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Joined: Thu December 13, 2012 6:31 pm Posts: 39509
This is still going to get a few more listens from me, but after 3 I have to say I'm pretty disappointed in this record. Most of the songs feel pretty unexciting. Laura sounds great, as is to be expected, but there's nothing grabbing me about the songs she wrote. Even Witch Wolf, my second favorite, would be a mid to low tier song on the other records. I feel like she took the least interesting directions from Lovers Know and ran with them.
Joined: Thu December 13, 2012 6:31 pm Posts: 39509
I think be here now is probably my second favorite song on the album at this point. I like the way determined way the song plods along. I just really don't like the choir parts (or the singer she has accompanying her, which feels like a stab at some gospel cred I don't think this song needs or deserves). It's hard to do that in a way that doesn't feel cheap, and it feels cheap here. Maybe that will switch over at some point. Which is too bad, because outside of that it's a good song
Joined: Thu December 13, 2012 6:31 pm Posts: 39509
My issue with much of the rest of this album is that the music sounds simultaneously bland, safe, and processed - like 80s top 40 hits. I don't think it sits well with how interesting Laura's voice is, and then moments of color like the saxaphone on New Moon sound out of place - like they're there for shock value or to punch up a song rather than being an organic part of the song. The same thing can be said for the bridge on Golden Age (which is on now) -it's such a simple song, and doesn't need that random discordant moment in the middle. For the most part the album feels like she honed in on the least interesting moments of Lovers Know and decided to use them as the foundation of her next album.
My issue with much of the rest of this album is that the music sounds simultaneously bland, safe, and processed - like 80s top 40 hits. I don't think it sits well with how interesting Laura's voice is, and then moments of color like the saxaphone on New Moon sound out of place - like they're there for shock value or to punch up a song rather than being an organic part of the song. The same thing can be said for the bridge on Golden Age (which is on now) -it's such a simple song, and doesn't need that random discordant moment in the middle. For the most part the album feels like she honed in on the least interesting moments of Lovers Know and decided to use them as the foundation of her next album.
Stip, I think BHN sounds like her most organic so far. Nothing sounds unnecessary or random or ornamental. Like Generals, I have some small worry that it will age out of it's time, because this is a "right now" record. Unlike Generals, however, I think these songs have the flexibility and universality and open humanity to survive such a fate.
There are songs on Generals that blow some of these songs out of the water, to be sure, but as an album experience, BHN benefits from the immediacy and intimacy of how it was recorded, and relies less on the times and headlines in which it was written.
Joined: Thu December 13, 2012 6:31 pm Posts: 39509
durdencommatyler wrote:
Stip, I think BHN sounds like her most organic so far. Nothing sounds unnecessary or random or ornamental. Like Generals, I have some small worry that it will age out of it's time, because this is a "right now" record. Unlike Generals, however, I think these songs have the flexibility and universality and open humanity to survive such a fate.
There are songs on Generals that blow some of these songs out of the water, to be sure, but as an album experience, BHN benefits from the immediacy and intimacy of how it was recorded, and relies less on the times and headlines in which it was written.
I don't know. As an album experience it just feels a bit, not sterile, but featureless. This record has minimal atmosphere beyond 80s top 40 pop sensibilities, and there's really nothing interesting for her to be playing off of. I've gone through the record about 6 times, and there's really just a small handful of songs I find I want to go back to. The rest is a perfectly pleasant bit of background music, but it hasn't gone beyond that. I find it lacks the timeless character of What we lose, the madcap experimentation of Generals, the delicate ethereal beauty of Lover's Know.
It's not bad, and it's not safe. It's just kind of bland. I see what she was going for. I don't think she was that successful.
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