Album Review: The Heavy Eyes - "Focus"

Way back in a different world in 2020, The Heavy Eyes dropped the thunderous Love Like Machines on the world, and showed every band that thought their guitars were fuzzy just how short of the yardmarker they were.  It had been a long time since any band had turned the distortion up that much and still cranked out groovy, accessible rock that was syrupy thick and impossible not to nod to.

Their new album Focus starts much the same way, with the rhythmic hammer of “Concrete Halloween” (accompanied by a video featuring the band’s signature animated skeletons.) There’s the usual verse-chorus-verse of the opening minutes, and then the bottom of the song drops out into the eyelid-drooping thump of the bridge, before the main riff comes back to the fore for the outro.  With that, the album is off to a promising start.

Then, Focus takes on something of a different bent.  A couple cuts down we get “Sarissa,” a slow burner that’s most analogous to “Vera Cruz” from the previous record.  Which only merits mention because “Vera Cruz” was probably the worst song on Love Like Machines, and yet “Sarissa” is one of the best on Focus.  Which is not to say that this new album sets a lower bar, but that the band has worked on the formula of this type of song and turned it into something more novel and appreciable.  It sounds like an overdriven version of something John Garcia would have written immediately after leaving Kyuss.

This leads into “Corporal Upham,” another slow but soulful dirge, which reduces the characteristic fuzz in favor of a thin, anguished guitar tone that helps sell the mood.  Focus, by this point, has revealed its colors - this will not be a sequel to what has come before.  The Heavy Eyes have crafted something akin to what we know them for, but different enough to differentiate from their idiom.

Naturally, just as the album sends us in a new direction, we hit “Troublesome Priest,” where the band reminds us that they can still bring a fuzzed-out banger when they want to.  It feels a little shameful to admit when the band shows such skill in a new direction…but this is still where the band is at their best, when the songs drip with that teeth-bared, brooding swagger that proves rock isn’t dead.

That’s the story of Focus in a nutshell.  The Heavy Eyes have leaned ever so slightly away from the you–got-chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter mix of hard and stoner rock that they brandished with such skill.  They’ve instead tried to create something just a little more cerebral, a little more dynamic, a little more emotive.

Which is to say that, in truth, Focus lacks some of the punch of its predecessor, and the album is worse for it, even as the band proves they can still bring those chops when they want to (check out the guitar tone on “Words,” late in the album.)  That doesn’t mean Focus is a failure - it advances the portfolio of The Heavy Eyes, and they show skill in weaving something new and trying to evolve.  This new record is still worth listening to, just be prepared for a different experience.  Enjoyment seems to vary with multiple listens - sometimes it sounds amazing, and sometimes it doesn’t quite measure up.  Make sure to give it a real chance.

"Rising" Is Falling After Fifty Years

When we consider time, and the ways it plays with our memories, the inertia of greatness is one of the more interesting places to go searching for our own version of the truth. When conversation is had and lists are made, we tend to find the same bands and albums always rising to the top, and it seems to me it is done without people putting in the work of seriously sorting through their thoughts to figure out if they mean what they say, or they are repeating the conventional wisdom because that is the only kind of wisdom they will ever encounter.

Among the handful of albums that routinely get counted among the greatest hard rock record of all time is Rainbow's "Rising", which so happens to be celebrating it's fiftieth birthday. For its entire existence, the album has been at the forefront of what was possible for rock bands. That is almost entirely a result of one song, which is great, but I'm not sure deserves so much hype to keep the record as cherished as it has been for all these years.

That song is, of course, "Stargazer". In classic rock, the Mount Rushmore of epic songs is "Stairway To Heaven", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Hotel California", and "Stargazer". There is something about songs that stretch the time constraints that evoke a feeling in much of the audience, as if they can't comprehend that a song can last longer than three minutes and two riffs. Quite often, the consensus pick for the best song on an album will be the longest, for seemingly no other reason than its length.

I am rather immune from that feeling, so I look at "Rising" as an album that came so close to the greatness people speak of, but slit its own metaphorical wrists before presenting itself to us. What could have been the greatest statement either Ritchie Blackmore or Ronnie James Dio ever put out is instead an album that drives me a bit crazy for being the contrarian.

"Stargazer" is an amazing song, and it ranks among the best either man wrote in their career, but is one song enough to make a classic album?

