Music Reviews

Hi hello and welcome ladies and gentlemen to this Rina Sawayama review. Now me personally I REALLY liked Rina’s last project SAWAYAMA with tracks like XS and STFU! effortlessly blending together elements of metal and pop music into this beautiful mix that sounded like nothing else at the time and honestly still does today. So my expectations were fairly high going into this album and admittedly on my innitial listen I was a bit confused as what to make of this project just because of how once again different it was from her previous record. This time around the emphasis is definetly more on the pop side of things with elements of rock and elctronic music shining through only at certain times, however I genuinely think this record show Rina’s songwriting ability much better then her last album did, like it’s insane how much she improved in that department. The song structures, sharper songwriting and much more focused sound is this album in a nutshell and even though I personally still prefer Rina’s previous album to this one, I can see how she improved and evolved as an artist. So without further ado, let’s take this album apart, shall we?

The opener „Minor Feelings“ is kind of and underwhelming opener – it’s not really a song, more of an interlude that does its job well enough I guess by setting the mood of the album well enough and it sets the stage for the next pretty well but that’s it. The next song also the title track „Hold The Girl“ is a mezmerizing and beautiful balad that I genuinely can’t get enough of. Rina’s voice is so gentle yet powerful here and the melodies are just magical. Definetly picked things up after the last song and one of my favorite Rina tracks period. However this song does already raise the issue that many people have with this album and that is that in a similar sense as Charli XcX’s last album it’s just too pop oriented. And while I agree with this I honestly don’t see this as that big of an issue when the songs are on this level of quality. Yeah this album may not have the same ammount of replayability nor staying power as her last but it still is a nice listen you know. „This Hell“ is the prime example of this – while the song does have some niche electronic guitars, the electronics and pretty basic beat make for your typical Rina pop ballad – not a bad one at that, just a tad unadventurous you know, the song doesn’t realy take any risks in any point. „Catch Me In The Air“ does have some really nice 2000s pop punk energy at the beginning and a pretty catch pre-chorus, however the payoff is just not really there in my opinion. Again a solid tune, just not mind-blowing – Rina’s voice however definetly carries this album, her vocal performance throughout this whole album is stellar. „Forgiveness“ does have some nice vocal melodies here and there but it just sounds like an alright-ish campfire song, even though the instrumentation around the 2:50 mark goes really hard and boosts the song up a few notches. „Holy (Til You Let Me Go)“ is however where things REALLY start to get good, the 80s sound work really well here and I especially like the lyrics here, they mix really well with the sound and make for a pretty nice tune. „Your Age“ justs sort of exists, I honestly don’t have a lot to say about it, keeps the flow of the album well enough i guess. „Imagining“ is one hell of a banger though, this song really proves to me that Rina’s still got it, the chorus is SUPER infectious, like criminally so, and the instrumentation is super tasteful and futuristic and robotic and just… Exciting. Really reminds me of some of the stuff off of her last album. And if that wasn’t enough, she manages to top it off with the next song „Frankenstein“ which is one of my personaly favorite, if not just my favorite, from this album. The driving energetic beat, the dirty bass and the pure musical euphoria that is the chorus just all make for a super well-rounded song that just keeps on delivering each and every time. I like the next song „Hurricanes“ well enough even though it’s once again one of the more poppier ones but as I said the song quality is just there so it works. „Send My Love To John“ is another one of my personal favorites – this one’s very lyrically centred and it packs a serious emotional punch, just go listen to it and you’ll se what I mean. „Phantom continues the hot streak of songs with a very climactic feel, lushious strings and anthemic guitars that all mash together into this coming of age song that really hits all the right spots. „To Be Alive“ follows it up decently but I honestly think „Phantom“ should have been the actual closer – still an okay addition to the album and closes it off pretty well.

So all in all, Rina did indeed deliver – like yeah what did you expect. Besides some just alright songs, this is a pretty amazing collection of songs that all have something unique about them. Overall a solid listen, if you liked her last album then definetly give this one a listen but just keep in mind the more poppier direction.

-favorite tracks: Hold The Girl, Holy (Til You Let Me Go), Imagining, Frankenstein, Hurricanes, Send My Love To John, Phantom

-least favorite tracks: Catch Me In The Air (If i had to pick something, they are all solid)

Strong 7/10

No intro for this one, out of ideas, let’s just skip right into it.

