Album Reviews

Album: Evermotion
Artist: Guster
Release Date: January 13, 2015
Label: Ocho Mule/Nettwerk Records
Genre: Alternative Rock/Indie Rock

Evermotion is Guster’s seventh studio album, and their first in a little over four years.

Guster’s Evermotion is an extremely cohesive album, each song seems to flow into the next (if one were to listen to them altogether). However, this doesn’t do the songs any justice. Guster is seven albums in, they know what they’re doing, but it feels like they’re pouring creative ideas into a mold that washes away the personality from any of their songs on the album. There is not a single bad track on this album, but only a handful of standout ones, and you really have to listen for them, or else you’ll get sucked into the album, only returning when the album is over and you say, “that was nice.”

The really sad thing, as I said before, is that every song is better than okay, some are even great songs, but the album feels like watery. You stick your head under for a while and then resurface.

Great tracks: “Doin’ It by Myself,” “Simple Machine,” “Kid Dreams,” “It Is Just What It Is”
Not-so-great tracks: None

FINAL RATING: 6.5/10

Album: B-Room
Artist: Dr. Dog
Release Date: October 1, 2013
Label: ANTI-
Genre: Indie rock/Blues rock/Neo-psychedelia

B-Room is the eight album by Dr. Dog. I don’t really know anything about the band except that I’ve heard of them before. Time to listen!

The album begins with “The Truth,” which is a very nice song to hang out to. It’s like something you’d listen to getting high with your friends, if that’s what you’re into. But it’s not exclusively that, it’s just a very “chill-out” track. Right now, it’s helping me calm down for an exam I have later this week. It’s like I don’t have a care in the world right now. The song has movement throughout and keeps your attention while it simultaneously allows you to totally ignore it while listening. This quickly fades into “Broken Heart,” which is a bit louder, and by the refrain sounds an awful lot like Animal Collective, but less electronic. The vocals are bouncing around playfully while the music keeps it steady. The short guitar solo is a nice little bit. That coupled with the outro’s chants make this a very good song.

Next is “Minding the Usher,” which uses an unusual chord progression in the guitar. The track kind of swells in a very slow way throughout its length. It starts off soft, then grows louder and then drops again. The bridge of this song is also really interesting, just soft little muffled stabs while the singer says “on and on and on…” Then, “Distant Light” starts off in a marching band like way, and the song sounds sort-of anthemic. If “Broken Heart” was the neo-psychedelia, this track is the blues rock. It’s very different from the other tracks on the album and I really appreciate that on this album, because they’re not all too different genres. And it sounds good! There’s no way around that fact.

“Phenomenon” creates this indie-rock-meets-farm sound that sounds extremely unique. This sound is very delicate and I’ll be very upset if they use it again on the album, because it has to be something used all on it’s own. The song’s strings are very well orchestrated, and it’s nice to see that they’re mostly played by real musicians and not just electronic instruments. After that it’s “Too Weak to Ramble,” which is another bluesy track, but less rock than the past one. The singer in this song sounds as though he really suffered the struggles of the old blues singers, and it’s a little sad to listen to, because this sound is created so effectively and so honestly that it’s totally believable. I’d be upset if I learned that these lyrics meant nothing and he was just trying to create a sound. I love this song.

“Long Way Down” is very interesting. It’s a true indie rock track and very difficult to describe. It makes me want to move and bop around. It’s guitar work is very cool, as well as it’s use of horns. The drums keep the beat while adding its own fills that are actually audible and good! The singing and lyrics are both great and the track makes me feel good. The next song, “Cuckoo,” goes back into that bluesy sound- this time more Black Keys than White Stripes. The sound is a bit dreary in this track, but that’s not bad, especially because, you know, it’s a blues song. The song forces me to tap my foot to the beat. It’s use of keys adds a nice old-school vibe to such a new cool song.

The song fades right into “Twilight,” which starts with a nice theremin that could have been part of the Titanic soundtrack, and then becomes a very strange piece that sounds straight out of a David Lynch movie. I really like this track, but my issue with it is that this is the track where I suddenly realize that this whole album is not cohesive. This is 12 different bands playing 12 different songs, like a compilation record of a music label. In terms of this song, it’s very cool, very eerie and interesting enough to be one of my favorites. Then, with no transition, “Rock & Roll” starts, which is very old-school sounding. It’s a great recounting of the artist’s past (if it actually happened, but either way, it’s a great story), much like “Jukebox Hero.” It’s sexy, it’s angsty, and it’s awesome, but it sounds a bit derivative of older artists. Is he trying to emulate the older artists? Maybe. It wouldn’t surprise me.

