ALBUM REVIEW ROUNDUP 1

Sometimes, though you'd like to give every review the love and care (and individual notice!) as others, you find you can't garner up the interest or time to write up a full-on album review. 'You' moreso being me. So, instead of a bunch of individual album reviews, I'll sometimes file these under an 'album review roundup'. There's a lot of music to listen to and not enough time...

The Afters' Never Going Back to OK: An alright album, but far too similar to too many other bands on the scene, almost derivative and/or cliche. The lyrics are often banal or obvious, the sound is often too loud, and it feels like every other indie emo/rock band. Some bright spots, but ultimately I think not my type. At all.

The Afters - Myspace Girl

Alan Wilkis' Babies Dream Big: Not bad music, but far from my style. Inspired by a lot of artists I'm not big on from the 60's, 70's and 80's; I'm a 00's guy and unashamed of it. Too bold and frenetic to be my style, really. Even on "Bad Mamma Jamma", my favourite track on the album, the background synths irritate.

Alan Wilkis - Bad Mamma Jamma

Amandine's Solance in Sore Hands: Nice; often pretty, though not always. The music's a bit Iron and Wine meets Sufjan Stevens, while the vocals are smooth and sometimes mixed with a nice choral sound.

Amandine - Faintest of Sparks

Disagree, agree? Sound off in the comments!

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