The first song „Pink Venom“ is clearly trying to capitalize on the success of „How You Like That“ except without that song’s instant effortless catchiness. The electronic drop the group seems to be so hyperfocused on doing lately is super weak on this one and the build up is much more rewarding then the drop itself. The hook is just super repetetive and uninspired and overall it’s just a mystery to me why this was the leading single for this album. The outro is also super obnoxious like they really saved the worst for last. Anyways, the next song is „Shut Down“ which is kinda what I wanna do with this album at this point. The strings are somewhat pleasant however the trap beat just mashes really awkawardly with it and honestly with this one the tune just isn’t really there, at least Pink Venom was memorable enough even if not for the best reasons. Also what the hell is „Typa Girl“ like honestly. The beat is just super cheap and not up to Blackpink’s production standarts at all. Also once again it just feels like a dollar store version of How You Like That. Not much else to say, this album is only 8 songs long and there are still songs that if they weren’t there literally nothing would be changed with the album. „Yeah Yeah Yeah“ is the first alright-ish song in my opinion the gentle electronic guitar that kicks the song of with the 80s inspired drop, that sure has been done to death by this point, still manages to sound really nice and is quite pleasant, honestly I wish it was stretched out a bit, because everything else surrounding it I could just take or leave. Definetly an improvement over the last track although that’s not really saying much. Also I appriciate the way they switch the drop up for the last one, really gives the song more life. Now… Is ANYONE gonna talk about how the next song „Hard To Love“ sound EXACTLY like In Your Eyes by The Weeknd?? Like they’re not even trying to hide it, I’m no music expert but I wouldn’t by surprised if even the same fricking chords were used here. And the funniest thing is that this is the song that I enjoy the most from this album basically for that same reason. Like it’s not really obvious from the start but once the drums kick in it’s like right there staring at you. As I said, I enjoy the song so it’s not THAT big of an issue (admittedly the song does have a few of its own original ideas but the core tunes are just so similar it should be a sin). „The Happiest Girl“ does have some genuinely passionate vocal performances and I reallly like the sentiment of the song however for the longest song on the album it doesn’t really go anywhere. Still one of my more enjoyed moments on the album, but I really think they could have pushed it a bit furhter to give it that extra emotional punch – also it ends like REALLY abruptly. „Tally“ is the second to last song on this album and it sure is a song. I like the guitars overall, however the drums are mixed like garbage and the hook isn’t strong enough to carry the song honestly, it’s better then some of the earlier moments on this album but still lacks a good tune regardless. Now the closer „Ready For Love“ is about as dissapointing as the ending for this album could have gone – this song is like the embodiment of generic. The obnoxious EDM drops make a return in probably the worst form they have yet appeared, like this drop makes my ears bleed, actual youtube rewind core. The song also doesn’t change at all throughout and it’s just super annoying I was dreading for it to be over. Also once again it just ends out of nowhere like what’s with this album and these abrupt endings, it really feels like they didn’t want to be on these songs at all.

Overall BORN PINK turned out about as expected – not better, not worse, just really avarage. And it’s a shame because when the lightning strucks gold with this group they make some of the most catchy and memorable pop songs to come out in a long time, however there isn’t a single song on this album I would put nowhere close to that category – in one word, it’s dissapointing.

-favorite tracks: Yeah Yeah Yeah, Hard To Love, The Happiest Girl

-least favorite tracks: Ready For Love, Typa Girl

Light 5/10

The definition of playing it safe.

