Review: Ugly is Beautiful by Oliver Tree

Oliver Tree often asks, “Where is the division between the man and the meme?” He attempts to answer this question but fails to satisfy me with his answer. Oliver Tree is an artist who slowly burned onto the scene rather than bursting onto it.. Having released many singles and an EP before putting out his debut album and developing a methodology of turning yourself into a meme for the purpose of marketing he’s certainly worked hard to get to where he is now. However, as revealed in recent interviews with Anthony Fantano and MTV, this is also his last album.

He revealed that he is tired of working with record labels and having to become someone he’s not simply to release music and be paid for it. ” ’I’m just ready to drop all the bullshit and just get to be the real guy, make the real art,’ he said on a Zoom call with MTV News from inside a domineering plastic bubble.”¹ Right after telling Anthony Fantano that he’s tired of marketing himself, he brought out a large document that he wrote for his senior project on how to become a meme.²

There’s immense tension in his music and character. On one side you have someone who writes music about being a genuine person. On the other is a person who doesn’t seem to be his genuine self. He has explained on various occasions that the jacket is his mothers and one that he wore growing up, his haircut is similar to one he’s always had, his JNCO jeans are the ones he’s always wanted, and his scooter is one that he’s ridden as a professional. This doesn’t resolve the tension that I felt, though. He’s taken some qualities of himself and turned them into a caricature, a meme.

Despite this tension in his artist persona, his music sings to me – as someone also going through early adulthood – of his journey through self-discovery and growth. He sings of feelings of being outcast and “other” while gazing upon society and seeing people just fitting in and not living out who they really are. It’s a call to action to create and live life with vision. Instrumentally, it melds genres such as indie, alternative, rap, and pop. It calls back to music he may have grown up listening to while still sounding unique and genuine.

Ugly is Beautiful caught my attention in a way that most pop albums don’t. I went in having heard one track and was taken in with every aspect of it. It was easy to see a genuine person in the lyrics and instrumentals. It kept every track interesting without falling into the trap of trying to make everything a banger. You could feel the enjoyment of the music making process and the real experiences he sings about.

The standout track in this album for me was “Hurt”. It details feelings and experiences around becoming a semi-pro scooter rider and an accident that happened during a competition. Lyrically and instrumentally he gets at the despair that you feel when you have things like this happen, when everything you know is taken away. Throughout many of his other songs, he writes about his struggles with drugs and feeling ostracized by others. Throughout this there’s a feeling of hope and confidence as he comes to terms with who he is and what he wants to do.

He seems to be following his own call to action as he leaves music – for now at least – and looks to start his own film production company. He’s seeking to make films he’s passionate about without having to deal with the bureaucracy and money of the music industry. After watching his music videos, there is little doubt that he will succeed as a filmmaker with vision. I will be interested to find out, however, which side of the internal dissonance that he’s displayed will win out.

Our Rating: 8.2/10 (Best New Music)

Release Date: July 17, 2020

Label: Atlantic Recording Corporation

¹Patrick Hoskin, The End of Oliver Tree as We Know Him, 17 July 2020, http://www.mtv.com/news/3166867/oliver-tree-ugly-is-beautiful-interview/

² Anthony Fantano, Oliver Tree INTERVIEW, 16 July 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPpsNTAhpUE&t=47s

Review: This is Not the End by Spielbergs

FFO Japandroids, Jeff Rosenstock, Titus Andronicus

One of the most curious bands in the 2019 indie punk landscape comes, somewhat surprisingly, from Oslo, Norway. No one is really clear how the three-piece anthem-rock outfit Spielbergs became an indie darling overnight, including the band themselves. All three members had been earnest and active members of the indie rock and punk community in Norway roughly a decade ago, but after years of failing to break through they had all more or less moved on with their lives and settled in to steady 9 to 5 jobs. It was frustration with this regular life and the mundane cycles it slips into that caused vocalist/guitarist Mads Baklien and drummer Christian Lovhaug, now in their 30s, to get together and start jamming as “an adult youth group, thing.” They had no real expectations at this stage, they just wanted to make music that was fun to play. Shortly afterward their first single, Daisy! It’s the New Me, hit number 27 on a yearly Best Song’s list on one of Norway’s national magazines. The EP it came from, Distant Star, brought in rave reviews from both Stereogum and Pitchfork in 2018.

