{"id":903866,"date":"2026-09-24T15:28:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T15:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/903866\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T15:28:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T15:28:22","slug":"album-reviews-of-miley-cyrus-bass-persuades-and-mike-nock-leah-berry-the-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/903866\/","title":{"rendered":"Album reviews of Miley Cyrus Bass Persuades and Mike Nock & Leah Berry The Gift"},"content":{"rendered":"

September 24, 2026 \u2014 8:33pm<\/p>\n

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\"OnOn Bass Persuades, Miley dips a toe into grimy club music, and worse.<\/p>\n

Miley, Bass Persuades<\/p>\n

\u2605\u2605<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about time Miley Cyrus was recognised as pop\u2019s prevailing kook. A veteran at 33, whose career peaked by the time she was 20, she\u2019s a cultural figure of the psychedelic \u201960s kind, the kind of pop star who definitely would\u2019ve written a song with Charles Manson.<\/p>\n

One day she\u2019s out here hosting a tacky TV special in Solid Gold sequins, the next she\u2019s inviting outr\u00e9 weirdos like Wayne Coyne or Ariel Pink or Harmony Korine into the studio to collaborate. With those bona fides, you\u2019d imagine you could play her albums backwards and summon Satan, but somehow they always just sound like ABBA cast-offs or Bruno Mars-style AM-soul. I don\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n

On Bass Persuades, she\u2019s dropped the last name and gone full club mode, enlisting indie provocateur Cole Haden of Model\/Actriz<\/a> as a partner-in-crime. His queer carnality and penchant for grinding distortion brings a daring touch to the (potentially) blasphemous Different Religion, Orbit and Innocent Ways. But in typical Miley fashion, it\u2019s mostly a wreck.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The titular single, with its faux-Gaga disco stomp, is an odd attempt at spurring a generation from its apathetic malaise, a sort of Kids in America for the post-monoculture era. But its limping melody and confounding lyrics (\u201cGhosts went to Bermuda \u2019cause there\u2019s no one to haunt\u201d) inspire less abandon and more furrowed brow.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s Neon Signs, which might actually be the worst song ever, a bizarre tilt at Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin\u2019s orgasmic Je T\u2019aime… Moi Non Plus, recorded with Oscar-winning Miike Snow singer-songwriter Andrew Wyatt<\/a>, who is 22 years Miley\u2019s senior. It is simply grotesque.<\/p>\n

\"MileyMiley Cyrus, pop\u2019s prevailing weirdo, follows her own muse \u2013 for better or worse \u2013 on her new album.<\/p>\n

And yet, somehow, it could be worse. At a time when Slovak breakout Adela<\/a> is crafting chart-toppers<\/a> with Cyrus\u2019 peak sound, you\u2019ve gotta admire Miley for sticking to her own weirdo wavelength. Someday, something good will come of it, surely? Robert Moran<\/p>\n

Mike Nock & Leah Berry, The Gift<\/p>\n

\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605<\/p>\n

An exquisite dichotomy exists between the sweetness of Leah Berry\u2019s voice and the worldliness of her words. \u201cI move slow,\u201d she tells us, \u201csince the last time I found warmth in your embrace.\u201d Yet, at the end, she\u2019s affirming, \u201cYou\u2019ll stay in my dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n

This complex love song about clinging to passionate memories is called The Gift, and the music was penned by pianist Mike Nock as a wistful instrumental. Berry sent her lyrics to Nock, and a collaboration was born. She set words to eight more tunes, and they also used Jo Lawry\u2019s lyrics to Nock\u2019s exotic Nata Lagal.<\/p>\n

\"MikeMike Nock and Leah Berry find a natural collaboration on The Gift.<\/p>\n

Embracing You is a variation on The Gift\u2019s lyrical content, this time about a glance, a smile, an affair, and another love that will live on post-fling, like a soul that\u2019s left its body. The terminated affair in Sunshowers sparks more overt bitterness, Dawn Bird is a poetic account of awakening in New Zealand\u2019s Haast Pass, and Thinking of You is a reverie about a parent.<\/p>\n

Nock, revelling in having words set to his music, responds with some of his most lavish lyricism, superbly supported by bassist Jonathan Zwartz and drummer Laurence Pike. John Shand<\/p>\n

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\"RobertRobert Moran<\/a> is Spectrum deputy editor at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email<\/a>.\"JohnJohn Shand<\/a> has written about music and theatre since 1981 in more than 30 publications, including for Fairfax Media since 1993. He is also a playwright, author, poet, librettist, drummer and winner of the 2017 Walkley Arts Journalism AwardConnect via X<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"September 24, 2026 \u2014 8:33pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":903867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134],"class_list":["post-903866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=903866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/903867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}