It’s currently 11 PM here and I have to write a review for something that CLEARLY didn’t have much effort put into it in the first place… So this is gonna be just mostly me ranting, but yeah, I’m just waaay too tired to get fired up over a lost potential like this one here, more then mad at this I’m just dissapointed – though that implies I had any expectations for this going into this which let me clarify I didn’t. I knew exactly how this was gonna sound and I got exactly that – so maybe even disapointed isn’t the right expression I’m looking for here. No, maybe what I meant to say is that I just COULDN’T CARE LESS. And that’s coming from someone who really defended his early stuff – his 2020 effort „Ugly Is Beautiful“ is still in my opinion vastly underrated and had some of my favorite musical moments from that year on it. And while a lot of the stuff on there was a bit too generic or un-inspired, the tracks that did pop out REALLY popped the frick out. I mean songs like „Me, Myself and I“, „1993“ and „Jerk“ just to name a few still hold up to this day. And there I was, a 2020 me completely naive thinking that Oliver had a bright future ahead of him – I really wanted him to succeed you know, his meme personality combined with the killer production made for something that not many people were doing at the time – I’m not saying it was anything innovative or ground breaking or anything, but it sure made for a collection of banger songs that didn’t took themselves too seriously and weren’t afraid to go nuts with the production. Unfortunately this new album is like the polar opposite of that – these songs have nothing intresting going for them, they are bland generic pop wanna-be-country garbage that are on top of all that SUPER safe. Like these songs don’t take any risks whatsoever at any point on this album – they always stay the same and it’s so frustrating, because I really tried my best to like this album but I am so immensely bored by this thing, it puts me to sleep everytime. Some „stand-out“ tracks (if I had a gun put to my face and had to pick) would probably be the opening „Cowboys Don’t Care“, like the one passible track on here, „Things We Used To Do“ which has a nice sentiment to do, but just fails in execution and finally maybe the closer aswell as the title track „Cowboy Tears“, maybe like the only instrumentally intresting song – why wait the whole album to actually put something intresting or different on here for a change will probably forever remain a mystery, but the track is for sure one of the highlights, if you can call it that. But I mean that’s like it for the positives – the production isn’t even like offensive or even bad, it’s just so boring and uneventfull I don’t get it. It’s whatever I don’t wanna waste my time and sleeping schedule on this any longer, I am slapping a juicy Strong 3/10 on this and going to bed (probably putting this album on just to fall asleep even faster).

First review of 2022 hooray!!

This album, at least for me, was a series of many red flags. First off all how it was announced basically like not even a year after After Hours, Abel’s last album and one of my personal favorites of that year, the really confusing almost non-existent roll-out to this album and, of course, the in my opinnion still not so great album cover, (which is me after waiting for this thing to drop since it’s been announced). Then the album actually came out and I gave it a full listen and… Well all my red flags proved to be right, or at least innitialy they were. I couldn’t remember a single note from this album besides „Take My Breath“, which I’ve already listened to death at that point and I was starting to get genuinely worried, because everyone LOVED this album when it dropped. I felt like I was going crazy – what does everyone see in this that I’m overlooking? It must be just me, right? So I decided to give it a few more shots and well, long story short, this album is amazing (that’s what I call character development right here). Speaking of character development, Abel REALLY build on the 80s inspired foundation he layed down on his last album and I feel like this album is him fully embracing it. It may not do as well commercially, but don’t let that stop you from how much this album actually bops.

You notice the tone shift instantly on the first actual song on this album „Gasoline“, where Abel, for the first I ever heard him do it like this, really explores the capabilities of his lower register voice. And admitedly it was a bit off-putting the first time I heard it, but there is honestly something really mezmerizing about it – it just clicks with you after a while for some reason. Also this is where you start to notice how rich and layered the production on this album is – the lush 80s synths with punchy crisp drums in the hands of some excelent producers make this a treat to listen to. „How Do I Make You Love Me?“ is honestly one of my favorite songs here, the chorus goes so hard it should actually be illegal – there is also this underlying feeling present throughout the entirety of the song that something just isn’t right. What definetly must be illegal though is the transition into „Take My Breath“, which is so good I still can’t proccess how excelently that is done. The song itself also took a new form on this album, clocking at around almost 6 minutes, almost double the length of the original single version and I gotta say, it really does the song justice, I’ll take this version over the original any day. If I had just 6 minutes left of my life… I probably wouldn’t listen to this song, but it’s still really good. Instead I would play the next song „Sacrifice“ two times, because that guitar thing that’s going throughout the entire track goes SO HARD IT DIDN’T HAVE TO GO SO HARD BUT IT DOES OH MY GOD IT’S SO GOOD. The Quincy Jones interlude „A Tale By Quincy“ is one of the better interludes I’ve heard in a while for sure and it ends on a really dark note aswell. „Out of Time“ is really uplifting instrumentally and yet so miserable lyrically, it just creates this contrast that I absolutely love. The flute or whatever it is that’s going on constantly in the background really makes this song work. „Here We Go… Again“ with Tyler is fitting title, because right as that first note hit I said to myself exactly that. The song has no drums and is all just vibes with a so so Tyler verse, which I still can’t help but enjoy, because you know, it’s Tyler. It kind of works as the halfway point of this album, almost making the album two parts. The next song „Best Friends“ I enjoy a lot, the abrasive synths and the earworm that is the chorus, this should be an instant favorite for me, right? Well I think the song is good, but it’s just missing that extra something to really make it GREAT. Still one of my favorites just because of the reasons stated above. Here I think the album start to lose it’s focus a bit, the next few tracks „Is There Someone Else?“ „Starry Eyes“ and „Every Angel is Terrifying“ just don’t really do it for me, they all just blend into one forgetable expirience and I usually tend to skip this section (I like to call it the „Yawn FM“) while listening to the album. „Don’t Break My Heart“ puts the album back on track with a really gentle beat, I really like how the hi-hats mix with the somewhat burried synths and Abel’s storytelling. I also especially enjoy the section in each chorus where he says „I don’t know if I can take it anymore“, something about the way he says that just gets me everytime. Overall just an okay song though. „I Heard You’re Married“ featuring Lil Wayne coincidently also has a really nice vocal line in the chorus and a pretty catchy beat, but that’s about it for what makes this song stand out – oh and Lil Wayne is here too. The true highlight of the album comes in the form of „Less Than Zero“ though, with the really quiet guitar playing, the excellent synths, the absolutely bombastic chorus and just the overall aesthethic, all the pieces are there and the whole picture is excellent. The outro song „Phantom Regret By Jim“ is basically just an interlude, but it surpasses many of the whole song on here. Really convinving performance from Jim and a compelling way to close off the album and tie the whole thing together.

