Category: Review

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Album Review: Knox Fortune – Stock Child Wonder

Album: Stock Child Wonder Artist: Knox Fortune Year: 2020

Kevin Rhomberg or Knox Fortune is a vocalist and producer from Chicago, Illinois. Rhomberg was born and raised on the west side of Oak Park, Illinois and took piano lessons when he was young. This allowed him to have an interest in music production at an early age and after he graduated from Oak Park and River Forest High School, he took classes at Triton College in River Grove, Illinois for music production, which would then jumpstart his career as a producer.

Including producing tracks for rappers such as Joey Purp, Kami, Towkio, and Vic Mensa, he also supplied a guest vocal on Chance the Rapper’s Coloring Book track “All Night”, which would get him noticed ten-fold and had people on the edge of their seats, looking for a full project by him for months to come.

Luckily for fans of his work, his debut solo studio album, ‘Paradise’, was released in 2017 to decent reviews, all around the seven out of range. Rhomberg would then go almost radio silent until July of 2020, where he would begin releasing singles for his next album, ‘Stick Child Wonder’, the topic of this review.

Knox Fortune’s album is one that describes a venture into love, wanting, and self-expression. The first two tracks ‘Just Enough’ and ‘Come Over’ discuss how much Rhomberg just wants this girl he’s romantically involved with and how he just wants her to come over and visit him because he misses her so much.

The following track ‘Sincerity’ discusses that the relationship he’s in despite being something Knox wants, may not be as sincere as it once was, and thus causing him to become even more introspective.

He then realizes over ‘Compromise’ and ‘Gemini’ that maybe their relationship isn’t as bad as he once thought, and maybe could just use some work. The song ‘Change Up’ describes just that feeling, and the following song ‘Morning Lights’ describes how after all the fixes they go through Rhomberg never wanted to become someone he wasn’t around his partner.

Finally, ‘Static’, describes how his brains felt when he was without her, ‘Shirtless’ and ‘Hideout’ describe both a renewed sexual fondness for each other and the want to run away or ‘hide out’, and the last track ‘Always’ simply ends the album saying how much Knox will ‘always’ love his partner, through thick and thin…no matter what.

As I said previously this album is one of love, wanting, and self-expression, but also one of lost and found love…the process of wanting, and the self-expression that comes with being in that lost and found whirlpool. ‘Stock Child Wonder’ is great for anyone looking for a chill, indie ride through a love story chronicled, and I think you should definitely give it a listen.

Stock Child Wonder gets an 8/10

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Album Review: JAWNY – For Abby

Album: For Abby Artist: JAWNY Year: 2020

Jacob Lee-Nicholas Sullenger also known as JAWNY (formerly Johnny Utah), is a singer, songwriter, and producer who was first recognized after the release of his 2019 single, ‘Honeypie’, and was signed to Interscope Records in January 2020. He made his major-label debut with the mixtape For Abby, in late October 2020.

At age 20, Sullenger moved to Philadelphia, PA where he started to make music under the name of ‘Johnny Utah’. This pseudonym was a reference to Keanu Reeves’ ‘Point Break’ character. In January 2018, he released his first self-titled EP, following that he released several more singles in 2018 as well, such as ‘Folding Like Honey’, ‘PATTY’, and ‘Crazy for Your Love’. His songs are often considered ‘bedroom pop’, a genre defined within the current trends of Gen-Z music that often embodies very low-fidelity production with high emotional input that results in a great cohesive output. That following November his loose singles were compiled into a second EP called ‘Big Dogs’. One song in particular from that EP, ‘Really Meant’, even showed up in the soundtrack to an episode of the HBO show, ‘High Maintenance’.

In April 2019, Jacob released his biggest single yet, “Honeypie”. This single would be featured on some of Spotify’s biggest new indie playlists and would give Sullenger a well-deserved boost. The exposure that followed would gain the artist millions of streams trafficked to his Spotify page. Sullinger then signed to Interscope Records in January 2020 and changed his stage name to JAWNY within that month as well. His next step was to then move to Los Angeles and in February 2020, he released another single, “Anything You Want”. This was all we heard from Jacob until he released his debut project, ‘For Abby’, in October 2020. JAWNY states that this EP is more of a mixtape than an EP, and reasonably so, as you’ll see below.

