Music Reviews

I’m gonna be honest here for a second, I was kind of a sucker for Hayley’s last project „Pedals For Armor“, where she experimented with more electronic and funk elements and it overall made for a pretty messy yet enjoable collection of songs – but with this new record over here, I had kind of a hard time getting into it, beacuse of the different sound palate this album is obviously going for – I gave it like listens but nothing ws clicking with me – one time I even fell asleep by like the third song and woke by the end of the album. But yesterday I gave it a patient, uninterupted listen and it finally clicked – this album has actually much more going for it, the it may sound, it’s just not as immidiate as Petals was.

Right of the back, the mood is set with the opener „First Thing To Go“, which is a somber song with some gentle guitar plucks and a piano lead that works its way in in the second half – it’s a really nice way to show off the sound this album is going for. The second track „My Libm“ showcases more of the same, with a more psychedelic chorus and actual drums, which are a rarity on this album, most of the song being just soulely accoustic ballads. Though „Asystole“ is another song to break the formula with more detailed and textured instrumental and beautiful melodies – i adds more variety in the tracklisting. Now from this point on, the tracklist gets a little stale after a while – as I said, this album doesn’t have much else going for it than the gentle plucking at you heart strings accoustic ballads, so it gets kind of unintresting after a while. Some exceptions to this include „KYRH“ standing for „Keep You Right Here“, which switches things up, but not by much, instead of a regular accoustic guitar ballad you get a piano-centred ballad – execution is different, but the outcome is the same. Now I’m not saying any of these songs are not made from a genuine place of love and have no artistic depth to them, they certainly have, but it’s all very personal, as Hayley sings about her past relationship expiriences and I personally just don’t relate to much of anything here. Also the tracklisting uses a fair ammount of ambience to fill in the void that surrouds many of the songs here and it works fairly well, great examples being „Good Grief“ and „HYD“. I also thought the song „Over Those Hills“ deserves a mention as it is one of the most, if not the most, instrumentaly rich song here – it starts off basically like any other song here, but slowly builds tention throughout until finally exploding in the final third – the sharp drums and electric guitar are a breath of fresh air. The second to last track „Descansos“ is purely an instrumental ambient piece, with Hayley’s distant background vocals giving the track a really chilling atmosphere. Now I guess the closer „Just a Lover“ does tie things up together pretty well lyrically and even instrumentally as the track offers more much needed instrument variety again. Overall nothing groundbreaking but a great closer nonethenless.

So yeah, there just isn’t much to be said about this project really – it obviously comes from a very personal place and I can appriciate that, but I just don’t stay invested in this feeling all the way through and the album is kind of all over the place – still a nice little release from Hayley, definetly an easier and more easy-going listen then her debut LP, but not much more enjoyable.

Decent 6/10

After enjoying Wilbur’s „I’m in Love with an E-girl“ and „Internet has Ruined Me“, both songs featuring some surprisingly beautiful chord progressions and clever comedic bittersweet songwriting, I was pretty hyped for this album when I first got it recommended. What I EXPECTED were songs with similar sense of ironic comedy to them, with some nice crisp production. What I GOT instead was something much more personal, and dare I say mature – of corse the comedic songwriting is still present in some form or shape, but he’s taking it much more seriously this time around, and as a result, I take him more seriously.

The songwriting is probably the selling point on this album, because the production usually just features Wilbur and his guitar, doing his thing, while he pours his expiriences on us. You could even call this a concept album, the concept being his expiriences with the city he’s been living in, London. The first song, „Jubilee Line“, illustrates that perfectly, with it’s lowkey guitar melodies, slowly raising in intensity as the song progresses and the lyrics talking about blaming the city for all the strugless in his life – the song takes a rather dark turn by the end, talking about the people that commited suicicde in the city’s underground. The song sets the mood perfectly for the album with it’s direct lyrics, but still leaving some room for interpretation. The following track „Saline Sollution“ follows a similar forula as the first one, this time focusing on solving the problems the city has forced upon him. The „sollution“ we’re presented with is kind of a sarcastic one, probably taken as a methaphor: salline sollution refering to the process of drinking salted water, for either regulating normal blood levels, or just throwing-up. Instrumentally the song, again, progresses to get more intense with some aditional low-key drums and horns this time round – it’s a really powerful moment on the album. „Since I Saw Vienna“ is instrumentally probably the least intresting of the bunch, but the lyrics are what sells it here, taking a different approach to saying, that London sucks, by basically comparing it to Vienna – it has a rather nostalgic vibe to it, but overall, there isn’t much to say about this one. „Losing Face“ has a much more direct and exciting instrumentation, with some intense but laid-back guitar chords, low-key crunchy drums and some aditional guitar tones in the background, really completing the atmosphere. This song marks the lyrical shift this album takes in the second half, now more focusing on a classic love drama. The lyrics compliment the tortured vocals really well, and you can feel the emotion pouring from the track – it’s a simple, yet effective way, of conveying the song’s message, something this album in general succeeds at. „Your Sister Was Right“ continues on that note with some nice vocal layering an adding context to what actually happened between these two in the lyrics – the instrumental is rather unintresting on here, but it does it’s job. „La Jolla“ is the longest song on here and it’s a pretty good way of summing up the whole album so far – the protaganist doesn’t feel good enough and sort of defeated and just wants to escape this god-forsaken city, which can be taken as a metaphor to all his problems in general. He hopes to one day move on from everything and live his happ life – that’s why Wilbur sounds so defeated and quiet on this one. The instrumentation is again really simple, but this time it actuall compliments everyhting elese that is going on pretty well, considering the track’s more low-key and defeated sound. The final song „I’m Sorry Boris“ is Wilbur reflecting on everything that has been leading up to this point and realising, that even though the goverment is destroying the city, he has all the people he cares about here and can’t just leave them behind – instead of running from his problems, he faces them. It transitions extraordinarilly well from the last track to this one, with the first cut having a more defeated tone and this one right here showing us the brighter side of things – in other words, the perfect closer.

And yeah, that pretty much concludes the album – short, but straight to the point. I think the message of this one is something really unique and the simple sound of the album leaves a lot of room for the message to get across. Though it also leaves a lot to be desired – don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the hell out of this thing, but sometimes, when the lyrics didn’t instantly grab me in, I just became real bored real quick, and that’s essentially the biggest issue I could find with this album – sometimes it’s just not exciting enough. So yeah, I think the instrumentation could use a little bit more spice here and there, but other then that, it’s a pretty solid listen – the songwriting is there, the intensity aswell and the message comes across. So overall, not bad at all, for a first release.

strong 6/10