So yeah, this album is pretty good – I think the middle second half is significantly less exciting than the first one, but it also has „Less Than Zero“ on it, so it ballances out. Overall a solid effort from The Weeknd, I don’t think it’s on the same level of enjoyability as After Hours for me though, where I grew to love really every track on there, but it’s a natural artistic progression for The Weeknd to continue this path of 80s anthems and if he continues to do them as succesfully as here, then I think he’ll be just fine off doing exactly that. So yeah, a pretty good start to 2022 music-wise.

Strong 7/10

…yeah it’s good, duh.

Honestly if we can expect these levels of quality for the rest of the 4 chapters, we’re in for an instant classic from Beach House. The EP is just 4 songs in total, but I honestly believe they really make the most of it. The record opens up with the instantly infectious and soothing title track „Once Twice Melody“ which is like a balsam for soul – the lush production that Beach House are known for is on full-display here, they also flex their ability of blending different instruments together effortlessly on this one. It all makes for a super nice and smooth opener. However I am of the opinnion that the next song „Superstar“ not only tops that, but also tops basically anything Beach House released in a while – that song is an instant earworm that just won’t leave your head at least for the rest of the day, I can promise you that. I strangely enough draw similaritites with this song’s melody and the melody on Ed Sheeran’s „Bad Habits“, it’s like if that song was actually well-written, had a good vocalist and overall was just a good listenable song. But man, as soon as that melody hits around the one minute mark, you transport into another dimension. Now the remaining two tracks „Pink Funeral“ and „Through Me“ are both also decent tracks, the first of the two having a really nice hypnotizing quality to it, with some lush ochestation and as I said hypnotizing drum loops, while the latter being a bit more spacious and ambitious, basically your typical Beach House song in a nutshell. It also incorporates effortlessly some nice electronic guitars that just help elevate the song to new heights, especially when combined with the haunting vocals in the second half of the song and then by the end when the hi-hats hit? It’s the whole package, honestly, this is how it’s done ladies and gentlemen.

So I don’t really have like a creative way to close this off, it’s just really good and makes me supper excited for the whole thing to be out. Also from this point onward I’m not gonna be covering any of the other chapters that come out, you will have to wait for a full review once this whole thing is out :).

Strong 8/10

Haha, wow Coldplay, that was a good one! Now can you please release the actual album?

