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 previous album reviews here and here.

Brandon Flowers 
Thrasher 
Island
Listen, if you’re going to call your album Thrasher, I expect at least one moment of shredding guitars, double-kick drums, and lyrics calling Jesus a prick. But we’re talking about the Mormon frontman from the Killers here, so this ain’t gonna be God Hates Us All. No, disappointingly, there’s not even a hint that anyone involved in this record is going to Hell—instead, Brandon Flowers’ third solo record draws heavily from his experiences growing up as a kid who was exposed to “both genres”: country and western.

As such, I feel short-changed. Imagine walking into a metal bar as some guy onstage tells a crowd of devil worshipers they’re in for 40 minutes of “honky-tonk ragers, highway rambles, and winsome ballads,” culminating in a song where he’s visited by Elvis Presley while driving a Tesla? Imagine growing up as a teetotal LDS kid wanting to be drugged-out, androgynous David Bowie; becoming a millionaire in your thirties and getting hit by a sudden thirst to be working-class hero Bruce Springsteen; then cosplaying as Johnny Cash as you turn 45, when all along, everyone has felt deep down that the one guy you most resemble is Tom Cruise?

And now I’m thinking that maybe the title refers to Brandon being thrashed by his own merciless self-image, as he throws punches at his reflection in the cover art, lost in a slam pit of one.

On the plus side, the song “Paradise” is a real toe-tapper.

5/10
MR. BLIGHTSIDE

Sam Smith 
Hazel Eyes
Capitol
The cover art for this sweetly indulgent set of love songs looks like it’s been put through a stinky brown Instagram filter, which makes the record easy to review, as the vibe is reminiscent of the time I went to an old-fashioned ball with my wife and knocked back 12 pints of Guinness—one, coincidentally, for every track on this album—and was overwhelmed by a need to void my bowels so intense, so desperate, that I could only peer into her hazel eyes and say “I’m sorry,” as I used part of her outfit to catch the treacly black mess. That’s right… it was an iron shit in a velvet glove. And if you don’t like this joke, I’m going to take it as yet more evidence for the slow creep of authoritarianism.

3/10
PAWGY AND BAES

Wild Pink
Still Coming Down
Fire Talk
On this wilfully grungey new Wild Pink record, John Ross sings, “I don’t know what my idea of fun is anymore,” capturing a little of the burnout neurosis that passes as entertainment in this, the year of our Lord, 2026. This track, “Round of Applause at the End of the World”, name-checks murdered politicians John and Robert Kennedy, and gunmen Sirhan Sirhan (“likely hypnotized”) and Jack Ruby (“a patsy killed a patsy”), wearily recounting these thrift-store conspiracy theories as though they’re the plotlines of old TV shows. The coarse, hazy storytelling later moves on to memed or maligned movies like Heat, Moneyball, and Waterworld (what I wouldn’t do for some gills right now), and it’s like you’re sinking cold ones at a dive bar that’s yet to be rehabilitated by Reels and slowly losing all sense of what does or doesn’t pass for history. And if you’ve got a better idea of fun than that, please let me know. 

8/10
THE COSTNER LIVING CRISIS

Black Marble
Life in Small Spaces
Sacred Bones
While making music as Black Marble, Chris Stewart spends his time hunched over machines “that warm to the touch when turned on”—well, same here, and no, I’m not talking about my trusty desktop computer. I’m talking about this hands-free, AI-synced, waterproof male masturbator. But where the New York multi-instrumentalist now has another record of yearning, swoony nostalgia pop to show for his efforts, I’ve got nothing but horrific chafing injuries. High-five, brother!

8/10
DEATH IN GOON

GB
Herzsprung
AD 93
With cut-up newspaper lyrics and live takes recorded on a 24-track tape machine, Danish experimental pop musician GB’s approach to songwriting is intriguing, as is the press photo of his smashed-up face after crashing his bike—actually a very difficult thing to do in his home city of Copenhagen, given it’s one big grid full of traffic lights, and a population of prissy little prefects who look at you like you’re Charles Manson if you cross the street without the green man’s permission. Oh how superior I saw myself, until I went out for a tebirkes listening to Herzsprung and was so mesmerized by the tumbling guitarwork I plowed my fixie straight through the window of a nearby natty wine place. So much for my new clean-girl aesthetic.

8/10
CARRIE BUZZSAW 

Follow Adam on Instagram @yungtolstoi

The post VICE Album Reviews, August 21: Brandon Flowers, Sam Smith, GB and More appeared first on VICE.

Welcome to RATED AND SLATED, the column that is terminally online so you don’t have to be.

So apparently there’s this new scientific study shows that online videos can mess with your brain, which is obviously nonsense:

brain-rot videos literally suppress activity in the parts of your brain responsible for cognitive control, the systems that help you resist impulses

fascinating

if used properly, short-form video seems almost perfectly designed as a cyberweapon: capture attention, weaken… https://t.co/v5yX7fBmRn pic.twitter.com/doYiEmFt1u

— vittorio (@IterIntellectus) August 18, 2026

I mean, who could possibly believe the suggestion that brainrot videos “literally suppress activity in the parts of your brain responsible for cognitive control, the systems that help you resist impulses?”

