FRANK OCEAN: Channel Orange
Def Jam, 56 minutes
Rating: 4/5

Frank Ocean’s official debut Channel Orange comes with more baggage than any review could compensate for; you’ve already formed an opinion about the much-hyped, recently “out” New Orleans singer if you’ve heard of him at all. Channel Orange is certainly notable for being the first major label R&B/hip-hop album released by an openly bisexual artist. Whether it’s a great album, I don’t know. What matters to you more – context, or the music itself?

It should be noted that, though Ocean has aligned himself with rap crew Odd Future, and last year, lent one of the most memorable hooks to Kanye and Jay’s Watch the Throne, Channel Orange isn’t really a hip-hop record. Most think pieces painting it as some kind of turning point for the genre are a little off. There's about as much history of non-hetero content in R&B as rap, but Ocean isn’t making the kind of bold, culturally relevant statement that rap in particular really needs. Certainly that wasn’t his intention and to put such weight on him – even amid overzealous praise – seems premature.

You see? It’s hard not to get wrapped up in context. As for the music itself ...

It’s good. Warm, with a great sense of humour. Aesthetically it’s almost the intellectual cousin of R. Kelly’s soul-reviving Write Me Back. It has more ideas, certainly, but stays on the same course when it comes to hooks and the accessible smoothness of Ocean’s voice. Those ideas come very big (the almost 10-minute heft of “Pyramids”) and small (lending a track over to John Mayer’s guitar, “White”). I crave brevity in music, so maybe “Crack Rock” and “Monks” could have been cut. That said, the album’s best tracks – “Pink Matter” and “Forrest Gump” – also close it out, so stick around. 


ANGUS STONE: Broken Brights

Nettwerk, 61 minutes
Rating: 4.5/5

I’m sure at some point we’ve all wanted a hiatus from our siblings. Australian singer/songwriters Angus and Julia Stone made beautiful music together, most memorably the sparse, eerie single “And the Boys” (2010), but now find themselves on different paths. She’s gone a bit pop, he’s dropped the more rustic and frequently great Broken Brights. So time apart has proven fruitful.

Broken Brights is an exuberant folk record. There’s carefree joy oozing out of “Wooden Chair,” “The Wolf and the Butler,” and others like sap from a maple tree. Stone stumbles a bit with the album’s overlong middle of “Apprentice of the Rocket Man” and “Only a Women,” but recovers easily.

And there’s the title track, possibly my favourite song of the year so far. It’s simple, a few strummed chords, ambiguous lyrical refrains and a steady drumbeat, but that simplicity lends a kind of weird shape-shifting quality. Some days it sounds tragic, others wistful, still others as relaxing as a long sit on a quiet porch. I’ve returned to it dozens of times, and hope to do the same for the album’s remaining tunes.


SERJ TANKIAN: Harakiri
Warner, 45 minutes

Rating: 3/5

System of a Down makes big music in small doses; the band's best songs feel like rambling sociopolitical essays delivered with the succinctness of a punch in the face. That hasn’t changed with frontman Serj Tankian’s solo career. Here’s a line from “Butterfly”: “Why can't we switch automatically to eco-centric persuasions? / Why can't we ditch autocracy for eco-centric persuasions now?” Catchy! And that’s only the first song.

Somehow Tankian still manages to pack his wordy, often impossible-to-understand lyrical themes into accessible material. Harakiri is his finest solo album yet (with three more in the can, apparently). He finds room for the expected operatic rock (“Cornucopia,” “Figure it Out”), moments of introspection (“Forget Me Knot”) and odd experiments (“Ching Chime”). He takes on easy targets (“Reality TV”) and obscure ones (“Uneducated Democracy”). It all fits together.

I do wish SOAD would deliver new material (no studio albums in seven years). Guitarist/songwriter Daron Malakian’s influence on their sound is often under-appreciated outside a core fanbase. That said, Harakiri is worthwhile both for fans who've stuck around, and those that have moved on.