… oh you’re not joking. Well this was a disapointment to put it lightly. But maybe disapointment isn’t even the right word, because my expectation weren’t really high in the first place – though they still managed to not be met. We all really fell for their bait when they released „Coloratura“, the 10 minute long closing track to this album and easily the best song on this album and that Coldplay has released in a while to be honest. It reminded me why I liked Coldplay in the first place and why I’ve been defending them and their music for years now – unfortunately I fear that even the most die-hard Coldplay fans can’t find a way to defend this album, because it is to put it bluntly undefendable. It’s such a colossal failure on all fronts that it’s honestly baffling. Like how do you screw-up this bad? Half of the album’s songs are interludes and the other half are either forgetable or memorable for all the wrong reasons. Like the awful stuff comes in a lot of variety too – you have the over-produced piece of millenial pop on „Higher Power“ believe it or not still one of the better songs on here, the just unexcusable horiffic vocal chops at the start of „Humankind“, which if that didn’t instantly ruin your enjoyment of the song like it did it for me, there is still the super cheezy chorus that just reminds me of Lil Dicky’s „Earth“ for some stupid reason and everything that’s remotely connected with that song is an instant no from me. What else… Oh yeah, there is the Selena Gomez song „Let Somebody Go“ with a FRICKING TRAP BEAT ARE YOU SERIOUS?? Did you guys like forget you are a band and that you have instruments or something? And the beat is not even that good even though it’s, and I s**t you not, produced by METRO FRICKING BOOMIN. That’s a name I didn’t think I would ever mention in a COLDPLAY review, but here we are. There is also the car commercial-esk „People of the Pride“, which I’ll admit on an innitial listen I actually kind of liked, but as time went on and this album has had some time to sit with me a bit more, man, this song did not age well. Now everytime I hear it I just picture like an add for a new Toyota model or whatnot and I just can’t take it seriously because of that. There is also the song „Heart Emoji“ (too lazy to pull up an actual heart emoji, sorry), which doesn’t take inspiration from Bon Iver, because it just completely rips him off and it doesn’t even try to hide that. After People of the Pride there is the series of 4 songs which I like to picture each represents a different stage of the grieving process – the first song „Biutyful“, AKA DENIAL, is me denying this song’s existence, because I refuse the fact that a band I once openly liked could release something so hideous like this. The second one, fricking „Earth Emoji“ I guess, AKA ANGER, makes me so god damn angry at how low-effort this whole song just is – there is nothing remarkable about this and there is a reason that this is the single lowest rated song on the whole album, if you can even call it that, a „song“. The thrid song, „My Universe“ with BTS (god…) unfortunately IS an actual song, though I wish it wasn’t. The third stage of grief is BARGAINING, which represents me bargaining everything I own and just begging for the song to be over. Now for the 4th and final song before the closing track we have this thing „♾“ – like what even is that. Anyways the fourth stage of grief is DEPRESSION and indeed, that is arguably what I have after this just awful series of tracks I just had to stomach (there is technically a 5th stage „acceptance“, but I honestly refuse to accept any of this – but if I were to imply it still, I guess the fifth stage would be the legitemately only good song on the album „Coloratura“, which is fitting).

So yeah, if there is one thing to take away from this review, it’s that there is no acceptance with this album, it only leads to depression. Also look on the bright side of things – I listened to this album, so now you don’t have to! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go fix my taste with some new Beach House that dropped like a month ago and finally stop wasting my time with this garbage.

Decent 3/10

Wow, this is a big one, isn’t it… So yeah, the new Billie Eilish, what are my thoughts on this one? Well first I’d like to say that it’s been a real journey watching Billie’s artistic progression throughout the years, her maturing as an artist and as a a person, if this albums reflects anything, it’s this, maturity. This album may not be as instantly catchy as her „WWAFAWDWG“ record two years back, but there is also much more to this one then that record, it’s not as edgy and sometimes even cringe-enducing as that album way, this one is much more calculated, she’s really come into her own as an artist on this one, she has a clear goal and she’s succeeding at reaching that goal – this album is also much more cohesive then any number of her previous efforts, there are many themes of love and different personal issues Billie expirienced throughout the years that pop out throughout this whole record.