It’s not like I recently went to a music festival and, instead of enjoying Turnstile and Lorde, just held my mobile phone up in front of my face and watched videos of Tommy Lee playing bongos for a chimpanzee.

No, I also spent a significant amount of time with my headphones in, listening to ambient reimaginings of Limp Bizkit tracks.

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But none of this influenced my behavior negatively. It’s just a coincidence that I gorged myself on oysters and Chardonnay until I shit my pants and had to be hosed down while screaming about how “my body is a machine for turning natural wine into a natural disaster.”

Further research is clearly needed. Don’t worry nerds, I got you.

rated

HOW RAP BEEF SOUNDS WHEN YOU’RE 40

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If you’re rapidly hurtling towards your fourth decade in the doomed planet simulator, you might find this video funny. But whatever you do, don’t actually laugh at it. To our omnipotent, all-seeing machine overlords, the sound will be proof that you’re ready for the liquefaction process, whereby you’ll be reduced to a human lather they use to cool the servers.

“DANGER CAN”

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When I saw the footage of Hannah Einbinder talking about her favorite “dipping sauce,” I assumed, like everyone else, that she was simply trying to become a reaction GIF—now I wonder if she’s been playing “danger can” with her new podcast pals. After spending an evening smashing an entire six-pack against your frontal cortex, you might well find yourself drooling in front of a pot of ranch dressing, trying to work out how to operate a pizza crust.

TIME TO LOG OFF

https://t.co/xZFTZ4srpb pic.twitter.com/s8hWQP74Gh

— Enguerrand VII de Coucy (@ingelramdecoucy) August 17, 2026

They say you know you’ve been online too long when you mourn lost webpages like dead friends. I say now you know why I’ve been drinking 12 beers and crying in the street every night this week.

THE TOM WILLIS TALK SHOW

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London literary impresario Tom Willis is launching his own talk show, which means that surely it’s time for London’s version of Future Islands—Jimothy Lacoste—to have his own Letterman moment, growling around onstage like he’s possessed by the ghost of Martin Amis. For those of us haunted by the memory of a dead literary culture, life is getting quite exciting right now.

SKIPPING LEG DAY WITH GLENN DANZIG

Danzig's workouts are the most straight guy gymbro routine ever, I may replicate it some day for fun. Entirely ipper body, with training legs replaced by kicking a punching bag and occasional cardio, all inspired by Nietzsche and Arnold Schwarzenegger. https://t.co/gN6TjRt5WO pic.twitter.com/yimDGo6G0P

— AgNONsis (@aGnonSIS) August 18, 2026

Danzig is what, 5 foot 3 or something? So he’s probably not used to touching the ceiling very often. He’s skipping leg day, too, so he won’t be beating Clavicular’s record for the vertical jump anytime soon. Still, most manlets would probably be better off following his workout routine than taking advice from the famous monsters on TikTok and Kick. Look kid, the original Misfits are the only ones worth listening to.

slated

YE’S BEAUTIFUL DARK TWISTED RUSSIAN FANTASY

ALL OF THE LIGHTS pic.twitter.com/bhgVSggVy0

— ye (@kanyewest) August 17, 2026

With Ye announcing new tour dates in St. Petersburg, it’s good to see that he’s got his mobile air-defense system sorted out so no one will have to worry about drones when they’re “Putin their hands to the constellations.”

A TRILLION HUMANS IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM

Jeff Bezos on why he wants a trillion humans in the solar system

"I would love to see a trillion humans living in the solar system. If we had a trillion humans, we would have at any given time a 1,000 Mozarts and a 1,000 Einsteins"

"Our solar system would be full of life and… pic.twitter.com/EzgG77N4Pc

— Jaynit (@jaynitx) August 15, 2026

1,000 Mozarts and 1,000 Einsteins? Sounds like one of those Epic Warz videos with a Wolfgang Amadeus horde battling an army of Alberts to the death. Which side are you on, my friend? The piano-playing poo-joke man? Or the guy who nuked Japan?

BLOC PARTY’S UK POO BANGER

We’ve lived long enough to see Bloc Party turn into UK Poo pic.twitter.com/vNnN8snhlU

— Callum (@CaliJ98) August 17, 2026

H.R, you’re finally awake! You hit your head pretty hard while practicing that backflip. UK poo? Bloc Party? Kele Okereke sitting by the sea in his Bad Brains T-shirt singing about “Pigwig”? C’mon bro, get up, we’ve got to go on stage at CBGBs and inspire future generations of guitar bands to keep spreading that sweet P.M.A..

GOTH BADDIES

Holy shit pic.twitter.com/0F5yBJpbvo

— Crocodile Dungarees (@CrocodileDungri) August 13, 2026

We used to argue over whether the kids who shot up Columbine were or weren’t goths, now I’m sliding into the Twitch chat demanding that alt-girl streamers name me three Marilyn Manson songs. These days, it’s impossible to tell who’s shooting content for OnlyFans and who’s doing target practice in the woods.

