Hello, everyone. My name is Simon, and this is a post where I am doing mini reviews of seven albums (six 2022 albums and one throwback).

For my first two of these mini review posts (this is only my third), I listed a few things to note. Please read the intros to those two posts, because they explain a few things about these mini review posts, and the same rules apply here. Just like the last two, this post is very late.

Another thing to mention is that after this post, I have one more album to review, and then I’ll probably be taking a break from album reviews. That’s not to say I won’t continue to post on this website, I’ll just be making different types of posts, still related to music. And it doesn’t mean I’m quitting making album reviews, I’m just taking a break … and I’m not even sure I’ll be taking much of a break, because I might change my mind and/or discover an album that I really want to review. Either way, I’ll continue to listen to new albums, even if I don’t do many reviews soon.

With all that being said, let’s start off with a review of a metal album!

Key to a Vanishing Future by Falls of Rauros:

So, I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before on this site … but one of my favourite music genres, if not my favourite, is metal. And for whatever reason I haven’t found a ton of metal from this year that’s really clicked for me (at least compared to last year), but I was curious to check out the newest Falls of Rauros album, Key to a Vanishing Future. This album came out in March of this year, and it’s my first time listening to this band. How is it?

Honestly, it’s not really my style of metal. It’s not to say this sound can’t be done in ways that click for me, but possibly the biggest issue for me on this album is the production, as the instruments often sound very disconnected from each other.

Also, a lot of these songs just don’t have much about them that really stand out to me in a positive way. And considering that the shortest song here is over six and a half minutes, that’s really a bad sign if you ask me.

I will say this: there are some cool instrumental moments on this album, like the end of the closing track, “Poverty Hymn”, with the lead guitar and the drums. I also like the start of “Desert of Heart”. And I understand why this album might click for a lot of people. It’s just not really for me. Also, the part of “Daggers in Floodlight” when the drumming changes just over a minute in sounds horrible in my opinion.

I’m giving this new Falls of Rauros album a 4/10.

Final Thoughts
Rating: 4/10
Favourite Tracks: “Clarity”
Least Favourite Tracks: “Survival Poem”, “Known World Narrows”, “Daggers in Floodlight”

Surrender by Maggie Rogers:

I wasn’t sure if I was going to listen to this new Maggie Rogers album … but I’m so glad I did, because it’s great!

A lot of what makes this album so good are the small details, like the pianos on “Want Want”, the high-pitched synth on “Symphony”, and what sounds like a flute or something on “Begging For Rain”.

Maggie gives some fantastic vocal performances on this album, with some examples being on the incredible track, “Honey”, as well as at the very end of “Shatter”.

Speaking of “Honey”, this song is so amazing! I already mentioned the vocals, which also sound amazing over the instrumental, which features some super powerful drums, and some great lead guitar on the chorus! This song just sounds so … magical.

Overall, this is a great album which combines alternative rock, folk, and maybe a bit of pop, too? I have a hard time telling genres apart from each other, so I’m not sure … but what I will say is that for me, this is a 7.5/10 … and also, that’s an extremely strong 7.5!

Final Thoughts
Rating: 7.5/10
Favourite Tracks: “Overdrive”, “Anywhere With You”, “Be Cool”, “Begging For Rain”, “Honey”
Least Favourite Tracks: “Horses”

Traumazine by Megan Thee Stallion:

So, the first thing I should mention is that I haven’t looked super closely into the lyrics on this album … they are a lot to take in, and I don’t want to take that much time to try to understand the meaning of every line on this album, especially when there’s so many lyrics. I’ve read most of the lyrics on this album, but just keep in mind that I haven’t looked super closely into the lyrics (which could be said about a lot of albums I review, but especially this one).

I also think some of these songs (not all of them) are just supposed to be fun to listen to and aren’t really about the lyrics (I could be wrong about this, though).

Anyway, Megan’s rapping on this album is great, and I like the instrumentals for the most part, too. And as much as some of these songs seem like bad ideas on paper … they end up being great! For example, the song, “Her”, which I love, but even I’m not entirely sure why … I’m not even going to try to describe why this feels like it shouldn’t work on paper. You’ll just have to hear it if you want to try to understand what I’m saying.

I also think “Gift & a Curse” is another song that really isn’t the kind of music I usually listen to, but for whatever reason, I love it! Megan sounds great on this track, and the instrumental is great, too!

