This past week, I was given a four albums and EP’s to review. At first glance, they seemed pretty interesting judging by the album covers. When I finally listened to each of them in their entirety, two of them stood out to me, while the other two fell a little short. Below are my reviews of the albums and EP’s.
Pick Me Up EP- Mansionair- Mansionair received a lot of attention last year when CHVRCHES released the band’s first EP, Hold Me Down. The Australian Indie Rock trio consisting of Jack Froggatt, Lachian Bostock, and Alex Nicholls were signed to Glassnote Entertainment Group, which is the same label as CHVRCHES, Mumford and Sons, Two Door Cinema Club, etc. Now a year later, the band has released another EP titled Pick Me Up.
The EP contains a total of four songs and one of them is a remix. In general, the sound of the whole EP is mesmerizing. The songs are rather mellow, around the same tempo, and not anything too drastic. The instruments all had a clear and definitive sound.
Their most notable song that everyone seems to be talking about is “Speak Easy”. The song is good and you can really feel the emotion that came from it. The same basically goes for their other song “Pick Me Up”. This song was a little more upbeat (not by much) and gave off an interesting vibe. “Hold Me Down” was okay but I think the other two songs rank higher on the EP.
Overall, this EP was one that stood out to me. I liked the vibe and the emotion that came from it. I think the remix could have been left out from the EP but other than that it was great.
Kid- Violent Mae- Violent Mae is a low Rock duo based out of Connecticut. Kid is a follow-up from their self-titled album, Violent Mae. The sound of the album is very dynamic with a fuzzy low rock sound. There is sort of an eerie feeling throughout with the vocals and sounds.
Some songs are a little slow, while others have a little more tempo to them. The guitars, bass, and drums bring the whole album together with their sound and make it unique. The whole album is something that I would listen to on a rainy day (I’m sure everyone else can agree with that).
The vibe is kind of calm and sad but someone can always turn that around to make themselves feel better. Off of this album, I would say that “In The Sun” had to be my favorite. I enjoyed the beat and the lyrics to the song.
I also liked the album cover and the design on the CD. I think it was very creative and would be appealing to anyone who would come across it. Even though I have never heard of this band before, I would definitely listen to more of their material.
Call of the Wild- The MATINÉE – This EP was a little bit of a head scratcher. The MATINÉE are a Vancouver-based band that has gotten a lot of exposure over the past year. As I listened to the EP, I was a little confused. I do not really know what type of musical category you would stick this group in.
Each song had a little bit of a different sound which makes it hard to decipher exactly where to place them. The songs had a little bit of a rock element to each of them which is okay. The thing that was odd though was one of their songs “Basement Suite”, had a rock vibe but also with what I guess you can call a folky/bluegrass vibe.
“Edge of Something” was another song that I think was oddly placed on the EP. When I first looked at the EP, I thought I was going to be listening to something folk related based on their appearance. Clearly, I was very wrong. In general, I thought that the music was okay but the different types of songs on here just confused me and I cannot quite put my finger on what type of band that they are.
Timeless- Shadow In The Cracks- This album has landed on my “eh” list. I am going to keep this short and to the point because well, there is not much to say. I was not all that impressed with this whatsoever. A majority of the album (scratch that, the whole thing) sounded pretty much the same to me.
There were bells that kept jingling throughout the songs that not only were distracting, but were also repetitive. There were very little lyrics and for me it just did not work. Not to mention, I tried looking up more information about the band and found absolutely nothing. To sum this up, this album is nothing to boast about.
Elizabeth Granato
Features Editor
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