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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