ALBUM REVIEWS
The ‘acknowledgements’ section of Dolly Parton’s fabulous 1994 autobiography My Life and Other Unfinished Business runs to 10 whole pages, each one consisting of two neat columns. Among the hundreds of lucky folks included are “all my lovers and sweethearts” and – as if her place in Heaven weren’t assured – “all airline personnel”. The Queen of Country radiates positivity and gratitude.
Yet when she was invited into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last year, Dolly initially declined, explaining: “I don’t feel that I have earned that right… This has, however, inspired me to put out a hopefully great rock’n’roll album at some point in the future, which I have always wanted to do!” She thankfully had a change of heart and ripped it up at the hallowed Hall’s ceremony, slamming on a jewel-encrusted guitar and belting out beefy new tune ‘Rockin’’.
Now here’s the album itself: a whopping 30 rhinestone rockers. Dolly’s long been celebrated for her knack of bringing people together and the tracklist, which features nine originals amid covers of enormous anthems, groans with big-name collaborators. The surviving Beatles join a bombastic ‘Let It Be’, for God’s sake, proving that their tasteful ‘final’ single ‘Now and Then’ wasn’t the last word after all. Elsewhere, Dolly’s goddaughter Miley Cyrus helps to reimagine ‘Wrecking Ball’ as an ‘80s rock ballad.
So Dolly’s rock’n’roll pantheon is a broad church, with room for both The Police’s new-wave softie ‘Every Breath You Take’ (yes, Sting naturally turns up) and a jumbo-sized ‘We Are the Champions’. Her inclusiveness has drawn some heat lately, given that the unpleasant Kid Rock appears on the cocksure ‘Either Or’, a fact she’s defended with natural bonhomie: “I don’t condemn or criticise. I just accept and love.” Lizzo’s admittedly gorgeous flute trilling on ‘Stairway to Heaven’, meanwhile, must have seemed like a better idea before she was mired in her own controversy.
Ultimately, though, this is an album epitomised by ‘I Dreamed About Elvis’, a goofy new track on which country star Ronnie McDowell warbles through a hokey impression of the titular icon. The real King once nearly covered her classic ‘I Will Always Love You’, but Dolly reluctantly blocked it for business reasons. Now, in a joyful act of wish fulfilment, she and the impersonator briefly slip into a duet of the song. Despite the odd unfortunate guest, ‘Rockstar’ is as bursting with life and positivity as the woman who made it.
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ALBUM REVIEWS
The leather jackets and skinny jeans worn by Noah Dillon and Chandler Ransom Lucy have become something of a signature, and the pair have hovered around the edges of the pop worlds in New York and Los Angeles for quite some time. First highlighted by NME during the Dimes Square resurgence in 2023, The Hellp have gradually stepped away from their earlier indie-sleaze imitation and leaned into something far more thoughtful. Their wild, neon-tinged party vibe has been traded for a more cinematic electronic approach that still holds onto a confident, self-aware attitude.
Dillon and Lucy started releasing music as The Hellp in 2016, with early mixtapes rooted in the chaotic nights and carefree behaviour once associated with NYC’s indie-sleaze staples like LCD Soundsystem and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Over time, though, they’ve earned a steadily growing respect from critics. That rise has come through both their underground gigs, which have included a show at London’s Corsica Studios with Fakemink as support, and through Dillon’s expanding visual work that recently reached Rosalía’s ‘LUX’ album and a pair of music videos for 2hollis.
As ‘Riviera’ approached release, the duo shared: “We knew our next project would need to be a bit more mature… we refuse to become stagnant. ‘Riviera’ is more solemn, restrained and impassioned than anything we’ve done before.” The finished album feels like Dillon and Lucy carefully balancing identity and openness, theatricality and direct emotion.
The lead release, ‘Country Road’, carries a late-night heaviness, the kind of confession you would quietly tell a friend in a club’s smoking area. Its lonely tone is surrounded by glitching electronics and a rising bridge that points to the exhaustion that follows endless nights out. Tracks like ‘New Wave America’ and ‘Cortt’ deepen what the duo mention in their liner notes as a “desperate story of the disparate Americana.” Both pieces broaden the album’s emotional landscape and offer clear-eyed commentary on reluctantly stepping into adulthood.
When ‘Riviera’ shifts into ‘Doppler’, the tone brightens for a moment as hopeful synths lift Dillon’s words about yearning and heartbreak into an emotional peak. And in the final moments of the record, The Hellp land on something instantly familiar to anyone who has drifted away from the club scene. The Kavinsky-like opening of ‘Here I Am’ nods to their early inspirations, while the closing track ‘Live Forever’ arrives with a slow, grounded maturity, built around Dillon repeating the line: “I don’t want to live forever.”
‘Riviera’ holds far less disorder than The Hellp’s earlier releases. This turn inward marks an important risk for a duo once fuelled by the momentum of a downtown New York comeback. By easing off the frenzy, The Hellp have stepped out of the party’s lingering haze and returned with a style that feels more refined and more aware of itself than anything they have created before.