AI LAPTOP OTTER ON A PLANE

rapid progress, yet I cannot name a single AI-generated video that has moved me and lingered in my memory as something honestly worth watching, nor even a single good adaptation of an existing work

at some point "rapid progress" in tech demos is insufficient. will there be art? https://t.co/wFqICO4RLC

— Jack (@tracewoodgrains) August 17, 2026

Can u imagine terrorists tryin to hijack a plane that the laptop otter was on? Box cutters vs cutest little remote worker on the planet? Game over, AI.

Follow Adam on Instagram @yungtolstoi

The post Rated and Slated: Things We Hate and Love Online This Week appeared first on VICE.

Careful: After watching our latest documentary about the Amazonian drug, kambo, you might start seeing frogs wherever you go.

Thinking about the poison, which is derived from giant monkey frogs, and then seeing the creatures dotted hither and thither as you go about your daily life would be taken by most people as a funny coincidence.

However, there are those to whom this is a clear sign that they need to dab their flesh with the venom and then vomit their guts into a bucket, in the name of a ceremonial ritual that supposedly cures almost any ailment (naturally, there’s no clinical evidence for these claims).

VICE’s Amber Rawlings has been meeting British kambo enthusiasts, who have been gathering in apartments, parks, nature reserves, and lay-bys across the suburbs to be “healed” by part-time shamans armed with venom sourced from Indigenous rainforest tribes.

Though this is not illegal in the UK, the stuff isn’t a licensed medicine. Earlier this year, a 40-year-old man died after reportedly taking part in a ceremony—one of a number of suspected fatalities around the world.

Amber first got interested in kambo while interviewing tripsitters, and although this isn’t a psychedelic, fans of the venom credit it with all kinds of powerful psychological benefits.

I gave her a call to find out a bit more about the documentary, which you can watch on YouTube now.

VICE: How did you stumble into this one?
Amber Bean Rawlings: Psychedelics can do a lot of good, but if you’re professionally into psychedelics, you’re probably gonna have a god complex. It’s funnier if someone’s got a god complex and they’re just some man you could find down the pub, but on the weekend he’s a shaman wearing a cloak. There’s something so funny about going into someone’s flat that’s meant to look spiritual, and it’s a throw from Urban Outfitters on the wall.

How would you describe the people involved in this?
Practitioners, it’s a spectrum from health and wellness to woo-woo. With the people doing it, there are health and wellness people, people who treat it a bit like a psychedelic, to whom it’s a really spiritual experience—people who probably rely too much on kambo. It also intersects with anti-pharmaceutical, anti-conventional medicine, kind of like, “Kambo’s the answer.”

How do you feel about the woo-woo side of it?
I don’t know if there’s anything actually spiritual going on. If you’re sick enough, you’re going to feel quite euphoric. You’ve fasted for 16 hours and you vomit loads, someone’s blowing sage around and there’s tribal music on—if this was in the jungle, I’d be well into it.

Did you feel awkward sitting around watching these people vomit?
I’ve had some awful hangovers in my time where I’ve vomited 30 times in a day. So I don’t mind the vomit that much. Whatever—it’s not vomit, vomit. It’s just the water they’ve drunk. It’s not like seeing someone chunder up a McDonald’s.

Any weird shit you didn’t include?
We did a whole other session with two older ladies that we didn’t have time for in the documentary. One really cried when she took the kambo, and I found it quite moving and had a little tear myself. I was like, “Maybe my mom should do kambo.”

What’s behind the popularity of kambo in the suburbs?
A lot of people are disillusioned with conventional medicine, probably somewhat due to misinformation. People are able to promote kambo through social media and make it look like this sleek package. There’s no regulation around saying, “This is going to heal you and help addiction issues.”

“It’s not like seeing someone chunder up a McDonald’s”

I don’t know, the world’s a bit fucked, so maybe people are like, “Yeah, fuck it. I’ll do kambo. Why not?”

Where’s your thinking around regulation at the moment?
There probably should be. The people I met seemed well-intentioned. People are going to watch the documentary and think they’re grifters, but if you actually chat with them and hear about how kambo changed their life, I’m kind of like, “There’s worse things going on.”

Did making the documentary change your perspective on kambo then?
It hasn’t made me want to do it. I’m happy for other people to do it. Fill your boots, but I’ve been sick enough in my life. 

You don’t want that kambo glow?
During all the ceremonies, there’s a point where they’re all gray—the color of their face changes, and it’s really freaky. Then they have a little sleep, and like 20 minutes later they look amazing. So I don’t know, maybe I can make it part of my routine, like going to the sauna. I don’t think I’d be doing it for a spiritual epiphany. It would just be to see how skinny I can get.

Since doing the documentary, have you been seeing any frogs around?
I don’t think I’ve seen a single frog, and to be brutally honest, I don’t think I will. But maybe it will happen, and then I will find myself in Preston by the motorway, vomiting up my demons and shitting everywhere.

Follow Amber on Instagram @amberawlings

The post Kambo, the Frog Venom Making Suburbanites Puke Their Guts Out appeared first on VICE.

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