THE 1975 – NOTES ON A CONDITIONAL FORM album review

THE 1975 – NOTES ON A CONDITIONAL FORM

Dirty Hit, 2020

Alternative/Pop rock

After delays and much hype from the band themselves, The 1975 have finally delivered their fourth album and follow-up to 2018’s A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships that was first promised to us back in 2019. So now that we have Notes on a Conditional Form available to us, the ultimate question is if it lives up to the hype that’s been built up around it. It was delayed because Matthew Healy and the band wanted to make sure it was perfect, right? Well, let’s find out.

First off, this album is massive, with 22 tracks clocking in at 80 minutes. The 1975 are no strangers to long albums, with every one of their full-lengths running over 50 minutes, but this one pushes the CD format to its limits in the physical editions. That’s right, this is not a double album, it’s packaged, or at least presented as a single album. (I stream everything. Don’t judge me!) As much as I like to pick on pop and rock albums when they stretch past the hour mark, a long album doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad album. If an album makes you feel like the time invested hasn’t been wasted, it can be as long as it needs to be. Unfortunately, Notes… doesn’t make the best use of its time.

That being said, this album does fare better than other long albums. There are several moments on it that are actually quite good. But there’s also just a lot of stuff that just doesn’t need to be here. For example, early on in the album there are two brief, orchestral interludes. You might think that these are setting the stage for tracks like this to be interspersed throughout the entire album, but no, they’re only tracks 3 and 5 and that’s it. Another major misstep is “Nothing Revealed / Everything Denied,” which starts with gospel chorus vocals, has this very strangely pitched and rapped chorus, and a terribly mixed guitar solo. The last completely weak point is “Bagsy Not in Net,” which doesn’t really feel like a fully formed song.

The rest of the weaker tracks on the album aren’t necessarily bad, but they’re not great and there’s the question of whether they fit on the album or not. An obvious pick here is “Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America,” which features Phoebe Bridgers and sounds an awful lot like a Sufjan Steven song or even a combination of the first two Bon Iver records when the brass comes in. The Bon Iver vibes come back in a big way on “Don’t Worry,” a duet with Matty Healy’s father. The story behind the song is beautiful, but it doesn’t outweigh the similarities. And neither of these songs are awful, but they aren’t great and they just feel out of place. Similarly, the electronic tracks “Shiny Collarbone” and “Having No Head” are actually really good, but they just don’t seem to fit.

Okay, I’ve done enough complaining. It’s time to talk about the good stuff, because there’s actually some very bright spots on this album. After the intro track, “People” is an absolute banger of some noisy garage rock. It’s completely unexpected in the best way. “Me & You Together Song” sounds like some late ’90s, Third Eye Blind pop rock, but unlike the other referential tracks on the album, it’s actually an incredibly well written track that is inspired by a sound without copying it. Similarly, “If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)” is a certifiable ’80s new wave banger. All of these tracks have The 1975’s signature cheeky lyrics, throwing a little dirty subversion into the catchy and bouncy hooks. One more thing I want to highlight is how tracks “Frail State Of Mind” and “I Think There’s Something You Should Know” expertly combine The 1975’s pop rock with styles of EDM like UK garage and house.

Ultimately, Notes… is a pretty conflicting album for me. The 1975 take a lot of risks on this album. That’s evident from the first track, named after the band itself, and consisting of a 5 minute speech on climate change from Greta Thunberg. I mean, damn. The really frustrating part is that a lot of the risks pay off, or at least break even. But the “good, not great” tracks pale in comparison to the really great ones, and then there’s the issue of the completely unnecessary ones. This isn’t a bad album, but I can’t help but feel like there’s a really great one in it somewhere if the band had been a little more focused on quality over quantity.

3.0/5.0

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THE WRECKS – INFINITELY ORDINARY album review

THE WRECKS – INFINITELY ORDINARY

Big Noise Music Group, 2020

Alternative/Indie pop/Power pop

This album showed up in a list of new releases for the week and I instantly recognized the name, but I couldn’t remember where from. Some quick digging revealed that a track from their first EP was in a playlist or something I came across a couple years ago and I added it to one of my own playlists. The track was “My Favorite Liar” and it was some decent pop punk with a bit of garage rock influence. The chorus was catchy and I liked how the song sounded happy but the lyrics were angry at a specific person. I then found out that Infinitely Ordinary is the band’s first full-length. After being reminded that they had left a positive impression, I went into it with some slight anticipation.