Also, this is probably an unpopular opinion, but my favourite song on the album is probably “Pressurelicious”. I think this song is supposed to be stupid, and in that context, the ‘terrible’ lyrics don’t bug me. The instrumental sounds great, and Megan and Future both sound great here, too! Honestly, I love this song for similar reasons why I love “Magnolia” by Playboi Carti … both songs, at least to me, seem really stupid, but for whatever reason, they’re just too much fun to listen to, and I don’t really take either of them seriously.

Overall, while I don’t think this album is very consistent, most of the better songs here are great, and most of the worse songs here are not even that bad, with some exceptions, like my least favourite song on the album, “Sweetest Pie”, but overall, for me, this is a 6.5/10.

Final Thoughts
Rating: 6.5/10
Favourite Tracks: “NDA”, “Her”, “Gift & a Curse”, “Anxiety”, “Flip Flop”, “Star”, “Pressurelicious”
Least Favourite Tracks: “Ungrateful”, “Who Me”, “Sweetest Pie”

PANORAMA by Hayley Kiyoko:

I haven’t seen/heard a lot of opinions on this album, but it’s the kind of album that I could easily see a lot of critics calling bland, generic, and boring, and there’s reasons for that … but to me, while I don’t love this album, or even particularly like it, I feel like there are some interesting ideas here, and a few great songs.

I love the lyrics on “chance”, where Hayley sings about wanting to be in a relationship with someone who she knows would never take a chance on her, and then later realizes that she herself never took a chance on the two of them. I also like the opening lyrics, ‘Does she feel the energy the way that I do? In the air whenever we get in the same room? ‘Cause I don’t know how to read her mind, and I don’t wanna cross the line.’

I really like the chorus of “well…” and the synths that open “found my friends”, and both are good songs overall in my opinion. “forever” is a great song with a great hook, and it’s my second favourite song on the album, only behind the title track, which is also the closing track. It’s an optimistic way to end the album, which I interpret as being about appreciating the good things in life, and I love the instrumental chorus on this track.

So, those are some good songs … but I’m reviewing the album as a whole, and while some of the other songs have notable elements to them that I like, the album as a whole doesn’t fully click for me.

“for the girls” and “underground” both have really good choruses in my opinion, but the verses don’t click for me nearly as much.

And then there’s “s.o.s.”, which just has so little to it that really stands out to me personally, and the chopped up vocals at the start of the verses really don’t sound good in my opinion.

The majority of these songs are decent at best to me, but I get why this might click a lot more for some people, so I recommend that you hear it if you have the time … it’s certainly interesting! But I could also see why some might like it a lot less than me. For me, it’s a 5.5/10. I respect the creativity of it, and some of it really works for me … but as a whole album, it’s not really something I feel like going back to.

Final Thoughts
Rating: 5.5/10
Favourite Tracks: “forever”, “chance”, “well…”, “found my friends”, “panorama”
Least Favourite Tracks: “flicker start”, “s.o.s.”

Unwanted by Pale Waves:

So, this is a tricky review for me to do.

I remember listening to Pale Waves’ 2021 album, Who Am I?, which I remember being an album I respect way more than I like. I remember it being a very personal album, but it just didn’t really click for me personally, despite me understanding the appeal of it.

And this new album … just like that one, I wondered if I should even review it, because I can tell it’s a very personal album, and despite that, it doesn’t really click for me. But like I said, it’s just my own personal taste, so here I am reviewing it (especially considering that I was planning to review it before I even heard it … that’s not to say I’ll never decide not to review an album I planned to review, but I think that’ll be extremely rare).

And once again, I get that there’s an audience for this. It’s an album that I recommend you listen to if you haven’t already, especially if you’re into pop-punk.

But for me, the production holds it back a lot, with the drums feeling too underpowered a lot of the time. And there’s not a lot melodically that really clicks for me, either.

But with that being said, I have to mention what is easily my favourite song on the album, “The Hard Way”. This is a heartbreaking song where lead singer, Heather Baron-Gracie, sings about somebody she used to go to school with who ended up taking her own life after being bullied, and Heather wishes she helped this person, but it’s too late to change what happened, and Heather ended up learning the hard way. This song has a really important message of being careful with how we treat people, and of trying to help people who are struggling.

With that being said, the album as a whole is a 4/10 for me. But even if you don’t listen to the whole album, I highly recommend that you at least listen to “The Hard Way”. That song is amazing.