„Getting Older“ start out the record very low-key, the production is minimal and the focus as with most Billie Eilish songs on her angelic voice – Billie here talks about her frustrations of entering adulthood, being the biggest pop start on the planet etc., getting really personal with the listener. The next song „I Didn’t Change My Number“ builds on the foundation the previous track layed out, the production is much more adventerous here, but still sort off low-key, there is just this vibe going throughout this whole record and it never really gets boring, there is a different spin on it everytime. The blaring synth breakdown towards the end of the song is also a nice touching, even though it may seem a little out of place at first, but the more you listen to this song, the more it actually makes sense. „Billie Bossa Nova“ despite what the title implies is actually a nice accoutsic number that is just so gentle and soft, I just wanna hug this song – generaly not one of the more out there tracks, but still a nice addition to the tracklist. Then comes the first single released prior this album’s release, which is „my future“, which has a really long-winded slow build-up, that I admit can get really tiring really fast sometimes when I listen to this song, but most times, the funky pay off this song has is just that worth it – seriously, the groove on that is out of this world. Speaking of groovy out there songs, here is one – „Oxytocin“ by Horny Eilish is a very sexy song to say the least, but it can be interpreted in basically two ways – one way is through the eyes of Billie’s abuser, which is obviously the less exciting way, but the other way is just Billie really feeling herself and for the sake of my enjoyment of this album, that’s how i intepret this song. The song instrumentally is just really filthy, the bass is dirty, it’s so just sensual beyond words, really dig this one. The sort of interlude-type song „GOLDWING“ tries something Billie (by that I mean mostly her brother) hasn’t really branched out into yet and that is sampling and honestly, it turned out better then I could have asked for – also this song having one of the more catchy hooks on here doesn’t hurt it either. Another single that was released before this album dropped „Lost Cause“ is like the definition of a grower – the song isn’t anything special at first, the lyrical content and the groovy bass is what carries this song, the production is just kind of empty, but as with most Billie songs, the more you listen to it, the better it gets, now it’s actually one of my favorites (also the bass tab on this one is just so fun to play). „Halley’s Comet“ is a piano ballad with really simple spacy production and it’s biggest strength is just how much it does with so little, the song is really beautiful in it’s simpleness. „Not My Responsiblity“ is a spoken word interlude of sorts, that talks about people objectifying Billie’s body for their own excitement and how they just judge a book by it’s cover and don’t bother looking what lies under the surface, just as simple as that, it gets the message across and the instrumental from this one is actually what the instrumental of the next song „OverHeated“ consists of. Now this song build on this topic even more with a more catchy formulaic song, the song itself isn’t anything we haven’t seen Billie do before, but the instrumental, dear GOD THE INSTRUMENTAL, it’s just so good, I can’t get enough of this song’s instrumental – best way to describe the sound of this song is like a magical mysterious space adventure, it’s just so weird, yet catchy and it just instantly grabs you by the ear, one of my favorite songs on here just for the instrumental alone. „Everybody Dies“ is in all honesty kind of a filler song, it could have easily been left of the album and I wouldn’t be even all that mad – there just isn’t much to say about this song, it’s kind of forgetable, some cool ideas production-wise but that’s about it. Now here is where we enter the „single area“ and no, that doesn’t translate to hot singles in your area (though I wish it did), that means there are literally 4 singles stacked right after each other, before the final closing track and boy do I have some opinions on those. The first one is „Your Power“, where my enjoyability of this song HEAVILY depends on how I’m currently feeling, because this is like a 9/10 when you’re in the right mood, but like a 4/10 when not – it requires a lot of patience and I don’t always have that, so this is an easy skip on some days. What isn’t a skip though is „NDA“, probably the single that’s doing the least numbers out of all the singles released, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s not a good song, it is in fact a great song – I’ve seen a lot of people take issue with the autone on this one and I just don’t understand why, we obviously all know that Billie can sing and if used right, autotune can be a great tool to help improve the song, here it’s clearly not to fill in the gaps of Billie’s singing, but an artistic choice. „Therefore I Am“ is the song probably sounding the closest to the WWAFAWDWG era. It’s really bassy, dark, edgy, it’s the whole Billie Eilish package. After that comes the next and final single and that is the title track „Happier Than Ever“ – now for this one, all I’m gonna say is, that this is without a doubt her best song PERIOD, if you haven’t heard this one yet PLEASE go do yourself a favor and check it out, the hype behind this one is more then justified – now for the song itself I’m honestly at a loos for words, because this is just otherwordly. Still can’t believe this is the same gal that made bad gay, like how is this real?? The song is just spectacular, the emotional weight this song holds is just so much to take in, her voice sounds so broken, the lyrcis are obviously written from a place of personal angst and anguish, the instrumental just breaks loose in the second half into absolute chaos, that just couldn’t be more fitting for what the song is trying to convey – I literally broke down in tears the first time I heard this, it’s actually just too much. Now after this emotional rollercoaster of a song we get the closing track „Male Fantasy“ and the Phoebe Bridgers influence here is almost bordering with straight up copy and pasting a Phoebe Bridgers song, though I’ll admit with a nice Billie EIlish twist on it, that only she can do. One thing I’ll give this song is that it’s an excellent choice for a closing track, really left feeling like I finnished some sort of larger than life expirience and isn’t that kind of what closing tracks are for?