JAWNY starts the album with ‘Intro’ which sounds like one partner longing for another on the first track of a ’90s retro mixtape. He describes how much he longs for his long-lost partner, trying to remind her of all the wonderful things they had in their relationship together… seemingly to no avail. This frames the album and its melancholy lost love theme structure, however… It’s very much juxtaposed by some of the very upbeat hip hop beats that JAWNY decides to sprinkle in underneath his lyrics.

The song following that, ‘Sabotage’ describes JAWNY’s end of relationship with his partner. It’s on the fact that he knows he was the one who messed up, quoting that he got drunk on a bus ride home from seeing his girlfriend… they had the second of two last fights in their kitchen, which caused their breakup. He later goes on to express more so how he feels like he sabotaged his own relationship, even goes as far as to say that all he had to do was say sorry… he just felt like he couldn’t at the time.

The following two songs, ‘Super Bad Mantra’ and ‘You Got a Man’, describe how JAWNY both misses his partner who was \someone who he always had their best of times with. Someone who matched his excitement level and his energy and no matter what he feels like no one else could ever match that, but then goes on to despise her. In the next track as even though he tries to get her back by spending money on her, he realizes that his efforts are fruitless because she’s already moved on and gotten another man, and JAWNY simply doesn’t want to ruin that.

On the next song, ‘Trigger of Love’, JAWNY describes his multitude of exes that all somehow managed to pull a figurative trigger on him almost leaving JAWNY feeling trapped in relationships where he may have at first felt comfortable. I believe it’s only to be assumed but JAWNY also refers to as most recent ex-girlfriend, the one this album refers to, despite him endlessly wanting her back.

Approaching the second half of this album, JAWNY plays off of how much he misses his ex-girlfriend even more so by penning a ballad ‘When I Fall Apart’ describing these feelings and further detail. Following this, is the song ‘4TOunce’, a play on words ‘forty ounce’, which details the fact that JAWNY would often get extremely drunk extremely late into the night and try and contact his ex-girlfriend… However, all she wanted was to be the one that he still loved the same way and gave the same attention to while he was sober. I find this song extremely harrowing since I feel like it comes from a very real place in JAWNY’s internal sorrow.

In the title track for this album JAWNY turns a sad dreamy ballad into an electropop tell-all of his feelings and the lengths he would be willing to go to help Abby and make her feel as comfortable as possible in her relationship. Well lyrically, I believe that this is one of the most direct songs when it comes to its purpose and meaning, sonically I believe that this is one of the best songs on the album.

The next song, ‘Coloring’ describes JAWNY as children who are partaking in his favorite pastime, coloring… He then also envisions Abby approaching him completely non-judgmental in joining him in the past time, bringing the two of them closer. I believe this very well could allude to the fact that JAWNY wishes two of them could have become closer sooner, or had built a stronger relationship sooner, so that their relationship may have lasted longer. The song ends with JAWNY cutting off the figurative mixtape as album takes place on, except for one last song but he says he knew was Abby’s favorite.

This last song, titled “Honeypie” is a funk-driven juxtaposition to the rest of the album. Originally written as a single under his ‘Johnny Utah’ pseudonym, this song outlines what is presumably JAWNY and Abby’s relationship at the very beginning. As JAWNY describes a lot of the first feelings one might feel during the first stages of one’s relationship he describes many feelings of immense intrigue and incredible infatuation. Not only this, JAWNY mentions throughout the song about how able and ready he’d be to settle down with Abby and meet her family. I think this is a great juxtaposition to the rest of the album, as it really gives us perspective into the start and end of a once succeeding, and then failing relationship.

Overall, this 25-minute tape features a lot of fresh sounds, and relatable lyrics that anyone who is a fan of bedroom-pop, college hip-hop, or even new alternative would find interesting.

For Abby gets a 9/10

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Album Review: Half Alive – Now, Not Yet

Album: Now, Not Yet Artist: Half Alive Year: 2019

Half Alive is an altermative band hailing from Long Beach, California. Lead singer Josh Taylor formed the band with his friends, percussionist Brett Kramer and J Tyler Johnson, a bassist in 2016. The band is best famous the single “Still Feel” and its music video. Their initial EP, 3, was released out to the world in 2017. Their debut studio album, ‘Now, Not Yet’, then dropping on the ninth of August, 2019.

