Album reviews: Cardi B, John Prine, Tinashe, Laura Veirs, Say Sue Me, Josh T Pearson

This week, Cardi B is a musical chameleon on her debut album while Laura Veirs offers a welcome perspective on emotional turmoil on her 10th studio record

Cardi B – Invasion of Privacy

★★★★☆

Download this: Be Careful, Bodak Yellow, Money Bag, Bickenhead, I Like It, Ring (ft Kehlani)

Critics tried to call Cardi B’s success a one-off, like she was a passing fad rather than an incredibly unique and exciting artist, and you can stamp a big fat “sexist” sign on that. It’s that same sexism that still tries to pit her against fellow rapper Nicki Minaj, as though you can only have one female MC enjoy success at a time.

Yet all of Cardi B’s achievements have been in her own right, established by her monster hit “Bodak Yellow”, and with every move since then. Her debut album Invasion of Privacy isn’t so much an introduction as her final word: she is here to stay.

Referred to by another critic as “the new American dream”, she recounts her rags-to-riches narrative in album opener “Get Up 10”: “Went from making tuna sandwiches to making the news.”

There are so many quotable, meme-able lines to pull out of the album you’d be pushed to pick a favourite, yet this writer’s is the rather blatant but still splendid “Cardi B on the charts, and expect that” on her opening track. It sums up her own belief in her talent, her hold on the industry, and how aware she is of all of it.

She teased what she was capable of on her mixtape series Gangsta Bitch Music, with tracks like “Lick” and “Forever”; on a full-length record and more recent collaborations you see the full extent of her talent.

Cardi B is something of a musical chameleon. While she consistently remains true to her signature style, she can somehow fit in perfectly to others: On “Drip” she pairs up with Migos, on the remix of “Finesse” with Bruno Mars she adopted a classic Nineties hip hop flow with an endearingly playful mood.

What really flies on Invasion of Privacy is her voice: Cardi B has a particular way of inflection that conveys her personality so beautifully. She’s as confident as it seems possible to be when she spits “Pussy so good I say my own name during sex” on album closer “I Do”, weaponising her own sexuality; she drips venom on “Be Careful” as she prepares a bowl of cereal with bleach.

Regardless of speculation around ghostwriters and their involvement on this record, each and every line is her own thanks to her delivery – those references to her personal life are sometimes as specific as a single tweet sent from her account last year.

She samples Sixties boogaloo hit “I Like It Like That” and calls to her Dominican heritage with bachata music on the sexy, swinging “I Like It”. Saving spots for Puerto Rican trap/reggaeton singer Bad Bunny, and Colombian artist J Balvin, she puts her own spin – of course – on the Latin music explosion that kicked off last year: you can bet you’ll hear it all over speakers this summer.

Chance the Rapper’s contribution to the hook on “Best Life” actually seems to bring about a dip in the energy, whereas Cardi bursts on, carefree and fiery: “I can’t believe they wanna see me lose that bad,” she marvels, laughing at her haters – the standout on this track, however, is the reference to Tupac (an artist she’s been ranked alongside) and his 1999 poem “The Rose That Grew From Concrete”.

Wild and completely unpredictable, and that’s what this music industry needs – someone who plays by nobody’s rules but her own. When she sings off the hook on “Be Careful” it’s just another moment where Cardi B runs to her own rhythm: because nothing about Invasion of Privacy is formulaic. (Roisin O’Connor)

John Prine – The Tree of Forgiveness

★★★★☆

Download this: Lonesome Friends of Science, Caravan of Fools, God Only Knows, When I Get To Heaven

Bob Dylan calls John Prine’s songs “Proustian”, respect earned back on his 1971 debut, but undimmed for recent Americana stars from Justin Vernon to Jason Isbell. Isbell guests on these first new Prine songs for 13 years, which also include co-writing credits for The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach and Phil Spector, the latter a loose cannon compadre when they began writing “God Only Knows” in 1978.

It’s fittingly among the fuller productions of a record built on the craftsman’s virtue of economy. Little goes much past three minutes, or makes great claims for itself. Shaggy dog stories seem always at the point of being told in lyrics which can seem throwaway, but have no loose threads.

“Summer’s End” evokes the seasonal sanctuary of home for the lonely. Prine stretches each line’s last word out companionably, but the warm welcome is really extended by phrases of folksy, funny surrealism. In Prine country, “the moon and stars hang out in bars/just talkin’”. “Caravan of Fools”, by contrast, sees him lower his cancer-scratched voice to one of biblical portent, for an ominous tale recalling Cormac McCarthy’s fated characters.

Some songs are genuinely slight. “Lonesome Friends of Science”, though, is a modest masterpiece, sharing the weary worldliness and loping stride of his contemporary Townes Van Zandt’s “Pancho and Lefty”. An organ whistles in amiably as if from some long-gone Dylan Nashville session, as Prine’s ornery narrator stays free in his mind from the demands of a troublesome, rational world.

Prine’s stance has stayed askew. Yet these songs are solid like good chairs you can settle into for a while. (Nick Hasted)

Tinashe – Joyride

★★★☆☆

Download this: Me So Bad, Stay The Night, Salt, Stuck With Me

“Keep your eyes on the road,” Tinashe repeats on the opener to her long-awaited third album. It’s clear she isn’t ready to have you write her off just yet. After the R&B-tinged pop singer’s successful full-length debut Aquarius, the 24-year-old teased her sophomore effort incessantly. But album delays and setbacks added two years to the timeline. In the interim, Tinashe dropped the mixtape Nightride in 2016, which kept her fan momentum going alongside pop-tinged singles “Superlove” and “Flame.” But still, music fans anxiously awaited Joyride.

