manta

★ 8.5

album

Bewitched: The Goddess Edition

Laufey

“Bewitched: The Goddess Edition is a perfect Laufey record. that’s not to say it’s a perfect record, or that it’s for everyone. in a way, she’s a student of the great artists of jazz that has come before her, and is clear about her intent to make her space among the jazz greats by covering standards like “Misty”, featured on this album. the unfortunate thing is a lot of the album does end up sounding like very traditional jazz. it’s only when you look/listen deeper and realise Laufey does a fantastic job of flipping the jazz genre we all know to modernise and update it for the 21st century. it’s a jazz album, but also TikTok friendly. give it a listen - if you like this one, i have a feeling Laufey might be your new favourite artist!”

★ 7.3

album

Ruby

JENNIE

“JENNIE really operates at her best on tracks like “start a war”, “Love Hangover”, “Seoul City” and “Filter”, where she’s slinking around a slow-burning beat. on the flipside, the bangers of the album (“ExtraL”, “with the IE (way up)”, “Mantra”, “ZEN” and the forever-earworm, singalongable and iconic “like JENNIE”) showcase a much edgier sound than she’s previously been able to accomplish. however, the album is let down by a few recurring faults. her use of profanity sounds extremely forced and unnatural, especially in “F.T.S” and the opening line of “like JENNIE” (something that stands out every time she performs it live). some of the repetition in certain tracks also jars, most notably in “Starlight”, “twin” and “Damn Right”. it’s also worth mentioning the collaborative tracks on the album and the sheer quality of the names featured on some of the tracks. Doechii hits every mark with superb precision on “ExtraL”, which makes it all the more mystifying why JENNIE would release a solo version of the song where Doechii’s absence would be quite noticeable. Kali Uchis and Childish Gambino’s talents are largely wasted on the fairly forgettable “Damn Right”, and there are definitely other tracks that would suit their voices better. Dominic Fike does a solid job on “Love Hangover”, and so does Dua Lipa with “Handlebars”. With Dua specifically, it would have been nice to get her on a more upbeat track though, as her own recent standouts have all been much more dynamic songs (think “Levitating”, “Illusion”, “Training Season” and “Physical”). overall, “Ruby” is a strong debut effort from the BLACKPINK vocalist, and probably the best one to showcase the talents of the artist out of the three BP members who released full-length LPs (excluding Jisoo on this, as her EP “AMORTAGE” only has 4 tracks and all occupy a similar musical space). the standouts hit higher than most of the BP solo work and the lowest points don’t fall too far below the others’ skips. def a repeat album.”