POP/ROCK
Missy Elliott, "Iconology" (Atlantic)
Take this EP for what it is: an exceedingly slapdash and minimal release under 15 minutes in length rush-released to cash in on Elliott's Video Vanguard honor at MTV's VMAs. Her first collection since 2005 is even shorter when you snip one of the two versions of the sung doo-wop "Why I Still Love You" — I'd keep the a cappella one, more impressive for bucking longtime accusations that her beats call the shots.
The three other tunes are high-quality, low-budget reboots of her signature bump: "Throw It Back" pretends a single sleigh bell shake is as striking as the elephant in "Work It," and the footwork-goes-old-school "Cool Off" is cleverly inflected to sound like "culo." Most forgettable and conventional is "DripDemeanor."
Just because we missed her so much doesn't mean she owed us an album. And when that album does arrive, you betcha "Iconology" helped take the pressure off.
Dan Weiss, Philadelphia Inquirer
100 gecs, "1000 gecs" (Dog Show)
Take in all of the debut album by the band 100 gecs in one sugar-rush gulp. Let it pummel your ears from the outside, and rattle your brain from the inside. To listen to this album is to cede a certain amount of control, and to accept that letting go of the wheel is not only freeing, but maybe inevitable, too.
The invigorating, breathless "1000 gecs" is a pure palate annihilator of an album — 10 songs, 23 minutes, easily more than 100 reference points. This is high-energy dance-pop, but filtered through an armory of touchstones.
The band rifles through ideas rapidly, wantonly, chaotically, vividly. Nothing is ever settled. Songs shift gears dozens of times.
A song like "Stupid Horse" begins with late-2000s Warped Tour excess and ends somewhere closer to Dr. Demento. The opening seconds of "I Need Help Immediately" may well be a nod to Cali Swag District's "Teach Me How to Dougie," a viral rap hit of 2010.
The duo comprises Dylan Brady and Laura Les, who met in the DIY electronic-pop scene in St. Louis. (Les now lives in Chicago, and Brady lives in Los Angeles and collaborates with Diplo, among others, as a producer.) .
The duo's hybrid is something genuinely recombinant. And also exhilarating — these songs pulse with joy and vitality. If anything, the collision of sounds is a distraction from the fact that "1000 gecs" is, at its core, an astonishingly sweet album. All the vocals are run through intense layers of processing, landing anywhere from chipmunk house to grindcore. Amid the guttural rhythmic poetry of heavy industrial equipment and obsolete computer consoles, the lyrics are cheerful affirmations. There is sentiment at play here — not just in the words, but also in the superfast sonic chaos. Each jolt is a new feeling, and each feeling is a reminder that magic is all around, waiting to be grabbed.
Jon caramanica, New York Times
new releases
• Zac Brown Band, "The Owl"
• Brittany Howard, "Jamie"
• Fitz and the Tantrums, "All the Feels"
• Liam Gallagher, "Why Me, Why Not"
• Blink-182, "Nine"
• Pieta Brown, "Freeway"
• Robbie Robertson, "Sinematic"