On August 3, 2018, the band released a single called “Still Feel”, accompanied by a music video filmed at Popsicle LA, a popular music video filming location in Los Angeles. Josh and LA based dance crew JA Collective attracted lots of attention for their intricate choreography shown in the video as well. The video received immensely positive reviews from publications like Alternative Press and Rock Sound.

On June 13 of that year “RUNAWAY” was a single released at the same time as a corresponding heavily choreographed music video, while also announcing that their debut studio album, Now, Not Yet, which would be released on August 9. They performed the track live for Vevo’s DSCVR series alongside another track.they we’re releasing, ‘Arrow’ and made sure to incorporate various dance interludes using choreographed routines they had done in the past. The album’s fourth single, ‘Pure Gold’, was released on July 19 alongside colorful visuals for a music video.
Finally, their last single off the album ‘ok, ok?’ premiered on July 31.

Admittedly, when this album first came out, it flew mostly under my radar except for the few singles I had heard as listed previously. Slowly, I started listening to more and more songs individually, but only recently did I find time to listen to this project front-to-back in it’s entirety.

This album deals mostly with self-image and self reflection, but not until some point after I started delving a bit deeper into this album’s meanings did I find that our lead singer Josh Taylor is in fact, quite a religious man. Multiple themes across this album rear their head in ways that Taylor hints at through lyrics such themes of wanting to be a someone who he isn’t, looking for exits from the mortal world when things get too stressful. There’s an interlude where one of Josh’s friends and members of the JA Collective speak on how she’s impressed that Taylor and his band’s fans carry faith with them. Lastly, the final song ‘creature’ literally references Taylor being molded by the ‘artist’ molding him out of clay as God did Adam in biblical text. Taylor also mentions multiple instances of being guided by ‘his’ light….being both haunted and ‘holy’, made of ‘glory’, so not anywhere are these references more prevalent than on this song. The album’s title is even a play on the phrase “already, but not yet”, referring to the process that God goes through in working on one’s issues that if things already not being fix, it’s because he has ‘not yet’ gotten to them.

Aside from the album’s lyrical content, instrumentally this album stretches to places where I would not have expected it to. From the sporadic drums and yet melodic piano on RUNAWAY, to the jazzy synths and swing beat of ‘TrusT’, to the fast paced entirety of ‘still feel’. This album does everything it can to grab your attention from the beginning and keep it til the very end.

This album is definitely a trip and I’d recommend to any indie music or alternative fan that wants something new, experimental and fun.

Now, Not Yet gets at 10/10!

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Album Review: PUP – This Place Sucks A**

Album: This Place Sucks A** Artist: PUP Year: 2020

Canadian pop-punk outlet PUP has been releasing music that could make any punk fan bang their head or want to jump around just from the sheer energy they put into each ad every album. However, that’s not to say that each album has the same exact energy.

Their first self-titled album ‘PUP’ started a self-depreciating spiral that talked of loss self-anger and wishing for so much more from a sad anxiety-strewn life. Their success of this album led them on a tour that spanned multiple years and caused their lead singer, Stefan Babcock to develop a major polyp within his vocal chords which led him to need to be away from music for a long period of time after to redevelop his voice. During this break though, Babcock saw a ear nose and throat doctor who gave him some of the most unfortunate news he would hear, that his “dream was over”. This would then title their second, and most popular album “The Dream is Over”. This album took the sound from their first album and not only redefined it, but did it to a level that was just as well reviewed as their first album.

It would be three years until PUP would release another album, and this their fourth album that released to similar, yet slightly lesser reviews. However this didn’t stop PUP from exploring musical themes that made it definitely more pop than punk on the pop-punk spectrum and it seems that people, including this reviewer were looking for something more on the punk side of the spectrum yet again. Not even a year later however, this would be gifted to fans through a 2020 self-isolation created EP called “This Place Sucks A**”.

