Halsey (Nine Inch) nails a terrific new direction
Halsey gave birth this summer and supplied her own baby gift — a terrific new album in a new musical direction.
The 13-track “If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power” (Capitol) sees Halsey teaming up with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails. It marks the most divergent sound in Halsey’s career.
The album captures the thrill and fear of impending motherhood and, as always, an artist looking with unsentimental harshness at their weaknesses. Reznor and Ross have imbued the project with their special brand of ambient and post-industrial dread.
Highlights include the driving synthesizer-anddrum-led “I Am Not a Woman, I’m a God” — a very NIN sound — and the rocking “Honey” with Dave Grohl on drums. On “Lilith,” Halsey sounds fantastic half-rapping over a chunky bass line. She writes a lullaby for her baby on “Darling,” with Lindsey Buckingham on guitar, “I’ll kidnap all the stars and I will keep them in your eyes.”
There are interesting songs throughout, from the stripped down folktale-ish “The Tradition” and a punkish “Easier Than Lying” to the Gwen Stefani-like “You Asked
For This” to the skittering drums and playfulness of “Girl Is a Gun.”
Reznor and Ross have not lost Halsey in a flood of noises and synths but made them bow down as vehicles, with special touches here and there. When she sings “I am disruptive/ I’ve been corrupted,” they’ve warped the sound of her pronouncing the last word, like a bad computer file.
This is the sound of
ambition, an evolution of Halsey’s sound. It’s the sound of a mom who can have it all: love and power.
— Mark Kennedy, Associated Press
CHVRCHES: The fourth studio album from Scottish synth-pop group CHVRCHES was already sounding great before they did something to push it into the realm of the spectacular.
They reached out to the Cure frontman Robert Smith, whose dark sound has been a touchstone to the younger band. That masterstroke produced “How Not to Drown,” bridging a generational talent gap and anointing CHVRCHES as worthy successors.
“I don’t want the crown/ You can take it now,” Smith sings.
“How Not to Drown” is just one of the highlights of the 10-track “Screen Violence,” which examines anxiety, missed connections and misogyny, in real life and on screens. Members Lauren Mayberry, Martin Doherty and Iain Cook have a smoother, fuller and more assured sound.
The album kicks off with the terrific “Asking for a Friend” with lyrics that look back fondly at a past broken love. The super
“He Said She Said” is a less fond look at a controlling partner, and the anthemic “Good Girls” destroys unrealistic ideals and isn’t polite: “I cut my teeth on weaker men/ I won’t apologize again,” Mayberry sings.
You’ll find yourself returning again and again to the lush and wistful “Lullabies” and the driving, electric “Final Girl,” a song that plays around with cinematic cliches and has a vibe reminiscent of the Smiths. And, of course, the blissfully perfect “How Not to Drown.” It takes the crown.