Wow, just wow – this album proves many things. First and foremost, that Billie Eilish isn’t just a one hit wonder and that she is here to stay, second she can write some pretty introspective and compeling lyrics and three, that don’t underestimate title tracks, because that track has been on repeat since the day it came out. Overall, I’d say this record is a success and I honestly am at the edge of my seat to see where Billie takes her sound next.

Strong 8/10

I’m just gonna be honest here, I didn’t finish the album all the way through in one sitting, beacuse my ears literally just physically couldn’t do it… I had to take mind you MULTIPLE pauses to crawl through this laughably bad expirience of an album. Like this is the reason why I stopped listening to the radio, this album alone is the reason why people trash on modern pop music and it is as horrible as those people make it up to be, if not worse – this is hands down the most generic, bland, soulless piece of music I’ve quite possibly ever heard. Now before you say it, the album as a whole is not as bad as the war crime of a song that is „Dance Monkey“, the song that somehow managed to popularize Tones and I, but still, in all honesty, by far the biggest sin this album commits… It’s those damn vocals. Like OH MY GOD how do people listen to these and just not want to take out their ear drums? The vocals are beyond trash and no music surrounding them could save it whatsoever, they are quite literally unlistenable. Also doesn’t help the fact that the giant majority of the songs here are forgetable as hell, which can also be interpreted as a saving grace, but what I’m saying is that it’s not even „so bad it’s good“, no, trust me, I wish that was the case here, these songs make Corey Feldman’s music sound tolerable. Honestly, do yourself a favor and just don’t listen to this, save your ear drums for something more enjoyable (which is quite literally anything if I’m being honest).

There are no favorite tracks, no redeeming qualities, no saving graces to this – this album is audio torture in it’s finest. Like this is the ultimate torture method, I wouldn’t be surprised if countries were using this to torture their hostages, it should actually just be illegal.

Decent 0/10

So here it is, after a tremendous ammount of waiting we finally arrive at the new Twenty One Pilots a highly anticipated follow-up to their critically aclaimed magnum opus „Trench“ – on Trench the group proved that they were more then your average pop music duo, experimenting with variety of sounds and styles, with very statisfying results, yet they still managed to keep their signature sound through all of it. Now here we are, Scaled and Icy, it’s fresh, exciting and most important of all, super disapointing – here is why.

So breaking this track by track we have quite a lot to unpack here and let me tell you, this thing is like the definition of a mixbag – the record starts with the low-key charming Beatles inspired ballad „Good Day“ which is an okay mood-setter. Off the back it’s very piano-driven, very tame with some occasionally cheezy but otherwise introspective lyrics talking about a hypothethical scenario, where Tyler looses everything in his life, from his wife and children to his music career, just all gone – the cheery sound compliments the depressing lyric quite well actually. The follow-up „Choker“ aslo the second single released prior to this thing is the first red flag that got me a bit worried going into this album – the souund clearly takes inspiration from their Vessel roots, the synths are kind of cute and the weirly mixed drums actually grew on me a bit, but I just can’t get past the chorus on this thing and ESPECIALLY the final rap verse at the last leg, that really makes me physically cringe, it really gets on my nerves. Now the first single „Shy Away“ is actually one of the best if not THE best song on the album – the clever synth-driven beat with the sharp drumming and the kind of 80’s inspired sound really works in the song’s favour. Now so far the album is okay, but just suffers from one critical flaw, which is how poppy it sounds – this album just takes NO risks whatsoever and rather then an evolution from Trench it feels like some cheap radio-friendly knockoff of that album. This also carries to the next song „The Outside“, which I found insultingly boring at first, but if I’m being completely honest, it grew on me a little – the rapping here is also substantionally better compared to like let’s say Choker – it’s justt kind of a funky vibe. Which is also something that can be said about the next song „Saturday“, the instrumentation is really what saves this one, beacuse the chorus is legitemately horrible. I also really like the pre-chorus on this one, it sounds really nice to the ears. It’s not bad, but neither is ait all that good, it’s just kind of there, whatever. „Never Take It“ is like Choker part two, with the weird mixing and more sellout sounds, like the handclaps. There are SOME cool ides but just burried under this awful mix and commercial sound that just starts to get a bit tiring by this point in the album. „Malberry street“ is one of those songs that you just completely forget every note from once the song ends, I can’t recall anything from this, all I know is that it sounds exactly like it’s title – make of that whatever you want. „Formidable“ more like FORGETABLE amirite? No but to be honest, this song is one of the more better sounding of this whole thing, it’s just kind of a charming guitar ballad with a nice laid-back summer vibe and some actually pretty cool guitar passages, but as everything so far in the second half of this album, it just gets stale after a while. „Bounce Man“ is literally so horrible I can’t even begin to tell you why – first of all the awful ukulele intro gives me severe PTSD and it somehow actually gets worse from there – the song is just a fricking mess, that’s what it is. This is three minuts of my time I’m never getting back, oh my lord… Anyways the band kinda saved the best for last with the both barely tolerable „No Chances“ and „Redecorate“ which the former of the two makes me so damn mad, because there is just so much potential to this song and yet it wastes almost every single bit of it – it’s just all over the place, when it should have been the biggest banger in the world. The closer is the more statisfying of the two with some legitemately beautiful guitar plucks that almost make up for some of the weirdly mixed backing vocals – I gotta say though, this song really is a grower and quite a nice finnish to this album.

