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 this month’s album reviews here and here.2hollisPirouetteWarnerNepo baby, abs lord, baby Trent, and murder twink—2hollis is easier to describe in passing phrases than to really know.The Los Angeles-based songwriter and producer has been celebrated as being at the “forefront of a new generation reshaping contemporary music,” but for some reason I’ve always found it easier to get a measure of his peers. There’s Yeat, who is in Fortnite; Nettspend, who looks like he’s 12 even though he’s shaved his head; and Fakemink, the “messy eater” who cuts his chicken with the wrong side of his knife without realizing. Even EsDeeKid, a masked-up “council house rat” who somehow managed to generate such a sense of mystique around himself that many of you actually thought he was Timothée fucking Chalamet, seems more readily identifiable.But 2hollis has attracted widespread adoration by performing the role of the artist as avatar in a cultural moment when the display picture has almost entirely eaten the face. And here, he’s leaning even further into this with 16 tracks about “love in its most beautiful, desperate, destructive, and tender forms” narrated by a “being named One.” You don’t have to know someone to be obsessed with them—in fact, it’s often easier if you don’t. And Pirouette might be the ultimate rush for the “limerence” generation, combining elements of noughties teenage wanking music (pop punk) with noughties teenage pinger music (EDM) to ask the most important timeless question: “Sex with me, aren’t you curious?”The record’s overwhelming energy reaches around into the production work, with promotional material teasing “project files reaching nearly three hundred tracks”—as if this were absolutely a good thing, though some will surely say it sounds like an ugly mess. Much depends on your own idea of romance and whether you’re more likely to find truth and beauty in thousands of stems or in the simple elegance of a single cut rose.Whoever you are, obsession will always lead to poor decisions. And it would be wrong to sign this off without mentioning the sleeve by Final Fantasy illustrator Yoshitaka Amano, which looks like something I might draw on a cocktail napkin to impress a woman at the bar after telling her, “Yes, actually, I’m a really talented artist,” before going home alone to pass out in a pool of my own vomit as I dream of one day being known.8/10CLOUT STRIFEU2Carnaval de LuzIsland RecordsThese guys used to be truly ahead of the times when it came to using technology to torment the public with their tedious anthems. And in a way, it’s a shame that they were so stung by the backlash to the non-consensual iTunesing of 2014’s Songs of Innocence that they’ve effectively given up on this kind of experiment, because I’d like to see what the modern equivalent of an album-rollout-as-computer-virus promotional campaign would be. If they’d incorporated AI and crypto into the marketing of these torpid new tracks, then it might’ve provided a brief distraction from the prospect of losing your life savings in a machine-enhanced super-hacker honeytrap, which now seems so grimly inevitable that there’s really nothing else to do but spend your days quietly gooning. But wait, why have all the e-girls started to sing, joining together in a Christian rock symphony? And now I see that, with their red glasses and their goatees, each and every one of them has the face of Bono.4/10CARNAVAL DE LOLZBlackhaineSaints In The WethouseXL RecordingsThey’re making Ye for Gen Z now. English musician and choreographer Blackhaine says he always knew he’d work with his hero, and as videos show, when they danced together during a performance of “On Sight”, it was, quite literally, a moment of one artist looking across at another. So on this bleak and raucous debut album, it’s no surprise to see Tom Heyes borrow some of Yeezy’s best moves. But he always makes them his own, like on “Consumer”, when his inimitable Lancashire patois faces off with the repitched Jamaican vocal chop. And with the hype machine production of Wraith9, this record takes industrial rap to heights barely heard since 2013. Yes, that’s right—we might have just found a genuine Zeezus.10/10808S AND BACK ACHETrentemøllerTrentemøllerIn My RoomWhile the rest of us like to have a good sing, I wonder if Anders Trentemøller plays his synths in the shower instead? Because although he’s been at it since the 1990s, this serene, washed-out record is the Danish musician’s first with vocals on every track. To mark the occasion, he’s gathered together some of the best singers he knows into a kind of echoing, communal bath of voices. And maybe the most impressive thing here is that, despite their different styles and tones, they kind of cohere into one tender warble across these ten tracks. Surely, Trentemøller is now looking back at his career and thinking there should’ve been more singing all along? Oh well, what’s a terrible loss for ringtones is certainly humanity’s gain.9/10LYDIA KEYTÁRVarious Artists20th Century Paddy—The Songs of Shane MacGowanRubyworksIf you can hear what sounds like radio static seeping through from the other side, then don’t be alarmed—it’s just Shane MacGowan having a good laugh while listening to this one in some wooden-paneled snug, out there in the great beyond. This 36-track cover record pays tribute to The Pogues frontman—one of the greatest lyricists and biggest cautionary tales of the 20th century. While the flow of his pen was ultimately washed away by streams of whiskey, this compilation bottles his immortal words, with plenty moments of tragedy and farce along the way. The ultimate punchline is that his many storied fans—from Bruce Springsteen to Tom Waits, Jessie Buckley to Johnny Depp, and even good old Kate Moss—are completely overshadowed by the haunting transcendence of Lisa O’Neill and her take on “Dark Streets of London”. Surely Shane would raise a glass to that. He probably shouldn’t, but it’s a little late for moderation now. Sláinte.6/10BRENDAN PEE STAINFollow Adam on Instagram @yungtolstoiThe post VICE Album Reviews, November 13: 2hollis, U2, Blackhaine, and More appeared first on VICE.