Hello, everyone! So, I’m starting to make more progress on my list of my favourite songs of 2022 (about seven months too late lol), but for now I’ve got more mini reviews ready to post!

As always, none of this is an attempt to be mean or anything, even if the review is negative. Also, this is all just how I personally feel about these albums. Feel free to disagree with me on these albums.

Alright, time for the reviews! And we’re starting with a very mellow album …

The Blue Beyond by Jana Winderen:

This album is only two tracks long, but these songs are over fifteen minutes each. I’d probably call it ambient music, or maybe a sound collage.

Either way, I can’t really say it’s fully clicking for me. In fact, I mostly found it to be a slog to get through. It starts out kind of promising with a really eerie, haunting vibe to it, but the longer this album goes on the more I really want it to end.

And it’s not an album that gives me much to say, either … to me it mostly just sounds like a bunch of random sounds and it gets really boring the longer it goes on.

So, for me, it’s a 4/10. If you’re really into sound collages, it’s worth giving a chance, but I couldn’t get into this at all.

Final Thoughts
Rating: 4/10
Favourite Tracks: “The Art of Listening: Under Water”
Least Favourite Tracks: “Du Petit Risoud aux Profondeurs du Lac de Joux”

Drink The River by Gabe Lee:

This is my first time listening to a Gabe Lee album, and I’d heard really good things about this album, so I was really excited to hear it (even though I’m not really the biggest fan of country music)!

And there’s a lot of great storytelling on this album, with some good melodies, too. I also really like the production, with the acoustic guitar sounding fantastic!

But unfortunately, I also found quite a few flaws that hold the album back for me. And I’ll start my mentioning the title track, which I don’t like at all. First of all, there’s the line, ‘To Carolina, swift I’ll drive, edge of the road, sharp as a knife, hundred miles an hour, I’m comin’ home to you.’ Yes, I know he’s not being serious here (at least I hope not, and I’d assume he’s not being serious), but it still makes me like the song less … and I also don’t find the melodies or instrumental all that interesting.

I also feel like for an album where so much of it is about the storytelling, and the subtle details in the instrumentation, it kind of feels like it ends a bit suddenly, being less than forty minutes. And I’m not entirely sure why it feels so short or why I feel like I’d like it more if it were longer, especially considering I’m often not the biggest fan of long albums, but this one feels like it could use more, maybe a few more tracks at the end to connect the songs narratively a bit more, because there are themes throughout the album that seem to kind of connect some of the songs, like the theme of how complex humans are, but it doesn’t feel fully fleshed out … but keep in mind that I’m not great at analyzing lyrics, so maybe I’m missing something here, I don’t know.

There is still a lot here that I do like, such as the lyrics about appreciating what we have in “Heart Don’t Break”, and “Merigold” is a heartbreaking track telling the story of someone who’s trying to move on after losing a loved one but is constantly being reminded of this tragedy and wishing to go back in time, and I also love the vocal melodies on this track. There’s also a really great cover of “All I Can Do Is Write About It” by Lynyrd Skynyrd that I probably like more than the original, and the strings in “Even Jesus Got the Blues” sound amazing! Honestly, I like every song here except for the title track.

Gabe Lee is a really good vocalist, too, and I do really like this for the most part, but I can’t help but feel like I ‘should’ like this more than I do, and I don’t entirely know why. So, for a rating … well, again, it’s not that I think this album is bad, or anywhere near bad, it’s just that I feel like the seeds of an absolutely phenomenal album are here and it doesn’t quite click for me as much as I wanted, but still … maybe a light 8? I’d say it’s great, even if just barely. Maybe it’ll grow on me, but for now I’m not quite as wowed by it as a lot of people are.

Final Thoughts
Rating: 8/10
Favourite Tracks: “The Wild”, “Even Jesus Got the Blues”, “Heart Don’t Break”, “All I Can Do is Write About It”, “Merigold”, “Eveline”, “Property Line”
Least Favourite Tracks: “Drink The River”

Echosmith by Echosmith:

Echosmith are a band I’ve definitely heard of, quite a few times, but this is my first time listening to an album of theirs.

And unfortunately this is not for me at all. This album is full of vocal melodies that I find super boring, and I’m not a big fan of the production, either, with a lot of the vocal layering adding to a strangely airy sound that feels distracting, and it’s a sound I don’t usually like in this kind of alternative rock.