At the top of the year, it finally seemed like it was getting its release date: Tinashe dropped the record’s downtempo first single “No Drama” featuring Offset, followed by “Faded Love” with Future and the sultry dancehall hit “Me So Bad” with Ty Dolla $ign and French Montana. Joyride is a definite departure from Aquarius and even Nightride – Tinashe opts for moodier songs, less pop hooks and more experimentation.

When Tinashe does have a hooky chorus like on “Stuck With Me” alongside Little Dragon she shines. Perhaps the most striking moments are when Tinashe invents her own form of balladry, like on the tragic “Salt,” where she plays a game of push-and-pull, warning a lover, “No matter what you think you gotta do, don’t throw salt on the wound”; or on the pleading album closer “Stay The Night.”

While Joyride has its shining points and attempts to remain true to a cohesive, moodier (albeit more mature) tone, it’s missing the strong, catchier elements that helped Tinashe rise in the first place. But there’s no reason to count her out just yet. (Ilana Kaplan)

Laura Veirs – The Lookout

★★★★☆

Download this: Heavy Petals, Watch Fire, The Meadow, The Canyon

With her tenth folk-pop album Laura Veirs puts aside the tumult of the current political climate and creates her own response to the chaos around her. The first release since her collaborative project case/lang/veirs, The Lookout is both delicate and powerful in its allusions to protective imagery and its response to the Trump era.

For her latest work, Veirs spent a year writing every day in her studio in Portland, Oregon, and the dedication to her craft shows: she consistently delivers gorgeous folk melodies, something that is once again complemented by her work with her husband and producer Grammy-nominated Tucker Martine.

In delicate metaphors, Veirs approaches the nation’s racial divides, mortality and being a parent. With “The Meadow,” Veirs preaches delicate harmony singing, “No hate, just springs, young light green leaves / Showing us what life can do.”

She shares the same approach on “Heavy Petals,” recalling the warmth of Mazzy Star and confronting the world around her with tenderness. After working on Sufjan Stevens’ 2015 triumph Carrie and Lowell, Stevens collaborates with Veirs on “Watch Fire” – a comforting track that brings solace in a time of fear: “I’ll keep the watch / I’ll keep the watch fire.” The Lookout not only shows Veirs prevailing as a prolific songwriter, but also proving she has a welcomed perspective to emotional turmoil. (Ilana Kaplan)

Say Sue Me – Where We Were Together

★★★★☆

Download this: Old Town, Be Lover, But I Like You, Ours

Surf-pop quartet Say Sue Me found each other in Busan, South Korea. The area – not exactly a renowned music hub – did perhaps give the band an advantage as opposed to the oversaturated Seoul music scene.

School friends Jae Young, Kim Byunkyu and high school mate Kang Semin met lead vocalist Sumi Choi at a tea and beer shop, immediately taking a liking to her speaking voice.They were prompted to ask her to play music with them – thus formed Say Sue Me.

What really ties the band’s music together is their bond. Their latest release is a dedication to unbreakable friendships that weather unexpected circumstances.

During the making of Where We Were Together Semin suffered a fall, resulting in a trauma that prevented him from finishing the album; half of the songs were made with him.

The band’s first single “Old Town” sets a nostalgic tone for the record, feeding into the larger theme, while songs like “B Lover” and “Let It Begin” let loose with spacey and doo-wop-tinged melodies.

On “Funny and Cute,” however the band gets serious as Choi sings, “I’m afraid of making new memories without you,” words seemingly directed towards Semin – wistful and wandering.

Say Sue Me’s charming third outing shows the quartet exploring a broad range of sounds, but it most significantly ensures they’re not a band to sleep on. (Ilana Kaplan)

Josh T Pearson – The Straight Hits!

★★★☆☆

Download this: Straight To the Top!, Straight Laced Come Undone, Straight Down Again!

Josh T Pearson is one of rock’s great self-exiled talents. His apocalyptic Texan trio Life To Experience disintegrated before someone died soon after their sole album was released in 2001. In the decade before he finally followed it up with his solo debut Last of the Country Gentlemen (2011), Pearson roamed Europe like the Ancient Mariner, wrestling with faith, his preacher father’s legacy and catastrophic romance. This third album is an attempt to throw off the heavy legend, and let some bright pop sunshine in. He may, not for the first time, have gone too far.

Just as Last of the Country Gentlemen escaped years of painstaking, abortive writing with a two-day dash through new work, The Straight Hits! is a compulsive lunge of rowdy, seemingly slapdash electric rock, recorded straight after writing.

The few sonically exposed lyrics are sung in exaggerated country yodels and croons, most affectingly in the sexually lubricious reverie “Straight Laced Come Undown”, and an acoustic grapple with honkytonk tradition in “Damn Straight”. “Loved Straight To Hell” then darts into the fuzzed-up territory which could make Lift To Experience’s epic record resemble a possessed U2.

This music’s unhinged, pinballing molecules have a wild energy, here and there. But I can’t help thinking of the Pearson who’d put off singing his last solo album’s songs as long as possible live, more ready to crack jokes than brave their emotionally wracked terrain. This latest, dashed-off transmission suggests a fine artist afraid of seriously dealing with his talent. (Nick Hasted)