Day 780: Love + Light by Daniel Avery
Quote:
Originally Posted by rayword45
Day 449: Song For Alpha by Daniel Avery (Album Choice: internet music nerds)
"Yo somehow this music is blending in PERFECTLY with the pop music blasting in this car. They don't contrast at all, which is scary... okay that's probably just a first track thing.
Sensation is great."
That was all I managed to write down on my first go through with this album, before slinking off into half-sleep. I've listened to this album about five times now. Before, I would shit out a review towards the end of an album to get it over with, but this one caused me to lose words. "Before" was the absolute wrong word to use considering I still do that, it's just that this album is specifically difficult to shitpost out a review to. That's a good thing!
Geogaddi is one of my all-time favorite albums, and this album seems to capture that same vibe that I love in large part, although this one definitely isn't as dark and there are more "danceable" moments here, using that term lightly (basically where the albums house flavor shows up). Either way, a great, great album and rivaling Kali for my current favorite of 2018 spot. Unlike Boards of Canada though, I can confidently say that the short tracks here really don't have shit on the long tracks.
Best Track: Quick Eternity
Rating: 8.5/10
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This was in 2018, I still really enjoy that album, but only at really specific moments, it's not something I jam every month to be quite honest. And in retrospect, 8.5/10 was probably 1-1.5 too generous.
Should I compare the two albums or should I review this one on its own merits? I'm not actually going to decide, I'm just gonna barf out my thoughts like normal and see what happens. Compared to
Song For Alpha (okay yup we're going that way already) this album is way more accessible feeling, songs seem a lot less understated and things are a lot more upbeat and in-your-face. I assume the first disc is supposed to be
Love and the second is supposed to be
Light, but honestly they should switch titles if that's the case, as the songs on the first disc are a LOT more danceable and aggressive with percussion than the frequently angelic-sounding (I mean that as neither a compliment or pejorative) second half.
I... I'm really stumped at this point to be quite honest as how to rate this. With the exception of the consecutive annoyances of
Depth Wish and
Searing Light, Forward Motion, combined taking up less than 4 minutes of this 60 minute album, there is nothing less than pleasant to my ears here. I'm also fond of the pseudo-double album (is it pseudo?) structuring, as it prevents any singular mood or style from becoming overly repetitious. But... I don't know, there's some kind of magic missing that I'm just not sure how to word it. I can honestly say I LOVED at least a good half of this album, and of the remaining 26ish minutes of music it's never anything worse than "okay, this exists and is chill enough" but I'm just not sure if this fully clicks as an album for me.
Fuck it, remind me to re-evaluate this WITHIN A MONTH because I really am stumped.
Best Track:
Darlinnn on side one,
A Story in E5 on side two
Rating: 7/10