Every music fan knows the struggle of having too music to listen to in any given year; there are almost always a handful of albums that come out each week, and it can be hard to keep up. Aside from that, there is also a lot of music released that doesn’t warrant much of a reaction. Not that the music itself is bad, but a lot of albums are uneventful in the sense that they don’t need a lot to be said about them. Sometimes all you can say is that an album is good or bad, but the problem with being a music critic, writer, or whatever you want to call yourself is that if you need to write something or make a video about an album, you can’t just say that and call it a day. When I wrote reviews more full-time, versus sporadically like I do now, I wrote pieces on everything I was listening to, regardless of what I thought and how much I had to say, but that is one major reason why I got burnout from writing. I could only say so many times that I didn’t have much to say about something, but I’ve circumvented that by every now and again putting out a review that’s more or less a much of blurbs about albums that I don’t have much to say about, but I still want to talk about. My last review was kind of like that, where I talked about a few albums that were very similar, but still different. Today I wanted to do something like that, only instead of dedicating a paragraph to an album, I wanted to write a few sentences about a handful of albums that came out recently within the last few weeks. I call this “Speed Round Reviews,” and I may do this once a month or every other month when I listen to enough albums that I don’t feel the need to dedicate an entire review to. These albums are not connected in any way, shape, or form, and they’re all albums I’ve listened to that have come out recently.
The Band Camino - The Dark
If you’re an alt-rock fan, you already know who this band is, because they’ve been around for years, but The Band Camino is seemingly trying to go for broke with The Dark, their first album in two years and post-pandemic. This record is a lean half hour slice of pop-rock / alt-rock with some slick hooks, solid guitarwork, and nice vocals, but the lyrics leave a lot to be desired and is the main reason why I haven’t listened to this album as much as I would like. They range from decent to really bad, and I’m not usually a stickler for lyrics, unless they’re that bad, and some of the lyrics on this are sort of painful, but at least the album is nice to listen to, so if you “turn your brain off,” you may get something out of this.
British metalcore band Caskets are geared up to be the next big thing in their scene, especially with newly released sophomore album, Reflections. I’m late to this band, but I really enjoy metalcore bands that incorporate pop, hard-rock, electronica, R&B, nu-metal, and other various kinds of rock and metal into their arsenal, such as Issues (RIP), Wage War, Archetypes Collide, and I Prevail, but Caskets is a band that’s poised to cross over. Their vocalist has a great voice that can really pull off pop and R&B sounds, but can also pull off metalcore and hard-rock sounds. Their debut album featured more passages that had straightforward pop and R&B elements, whereas Reflections dials that down a bit, only to focus more on the metalcore, hard-rock, and pop/electronic sounds, but this record is a short burst of catchy, melodic, and well-written crossover hard-rock and metalcore that is sure to win over fans of these types of bands. Reflections won’t blow your mind, necessarily, but it does a fine job with what it’s trying to do.
Hail The Sun - Divine Inner Tension
I’ve gotten very jaded, tired, and bored of the post-hardcore sub-genre known as “Swancore” over the last decade or so, which was named for the specific style that Dance Gavin Dance guitarist Will Swan utilizes, as a lot of these bands that have popped up in that time all sound the same. I thought the band Hail The Sun was part of that wave, as they got big around 2014, and I was never a fan of them. With a lot of these bands breaking up, and/or falling into obscurity, their new album, Divine Inner Tension, is very surprising and refreshing. It reminds me a lot of bands from the mid-00s with very frantic, energetic, and fun guitarwork with some catchy hooks and solid vocals, akin to The Fall Of Troy, and this is the kind of progressive post-hardcore that I used to enjoy way back in the day. It’s not revolutionary, but the guitarwork is wild, the vocals are surprisingly really good (he reminds me a LOT of Circa Survive and Saosin vocalist Anthony Green), and they throw in a few breakdowns and harsh vocals for good measure that hit harder because they don’t show up often.
The Internet is a beautiful place, because I found Nashville synthwave artist Starletta with his debut album, Neon Cowboy, through Tik Tok. This is a catchy, slick, fun, and still sad pop and synthwave album that takes a lot of notes from the 1980s. If you love 80s pop, you’ll love this album. His voice is fantastic, and the lyrics are pretty sad and “emo,” but you’ll be singing along to a lot of these in no time. I look at this album as being a story of a person getting over a breakup, only to find happiness with somebody new at the end. The album even has a bit of a country feel on a few songs, which makes sense considering the title, and it oddly works. Also, alt-rock band Glimmers makes an appearance on the closing track that feels more joyous and happy, and it’s a damn good feature. They could make a pop album or EP and it would sound great. If you enjoy pop, alt-rock, or bands with an 80s aesthetic or influence, you’ll probably really like this.
Bearings - The Best Part About Being Human
Canadian pop-punk band Bearings is back with their third long-player, The Best Part Of Being Human, and this might be their best album. This is more or less a condensed version of what they’ve been doing, at least a combination of their first two albums. They started off as more straightforward pop-punk and turned more into a pop-rock / alt-rock band, whereas this album is a good mix of the two. It’s only 29 minutes, and the album has a nice summery feel to it, so listen to it while the summer is still left. The lyrics are a little corny, and syrupy sweet at times, but that’s how this band has always been, only they upped the ante this time. It has some good hooks, and their vocalist is the best he’s ever sounded, as his nasally sound in his voice from the last couple albums has almost been smoothed out, but this was a pleasant album from front to back (not to mention, there’s a great little sax solo on the album that really surprised me).
Movements is a band that I’ve always been mixed on; I loved their debut EP from 2016, but I haven’t cared for anything else they’ve done. They went from a post-hardcore band to pop-punk and then to shoegaze / indie, and their last LP was a very slow and monotonous album that I couldn’t sit still while listening to. It was very boring, despite not being bad. With their third album, though, they switched up their sound again and the title of it, Ruckus, is oddly fitting, being that this album ups the volume and energy of their last album. This thing is still rooted in post-hardcore, but there’s an alt-rock influence that rears its head throughout it. The songs are catchier, more fun, and less sad. Their lyrics have always been focused on mental health, which is great, but their vocalist has revealed that he is in a very good headspace and didn’t want to keep writing about that, especially since it would come off as fake and disingenuous, but the album is more positive and more fun this time around. Nothing that blows my mind, or really sticks around for me minus more than a handful of listens, but still really good stuff.