I’m not really a big fan of how the snares sound here, either, as they often sound either underpowered or annoyingly clunky. And often the vocals seem to overpower the mix, and I feel like that may be in part because of the vocal layering … and then there’s also “Greedy” which features one of the better instrumentals here, and it’s a mellow song that I think I would have liked a lot more if it weren’t for the reverb—it’s not that I never like reverb in music, but for a song that feels so stripped back and mellow and very much about the rawness of the song, the reverb just feels distracting here.

At least the lyrics on this album are kind of interesting, especially with a lot of the detail in the lyrics, but it still doesn’t quite resonate with me emotionally … but that’s a me thing. And even though there are some lyrics here I like, that doesn’t change the fact that I find the melodies and instrumentals really boring—for example, I like the storytelling in “Golden Child”, but there’s almost nothing about this track that really stands out to me in a positive way outside of that. 

“Sour” is easily my favourite song here, and the chorus of that song is one of the very few points on this album—maybe even the only one—where a vocal melody really clicks for me, but even that song has reverb that holds me back from really loving that song … and that’s by far my favourite track here. So, if that isn’t enough to say that I’m not a fan of this album, then here’s a 4/10. It’s not one of the worst albums I’ve heard all year or anything, but I mostly found it to be a slog to get through.

Final Thoughts
Rating: 4/10
Favourite Tracks: “Porcelain”, “Sour”
Least Favourite Tracks: “Sucks 2 Be Us”, “Hindsight”, “Primadonna”, “Gelato”

Neo Seven by 7038634357:

This artist has put out quite a bit of music already, but I only heard of them for the first time recently (at least as far as I can remember), and this is a mostly calming ambient album which mostly works for me.

But unfortunately, I don’t love this album. And part of that is because the loud, distorted sections feel really out of place here—I get that it adds more variety, but those parts of the album just don’t click for me at all, and I otherwise really like the opening and closing tracks (even though I couldn’t find the lyrics to the closing track when I looked them up, and I can’t hear most of the lyrics).

But speaking of adding more variety … I do wish there was a bit more detail here. And I think that’s what’s going to keep me from coming back to this often, even though I do mostly like it. I just don’t find it super memorable.

But still … I’ll give it a light 7/10, because it is quite calming and well-produced, and “Square Heart” is a great track. If you like ambient music, I’d recommend giving this a chance, but even as someone who really likes ambient music … again, I like it, but I don’t love it. 

Final Thoughts
Rating: 7/10
Favourite Tracks: “Square Heart”, “Acolyte”, “Eraser”
Least Favourite Tracks: “Everytime”

TUN021 – Vector Strike by Devroka:

So, I was just randomly looking for some obscure music I could review … I hope that if I review some obscure artists’ music it’ll inspire people to listen to those albums, even if I give it a negative review.

Going into this album, I didn’t really expect much … there wasn’t anything in particular about it that made me feel like I was really going to like it—and yet …

It turns out this is some pretty great instrumental dance music, with really sharp snares and great grooves!

The production sounds fantastic, and there are a lot of great melodies! There are so many great moments here, and it doesn’t overstay its welcome, either, as it’s not even twenty-five minutes long, but it doesn’t feel too short, either—it’s just a really fun listen with fantastic production, and I’m really glad I gave it a chance! And I highly recommend you do, too! 8/10 for me!

Final Thoughts
Rating: 8/10
Favourite Tracks: “Beneath the circuits”, “Ancient relics”, “Sonic hideout”
Least Favourite Tracks: “Storm surge”

Euphoric by Georgia:

Georgia is the daughter of Neil Barnes (a member of Leftfield, a duo whose music I’ve never listened to), and this is her third album. I haven’t listened to her first two yet, but it seems like this one is getting the least positive reception of any Georgia album so far … and even without having listened to her first two albums, I understand why.

There’s a lot of personal song writing here, and while I respect it, it doesn’t mean I like the album even a little bit. There are a few moments I like but even the best songs here aren’t particularly great if you ask me.

I kind of feel like I’ve reviewed this exact same album ten times already—and yes, that’s an exaggeration, but the vocal melodies here don’t click for me at all, the percussion feels distractingly intense when paired with the rest of the instrumentals, and overall the instrumentals sound mostly upbeat but not all that catchy to me.

At least “Give It up for Love” has a chorus that kind of goes off, and I really like the production in “Keep On”, and the worst songs here aren’t awful or anything, but it’s an album that I’ll probably have a hard time remembering. So, for me, it’s an extremely light 5/10. I don’t find it so boring to the point where it’s bad, but I don’t think I’ll be going back to it much.

Final Thoughts
Rating: 5/10
Favourite Tracks: “Give It up for Love”, “Keep On”
Least Favourite Tracks: “All Night”