“This Place Sucks A**” as described previously is an album that while composed of songs supposedly recorded in 2019, perfectly encapsulates the angst and quarantined self-isolation that the 2020 pandemic brought onto all of us. The themes of this album span from feelings of hate spawning from inside you when left alone with your own thoughts, to laughing at your own overreactions. From yearning lost lovers, to hatred of the stagnate lifestyle that self-isolation brings on all of us.

The first track ‘Rot’, describes feelings of how Babcock constantly has feelings of self-hatred that well up in himself that can become so intense that it really feel it can ‘rot’ you from the inside. The second track, ‘Anaphalaxis’ literally describes a scenario where Babcock’s friend was sent to the hospital via ambulance due to an allergic reaction from a bee sting, but figuratively reminded him of how there were instances where he felt like he was going to die due to anxiety or immense stress, despite the realistic implications of his scenarios. ‘Nothing Changes’ is quite literally Babcock’s description of how he wishes he could change aspects of his life, but has no initiative to do so. The song ‘Floodgates’ describes how Babcock wakes up night after night surrounded by drugs and other vices as he tries to cope with the death of one of his friends. Finally, the song ‘Edmonton’ talks about how even though Babcock told jokes about his friend at his funeral to cope, he realized later that night in a drunken stupor that despite being at one friend’s funeral, he’s missed too many others for his own good.

This EP really brought back what I was missing from PUP and despite it only being 17 minutes, it almost makes me happy that I can listen to it on repeat more. From here on out I hope I can see similar material from PUP of this quality.

This Place Sucks A** gets a 10/10

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Album Review: Neil Cicierega – Mouth Dreams

Album: Mouth Dreams Artist: Neil Cicierega Year: 2020

Neil Cicierega may not sound like a name that rings any bells, but to anyone who grew up on YouTube in the early 2000’s, videos like Harry Potter Puppet Pals and The Ultimate Showdown may ring that bell a little louder. Creating viral videos wasn’t enough to keep Neil busy however. This energy crept into two passions he had only delved into slightly before but now wanted to embrace in their entireties, internet culture and music production. Neil was even more interested in meme culture and remix culture. In a talk he held at the XOXO Festival he discusses remixing not only music, but art in general. This includes taking art from multiple sources and reworking it, making it your own individual piece of art.

Neil took this and ran with it, creating three ‘mashup’ albums, or albums comprised entirely songs made by mixing the vocals from one song and the instrumentals from another. This concept runs rampant on his three prior albums ‘Mouth Sounds’, ‘Mouth Silence’, and ‘Mouth Moods’. The names take inspiration from the concept of the first album, mashups made mostly using Smash Mouth’s hit track ‘All Star’. Being a meme of sorts within internet culture, it’s worth noting that Neil’s albums bleed internet culture. Composed of tracks that have found thier spots in internet culture, for whatever reason, make their way into this record such as ‘Firefly’ by Owl City and ‘Baby’ by Justin Bieber. Even though these songs have been panned for whatever reason, they find a safe home on this album in masterfully crafted mixes combining vocals and instrumentals.

Some of my favorite tracks on this project are definitely when it really seems like Neil just goes absolutely nuts with this concept. ‘Spongerock’ mixes Queen and the Spongebob Squarepants theme so masterfully that I was almost rolling on my side from the very beginning. Another favorite is when he mixes ‘Stacey’s Mom’ with Nada Surf’s ‘Where Is My Mind’. These really make me question what I enjoy as music. The way Neil takes two songs and makes you go “There is absolutely no way that should work” as he did with almost every track on this album really had me enjoying myself the entire time.

This doesn’t mean the album is without it’s flaws however. This is an album that is an hour long with twenty six tracks, so there are points where some of the jokes seem to get stale like extended song ‘Aammoorree’ and mashups that just don’t work in my honest opinion such as ‘Pee Wee Inc’. However, even the bonus tracks that appear after this album’s outro, or (Extro) as it seems to call it can send you rolling right before the true end of the album for one last 4 minute complete nosedive.

Overall this album in my opinion is a perfect encapsulation of internet culture, remix culture, with a healthy dash of comedy. I was excited to hear a new ‘Mouths’ album knowing exactly what Neil was capable of prior, and even though the album dragged on a bit, it was still a fantastic trip for about ninety percent of the album. Regardless of a few missteps this album was incredibly fun to listen to.