A year later, Spielbergs are capitalizing on that sudden, unexpected momentum with their debut LP This is Not the End, and it’s already a forerunner for best punk/alternative record of 2019. Beginning with the opening power pop standard Five on It, Spielbergs craft a warm, fuzzy rock record packed with immediate lyrics, catchy hooks, and enough anthemic woah sections to draw in even the most casual listeners. It’s also a surprisingly diverse record. On Familiar and the nearly 8 minute odyssey McDonald’s (Please Don’t Fuck Up My Order) they dip into moody and cathartic post-rock. Sleeper tone’s down the fuzz for a moment to produce a quiet folk song, led by a solo acoustic and backed up by ambient tremolo soundscapes. Sandwiched between these is You All Look Like Giants, which sounds sort of like Dinosaur Jr. covering an Achtung Baby era U2 song. With a spread this wide it would be easy for an album to feeling jarring or disjointed, but Spielbergs place each foray into new territory perfectly in its proper context to create an impressively coherent piece start to finish.

Lyrically This is Not the End is a restless daydream, the musings of men longing for everyday fulfillment with none of the revolutionary aggression that is steadily becoming mainstream in punk music again. Baklien humorously quips that his lyrics essentially amount to “whining”, but that doesn’t stop them from being incredibly relatable. What’s more impressive is that their lyrics hit home so acutely, despite the band admitting that they aren’t very confident in their English and were worried the songs wouldn’t come out well. Even without taking into account the language barrier, lines like “we could be perfect!” in Distant Star, “what do you want/what do you hope for?” in We Are All Going to Die, or “I don’t want to be a part of your future” from Bad Friend make perfect hooks. The directness in these short lines make them easily to shout along with after one listen and the conviction with which Spielbergs deliver them make them cathartic as all hell.

The only major weakness of the record is the mix. While it’s not really much worse off than most punk records, the guitars have a tendency to dominate these recordings. Most of the time this is exactly the intention, but throughout the record the lyrics dip in and out of intelligibility under the sheer force of the fuzz. Even in the choruses, the biggest strength of the record as a whole, whole lines dissolve into just melodies, leaving you with the distinct impression of “that was catchy” without giving you the opportunity to really sing along. In the grand scheme of things this isn’t the worst issue to have however, as a lot of bands, including sludge metal darlings Baroness, manage to get by with much worse and even thrive in the critical arena. It certainly hasn’t held Spielbergs back either, their reception from both fans and critics has been nothing but positive. At long last these three punk scene vets have finally been given their due, and on this their dynamic debut and opus, they’ve earned it fair and square.

Score: 8.3 (Best New Music)

Released: February 1, 2019
Label: By the Time it Gets Dark

Review: “Future Ruins” by Swervedriver

The sixth studio album by U.K. shoegaze outfit Swervedriver is a dynamic musical exploration of modernist dystopia.

FFO: Dinosaur Jr., Cloakroom, My Bloody Valentine

The sixth studio album by U.K. shoegaze outfit Swervedriver is a dynamic musical exploration of modernist dystopia. It is the second new record from the band since reuniting in 2013, building on their 2015 comeback I Wasn’t Born to Lose You with a more experimental spirit while still delivering all of the touchstones fans from their 90s heyday have come to expect. Though the end product isn’t overwhelmingly groundbreaking for the band, it is a thoroughly impressive album on its own merits, swinging easily between massive arena fuzz rock, expansive shoegaze, and 70s-inspired progressive rock tendencies.

At its core Future Ruins is an album envisioning the present day through the lens of 60s modernism. It juxtaposes the optimism of that time surrounding the future with the chaotic future that the Western world actually inherited. Much of this is done using iconic imagery from the golden era, referencing the Berlin Wall, advances in war technology, and a world made more accessible by feats of mechanical engineering yet a world growing increasingly divided. One of the most prominent and most repeated images is spacial exploration. This is incredibly fitting not only because the space race was perhaps the greatest beacon of hope for a generation hedging their future on technological progress, but also because it dually serves as a monument to human isolation in what is ironically the most connected era of our existence.