This thing really is a front-loaded snooze fest with some cool ideas saved for last, but that doesn’t excuse the painfully average part in the middle. Also the mixing throughout the whole album is just so… Cheap and skeletal, I just don’t get it, what happened Tyler? It’s still istenable though, I’m not mad at this, just very disapointed.

Light 5/10

Alright, let’s make one thing clear first – this is definetly an improvement from last year’s „changes“, not a major one, but an improvement nonetheneless. Now that being said this thing is still bloated as hell – the songs that are legitemately good can be counted on the fingers of one hand and the rest is either filler non-songs or unexcusable utter garbage. Also we really live in a universe where a song „MLK interlude“ by JUSTIN FRICKING BIEBER is a real thing, so that’s fun.

So, taking this track by track would be a suicide mission considering I only remember like three or four songs MAX, so I’ll just name the songs that stood out to me in some way, wether good or bad. The first third of this album is just an absolute snooze fest and the only songs that I truly can recall are „Deserve You“ which is legitamtely a great pop anthem and obviously „Holy“ with Chance, the Rapper, whose appearance is somehow even less underwhelming then Justin’s – the song overall is just so hollow and devoid of any emotion, it’s insane. The rest of the songs are just sort of there, they exist for the sake of album filler. The production is in fact so just boring and plain, it’s borderline not even there. After the completely unnecessary MLK interlude I have already mentioned, the tracklisting starts to gain a little bit more life, but it’s barely noticable. „Die For You“ is your typical Justin Bieber love anthem as is basically the rest of this album, but this one at least has some kind of redeemable production? I don’t really know, by this point in the album, I’m really just starting to lose focus, it’s so bland it’s actually physically hurting. The bass on „Hold On“ is actually pretty cool, but has just no balls whatsoever as does the rest of the instrumentation. The album’s lyrics also suffer from something I call „The Big Day“ effect, meaning the majority of them being literally just about how much Justin loves his wife, which gets kind of tiring after the tenth song you hear about the EXACT SAME THING. They just all start to blend together into one giant radio-friendly hollow mixbag of nothingness, it’s like it was designed to be background music. „Peaches“ is a nice change of pace, the guitar work is really gorgeous and gentle and the drums add so much life to the mix, it’s just really nice to the ears. By this point I’m really strugling not just to find anything to critique, but just anything to talk about in general, beacuse this album is just so devoid of anything substantive – the most I can give it is that it’s just decent background music, with the occasional pop banger here and there. The instrumentation throughout most of the album is also very nice and lively, but again, nothing never done before or sophysticated. Also I have a soft spot for the songs „Loved By You“ and the single „Anyone“, both towards the end of the album – but it just doesn’t excuse the lack of anything in the middle of the album. This album just lacks any punch whatsoever.

There is literally just nothing else I can tell you about this project, there is just no meat on these songs. But unlike changes, it’s at least listenable this time around.

Light 4/10