There is more to "Rising" than just that song, but the shadow it casts is so long I can sometimes forget this. "Tarot Woman" is the band's propulsive statement telling us the debut record was just them warming up, and now they were going to get serious. After that, we are not in classic territory anymore. "Starstruck" is a boogie revved up to sound bigger and harder than it is, with Dio's vocal delivery reduced to a rhythmic bark as he tries to fit the syllables of the chorus into the melodic line. It has charm, but it's an awkward song. "Do You Close Your Eyes" is purely the commercial pop Rainbow would try to write once Dio left the band, and that was never Dio's strength. He would have a few songs that hit that mark, but this is not one of them.

That's a third of the songs being mediocre, and we haven't hit the biggest problem with the album yet. "Stargazer" is everything people say it is (although it does get a bit repetitive and trying by the end), and it is the sort of song that does so much there is no way to follow it. Much like you could ask what Jesus could possibly do to impress after the resurrection, Rainbow put themselves in the position of trying to follow up the more epic song any of them would ever write with... another lesser epic song.

This is where things get uncomfortable. "A Light In The Black" is by no means a bad song, but it is not "Stargazer". After the draining experience of Dio crying out to the rock gods, spending eight minutes listening to Blackmore shred through solos is not the palate-cleanser they think it is. The album needed a short coda to cool us down after they melted out faces, but instead they overstay their welcome, noodling when they could have been writing a tighter song. The sequencing of the record does it no favors, leaving the last eight minutes as a floe cleaving off the back end.

When I listen to "Rising", I rarely make it through the entirety of the album, even though it is barely long enough to be one. Putting the epics back-to-back only underscores how much weaker "A Light In The Black" is, and ending on a sour note is not how I want to remember my time with Rainbow.

And yet... everyone talks about "Rising" as if it is a perfect album, an untouchable memento of the past that is unfathomable for any band today to match. That's quaint, and rather insulting to the fact that Rainbow themselves put out a less flawed album right after this one. "Long Live Rock 'N' Roll" is every bit as good, and far more consistent, with "Gates Of Babylon" being nearly a peer of "Stargazer". So why does it get overlooked?

Inertia.

"Rising" got there first, and people never forget their first time. Fifty years ago, maybe "Rising" was indeed a mind-blowing album that rewrote the rules of what hard rock could be. I'll never know, because I wasn't there. What I can say is that listening to it now, in the context of history, "Rising" is a very good record that has moments we absolutely should treasure. But as a whole, I can't help but feel we would never react the same way if the release date said 2006 and not 1976. Its reputation is a function of time, and I don't happen to think time stands still once it passes. We re-evaluate based on how the world changes, and the world of rock music has changed immensely.

"Rising" is not the be-all and end-all of hard rock. It's not Rainbow's best album, and even that one isn't Dio's best. "Rising" is one legendary song surrounded by some other good music, and we've evolved past when that was enough to blow out minds.

I'm sure I'm the only one who's going to say any of this. Oh well.

Singles Roundup: Weezer, Taylor Swift, & The Warning

Summer is starting to heat up, but is the music scene? Let's find out.

Weezer - We Might As Well Be Strangers

The joke of Weezer color-themed albums stopped being funny when they did "Red" all those years ago, but they can't help themselves from continuing to beat the dead horse until there's nothing left but bone dust. "Gold" is coming later in the summer, and everything we know about it points to another album that will make me question whether or not I should finally snap my copy of "Pinkerton" in half. The gold cover art is hideous, there's a song that will be called "C.E.O.", which I imagine will be as awful as "Beverly Hills", and Weezer has cycled so far around the orbit of self-parody that I'm no longer sure if they're in on the joke or not.

This particular single is baffling because of the time warp it creates. In the verses, Rivers sounds as if he is singing through a de-aging AI program, turning his voice into a facsimile that sounds even more childish than his actual youth on "Blue". It's so distracting I almost lost track of what the song is doing, which turns out to maybe be a blessing. As we hit the chorus, and the duet begins, the facade of being Weezer is laid on thick. The crunch of the guitars no longer feels authentic, as nothing the band attempts does anymore, and it feels as much a 'tribute' to their own past as "Van Weezer" did to the hair metal Rivers grew up playing.

Weezer might be 'going for the gold' with this album, but I'm going to call it 'The Pyrite Album'. The joke should be obvious, or at least more obvious than the fact that Weezer is too self-aware of their own meme status to make music that means anything these days. Like I said, I often rethink what owning a copy of "Pinkerton" means for me.