The opener, Mary Winter, sees an astronaut drifting out in space longing for a home he cannot yet return to, isolated in the great black void. On the very next track, The Lonely Crowd Fades in the Air, we flash back to earth where the same loneliness pervades mankind as they uneasily march towards the end days. We are simultaneously in the future, as seen by the 60s, but entirely uncertain if we have a future to look forward to in the present. As vocalist Adam Franklin croons into the title track with the quite direct line “we are ruled by fools”, it becomes clear that the future ruins in question are both the present, built on the failed future promise of the 60s, and the immanent future we walk into uncomfortably every day.

Musically Future Ruins leans on a palette as large scale as its message. Though the album switches between several tempos and feels, every single one of them is united by a focus on being as enormous as physically possible. At times it is reminiscent of American shoegaze-cousin Dinosaur Jr., at other times Built to Spill hopped up on human growth hormones, and at still others the spacey, otherworldly sounds of My Bloody Valentine, each presented in monolithic packaging. It’s wonderful, fully immersive noise. Swervedriver are at their best when they embrace this noise, like in the guitar freak-out at the end of Theeascending or the slow build of closer Radio Silent, which gradually adds layers until it roars into a beautiful cacophony. None of this is inherently new to shoegaze as a genre, but Swervedriver execute each maneuver with the precision expected from a band in their prestigious position, resulting in a truly masterful album.

The downside, as many critics before me have pointed out, is that despite its successful experiments, Future Ruins is still a very safe album for a band that continually hints at the ability to truly transcend their genre. It needs stated, however, that a safe album from Swervedriver would be an artistic odyssey for many other bands, so I don’t count it nearly the strike that many would. What could stand improvement on the other hand are the lyrics, which at points feel distant and disconnected. Despite a few clever lines, some clear standout images, and some very heady subject matter, the general lyrical collection is fairly ho-hum, fitting easily into the atmosphere and tone of the songs, but only seldomly jumping off the page.

All in all Future Ruins is a marvelous album, a great new edition to the band’s already cult-revered canon. Even if you aren’t familiar with the band’s back-catalogue it easily stands out on its own: this was the first Swervedriver album I’ve ever heard and I can honestly say I was immediately impressed by it’s artistic scope and musicianship. It’s certainly one of the best releases of a relatively quiet January 2019 and a dark-horse end of the year list contestant.

8.0/10 (Best New Music)

For more information on how we score our albums see Our Rating Scale.

Label: Dangerbird Records
Release Date: January 25, 2019

The DIY Deep Dive: “Parental Guidance” by Ok O’Clock

“Life isn’t PG 13, Life has language And full frontal nudity
Its got drug abuse and depictions of minors drinking
Its got gore and it gets ugly”

FFO Sorority Noise, The Hotelier, Free Throw

The DIY Deep Dive is a monthly column to showcase impressive DIY touring artists who are in the very early stages of their career. These artists may not always have the most glitzy or refined recordings, but their underlying talent shines through their low budget. To qualify for this column an artist must have less than 2000 social media followers and preferably be independent, while displaying the talent and creativity of acts much larger. Think of this as a column for early-adopters: get in on the ground floor with these artists and help them get to the next level.

Our DIY Deep Dive for January, 2019 is Parental Guidance from Kansas City emo artist Ok O’ Clock.

“Parental Guidance” by Ok O’Clock

Life isn’t PG 13, Life has language
And full frontal nudity
Its got drug abuse and depictions of minors drinking
Its got gore and it gets ugly
Its a compilation of every life colliding
It’s a conflagration of stressful nights and anxiety
It’s the mom next door worried about her son
Because its 3 AM in the morning
And he hasn’t come back from that party
Parental Guidance (song) by Ok O’Clock

The sophomore full-length from Kansas City, MO songwriter Lance Rutledge is a vulnerable reckoning with grief on the cosmic level. Here he tries to process a world that seems to be unraveling; attempting to reconcile the death, suicidal ideation, and substance abuse pervading his circumstances with the concept of a loving and caring God. It’s confessionalism at its most frank and unapologetic, calling to mind recent emo monoliths Sorority Noise and The Hotelier.

