A different direction
ONE year after announcing his departure from pop group One Direction, Zayn Malik emerges with his debut solo album. If an nything, Malik is the kind of perso on you don’t want to be checking u up on social media after a breakup p because he will let you know th at he is already doing better than you. Hot new slow jam in the form of Pillowtalk? Check. The same single debuting at No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100? Check. Making out with a supermodel in a sexy, unabashedly passionate music video? Check.
Remember when Malik used to sing about dancing all night to the best song ever and how he’d love you no matter what you look? He’s probably laughing at all that now. In the up bea at R& B dance track Be FoUr, Malik throws shade at his past boyband life as he sings: “So pardon if I don’t speak/ Can’t tune my chords into your songs , no”.
Mind Of Mine also features a track where Malik is singing in Urdu, which serves as a thought tful, heartfelt nod to his Pakistan ni roots. The slow acoustic Intermission: Flower is a hauntingly beautiful number – it’s a shame that the track is only one- minute long.
But the focus is really on Malik being young and carefree e, since he did leave One Direction n to concentrate on being a “normal 22- year- old”. DRUNK is another solid slow jam where Malik breathlessly croons about losing himself in the moment. For those who missed sensitive Malik, then there’s synth pop ballad Golden. He flexes his famous falsettos on this track, which could easily fit into One Direction’s catalogue ( but don’t ever tell him that). With Mind Of Mine’s strong offering ing of tantalising R& B tunes and moody numbers, Malik boldly wants you to know that he no longer wants to stay in that one direction, and he’s not looking back. – Angelin Yeoh
WHAT does it mean to embrace adulthood? SonaOne addresses the obvious, like paying bills, making tough decisions and getting older in upbeat title track Growing Up Sucks. If it sounds like a juvenile offering from a 27- year- old rapper that’s because it was written when SonaOne was 22. Thankfully, SonaOne outgrew that phase – his new album allows listeners to experience a different, more mature side to the rapper. The song I Don’t Want To Die Alone is a pleasant surprise. It’s a sombre track where SonaOne opens up about mortality as he addresses an earth- shattering incident in his life. SonaOne bares it all with rhymes on how he could have been another dead rapper. Here, growing up means learning that you’re not going to live forever.
Following the tradition of rappers like Tupac Shakur and Kanye West, SonaOne also has a heartfelt track about his mother simply titled Mama’s Boy. The retro- sounding track has a little bit of 90s music throwback is perhaps a nod to the times where SonaOne remembers being the most youthful. He also raps verses in French on this song, proving that growing up also means paying a homage to mama in whatever art form you can.
However, we’re not too sure about SonaOne in the hopeless romantic department. In heartbreak number Cold, he raps: “I don’t know why you so caught up in the moolah bae/ All I wanted was to see you do the hoola bae...” which got us thinking okay, he needs a time out. Skip Cold and put Go Do That on repeat instead. It’s a fast and furious track in which SonaOne calls out on his haters while Akeem Jahat and Joe Flizzow lend some unforgiving jabs. This track is a knockout.
Growing Up Sucks is a respectable debut from SonaOne, who is not afraid to admit that he still has a lot of growing up to do. That’s good, because it means we can look forward to more solid offerings in the future. – AY GET hooked on LUST’s impressive five- track debut EP. The Kuala Lumpur- based band, which consist of Faris Khairi, Azfar Abu Bakar, Nazrin Yusnaidi and Anaqi Jamalluddin, was formed in 2013. Start your journey with the rocking Aberdeen St. and then mellow out with the smooth groovy sounds of Amphibia.
Feel nostalgic with Naga before losing yourself the ominious sounds of Psychokillah. Then continue bopping your head to Clapsong.
Chingichanga is addictive and it’s very easy to lose yourself to these confident, steady psychedelic numbers. It gets a commendable 10/ 10. Now, hopefully we don’t have to wait too long for a full- length album. – AY
THROUGHOUT Bob Mould’s legendary indie- rock career, spanning more than three decades as the frontman for Husker Du and Sugar, his main gift has been the ability to weld the catchiest of pop melodies to the heaviest of guitar riffs.
His new album, Patch The Sky, continues that grand tradition — which has influenced generations of rockers from Superchunk, whose drummer Jon Wurster is now part of Mould’s band, to Foo Fighters.
Lucifer And God musically sounds like it could have come from the last Foos album, but its lyrics raise the stakes, talking of the struggle for Mould’s soul.
Only Mould would pair his happiest melody and a rollicking guitar roar to a post- apocalypse anthem called The End Of Things, but that is part of his considerable charm. Pray for Rain is equally sunny in its musical disposition, while masking the desperation of its lyrics.
Even more impressive is how the triumphant single Voices In My Head harks back to previous Mould triumphs like his solo See A Little Light and Sugar’s If I Can’t Change Your Mind, while moving that style forward. – Glenn Gamboa/ Newsday/ Tribune News Service
BONNIE Raitt reintroduces herself like an old friend: The opening track, Unintended Consequence Of Love, is quintessential Bonnie — a mid- tempo, R& B- laced number that allows her longtime band to, well, dig in deep on the groove while she adds some of her emotive slide guitar.
Raitt and her crew rock it up even harder on Los Lobos’ Shakin’ Shakin’ Shakes and her own The Comin’ Round Is Going Through. But the digging deep the album title refers to involves not just the approach to the music, but the emotional content of the songs themselves: The continuing rewards of the 66- year- old Raitt lie in hearing how she uses these familiar forms to cut to the bone.
She does that on the up- tempo numbers but even more so on the ballads, from Bonnie Bishop’s Undone to her own The Ones We Couldn’t Be.
Raitt produced Dig in Deep herself, except for another product of her 2010 collaboration with producer- writer Joe Henry. His You’ve Changed My Mind is a spare, evocative ballad that complements Raitt’s own style while offering a fresh variation on it. – Nick Cristiano/ The Philadelphia Inquirer/ Tribune News Service