Music journalism is going to the wall, and places for sensible, well-informed, nuanced takes on the latest releases are dwindling. So we thought we might as well put the final nail in the coffin.Read last month’s album reviews here, here, here and here.Kyle GordonKyle Gordon Is EverywhereBMGIf you’re someone who has never had a single laugh in their life, then you might say something boring like “Satire is meant to ridicule power!” But the targets in many of Kyle Gordon’s parodies achieved massive popularity precisely because they never took themselves all that seriously—nu metal and pop punk were defined by band names, lyrical couplets, song titles, and album artwork that make the pseudonyms from this review section look positively intelligent. Here, the ridicule is a form of fan service, a comforting reminder of a time when men in giant shorts danced around on top of the World Trade Center and you could run naked through the streets of Los Angeles without losing your job.Judging the past by the standards of today is one of our main online pastimes, so “If You Break Up With Me”, a perfectly off-key take on ’90s alt-rock’s “toxic” romantic sensibilities, was always going to cut through with crate-digging TikTokers, as well as self-hating millennials and gleefully uncanceled Gen Xers keen to ridicule themselves back into relevance. But after being bombarded with clips of the music industry’s new number-one funnyman, you might find yourself missing many of the bands he’s mocking and longing for a time when artists got popular in the old-fashioned way (by signing deals with major labels with massive marketing budgets for radio time, festival slots, magazine coverage, and hiring porn stars for their music videos).Perhaps I’m a killjoy, but if a song begins its life as a joke then you’ve lost me before I even smash play. This is why comedy music has the unfortunate distinction of being both the worst-sounding and least funny of all the genres. Gordon is a particular affront, as his carefully composed songs are lovingly produced and shot through with smart observations, suggesting the New York-based parody artist is trying very hard, actually, to make the kind of irresistibly bad music you spent the 2000s stealing on Limewire. It could almost qualify as comic relief if it wasn’t so relentlessly pushed at me through the screen of my iPhone, this mirthless death box via which I receive second-by-second updates about the parlous state of humanity.5/10WEIRD AL SHABAABQuavoQRÖMELIFEQuality ControlIt’s unfortunate, really, that less than a month before the release date for his new record, Quavo miraculously became the subject of a viral AI trend after an X account with fewer than 500 followers swapped a pair of cats into a video of the Georgia rapper performing alongside his late nephew Takeoff (tragically shot dead four years ago). Because after witnessing every conceivable combination of person copy and pasted into the “Hotel Lobby” video, I really want nothing more to do with any Migos-related content. But QRÖMELIFE is actually fairly deserving of your attention: sleek, hydraulic hip-hop with a stoic chassis, animated by the tension between two selves occupying a single frame, bouncing between “keeping it player” and “keeping my emotions in” after unimaginable personal tragedy. So it appears that now, after all these memes, I’m finding Quavo suddenly relatable. Can someone who is good at computers get my manic highs behind a mic with my depressive lows to spit some bars?6/10JUNG RICH NATIONDexter and The MoonrocksFriends That I Don’t LikeSeverance Records/Big Loud RockLook, “Dexter,” you might not like your friends, but they must hate you. The debut record from this TikTok-friendly Texan four-piece is like being locked in a truck and driven from one side of the Lone Star State to the other with a nonstop soundtrack of Staind, Puddle of Mudd, and Nickelback for company, and nothing to eat but Cheez-Its. It doesn’t take much “western space grunge” to start plotting murder from the passenger seat. After faking a medical episode to make the car stop on the side of Route 1, I’m now going to need you to fuck off into this arid, moonlike landscape before I smash you in the head with this big old rock.2/10CHUD KROEGERSwansNewly Sentient BeingYoung God/MuteSo I was just kicking back in the womb, enjoying another day of floating around in amniotic fluid, listening to the muffled sounds outside, when I became aware of this crack of light, which began to widen, burning ever more brightly, until I was drawn toward it, a giant hand pulling me away from all I’d ever known, dragging me out into a white room filled with dreadful screaming. And soon I realized that this was me. “He sounds exactly like this fantastic new Swans album; a live recording from their final ‘Big Sound’ performance,” the doctor said. “Oh, and by the way, it’s a boy.” Welcome to the world, the fun has only just begun.8/10DOULA BILLGreg FreemanAll Set the BoneTransgressiveIt has come to my attention that I have offended the line cook community with my comments about their hideous, god-awful taste (see: “co-worker music”). I can happily confirm that at least one member of the kitchen staff of the United States has a passable record collection. Greg Freeman quit the odd jobs to work on this sprawling, often melancholy double record, a deep-fried slab of jaded Americana that asks, “is your life just appetites or / a menu with no way to order”—a question that’s not easy to answer regardless of whether or not you still work in hospitality. So come now, my cheffing brothers—you are my people! Let’s fire up the flat-top, stick on All Set the Bone, and spit in the onion rings together.6/10PETE MUPPETSpike Fuckevidence Sacred BonesWhy would you listen to AI music when you could stick on a record with an origin story involving addiction and recovery, abandoned monastic training, and detransitioning after years of living as a woman? This is what Spike Fuck has been doing in the ten years between his first EP (Smackwave) and this debut record, which, at eight tracks long, is a desultory epic in miniature, inspired by Bettye Swann and Pere Ubu, as well as The Anarchist Cookbook. That last influence at first seems kind of unexpected but is actually kind of fitting because, though an LLM doesn’t know the first thing about sacrifice or pain, it will give you perfect instructions for how to make weapons if you ask it nicely enough.9/10MOLOTOV COCKRINGFat DogCancel Me (I’m Tired)DominoI’ve tried to tell the world that I’m the second coming of Jesus, but no one cares enough to even try to cancel me. The evidence is all there—for a start, I’m 4′3″, just like the Messiah was, at least according to the title track of Fat Dog’s raucous, unholy sophomore record. It’s hard work being a manlet, and I was exhausted even before being confronted with graceless lyrics about performing “miracles like turning twelve pints into chunder.” Nonetheless, I’m always happy to do my party trick—turning all that vomit back into wine—but unfortunately, I suspect that getting Fat Dog to clean up their act might be beyond even my powers.6/10ST. PUKEGarefowlThings That VanishAD93The last thing I want to do is sully this meticulously conceived concept album by relatives of one of the men who killed the last great auk, which combines traditional folk music and processed field recordings from St. Kilda (as well as drones created using X-rays of rock or bone samples collected from the island) and engages with their complicated family history, inspired by a story from 1840 when a rare, flightless seabird was stoned to death during a storm by islanders convinced it was “a maelstrom-conjuring witch,” so I’ll refrain from making a joke about putting my dick in the last garefowl.7/10RICHARD GEARRABHALRAPNavigatorJolly DiscsI was on the way home to write about the entrancing new record from DIY duo RAP, driving through London’s glistening nighttime streets, when I started to feel myself falling asleep at the wheel, so I pulled over at the 24-hour offie to buy a can of Barr and a packet of Scampi Fries. Somewhere along the way, however, a wormhole must have opened up, because I was unwittingly sucked straight into this moody, hypnagogic underworld of red-eyed dub parties, random smoking-area poetry, and bleary video game sessions with the curtains drawn. By the time I made it back to my old Ford Fiesta, it was covered in parking tickets, and this review was more than a month late. God knows what would’ve happened if I’d taken the night bus.7/10ROOTS MANUREFollow Adam on Instagram @yungtolstoiThe post VICE Album Reviews, October 2: Kyle Gordon, Quavo, Dexter and The Moonrocks, and More appeared first on VICE.