There is an overwhelming sense of unease that carries through the whole album. This manifests itself not so much as hopelessness, but as helplessness, the by-product of hearing a friend say “we’re all gonna die anyway”and fixating on that moment at the funeral, or watching the ambulance cart your roommate off after he overdoses on pills. It’s the frantic feeling of wanting to help, but not knowing how to make the situation better. “Never be afraid / To talk to me / Never be afraid / To say I need you,” Rutledge pleads quietly on Talk, but soon he too needs saving. As the song transitions to Waltz in 4/4 he finds himself in the midst of self-destruction: “You either go out fighting / Or you go quiet in the night / Not at all like it should be / Not everyone survives.”

The lyrics are the clear focal point on Parental Guidance, asking hard questions in hard situations through well-crafted line after well-crafted line. Perhaps the most probing stanza of all comes partway through The Optimistwhere Rutledge tries to make sense of the phrase “God has a plan”: “Mad Scientist of the cosmos: / ‘Have you met my finest specimen Job?’ / ‘he ran the maze in record time’ / But what about his wife and kids? / Go on about your pottery / Why did you orchestrate all this / At the expense of their eternity?” He closes the song with bewilderment, “I was supposed to be the careless one / Not you.” Every painful moment is laid out in detail; raw, emotional, and afraid.

Parental Guidance is Ok O’Clock’s most complete work to date, a well-thought out record complete with recurring musical motifs, found sound interludes, and a full narrative arc. For fans displaced after Sorority Noise’s recent fall from grace, or anyone looking for a potent and relatable emo album with its sights set much higher than highschool relationship drama, this should prove a worthwhile listen. You can check it out below and follow our DIY Deep Dive playlist on Spotify to hear selections from this and other DIY Deep Dive albums any time.

Review: “Princess Diana” by The Mañana People

“Princess Diana, the debut full-length from German freak-folk/psyche-country duo The Mañana People is the kind of album that almost seems tailor-made for a quirky coming of age indie-movie.”

FFO: Space-Westerns, Olde-Timey, Freak Folk

In the early 2010s there was a string of movies where the protagonist somehow ends up involved with an eccentric indie band. Jim Carrey fell in love with the singer of an avant-garde noise pop band in Yes Man, Michael Fassbender wore a giant papier-mâché head and fronted a psychedelic rock band in Frank, and of course Ellen Page and Michael Cera formed their own quirky folk duo in the smash hit Juno, which briefly popularized bubbly, cutesy folk with its accompanying soundtrack. It was such a popular trend for those few years that it almost became its own subgenre and launched specifically Michael Cera and Zooey Deschanel into the spotlight.

While these movies put a ton of underground artists in the spotlight for a brief moment, there was a certain sense that the viewer was supposed to see these kinds of music as weird, perhaps endearingly so, but still other to them. Where the obscure musician stereotype wasn’t fetishized (like in Scott Pilgrim V.S. the World) it was often played as a sort of joke. Fortunately for the actual artists in these obscure corners of music, these movies had an unintended side effect: a bunch of kids who never would have known these genres existed genuinely fell in love with the new musical world now in front of them. I was one such kid.

Princess Diana, the debut full-length from German freak-folk/psyche-country duo The Mañana Peopleis the kind of album that almost seems tailor-made for a quirky coming of age indie-movie. Their blend of lo-fi country, harmonies that fall somewhere between The Beach Boysand The Eagles, and inventive sci-fi storytelling plant them firmly in a niche all their own. Top that off with the occasional whirligig synth line, a few timely handclaps, and the always-essential theremin solo, and you have the recipe for an immediate cult classic and/or the soundtrack to the next popular Sundance film. It’s infectious fun from the very first song, practically oozing with good-natured joy.

