Music Reviews

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Mike Mettler  |  Jan 10, 2025  | 

Kendrick Lamar is a busy man these days. Not only is the West Coast hip-hop superstar headlining the halftime show at Super Bowl LIX on February 9, 2025, at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans and prepping for the Grand National Tour with SZA for 19 stadium dates starting in April 2025, but he also found time to drop a surprise new album, GNX, on November 22, 2024, just six months after his majorly successful May 2024 release, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers—and it’s all in full-on, glorious Dolby Atmos at that. Read Mike Mettler’s review to find out if the Dolby Atmos mixes of two key GNX tracks, “Luther” and “TV Off,” make the 360-degree grade. . .

Mike Mettler  |  Dec 19, 2024  | 

It’s almost impossible to keep up with the sheer volume of new-to-2024 Dolby Atmos tracks available on streaming services/online listening portals like Apple Music, Tidal, and Immersive Audio Album these days—not to mention the encouraging, increasing number of physical Blu-ray-with-Atmos options that are also out there, for us completist/collector types—but it’s one holy heck of a problem to have for those of us who truly cherish the immersive listening experience. Read on to see which songs made the 360-degree cut for S&V Music Editor Mike Mettler’s Top 5 favorite Dolby Atmos tracks of 2024 list. . .

Mike Mettler  |  Dec 12, 2024  | 

Saweetie ain’t known as “Icy Grl” for nothing. But now, the Bay Area rapper has set her hot-but-chill sights on reveling in the holidays with a new double-stockinged single under the Dear Big Santa mantle. Read Mike Mettler’s review to find out if the Dolby Atmos mixes of “I Want You This Christmas” and “Big Santa,” the pair of festive, fresh new tracks on Dear Big Santa, are worth adding to your holiday playlist. . .

Mike Mettler  |  Nov 26, 2024  | 

Shaboozey continues to capture that good ol’ country-tinged lightning in a bottle with his latest single, “Good News,” which was released by American Dogwood/Empire in multiple formats on November 15, 2024. Chances are, you just might see and hear Shaboozey perform this hopeful new track as part of his headlining performance during halftime at this Thursday’s Thanksgiving NFL game between the Detroit Lions and the Chicago Bears. Read Mike Mettler’s review to find out if the Dolby Atmos mix of “Good News” maintains the bright-star country artist’s winning streak. . .

Mike Mettler  |  Nov 14, 2024  | 

Synchronicity is the album that vaulted the blended British/American trio The Police into the megaplatinum global-phenomenon stratosphere, itself a 10-track master class of envelope-pushing pop songwriting, clever and sometimes challenging song arrangements, and truly elite musicianship. To properly fete the band’s studio swan song, A&M/Polydor/Universal Music Recordings has issued several expanded multiformat editions of Synchronicity, including an 84-track 6CD box set and a more abbreviated 43-track 4LP box set. Read Mike Mettler’s review of both super deluxe editions to see if you should add either, or both, to your collection and listening rotation accordingly. . .

Mike Mettler  |  Nov 13, 2024  | 

Immersive music, thy name be David Gilmour. Though Pink Floyd may be a semi-distant active memory, lead guitarist/vocalist David Gilmour has seen fit to issue some quite intriguing solo projects here and there over the past five or so decades. His fifth solo studio effort, Luck and Strange, which was released by Sony Music in multiple formats on September 6, 2024, may indeed be his best outing under his own name—most especially in its Dolby Atmos incarnation. Read Mike Mettler’s review to find out just how good that L&S Atmos mix really is. . .

Mike Mettler  |  Oct 27, 2024  | 
SoCal hip-hop envelope-pusher Yeat has already had quite a busy 2024—and he ain’t done yet. February saw him drop his fourth LP—the electro-rage dystopian chronicle, 2093—with guest turns from Lil Wayne, Future, and Donald Glover, and then his good compatriot Drake wound up joining the storyline on the 2093 (P2) deluxe edition.
Mike Mettler  |  Oct 17, 2024  | 
Detroit-bred rap superstar Tee Grizzley has joined forces with a number of powerhouse flow partners on his new 24-track LP Post Traumatic, which was released in full on October 4 after being teased with a number of hardcharging singles drops throughout the balance of 2024.

A-level guests on Tee’s fifth studio album include the likes of Future, 42 Dugg, Mariah The Scientist, and even his brother, Baby Grizzley. Synth loops and loping 808s permeate some of its backing tracks—cool choices due in no small part to one of the album’s key producers, Pi’erre Bourne (Drake, Playboi Carti).

Mike Mettler  |  Oct 11, 2024  | 
Copenhagen-based indie/electronic mixmaster Anders Trentemøller recently served up a cool breeze of synthesized fresh air for the fall season on September 13 with his new album Dreamweaver—which arrived via his own label, the perfectly named (and no doubt Brian Wilson-inspired) In My Room.
Mike Mettler  |  Oct 08, 2024  | 

These Are the Eyes of Disarray: S&V music editor Mike Mettler evaluates multiple versions of Stone Temple Pilots’ September 1992 debut album Core, which laid the foundation for a hard-rocking rollercoaster ride steeped in the three G’s—garage, glam, and groove. . .

Mike Mettler  |  Oct 02, 2024  | 
And the beat keeps on keepin’ on for East Atlanta rapper Hunxho, who just dropped a sonically seductive two-track single, “Part of the Plan + Hold Me Down”, on September 27.
Mike Mettler  |  Sep 24, 2024  | 
Sadly lost to us in his prime at only age 21 in 2019, Chicago-bred emo rapper Juice WRLD at least left behind a wealth of unreleased material—and his estate’s latest official offering is a two-track stunner, The Pre-Party EP, now available as a Lossless option on Apple Music and via other digital platforms.
Mike Mettler  |  Sep 13, 2024  | 
LIL TECCA: “BAD TIME” IN ATMOS ON APPLE MUSIC

Queens rapper/producer Lil Tecca is back in a bad way with his upcoming fourth LP Plan A (which drops in full on September 20)—and one of its lead tracks, “Bad Time,” clearly sets the table for what’s to come, especially in its Atmos mix on Apple Music.

Mike Mettler  |  Aug 20, 2024  | 
Def Leppard was an ’80s anomaly. The band wasn’t exactly part of the decade-opening NWOBHM (a.k.a. New Wave Of British Heavy Metal) scene, nor was it entirely aligned with the androgynous, hair-sprayed looks and vibes of metal-adjacent contemporaries like Mötley Crüe and Poison. Instead, Def Leppard took inspiration from their own ’70s heroes, fusing glam-slam and pub-rock roots with power-pop harmonies and arena-rock guitar riffage. Stir it all together, and you get one of that decade’s biggest albums, January 1983’s Pyromania.
Mike Mettler  |  Jul 12, 2024  | 
In the summer of 1984, two ascending musical forces vaulted themselves into the megastar stratosphere on a parallel tract that would be virtually impossible to duplicate today. Bruce Springsteen upped his own iconography by touring stadiums in support of Born in the U.S.A., a perpetually catchy album whose underlying message actually served to tear down the tenets of the American mythos. At the same time, Prince and The Revolution dominated the charts with Purple Rain, the ostensible soundtrack to the low-budget box-office phenomenon of the same name that chronicled the rise of “The Kid” and his killer Minneapolis-bred band, despite their respective struggles with a myriad of mental and physical obstacles alike.

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