HYLI Vol. LXXXV - Dua Lipa and Ensiferum
Andy sends Patrick some folk metal dork shit and Patrick sends Andy the best pop record of the 2020s.
Hello, it’s Patrick. Of course it is. Who else would possibly be writing this? My household has recovered after being ravaged by the novel coronavirus so I am no longer in a bad mood. I’m such a cheerful and upbeat person. Do you like music? Boy, I sure do. Some great records came out recently! Love it when that happens! Mali Velasquez, Truth Club and Will Johnson all released records I recommend you check out! Enjoy or don’t! Some movies came out too. I saw the Eras Tour alone by myself in a movie theater with a bunch of tweens and grandparents and I felt like I needed to check myself into an insane asylum immediately after. The movie was a fun time and most of the songs were good except the ones that weren’t. What was up with the editing though? Did they even try to make it not obvious that it was multiple shows stitched together? Why do CGI for the different eras??? A Martin Scorsese movie came out too. Maybe we’ll discuss that later. Did you see the movie? Sound off on X.com, formerly known as Twitter, and let us know if you even read this or even care. Hope You Like It.
Dua Lipa - Future Nostalgia
Patrick: Look, man. I know Andy doesn’t like pop music. Much like the Hole volume from a few weeks ago, it seems like that is a bad take that he should know better than. With Bob Dylan or whatever, while I love him, I can get why someone doesn’t like him. This just seems like a genre Andy ignores because he doesn’t like the radio and is “ignorant” (not a value judgment, just purely definitionally) to the majority of the genre. Of course, this is a pretty “radio” heavy pop album as half the songs were pretty massive singles. But it’s done so in a manner that feels kinda unique and indebted to pop stars and genres of the past more so than contemporary peers, so I figured I’d take a chance with this one.
I love this record. It is my favorite record of 2020 and one of my favorites of the decade so far (Andy: hm). Incredible gym record. Throwing on “Levitating” while you’re on the treadmill? Are you kidding me? “Physical” while you’re on the squat rack? C’mon! “Don’t Start” is just a song that is Hot and makes you feel Hot listening to it.
I love how beholden to everyone from Blondie to Elton John to Kylie Minogue the record is. My wife and I saw Dua live in 2022 at the place in Philadelphia, PA (RIP your sports teams) where Joel Embiid chokes every summer (Andy: got ‘em). Truly one of the best stage shows I’ve seen. I love going to a hardcore show with 50 people but I also love going to a stadium show with thousands of people. There’s something about arena and stadium shows that is pure spectacle and I absolutely love it (Andy: would love to have the opportunity to do the same).
I do not expect Andy to like this very much. That being said, he made me listen to Cannibal Corpse, so fuck off. This record rocks and I’m glad I got to shout out one of the best pop stars going. I love this record and I love Dua, she rocks.
Andy: Oh look a pop record, I’m sure this will go well (Patrick: quit being a dweeb)!
It was interesting listening to this throughout the week. On days I was in a better mood, it definitely hit better than on days where I wasn’t (and it felt like homework to get through). I don’t mean this in a negative or judging way, but do people listen to full albums from pop-stars (Patrick: I think this is a fair question in most senses but yes people obviously listen to full Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, etc. records and I think Dua is included here)? Like, is someone spinning this front to back or is it a more modern approach where the singles and individual songs they like get added to a playlist?
I definitely didn’t hate it. It has some very fun choruses throughout, like “Break My Heart.” At the same time, it didn’t knock me on my feet or anything. Some of the songs seem really sleepy, like “Love Again.” The singles don’t really do much for me (Patrick: crazy!). I feel like we are at this gross place in the world where mainstream songs are thinking about how they can get that TikTok popularity (Patrick: this has been written about a ton and I don’t think that’s coming from the artist’s perspective at all/in the songwriting but certainly from the label and people pushing the songs). Like, they’re searching for a killer 20 seconds in a 3-minute song. I will say her voice sounds more organic than most stuff on TV and the radio. It’s nice not to be layered into oblivion and just have a good vocal performance.
I’m very interested to see why Patrick picked this for me to listen to. Was it in retaliation to months of classic old-school death metal? Did he think I’d genuinely be into it (Patrick: I wanted to broaden your horizons and I thought there was a better chance with this than any of the other pop I love)? I have no idea. It Was Enjoyable But Not Amazing.
Ensiferum - Ensiferum
Andy: Everyone should give Patrick a round of applause for passing “Death Metal 101.” We really put our guy through the gauntlet of old-school Death Metal the last few weeks. So I figure we will give him a break. What’s the opposite of death metal? Something happy obviously. I could have gone Power Metal but that might be too much of a shock to the system. The next obvious thing is some good old-fashioned Folk Metal. A genre that blends the attitude of Power Metal, the energy of Death Metal, and the essence of Folk music (Patrick: wait what lol).
Ensiferum is one of the non-consensus ‘Big 4’ of Folk metal. Ensiferum is one of the genre classics so this seemed like a no-brainer. One of the finest folk metal albums. Some very fun riffs and catchy melodies on here with iconic folky acoustic passages, black metal-inspired vocals and chants peppering most songs. The album is both cheesy and epic. It is inspired and fun. “Hero In A Dream” is impossible to sit still during (Patrick: I agree in a sense but not the same sense as you). Just a fun song through and through. “Old Man” feels like a genre staple.
This album, like basically any album ever, does not need to be 55 minutes long. Trim two songs (I’m not sure which two but do it) and this album is basically the perfect Folk Metal album. Sorry, I gave you another long album. Hope You Like It Anyways.
Patrick: Wow, Andy loves folk after all! Maybe I hate it, after this record! Frankly, this feels like dork shit that is from Game of Thrones (Andy: it kinda is). Not, like, music in the episodes but music some dork from House Stark would be singing before they sacked King’s Landing or some shit. Big time World of Warcraft vibes. I hated it.
The guitar was cool but way too “major key” for me. Too happy! Play some dark shit (Andy: that was literally the point you thumb, we just did a months on death metal lol)! The drums might as well be non-existent and do not go hard at all. Pretty much every song lived and died by the vocals because the rest of the music might as well have not been there. Some of the clean singing was decent! I really enjoyed “Abandoned” and the singing there is part of the reason why. However, on other songs and mostly the front half of the record, the stuff verges too close into hokey bullshit that is way too Fantasy Novel for me (Andy: again, that was the point) (Patrick: okay but your point sucks lol). The black metal vocals were cool. Again to shout-out “Abandoned,” I liked how they kicked in midway through after the clean singing. But, again, this doesn’t really rival any actual black metal. So we have clean singing that isn’t really as good as most clean-singing metal bands and black metal vocals that aren’t as good as black metal bands. Really stuck between a rock and a hard place of not having a good time at all. I will not be coming back to this.