Mouth Dreams gets a 9/10

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Album Review: The Neighbourhood – Chip Chrome & the Mono-Tones

Album: Chip Chrome & the Mono-Tones Artist: The Neighbourhood Year: 2020

The Neighbourhood has been a band that’s been around the block a few times by now. Made most popular by their hit track ‘Sweater Weather’ in 2012, the California-based American alternative group made a name for themselves by releasing two EP’s gaining a following before being given the opportunity to play at Coachella in 2013. After their two EP’s they released their debut album ‘I Love You’. This album gained the band even more followers and nailed them a spot on the Billboard 200 at a comfortable 39. Following performances on late night shows like Jimmy Kimmel, the band was able to book even more shows in Canada and at more music festivals such as the Music Midtown festival in Atlanta, Georgia.

The band also stuck out as they had quite the way of releasing their earlier music, often with cryptic names, their EP’s following their debut’s either pandered to internet and techie culture or had elaborate naming schemes. They released two EP’s titled ‘#FFFFFF’ and ‘#000000’ (the hexadecimal color codes for black and white) and another two titled ‘Hard’ and “Imagine’, with a deluxe collection containing both of them along with bonus tracks titled ‘Hard to Imagine’. Cryptic antics ensued as the band prepared for their release of the album we’ll be discussing today, ‘Chip Chrome & the Mono-Tones’. Lead single of this album ‘Cherry Flavoured’ was put into a playlist along with some of the band’s best tracks on it’s release day with a description simply labeled ‘Album 9/25’. Thus September 25th rolled around and we were given the album as prmised.

While the band has explored multiple themes throughout their history as a band, from alternative, to punk, to surf rock, to pop. This album promised to be a nod back to 1970’s older psychedelic pop with new alternative mixed in, however I think the group missed their mark quite a bit. I personally feel that if that’s what they were going for, they nailed the psychedelic sounds in some areas, but missed out on some of the funk that I think a band with their repertoire just simply couldn’t reach. However, that’s not to say that the band didn’t hit the nail on the head in other spots though.

Songs that I think really nailed the theme they were going for include the first real opening track (excluding and short instrumental introduction to the album), ‘Pretty Boy’. This track sets up a theme that travels almost throughout the entire album, love. Tracks following this opener such as ‘Lost in Translation’ or ‘Hell or High Water’ do a great job of navigating some of the parts of relationships that might be harder to talk about such as communication and devotion respectively. Unfortunately, some tracks such as Devil’s Advocate, which separates the two aforementioned tracks loses focus a little and tries to deliver a message of not always being the most mentally healthy, but gets tangled in it’s lyrics and my opinion, doesn’t do the topic justice.

Tracks such as ‘Cherry Flavoured’ take a detour to discuss the topic of the lead singer, Jesse’s drug abuse and his journey struggling to get sober which while also derail from the theme are more welcome in my opinion than those that try to stay on theme and just fail. Short interlude ‘The Mono-Tones’ simply describes the troubles one can have trying to make beneficial decisions for themselves before we bet into to what I believe is a more cohesive section of the album, the last four tracks.

As this album winds down, we end with quite a few instrumentally solid tracks discussing love found, love challenged, and love lost on tracks ‘BooHoo’, ‘Silver Lining’ and ‘Tobacco Sunburst’ respectively. ‘BooHoo’ is essentially Jesse’s love letter towards a partner he found and spends the entire song talking about ways he flaunts them and their traits. Then on ‘Silver Lining’, it’s obvious some time has passed and Jesse now speaks about how their relationship is starting to fall apart and all that he’s looking for is just a silver lining. Finally this three part love saga comes to a close with the track ‘Tobacco Sunburst’ which details a plane ride home from wherever he and his partner were residing back to his hometown after things didn’t quite work out, but he still misses them and reminisces on traits he loved about them.

Lastly, this album closes with the track ‘Middle of Nowhere’, a track that shows that Jesse sometimes he feels like he’s on the outside looking in when it comes to the music industry. A track that shows that in an industry that pulls him in every which way, he really can feel like he’s really in the middle of nowhere.

