The Week In Music: Paste’s Favorite Songs, Albums, Performances and More
Let's review: Frankie Cosmos, Amen Dunes, Hinds, Julian Casablancas and more.
Image: Angel Ceballos
As March wraps up and we head into a holiday weekend, we’re celebrating the music we loved the most this week. March’s final stretch brought us career-best albums from Frankie Cosmos and Amen Dunes, as well as new songs from Hinds, Cardi B, and many more. In the studio, we got cozy in the Log Cabin with Rogue Wave, Lucy Rose, and Jesse McCartney. Check out everything you might have missed below.
BEST ALBUMS
Frankie Cosmos: Vessel
Vessel could easily beguile without this quirk through the delicate and slightly tense balances it maintains. It’s a dreamy rock album with lyrics that face unsatisfying relationships and inner turmoil with realism and flashes of warped humor. Greta Kline’s lyrics, underscored by offbeat, Phil Elverum-like vocal delivery, teeter on an exquisite line between goofiness and sharp honesty, mundanity and magic. In the end, it comes down hard on the side of magic. —Beverly Bryan
Amen Dunes: Freedom
On Amen Dunes’ new album Freedom, Damon McMahon finally shows himself fully, and the results are both charmingly raw and uncommonly lovely. His songs are captured cleanly and intimately, a credit to producer Chris Coady, known for his work with Beach House and Grizzly Bear, among others. His lyrics are more personal than ever before. He even put his own face on the cover for the first time—eyes averted, of course.—Ben Salmon
The Vaccines: Combat Sports
Combat Sports is a high-flying LP that attempts to recapture the days when The Vaccines’ songs were short and their guitar solos were loud — a reset button for the band and fans alike. The opening salvo of “Put It On A T-Shirt” and “I Can’t Quit” are all stomping kick-drums and soaring guitars, reminding us that The Vaccines know how to string together a fist-in-the-air anthem. Even Justin Young’s notoriously apathetic voice, once described as sounding like the “thud of a fist through a wet paper bag,” has a fresh bite to it, hungrily tearing into the latter song’s front-loaded phrasing. —Madison Desler
BEST SONGS
Hinds: ‘Finally Floating’
“Finally Floating” shows the band’s more outgoing side, as a dance-worthy beat lays the foundation for Carlotta Cosials’ and Ana Perrote’s intertwining vocals. They sing: “I’m feeling great ‘till I’m laying in bed and all these random melodies sound again. ” A press release accompanying the single describes it as “perhaps the most bold and confident we’ve heard Hinds yet.—Abdiel Vallejo-Lopez
Cardi B: ‘Be Careful’
Cardi B’s almost Drake-like lyrics slow down the artist’s usually in-your-face persona. We can even hear Cardi B sing a little during the chorus: “Be careful with me, do you know what you’re doing? / Whose feelings that you’re hurting and bruising? / You gon’ gain the whole world but is it worth the girl that you’re losing?” —Abdiel Vallejo-Lopez