The Mañana People draw from quite a variety of host material to create their unique brand of entertainment. What is particularly impressive is the way they contour their harmonies to further distinguish each song. On Matchstick Manthey resemble The Beach Boys, while on Anthrophagus they sound more like 70s Southern rockers The Outlaws, and on People Who Don’t Know They’re Deadthey once again reimagine themselves as a barbershop quartet. Musically The Mañana People are equally prone to experiment, usually leaning on old-timey country guitars, but occasionally dipping into Frankenstein organs, surf guitars, lo-fi electronic drums, and old-English balladry, doing each separate style justice and maintaining their indie-pop chops throughout.

The lyrics more often than not tell tales of zombies, murder mysteries, and traveler’s woes, calling to mind the classic monster movies of the 1930s and 1940s. Though hoaky at points, both writers consistently display a talent for penning gripping lines that jump beyond their narrative context. Perhaps the best example of this comes on the chorus of the penultimate track It’s Harder to Try, a old-timey country tune akin to The Carter Family: “May the road rise to greet you / May the songs fill your head / May your house be safe from tigers / May your youth be well-spent / It’s so hard to be kind / But it’s harder to try.” While their particular brand of lyricism certainly isn’t for everyone, it is unusually captivating for what it is. It takes a rare songwriter to get a listener invested in a song about zombie battles, but The Mañana Peoplepull it off more times than not.

While Princess Diana is a very unique album and generally quite engaging, it can feel a bit disjointed at times. The album’s composition is a little inconsistent, with the track order sometimes seeming very thought out and at other times haphazard. It sits in that awkward, uncanny valley between albums that were designed to be cohesive and albums that were really just a collection of songs, not really committing to either side. This makes listening to Princess Diana as a unit an uneven experience, despite each song for the most part standing on its own merits. Despite this, however, it is still quite a fun and enjoyable collection of tunes.

All in all the debut LP from The Mañana People makes for an intriguing listen, so unique as to peak your interest and yet with enough familiar ground to keep your attention focused. Fans of freak-folk and psyche-country will find plenty to enjoy here, but Princess Diana is such an endearing album that it also merits a listen from any outsider who might be curious. While it may be fairly obscure as an art-form it is also so laden with catchy hooks and infectious, quasi-space-western energy that most anybody can find something to enjoy.

7.3/10 (Stand-Out)

For more information on how we score albums see Our Rating Scale.

Label: Unique Records
Release Date: January 18, 2019

Review: “nice!” by kinda alright

Where so many progressive bands create stone-faced, mechanical spectacles, “kinda alright” choose instead to make music that’s downright fun.

FFO: Chon, Polyphia, Free Throw

Guitar music might not hold the same position of prestige in American culture as it once did, but it is far from dead. In sweaty bars and suburban basements across the country there is a thriving community of artists and fans still devoted to distortion and pushing the boundaries of their instruments. One place where this culture is particularly alive and well is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; a haven for punk, posthardcore, shoegaze, and all other forms of alternative. Known for producing such bands as mewithoutYou, The Wonder Years, and Modern Baseball, the “City of Brotherly Love” has developed a knack for spawning cult classic bands in niche genres.

Math rock, with its emphasis on musical virtuosity and complexity, is a subgenre that is particularly popular in Philly, so much so that the city has developed its own distinct flavor of the genre. Where a lot of math rock is inspired by bands like This Town Needs Guns or borrows heavily from twinkly Midwest Emo, in Philly there is a tendency to combine the more technical parts of math rock with pop punk grooves, heavier overdrive, and an unusual reverence for Built to Spill. On their newest EP, nice!, kinda alrightexemplify this distinct cultural trend and employ it to great effect.

Nice! is fifteen minutes of immediately satisfying guitar shredding and feel good grooves. Where so many progressive bands create stone-faced, mechanical spectacles, kinda alright choose instead to make music that’s downright fun. You can tell that each member is incredibly proficient at their instrument, because they make a point to show you as often as they can, but there is no overarching air of superiority. They may take their playing seriously, but they clearly don’t take themselves too seriously; a refreshing change of pace for technical bands.

Stylistically kinda alright is comparable to Chon, had the latter gotten their start in pop punk instead of jazz guitar. Each track is energetic and rhythmically bouncy, none more-so than early stand-out track no chumpswith its ear-catching stop-and-start natural harmonic riffs. All of the songs except the closer algerbong copweeddealerare instrumental, but they have enough dynamic movement and guitar hooks to remain engaging even without vocals. The few lyrics that did make it on the album are pretty standard emo fare, but they do exactly what they need to do: provide a catchy and relatable melodic hook in between the riffs, which still serve as the focal point of the song.