Overall, this album left me quite impressed in some areas but really lost in others. I felt like the theme was well executed in some areas and not others. I would have loved to see more of the psychedelic elements explored because I think it would have made for a more cohesive sonic experience. While I’m not upset with where it did go, I definitely wish there was a little bit more of what this album promised it would be.

Chip Chrome & the Mono-Tones gets a 6/10

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Album Review: Glass Animals – Dreamland

Album: Dreamland Artist: Glass Animals Year: 2020

Starting in 2010, Glass Animals led by Dave Bayley is a psychedelic pop band formed of Bayley’s friends Joe Seaward, Ed Irwin-Singer, and Drew MacFarlane. Their first album ZABA (released June 9, 2014) led by lead single ‘Gooey’ (February 14, 2014) had quite decent press ratings averaging around a 7 out of 10 from music publications such as AllMuisc, NME, and Paste. Following this success, their second album, ‘How to Be a Human Being’ released two years later received an average 8 out of 10 from similar publications.

‘ZABA’ had been praised for its use of tropical percussion in forms of R&B, with sprinklings of hip-hop baselines but with pop melodies and vocals. ‘How to Be a Human Being’ however, changed their formula working much more with the successful pop and hip-hop aspects of their previous album and traded tropical production for heavy sample-based melodies. These samples are all based on stories of fans and bystanders that the group had met on their previous tour, hence the album’s name. “I’ve ended up making my own characters, really, sometimes taking little pictures of these other stories I’ve heard. Lots of people have told me stories about mental health, and I kind of merged them together to make something that hopefully comments on mental health in quite a broad way.”[1] Bayley tells Atwood Magazine.

Bayley takes this energy and motivation to a theme and pushes that to eleven when tasked with making an album of similar or exceeding caliber to his last with one major obstacle, the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only did the band deal with their drummer Joe Seaward sustaining major brain damage for a long period of time due to a cycling accident, but they were also now quarantined to their homes with their loved ones and forced to make music in this new climate, separated from each other. This and the theme of love, both lost and found are what fuel the veins of ‘Dreamland’.

The title track is a dreamy airy introduction to an album discussing the fast-paced, and uncontrollable nature of society, especially in 2020. The following track, ‘Tangerine’, is a great pop-dance track setting up themes of love for the album talking about the longing for the person someone close to Bayley once was. This track also touches on how easily money and life events can change a person.

Separated by the first of the “home movie” interludes, the next track ‘Hot Sugar’ talks about on how you can love someone, without it being ‘true love’.

‘Space Ghost Coast to Coast’ discusses, with great instrumental and lyricism on how one of Bayley’s friends who participated in a school shooting is asked how and why he did it. This is sprinkled in with multiple 90’s nostalgia references fueling this album.

‘Tokyo Drifting’ is a heavy track focusing on how easily one can create personalities as Dave creates one of a drug-addicted party monster, written by a twenty-something Jewish young man, interspersed with heavy trap-inspired beats.

Turning back to the topic of relationships, the next track ‘Melon and the Coconut’ is a sweet love story about how one person decides to show the other how much they mean to the other when the other is having doubts about their relationship. Meanwhile ‘Your Love (Deja Vu)’ is a pop dance track all about how you know some relationships aren’t right for you, but you can’t seem to escape.

Following this theme, Both ‘Waterfalls Coming Out Your Mouth’ and ‘It’s All So Incredibly Loud’ discuss talking to your partner about the fact that the relationship may not be the best thing for one or both of you. The former discusses the fact that sometimes people change for the worse, with the ‘waterfalls’ per se being a symbol for the words we say uncontrollably during these kinds of tell-all arguments where these kinds of discussions come up. Meanwhile the latter discusses that moment of silence where you say something you know that’s going to hurt them, but that needs to be said, where that silence is ‘so incredibly loud’. Both of these tracks are juxtaposed with decently upbeat instrumentation.

After another ‘home movie’ interlude, ‘Domestic Bliss’ describes Bayley discussing with another close friend the misunderstanding in his mind as to why they stay in an abusive relationship.

‘Heat Waves’ talks about a theme brought of previously on the album of losing someone to a change in personality, although yet again this is paired with an awesome dance beat and infectious chorus.