Well… let’s just say The Wrecks have made some stylistic changes since that first EP. There are a couple hints of the pop punk I was familiar with, but the majority of what’s here lines up more with radio ready alternative pop. Now, that’s not an inherently bad thing. Some bands like WALK THE MOON can write some damn good and damn catchy songs and I’m not ashamed to admit I enjoy them. But a lot of Infinitely Ordinary just isn’t doing it for me. There are a couple things I do like, so we’ll start with those.

“Out Of Style” is a fun dance rock track that has barely sung verses and big choruses that I think is telling the story of two former lovers that put some geographical distance between themselves and both of them are coping in some unhealthy ways. At first, I didn’t like the verses, especially the second one where the vocalists describes some LED lights he hung up in his room. But it eventually grew on me and it becomes hilarious in a way when you realize this is just a product of his chosen coping mechanisms. Along with that, the hooks in the song are just great. Another track I like to a lesser extent is “This Life I Have” that switches back and forth between light, AJR-esque passages and raw, garage punk like their older material. The lyrics deal with frontman Nick Anderson’s struggles with severe impostor syndrome and the wild musical differences represent how these bouts of depression and self-hatred can hit so suddenly. The only thing about it that really bugs me is how much like AJR some of the melodies sound, otherwise it’s one of the strongest tracks here.

Beyond that, “Feels So Nice” is okay pop rock with some synthpop in the mix, but it starts off with one of the worst lyrics. “You said I look like a Stones song/I said baby I could fuck like one too.” What do either of those statements even mean? It’s almost saved because immediately after this Anderson compares the girl to a Dylan song, but I can’t decide if that’s brilliant or really stupid. What really bugs me about the lyrics are the inconsistent messages all over this album. Normally I’m a little forgiving in this area, but the sequence of these tracks makes the problem worse. The track “Four” describes how Anderson is heartbroken after his girlfriend leaves and he wants her to come home. The song sells it at the end with Anderson’s voice cracking because he’s just so passionate about it. But he also just spent the last two tracks describing how he’s coping with an ended relationship by partying and how another relationship got so stale that he just wants out. Given that, the sincerity of “Four” is a hard sell, no matter how much his voice cracks.

What makes this even worse is the that the song immediately before this, “Fvck Somebody,” (yes, it’s spelled with a v) is all about how he’s become bored in a relationship and wants his girlfriend to mess up somehow so he has an easy way to get out of the relationship. First of all, dude just needs to grow a pair and talk to his girlfriend and just end things if it’s not working for him. I know it’s a hard thing to do and it’ll hurt and it sucks and it’d be nice if it was easy. But he literally says that he’s “gotta get out without it being my fault.” Dude, just break up if you’re unhappy. Second, following this with “Four” doesn’t make me feel bad with you, it makes me wonder if you really care.

The final piece to this confusing puzzle comes in the album closer, the title track, where he describes spending time with a girl and then says that he “could get used to this infinitely ordinary life.” But just a few tracks earlier he was practically begging his girlfriend to cheat on him because the relationship got so boring. So which is it!? And I know, all four of these tracks could be describing four different relationships, but the messaging is so different and in such close proximity in some of them that it can be frustrating. Especially when other songs are set up as coming from Anderson’s personal experiences, so we’re led to believe that these are all reactions to real events, whether they are or not.

The music itself on this album doesn’t really help either. “Four” pulls heavily from the AJR brand of modern indie pop and hints of it show up on “Fvck Somebody” as well. “We All Get Lonely” sounds like a Muse song without the political commentary. The title track pulls from modern pop tropes, and that’s not always a bad thing but this particular case feels really derivative. It also has a melody that reminds me of another song, but it’s by an artist that isn’t super widely known so I’m probably the only person who cares.

I guess what bothers me the most about this album is that we know The Wrecks can do better. Their first two EPs showed a lot of promise. This band had the potential to get some real mainstream traction and be a bright spot in the current landscape of pop rock music. To see them so quickly chase after trends on their first full-length is just disappointing. That being said, we also know they have talent, and it does poke through on a couple tracks. We can hope that they only get better from here.

1.5/5.0