Taylor Swift - I Knew It, I Knew You

It's fitting that Taylor Swift has contributed a song to "Toy Story 5", because there is a parallel in the way people talk about both of them. In each case, they were cultural phenomena that broke barriers and record, only to reach a point where people started to take pride in saying they had no exposure to the latest chapters. Once the parody of a company that said they would never make a sequel got to episode three, then four, the impact any of those movies made waned. They were raking in huge profits, but I haven't heard a single person talk about the fourth movie since it came out, and it will never have the impact the first two did.

I hear plenty of people saying the same thing about Taylor Swift, claiming they've never heard one of her songs despite her massive success, or claiming none of her songs will be remembered in fifty years like the 'real' stars of the past. That's bullshit, both because we can't predict the future, and because much of that music we remember from the past is pretty damn lousy. But it's always been cool to be anti-popular, so it's not at all unexpected.

For this song, Taylor brings some of her roots back to the forefront. The melody is still modern Taylor, but the harmonica and acoustic guitar in the back of the mix has a slight country feel, a bit like how a toy of a cowboy is perceived as western even if it was made in the far east. I've always thought this vibe fits Taylor better, as she doesn't have the killer instinct of a pop star who needs the attention merely to survive. The upward melody layered with harmonies is a beautiful turn of writing, and not a place for Taylor to show off her vocal prowess. It makes clear how much artifice is on a lot of her music, and how the backlash to her success might have been less if she didn't lean so hard into being something she has never seemed to be.

The Warning - Ritual

Here at BGM, my colleague handles most of the talk about The Warning, because they are the rare band that should be in my wheelhouse, yet he is the bigger fan. I'm not sure what exactly led to that, as I had encountered the band with their first album, which I was actually quite fond of. That faded with each record, maybe because their sound got more streamlined and mainstream. That's hard to say, but each time they come out with something new, I still listen to see if they will get back to winning me over the way their charm did at first.

The first two singles for their upcoming album didn't manage that feat. They're exactly what I would expect from The Warning, and I'm not faulting them for that. They are proving successful, so don't fix what isn't broken. This song, though, caught my ear. It is still quite modern, built on grooves of guitar notes, but the vocal melody feels more contoured and engaging. Even the call-and-response bit I would normally be cold to isn't distracting at all. Perhaps this song is the heavier and more direct version of the band I had been thinking they would be heading toward all along. I don't want to say it sound more 'mature', because I don't want to denigrate what they've been doing, but it resonates more this time.

We need more bands like The Warning, so if this is a warning shot for what else the record might hide in the deep cuts, maybe this will be the time they surprise me.

Taster's Choice Is Coffee, Not Advice

It is true that our minds do not all work in the same way, and I am reminded of that every time someone tries to give me a piece of unsolicited 'advice'. Most of the time, the things people say are not only implausible or impossible for me, but make no logical sense whatsoever. Recently, I encountered one of those moments that made me stop and question if I am simply not made to coexist with this world.

I had been commenting that this year has been particularly bereft of interesting new music, and that finding anything that excites me has turned into more of a chore than it has ever been in the past. Someone took it upon themselves to give me 'advice', which consisted of saying, "change your taste".

I'm at a loss; can that even be done?

Taste is not a conscious choice we make, or at least it isn't for me. I was thinking of this in terms of loving a person, to make the idea more concrete. If we say we love someone, do we intend to say we wake up every day and choose to do that as if we had another option? I can see a degree of nobility in making the claim that we are choosing the person each and every day, but beneath that sentiment is an implication that we could change our minds at any point, because the person has not made any lasting impact on us. That feels like a terrible thing to put upon someone, a transactional relationship that does not at all feel like the sort of thing we want to consider love.

The same thing is true when we are talking about music. The songs and albums I love are not conscious choices I made. I did not wake up one day and decide I wanted to be a fan of certain styles of pop and rock, nor did I tell myself there were certain vocal tones that would be my favorites. Those were decided for me by chance, neurology, and chemical reactions. The music I love is the music that stirred something in me, that lodged in my head, that challenged my thinking and my emotions. I don't believe any of that can be done by making an argument in my own mind.