After our final ‘home movie’ we’re treated with our closing track ‘Helium’, bringing all the melancholy-ism around relationships back around full circle and looking at it from a much more positive outlook, and how despite things not working out between two people, life can still continue. People can still move on.

This is a great example of how Glass Animals can take a theme, whether tropical R&B, sample-based real-world ideas, or quarantined longing and lost love, and just run with it.

Dreamland gets an 8/10

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Album Review: Lewis Del Mar – AUGUST

Lewis Del Mar - AUGUST Lyrics and Tracklist | Genius

Album: AUGUST Artist: Lewis Del Mar Year: 2020

Lewis Del Mar, an experimental pop duo from Rockaway Beach in New York City has gained traction in the underground and indie-pop community when they dropped their track ‘Loud(y)’, heavily inspired by the artist ‘Beck’. Gaining traction on musical blogs such a Hype Machine, their loud, abrasive and eccentric Latin-inspired beat driven tracks seeped out in singles such as “Painting (Masterpiece),” which preceded their self-title album released October 7th, 2016.

Their album came to fruition receiving relatively good reviews, scoring around mostly seven out of ten on publications such as ‘AllMusic’, and ‘Album of the Year’. As a fan of the band myself some stand out tracks include the aforementioned ‘Loud(y)’ (a tell-all track about the regrets of infidelity), ‘Tap Water Drinking’, and the sweet love story turned song, ‘Painting (Masterpiece)’.

Some of these themes come through on their new record released a staggering four years later. Worth the wait, their second album ‘AUGUST’ tackles multiple different themes of love and loss across its almost hour runtime. Separated into three distinct chapters, Fever (Ch. I) starts off with the lead singer Danny’s own love loss (something he delves into more later in another ‘chapter’), then proceeds to encompass tragedy a non-necessity speaking heavily on how both his mother betrayed him on the track ‘The Ceiling’ and how he feels he betrayed his ex-partner’s expectations on ‘Do You Need Me’.

After a distorted interlude talking on themes of whether life is worth living (yet another theme addressed more heavily later in the album), we get the introduction to our second chapter, ‘Rosalie (Ch. II)’. This song paints a vivid story on how Danny met a woman at a Fourth of July party. At first, she seems just like everyone else. However as they got to know each other, she tells a story of how she lost her son to an overdose. Then, Danny realizes just how small he is in a world full of pain and suffering as he imagines what it was like for this woman to lose her son so brutally. Following this are songs of longing. Longing for love on the track ‘Sewers’, for a high…on ‘Cold Turkey’, and for justice in his city he never received as a child, seen as a delinquent on ‘Shutter’.

Our third and final chapter starts with a harrowing track. ‘Border (Ch. III)’ details how Danny believed other people viewed him on the day he was hospitalized for an undisclosed reason. Then however, an eventual diagnosis of a burdening mental illness (presumably borderline personality disorder given the name of the song and his reference to people thinking he’s constantly on a fault line of emotion, a border) proceeds to destroy him. This hits Danny in a way in which he begs for freedom from his own mind, not wanting to be the way he is in the slightest. Following this he mentions the themes of not knowing whether it’s safe to travel outside his comfort zone, when he’s so used to being in his head on ‘TV’, but in contrast he talks about how he spent a summer in a heavy depression due to medication (presumably to manage his BPD) on ‘Gloom’. In the last two tracks ‘Where Are You Now’ and ‘Bloom’ respectively, we finish the album with feelings of wanting to start anew…with his father on the former, and with his life as a whole on the latter.

The whole album wraps up with an instrumental epilogue that starts off as scattered, but ends in a calm manner, a perfect reflection of the albums instrumental themes, starting out much more poppy and erratic in the beginning, only to get more calm and melancholy as the album comes to a close.

While the album does a great job at using a lot of themes and is definitely a thesaurus of feelings with the amount of elaborate verbiage, I find that instrumentally their debut album had more interesting aspects that I would have liked to see repeated on this comeback, that simply weren’t.

That being my only complaint, I think that this album was a great emotional tell-all and the instrumentals that are there do carry the narrative quite well.

AUGUST gets an 8/10

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