Jackson Futrell’s review of the albumTime 'n' Place

I feel like this was one of the biggest surprises I’ve had listening to an artists discography for at least multiple albums from them. Maybe the only other one I can think of is when I first heard Boarding House Reach, and how different that was from what I was expecting, and what the albums before it were like. I guess I want to list out my thoughts here because I had no idea how Anthony Fantano feels about this album before writing this or listening to the album and usually I have an idea that he either likes it or doesn’t like it and so I definitely want to write down my thoughts, so that I can get better at forming my own opinions, rather than just regurgitating or formulating an opinion based on other’s. I think overall this album really worked for me. It definitely went a very different path than the first album, but I think having the context of the first album really helps me enjoy this one a lot more. This one went for a more atmospheric, dark, glitchy, rough sound, as opposed to the first one. For me the lyrical content that I picked up, and the instrumentals kind of told the story of the character, from the first album, or the singer in the least kind of growing up and seeing how hard life is. It kind of felt like her optimistic look on life that we heard in the first album kind of got challenged and throughout this album. I think that works really well with their sound that they put in this one with first of all her voice, that’s really kind of cute and upbeat and dreamy to degree being flashed against this harsh, dark and brooding instrumentals along with touches of candy-pop or whatever sound effects from the first album. So I think it really held that pretty well. Also, they definitely went for more of a pop punk I would guess direction on this album and even though I think sometimes this music can lose its taste I think they kept things interesting with the drum work and also the added effects and just the overall vocal delivery. It kept things spicy and not too boring. I think some negative things I would have to say is that the experimental mess and glitchiness is really harsh some of the hardest I’ve ever heard in an album and sometimes it can be a little bit much, for example, the synths that come in on the last song was a little much along with the already static nature of it. And sometimes it can be more than harsh, but just really hard to listen to which given my at least first time, perceived concept of the album makes sense, and I wouldn’t necessarily change it, but it does make it a hard listen especially if you’re expecting a vibey experience or really positive one like you had on the first album. Overall though I really like this album, there’s a lot of songs in this album I really liked. I enjoyed the themes they were exploring this album and I would really like to dive into the lyrical content to see if I was accurate on the story. Also, it’s really cool to hear this album in the context of the first one because I’ve heard albums before that have like a female singer, kind of being brighter or maybe melodramatic over dark and brooding stuff and sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it’s not that great but having the context of the first album and also just the vocal delivery really sells that feeling of childhood innocence trying to be defended in a way and I think they do that very well. Favorite song? Only Acting