But what if it was possible? I think about the implications of being able to shift my allegiance from one genre to another, from set of bands to another, and I find it disconcerting. If the songs that echo in my head are only there because I told myself to like them, it renders emotions into a choice, which means everything we feel would be entirely in our own control. I think most of us have experienced situations that prove we are not in control of our emotions. Additionally, my particular strain of philosophy centers on emotions as the center of our experience, which requires us to accept the ways situations make us feel so we can then figure out how to navigate around the pitfalls and chasms. If it's all a choice, every bad mood or fit of sadness is not just a patch of darkness, it is a moral failing.

To get back to the main point; if we can choose what music we love, can we claim to love anything? It seems to me that if we can change our mind on a moment's notice, our attachment to the music we would be leaving behind was too tenuous to have ever been love. You can't walk away from love without feeling pain or loss, without regretting what you no longer have.

I think a lot of this stems from a disparity in how we think about music. For most people, music is a distraction from the rare times they have a thought in their head. If something makes them tap their toes, they say they love it. For someone like me, music is what makes me think, it's what fills my mind with questions that lead me toward truths about both myself and the world. The music I love is a relationship with a form of the truth, and the idea of being able to talk myself into having that kind of connection with something merely because I say it would be more convenient strikes me as the height of hubris.

Just change my taste... I don't think that is possible any more than talking yourself into not being allergic to your allergen. There are things that exist beyond our rational understanding, and love is one of them. What I tend to forget at times is that many people don't love music at all, but they convince themselves they do. When music means more to you than to them, the language we use to talk about it doesn't translate between us.

That leads to confusion when we can't explain what is going on in our heads, and it leads to frustration when people suggest you attempt the impossible. It also means that, once again, I'm left feeling as if I am completely misunderstood by everyone around me. It's a lonely feeling, and despite how many words I just wrote here, I'm goddamn sick and tired of trying to explain myself to people who don't care, and don't care to understand.

Album Review: Evanescence - Sanctuary

Twenty years ago was a weird time for rock and metal in the mainstream. With the ascension of nu-metal, we were wading through huge amounts of music that was the equivalent of those people who add protein powder to everything they eat or drink. When you remember that Drowning Pool had a genuine hit with "Bodies", it might be the weirdest time I've lived through as an observer of culture. What might be weirder yet is that in the midst of that, Evanescence rose near the top of that entire movement. They didn't fit in any box, and Amy Lee was worlds apart from any other singer you could hear on the radio at the time. Their success was confusing to me, and their enduring popularity remains as such.

Let's begin with this; I never got into Evanescence. I liked "My Immortal" and "Call Me When You're Sober", but I was distant from that entire wave of music in general, and classical sounding singers in particular. I thought very little about the band over the last twenty years, until very recently their name seemed to be everywhere. Maybe time has brought the streams closer together.

The first thing that hit me about listening to Evanescence intently for the first time in ages is that Amy Lee's voice is the missing connective tissue between the world of hard rock and symphonic metal. You can hear the classical influence, but it doesn't become as distracting as the operatic metal sirens. She is an outlier, and now I can see and hear why that would have been so appealing at the time.

As the album unfolds, she and the band deliver song after song that marry heavy groove in the guitars with vocals that flutter over the top with strong and memorable melodies. There's enough here to fit under the general umbrella of 'radio rock', but it's done with enough little diversions to be more interesting than the template following bands whose names I can never keep straight. Whether it's Amy's delivery, or a few seconds of a sludgy breakdown in "Tell Me When You've Had Enough", the band is offering something in every song that isn't quite what we expect.

I'm most intrigued by the song "About Us", where Amy takes out her anger on people who have created a world that paints us with shades of pain. After asking them if their actions have turned out how they wanted, she tells the audience that those people "don't give a damn about us", and neither does the God they use to justify their actions. We hear very little commentary in our discourse about what happens after prayer, only calls to engage in it. The interesting bit to reckon with is that distinction where faith and delusion intersect. Amy is pointing out that praying to someone who doesn't listen is no different than the actions that used to get people committed to mental institutions. I think the subtext of what she's referring to is clear enough, but we don't need to go there. That is almost irrelevant to the larger issue of people giving all credit to their religion when something goes right, but no blame when it doesn't. Logic, eh?

There is one issue I have with the record, which comes near the end in "Forever Without You". It's a nice enough piano ballad, but the chorus centers on a series of long, held notes. Lung power is impressive, but it doesn't make for a captivating melody on its own, and the song is the weakest on the album in that department.

