8
Bar/None Records
Producers: Chad R. Matheny, Adam Lasus
General disillusionment with religion, democracy, and the whole damn thing has never sounded more like a genial cigarette passed under a porchlight than in Emperor X’s 10th album. Despite his characteristic twinkling strings and fervent pacing, the record resists genre in yet another eccentric and stylized take on something like folk-ish melded to midwestern emo, a mix of Passion Pit’s lyricism, and Modern Baseball’s delivery. It’s difficult to divine where the album is headed, but listeners are guided by a deceptively simple yet impressive adherence to rhyme and dissatisfaction.
