them on this newsletter I finally ran out of backlog. I know, I thought it would never happen. Turns out it’s much harder to churn those out when you aren’t killing time at a job that pays you to wait and do nothing! Micro Reviews will return occasionally as I restock at my new, slower, happier pace. In the meantime, feel free to peruse the fully tagged and organized archive here on my Substack. You can find links to all previous Micro Reviews and Listening Diary entries using the links at the top of my homepage. Hope you have a good weekend, see you next week.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Listening Diary ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Listen to this year’s running diary on Apple Music.
“Showtime!” by Squid (Cowards, 2025)
Teaching drums to teenagers I am repeatedly stunned to learn that high school age boys still *love* Radiohead with a distressingly unconditional fervor. This is remarkable to me because they’ve never had more options for obtuse British alternative rock music about feeling alienated from society, and most of these bands are much closer to their generation than Yorke and co. Take Squid for example, who’s sudden turn to a kraut rock double time in the second half of this tune should hit the spot for In Rainbows appreciators of any age.
“Eyewall” by Baths (Gut, 2025)
Here’s a second song in a row that goes from a disorienting first half to a motorik drive down the musical Autobahn in the second half. Every time I listen to this song I have a different idea about where the downbeat is supposed to be. I love how impatient Baths sounds while asking for the listeners own patience and attention, and I love how he rewards that attention with a euphoric rush of energy once the beat switches and becomes more legible.
“Run, Run, Run Pt II” by McKinley Dixon (Magic, Alive!, 2025)
Boom bap purists might find this arrangement too overworked, and to be fair all of the musical density does make it hard to follow the lyrics, but I don’t care. The band simply sounds too good. I love the brass. I love the drummer’s swing. I really love the abrasive, high pitched guitar(?) in the left channel in the chorus.
“Rule 4080” by Rome Streetz (Trainspotting, 2025)
Besides, if you want straight up BARS with no interference, Rome Streetz has you covered. Maybe it’s just me, but it’s been a long time since I’ve heard an underground rap song that argues the benefits of the independent route as straightforwardly as this one. I’m also old enough to remember when the word “based” had something to do with wonton soup1, so you better believe that I laughed a little too loudly at Conductor Williams’ tag at the end of the song.
“Reviens-moi” by Animalize (Verminateur, 2025)
I’m also old enough to admit that on average I like classic heavy metal more than I like extreme metal. This track from France’s Animalize is far above average. Even though they play deliberately old school metal, the band clearly have some new school finesse. Most 80s bands would not be able to make those brief slips into 6/8 feel as slick and natural as Animalize do here. I also love the way they strip back the harmonies on the final chorus. That’s a great way to train the audience to hear all the vocal lines separately, which adds fun replay value to the song. Neat!
More on that next week when I address the subject of Lil B’s surprise appearance on the latest Justin Bieber album, per the request of a long time reader.
Unrelated to this post, but something I was thinking about when I was on my bicycle earlier: how much does music criticism matter these days? For our parents' generation, the imprimatur of Rolling Stone was a big deal; our cohort paid close attention to Pitchfork. Is there a present-day consortium of tastemakers that commands the same level of influence? Or has it become a question of following a certain ten or twenty or a hundred YouTube or Twitter accounts?