Final Thoughts
Rating: 4/10
Favourite Tracks: “The Hard Way”, “Reasons To Live”, “So Sick (Of Missing You)”
Least Favourite Tracks: “Lies”, “Unwanted”, “Alone”, “Clean”, “You’re So Vain”

Hold On Baby by King Princess:

Well, this is quite something! And not what I was expecting, either!

Going into this album, the only song I knew by King Princess was her 2018 single, “1950”. That song made me curious to check out this album … and on a bit of a side note, I like that song.

And I like this album, too! Some specific highlights for me are the super well-produced “Dotted Lines”, “For My Friends”, which has a great sudden buildup as the chorus kicks in, and the excellent closer, “Let Us Die”, which sees King Princess realize that a relationship isn’t going to work, and she has to accept that and live without this person.

There are a lot of cool ideas here musically, and overall, I really like this album! There are a few songs that don’t work for me, and “Sex Shop” is terrible in my opinion, but with the songs I mentioned as well as some others, this album has lots of good songs in my opinion, and I’m giving it a 7/10.

Final Thoughts
Rating: 7/10
Favourite Tracks: “I Hate Myself, I Want To Party”, “Little Bother”, “For My Friends”, “Too Bad”, “Dotted Lines”, “Let Us Die”
Least Favourite Tracks: “Hold on Baby Interlude”, “Change the Locks”, “Sex Shop”

THROWBACK REVIEW – Electra Heart by Marina and The Diamonds (2012):

And we end this post with a throwback review!

For a while, MARINA (formerly known as Marina and The Diamonds) had been one of those artists who I kept hearing great things about but hadn’t taken the time to listen to. And there are multiple reasons why I wanted to make this my next throwback review. Anyway, as of right now, this is the only MARINA album I’ve ever listened to, and …

Well, it’s … interesting, to say the least.

So, the first thing I’m going to say is that I’m not sure how much of the lyrics on this album are personal stories and how much is fictional … but I’m going to refer to the narrator as a ‘character’, whether it’s MARINA (or somebody else) in real life or just a character.

Also, it’s worth mentioning that all of this is just my interpretation … whatever I say about the lyrics is just how I interpret them. I’m not sure what these lyrics are supposed to mean, and I haven’t done much research about them.

So, the next thing I’ll say is that on my first listen, a few tracks in, I had a really good feeling about this album. I could tell this was going to be a concept album (whatever that means), and I like the idea of this character trying to convince herself that she’s not doing anything wrong, even though it’s quite obvious that she is.

The problem to me is that despite a really interesting idea for a story throughout the album … unless I’m missing something, there isn’t much of a story here. Yes, I know on the closing track, this character finally realizes how much of a problem this lifestyle has been, and decides to make a change, but up until then, at least to me, it mostly feels like the same themes being sung about over and over again, just with different details and explaining different elements of this character. And that’s something that could have really clicked for me … but it just doesn’t feel all that interesting to me, because it feels like outside of a few songs, the order of the track list could be shuffled and it wouldn’t make much of a difference. And in my opinion, for a concept album like this one, that’s a problem.

Now, all that being said, for me to like an album, there doesn’t have to be some big idea throughout the track list that really clicks for me. If the songs are good enough, I’m willing to give an album a positive score. And, spoiler alert (not really much of a spoiler), I’m not going to give this album a 10, but even for me to give an album a 10 it doesn’t have to have a theme throughout the album that really clicks for me.

And fortunately, I like most of the songs on this album. “Living Dead” is musically somewhat upbeat but not too much to the point where it feels like it doesn’t fit with the much sadder lyrics. “The State of Dreaming” is another sad song with great strings, and it really clicks for me. While I love both of those songs, my personal favourite on the album is “Primadonna”, which is the second song on the album, and the one that shows that this character isn’t very happy with this lifestyle … but it’s all disguised with upbeat instrumentation, as this character is trying to hide how she’s feeling.

Overall, while this album disappointed me a bit after the first few songs on my first listen … it’s still really good! I’m giving this album a 7.5/10, and I’m especially excited to check out some of MARINA’s other albums, as I have a feeling I’ll like some of those even more.

Final Thoughts
Rating: 7.5/10
Favourite Tracks: “Primadonna”, “Lies”, “Starring Role”, “The State of Dreaming”, “Living Dead”
Least Favourite Tracks: “Valley of the Dolls”, “Hypocrates”