“Love” is another song that sounds very derivative and totally different from the rest of the album. But damn, the band’s music makes it so hard for me to be mad at them. I LOVE this song. If you ever hear someone complain that they don’t make music like (insert old band here) anymore, show them this song, it should be able to silence them. It’s the Beatles. It’s beautiful.

The last track on the album is “Nellie,” is also really good. Yeah, yeah, you get it. It’s the lighter song (except that’s lame, don’t do that), it’s the slow clap song, it’s the sing-along song, shout with them “Oh Nellie!”

There’s not a single bad song off of this whole album, which is the qualification I have for giving a great score to an album. The problem is that in order to make each song great, they had to make an album that is not cohesive at all. They can be themselves without sacrificing their quality!

Great track: All of them
Not so great tracks: None

FINAL RATING: 9/10

Album: The 1975
Artist: The 1975
Release Date: September 2, 2013
Label: Dirty Hit/Polydor
Genre: Alternative rock/Indie rock/Electronic rock/Indie pop

The 1975 is the eponymous debut album by The 1975. Although the band has been around for 10 years, they first started gaining momentum this past one, where they released 4 EPs in preparation of this debut studio album. The English band suddenly blinked on the radar as something to watch and wait for. This album can be seen as the grand finale to the act that includes all of these short releases.

The album starts with the intro track “The 1975,” a more ethereal Imagine Dragons-like track that comes in and fades away quickly, leaving us wondering why they didn’t just fade into the next track. Surely it was not intended to be a full song on its own and it falls short of being an overture for the album since it does not quite reflect the album we are about to hear. Regardless, after the introduction, we come to “The City,” a song with an instantly catchy drum beat and fun, albeit “poppy,” sound. The track follows a very straightforward composition, a familiar one, and yet, they do not need to reinvent the wheel, they just have to decorate it to keep it interesting. This track accomplishes the decoration by adding smart production involving rewinds, an audible and catchy bass and drum track, and a very friendly and inviting guitar. A problem I have is with the sound of the keys, which make the track seem dated. Not in a nostalgic way, like a Smashing Pumpkins homage, but more like it should’ve been on British radio just under a decade ago. It’s not a big problem, it really only appears during the refrain, and it’s not even necessarily a “bad” thing, it’s just my opinion.

“M.O.N.E.Y”‘s instrumentation sounds like it’s ripped off of LSD: Dream Emulator (look it up), which is a great thing to hear, as I am a huge fan of the game and the soundtrack is a very strange and interesting companion piece. Even with the claps and vocals present, it still retains this sound, (especially with random sounds thrown in to the song). The song is the complete package that one looking for a great new indie rock band could want. The vocals sound like they were recorded a million times and they’re just echoing in your head. The beat gets inside of you and every strange, random thing thrown in there triggers an image in your head, almost like you ARE playing the aforementioned video game. Wah-wah guitars, extreme vocal production changes, everything that makes this song up is gold.

The next track is “Chocolate,” a song that may not be memorable amidst the relatively long track listing of this album. It sounds like they took the wheel I discussed before and just gave it to us again. If someone were to ever say, “that song sounds like a song by The 1975!” it would sound like this song. It’s catchy, but it’s meant to be, it doesn’t go anywhere except towards the end of the song. The last track (“M.O.N.E.Y.”) kept layering on top of itself and washed your brain, this one stays still. It’s not a bad song, nor is it a boring song, it’s a good one, but it sounds like I’m going to hear this track again later in the album with different words, and after everything is said and done, I won’t be able to tell you what this song sounded like if you pointed it out to me. After that track is “Sex,” a track that is about what do you think? The track is very enjoyable, with a guitar playing the same chord over and over again, but it energizes the track and moves the track forward- when it’s over, you feel as though it only lasted a minute. There’s a bridge with a sound that sounds like it comes out of a Killers track, and it’s wonderful and well-placed. The band is able to make their own sound over the course of this album, and with that, they make too many songs that sound alike, but then, all they have to do is change something subtly, and the song sounds very refreshing. This is a very refreshing track.