Otherwise, Evanescence has impressed me greatly with this album. After twenty years that has involved a lot of drama, the band is not only still going, but might be making consistently better music than they ever have. I'm not sure how much the past will ever hit me, but the present is. And no, I will not finish that thought with the pun about it being a gift.

Singles Roundup: April Art, Greta Van Fleet, The Iron Roses, & Lex Legion

There's a lot to say this week, and not much of it is good.

April Art - Big Bubble B-

Every so often, a song comes along that makes me ask questions about why it exists at all. This is one of those songs. No, I'm not saying it's bad, because it isn't. I like April Art as a band, and they have one song in "Not Sorry" that is one of my favorites of recent years, but they have left me scratching my head at this particular moment. As you can see from the title, this song is called "Big Bubble B-", where the hyphen is standing in for the word "bullshit". Ok, I understand that you can't put an expletive in a title on every platform, so I don't begrudge them that one.

Where things break down is that if you encountered this song through the YouTube algorithm, as I did, the song itself censors the word. Every time the lyric comes along, the word is replaced with a sibilant skittering of electronic noise. It is an even more annoying version of radio censorship that cuts the vocal out with a second of silence to cover what can't be aired. So why is this so terrible? Because I can't stop myself from asking why a band would write and record a song to release as a single that needs to be censored in that way. Yes, I can listen to the song somewhere else and not have that experience, but the first impression was so awful it had already soured me. At least if I thought it was satire, I might understand why they went with what I still would think is a bad joke. But since that's not the case, I'm left shaking my head at what terrible judgment it is to ruin your own song in one of the places people can discover your music.

The bones of this song are good, but the execution is severely lacking. And on top of that, I'm struggling to figure out exactly what "big bubble bullshit" is even supposed to mean. If it's real slang, I'm too old for this stuff anymore. If they coined the phrase, it isn't explained well. It also sounds too comedic to be a putdown. So there's that. I would recommend skipping this song. Just about everything else April Art has done is better.

Greta Van Fleet - Play Your Games

The hype has been dead and buried, because I barely heard a work about the band's fake retirement tease. No one I take note of talks about Greta Van Fleet anymore, and I think it's safe to say they have shown their trajectory is very much like Evel Knievel at the Snake River Canyon. That is to say I had no care or expectation that they were in fact only trying to drum up attention for their return.

Now that we have this song, I have even less care. I'm sorry, and maybe it's just a function of my abnormal neurology, but high-pitched screaming vocals are one of the few things in life that give me the urge toward violence. The band's throwback music is inoffensively fine, but the vocals make me long for the days of silent film. When the chorus comes along, and the wailing turns into a warbled scream, the pitch and tone is unmistakable as fingernails on a chalkboard (or for me, rubbing Styrofoam). It is so painful to listen to, I can't remember why I actually liked a couple of songs off their initial EPs.

Normally, I would say replacing a singer is a death knell for a band. But when it comes to Greta Van Fleet, it might be the only way they'll ever get any respect.

The Iron Roses - Dead Eyes

A few years back, I found myself fond of the debut album from this dual-vocal punk band. Their melodic hooks and intertwined lead singers made for a unique package, and it was something that stood out from the usual crowd. The wait for what comes next is now ending, with their follow-up due in August. The first song released is what we are talking about today, and it's a case of a recipe not always turning out the same way, even when you follow the directions.

The core of the band's sound is still there; fast tempos, a bouncing hook, and those harmonized vocals. They get their political message across in the candy-coated way that makes the bitterness of the times harder to taste, but there's something a bit off about how they are doing it this time. The mix puts the vocals lower in the mix, which dulls the intent of the lyrics. Sussing them out is more difficult, and the interplay of the voices is harder to hear. That is a main appeal of the band, so having to work harder to pull out what I liked so much about the band is exactly the wrong thing to do.

Maybe it fits the punk ethos more, but it adds a layer between me and the music. To me, punk is at its best when both the songs and the messages are razor sharp, and this one is hinting at a hazier sound. Maybe it will hit harder when the full album is out, but right now I'm feeling a bit disappointed that this song hits softer.

Lex Legion - Sleep Eternally/Gypsy Tears

I'm going to be a cynic for a minute. We've been hearing for nearly ten years that the next King Diamond album is almost ready, and it will be "out next year". This band tells me that's always been a complete and total lie.

