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Back again for another week of “Sound Opinions,” I’ll do my best to make unsolicited music reviews the high point of your week.
Sunflower Bean — “Human Ceremony”
[/vc_column_text][vc_video link="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muJwBo6K828"][vc_column_text]Quite a few albums pass through the hands of the KTRM programming team during the course of a school year. While most of them are plain awful, the debut album from New York City neo-psychedelic trio Sunflower Bean should stay as far away from the garbage can as possible. Although the idea of neo-psychedelia seems paradoxical considering the fact that the Haight-Ashbury movement died nearly five decades ago following the summer of 1969, a new age of expanded consciousness through music didn’t seem out of the question.
The group starts right into the album with the title track, “Human Ceremony,” a hazy summer anthem that warms the ears during the middle of a blustery Kirksville February. The rest of the album paces itself at a fast clip, with heavily distorted guitar poking through the fog of synthesizers. Lead vocalist Julia Cumming has the same tone as Molly Rankin of Alvvays, and as a whole, the entire album is comparable to Alvvays’ 2014 self-titled album, a possible precedent to the disputed definition of neo-psychedelia. While the overall sound might be similar, the band forks away from comparisons to dreamy pop bands on tracks such as “I Was Home,” where Nick Kivlen, backing vocalist and Bob Dylan look-alike, catches the spotlight with distorted beach vocals similar to Nathan Williams of Wavves. The lead single, “Easier Said,” was put into the KTRM rotation last week and already is receiving a decent amount of airtime. Overall, the album lends itself to the beach rock sound that might not stand the test of time, but is much needed during the depths of winter.
[/vc_column_text][vc_video link="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV7knWtro8k"][vc_column_text]The solo project of Noel Heroux, former lead singer of now-disbanded Hooray For Earth, this full-length, self-titled debut is comparable to Australian super-rockers Tame Impala. Experimental rock is the name of the game for this 40-minute album, and Heroux’s vocals are reminiscent of James Mercer of The Shins. However, the appeal to Mass Gothic’s arena rock in a shoebox sound is more comparable to Mercer’s work with Danger Mouse, as the shoegaze duo Broken Bells. While the comparisons in the album’s general sound are not hard to live up to, it otherwise falls short.
The rhythms begin to melt into one long track by the end of the album, and I consider the final half of the album filler. It is an album that sounds like it has been done before by a few different bands during the last few years. That being said, the opening track, “Mind is Probably,” is an enjoyable tune, even if Mass Gothic’s claim to fame might turn out to be nothing more than rehashing the electronic rock sound that bands like Digitalism and LCD Soundsystem made popular more than a decade ago. If this album is your type of sound, however, I point you in the direction of listening to MGMT’s 2007 release “Oracular Spectacular,” or more recently, the 2010 self-titled release from the aforementioned Broken Bells.
Send your angry letters to burk992@gmail.com if you disagree with my opinions or have suggestions for a future album review. As always, turbocharge your day with “THE WARMUP LAP” 7-9 a.m. every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 7-9 a.m., and “LOUD & OBNOXIOUS” 10 p.m. to midnight every Saturday on 88.7 The Edge.
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