“Talk!” is next, a song that really establishes the band as an electronic group and makes the album one that is able to be dreamy, yet fun, pop, yet rock. It’s got a very electronic-like production, but it does it in a very unorthodox way, in the sense that the drums are very off-beat and the singing comes in at very abrupt and interesting ways. The song sounds like its stuck in a moment of time that keeps repeating itself, like the song loops itself, but it doesn’t. It sounds like a spiral, and I love that. This then follows into “An Encounter,” an interlude track that sounds like it came off an m83 album, but not as good. This band needs the human aspect of their electronic pursuits, because they can’t pull off just instrumental electronic. It then goes into “Heart Out,” which is one of those “The 1975” tracks I explained before, but this one is BETTER. This track would work perfectly as a single if they want to truly show off what they sound like. It’s also the most indie-sounding track off the album thus far.

“Settle Down” is the next track on the album. It’s very light-sounding, more human than many of the other tracks off the album. But at what cost? It’s kind of boring. Not enough is happening. Not really any emotion, and it doesn’t have enough music to it, it’s too redundant for a song that sounds like it’s trying to really say something as opposed to “Talk!” which was repetitive, but was allowed to be because it didn’t really say anything except “Why ya talk so loud?” “Settle Down” fades directly into “Robbers,” a mellower track that in contrast to “Settle Down” has much more emotion, and the translation of that emotion is successful. It tells a story that is all too familiar in the realm of songwriting, but the singer begs “Let’s give it one more try,” and you care about the response to this cry. When he belts out his heart near the end of the song, it’s dramatic and wonderful and I see the woman he cares about standing outside in the rain, and I want him to run after her and give her a jacket and take her upstairs.

This is followed by “Girls,” one of the singles off the album, which I find to be oddly placed after the emotional and great previous track. This one sounds more like a boy-band track sung by one person. It’s like they intended to release this track for the sole purpose of drawing attention to the band, and I disrespect that. I thought the band was better than that; the lyrics and meaningless “happy” guitar sounds are quite stupid. This goes into “1:20,” another meaningless interlude on an album that I question its importance on. This album would be unchanged without these electronic interludes. Either way, the next track is “She Way Out,” another more poppy track, but not as dumb as “Girls,” in fact, it’s another “The 1975” track, yet it doesn’t really have any substance. It’s doesn’t have smart instrumentation, yet it does have structure and movement.

“Menswear” is a track that ebbs and flows like an electronic pop ocean for the first half, and it does it in a very smart way, and I’m actually surprised considering the earlier instrumental tracks. I wouldn’t have minded if the whole track was a continuation of that. But even so, the addition of the vocals and the rest of the band act as a kind of expansion to the track as it was. The only issue is, the song feels totally incomplete WITH the lyrics. The song should have had no words, more words, or another two minutes of no words at the end. The way they made it didn’t feel like a finished product. Then it’s “Pressure,” a nice pop song with a catchy hook that works as a song with nothing particularly special about it. It’s another good song that may not be remembered except for the fact that it was near the end of the album. Speaking of, the final track of the album, “Is There Somebody Who Can Watch You,” is a slow piano melody, a seemingly traditional thing to do (I’m not complaining!). For me, it’s hard to criticize these kinds of songs, and I don’t know how genuine the lyrics are to this person, but the way I hear it and the way he sings it is emotional and wonderful and although not fitting to the context of the album, which was mostly upbeat, it works as a last track to this album filled with many songs.

The album overall feels very long, even though it’s under an hour, because it’s filled with songs that are repetitive and don’t stand out on their own. It’s like dead weight on the album. I know the band has been around for a while, but it still is an impressive debut album, especially because they’re able to make that “1975” sound. Every band wants their own sound and this one has it, shared with few others. But, I may have mentioned before but been unclear, this band is at its best when they DON’T stick to that sound. I like the risks they take, they’re usually worth the chance. I hope this band is able to really impress me in the future.

Best tracks: “M.O.N.E.Y.;” “Heart Out;” “Robbers;” “Sex”
Not so great tracks: “Girls;” “Settle Down;” all the interludes

FINAL RATING: 6/10