Lex Legion is made up of members of King Diamond's band, with Nils K Rue fronting them. They sound exactly like King Diamond, but without as much charisma fronting the group. That means Lex Legion come across sounding like a second-rate version of their own history, which is exactly the reason I don't get excited about the dozen or so new releases that come out every year with combinations of old rockers who were never the primary writing forces in their bands. Merely knowing how the music was made doesn't mean you'll be able to do it yourself.

Nils is a capable singer, but he's not King Diamond, which to be fair - no one is. Him trying to ape the falsetto style at all is a massive mistake, and only makes the comparisons between this group and King Diamond more blatantly obvious. The band is hardly carving out an identity of their own, and these two songs show they don't have enough of the flair and storytelling that makes the ridiculousness of King Diamond work. This sounds too stiff and too straight to be campy fun, which means it just sounds like people trying to hard to make the album they're waiting to really be playing.

Album Review: Kat Kennedy - A Part Of Me, A Piece Of You

A couple years ago, I came across Kat Kennedy as she was starting to release a string of singles that evoked the spirit of Taylor Swift's "Folklore" album, using hushed vocals and quiet acoustic guitars as an expression of the inner voice that may not be loud in volume, but can often deafen us to reason. I remember mentioning that I was eager to hear what a larger piece of work would sound like, as the three minute snapshots felt incomplete when I considered how long an emotion needs to resonate. That time has now come, although with a set of songs that doesn't include any of those that convinced me Kat was someone to keep an eye on.

This album continues along the same thread, but with a few differences. The arrangements are still sparse, and focused on simple acoustics to pair with Kat's subdued vocal performances. She doesn't draw attention to her voice, keeping the focus on the stories the lyrics are telling. They are portraits of moments when we reach emotional crossroads, drawing the chalk outlines on the ground so we can remember the exact position things were in when they began to fall apart. The opening track leans heavily into this, describing the love of the moment as a "future broken heart". It's the sort of cynical message pop music doesn't spend much time with, because we've been trained to expect happy endings even when they don't fit the story.

That's not what life is, and even if there is a happy ending, the path to get there is not a road paved in gold. Stories where nothing bad happens along the way aren't interesting, and if anything they make us hate the people who have that kind of luck. Call it jealousy if you want to, but it's a natural reaction.

Kat's songs talk about looking through the collection of stuff that reminds you of someone, only to realize you've outgrown who they are. And yet, she describes the feeling of them becoming just "another person" imagined as a one-sided affair, where she will avoid any mention or reminder far longer, until the day comes when she can barely remember their phone number anymore. Living in the "limbo" between the future you imaged and the future you will inherit can break both our backs and spirits if we aren't careful.

Kat's performances carry the somber sadness of these realizations, letting her music feel intimate and painful. It's a sound that comes without many silver linings, as holding onto what we consider precious doesn't always leave much that hasn't slipped through our fingers. When the songs utilize Kat's harmonies, there's a beautiful and ethereal quality that sounds like the velvet lining to the coffin we are burying our dreams in.

Now, for all of that, the album's bend to modernity leaves it a bit short of the mark. These thirteen songs come in at thirty-eight minutes, which doesn't give the songs enough time to always build the emotion they are trying to pay off. The sketches of the moments are incomplete, with the structures barely hitting two verses and choruses. The big emotional payoffs are missing, which does fit the theme and the tone, but without rousing us in the way that connects two hearts. A song like "Idiot Proof" isn't even two minutes long, which isn't enough time to invest me in that moment in time.

The best songs are the ones that inject a bit more 'energy' into the album, where the harmonies are a bit thicker, where the hazy atmosphere has a bit more depth to it. Those songs are the ones that are broken, sad, and damn beautiful. "Never See Me" is a prime example of that, and it's a reminder of those songs that attracted me to Kat's music in the first place. Maybe an entire album mining that territory would have been too much of the same thing, but the quieter and slower moments ask for a level of intimacy to love them that aren't easy for an artist and audience to have, especially without a long history between them.

Ultimately, the album leaves me in the same position those original singles did. I love the sound Kat has created for herself, but the experience still feels a bit incomplete, as if I still want something a bit 'more'. The sadness of Kat's songs resonates, but I'm tired of being tired, I'm sad about being sad... so I suppose an album that doesn't give much reason or incentive for my mood to shift isn't the easiest lift at the moment. Maybe someday, but not today.

It's satisfying to have a more full and rich experience with Kat's music. I'm sure in time I might be able to say something a bit more affectionate, but this is where I am right now. This album is lovely, but not for everyone or every mood.