As far as math rock goes, nice! is a pretty solid EP. Fans of this niche genre and its musical neighbors will find a lot to be excited about on the Philly three-piece’s newest release. It may not be the most groundbreaking thing to come out this month, but it also isn’t trying to be. Above all nice! is just a record made by a couple talented guys trying to have fun by making cool shit, and in that regard it is a wild success.

6.3/10 (Solid)

For more information on how we score records, see: https://notasound.org/2018/11/01/our-rating-scale/

Released: Jan 10, 2019
Record Label: Independent

Review: “Change of Scenery” by Buddie

“Change of Scenery” is as fun as it is earnest, a raucous album intent on engaging the world rather than escaping it, a thoroughly enjoyable musical paradox.”

FFO Weezer, Pavement, Built to Spill

“How can I live with myself not helping anyone else?” As the flurry of distorted guitars reach their blaring crescendo on opening track Sloth,vocalist Dan Forrest of Philadelphia alternative outfit Buddiesets the tone with just one line. Once a conservation biologist in Equatorial Guinea, Forrest now spends his time writing fuzz rock in the vein of Pavement and early Weezer, though where his forebears made their careers writing about unrequited love, on Change of Scenery Forrest instead writes songs that are much more uniquely conscious. They may still be dorky, but only in the sense that anything passionate that isn’t drenched in cynicism isn’t patently “cool” in 2019.

Second track and early stand-out Sinktouches on exactly that: “Wear my heart on my sleeve / But it’s not cool to be naïve / And now I look a fool / While everyone else tries to be called cool.”It’s a shockingly vulnerable lyric for a song that eventually builds into an infectious power-pop hook centered on the lyric, “Oh no, I’m feeling like I’m Michael Cera.” But that is precisely the magic and strength of Forrest’s songwriting; he writes songs that deal with big-picture problems in a tone that is strikingly modest and good-natured. Though his background gives him plenty of room to preach, he never patronizes the listener. Even his most confrontational lines come out more earnest than angry, because at the heart of these songs there is more carethan there is angst. That posturing sets Buddiein a corner all their own in the world of fuzz rock, a genre usually reserved for the slacker, the stoner, and the lackadaisical character motifs.

Nowhere is this difference more apparent than in the anthemic closer Privileged Youthwhere Forrest grapples with his position of advantage as a white American, capping it off with the pseudo-psychedelic bridge: “The institutions are racist / The institutions are bigots / The institutions are fascists / And I reap the rewards / And they keep the poor poor.” Lyrically it’s more akin to early Anti-Flagthan Weezer, but even here at his most direct and unapologetic Forrest chooses to appeal to humanity first and foremost, concluding his thought with one last run of the chorus: “…It’s the same road everyone’s walking / There’s no traffic from here / I know you’re working, everyone’s working / But can’t you see we have the upper-hand? …” It’s a breath of fresh air from a perspective not often found in fuzz rock or even alternative as a whole.

Change of Scenery is much more than a rare endearing, political album, however. Beyond it’s thoughtful lyrics, its true strength is that it’s also just a kickass rock record. There are enough cathartic choruses, huge chords, and tasteful tempo changes to keep casual and critical listeners alike engaged and satisfied from start to finish. It’s proof that you don’t have to play it cool and put on a sullen demeanor to make impactful art. On Change of Scenery, Buddienever miss a second of fun while making their point; it’s the kind of album equally as conducive to guitar flips as it is to inspiring contemplation.

If there is one weak spot on the EP, it would probably be the middle track Selva,which has the misfortune of falling between two of the hookiest songs on the album Sink and Anxty. It’s not a bad song by any means, an internal monologue about leaving the Equatorial rain forest after experiencing so much personal growth there and then trying to re-adjust to life in America, but it is the lone song that doesn’t reward the listener with an immediate earworm of a hook. Considering that’s the worst thing I can say about this EP, it’s pretty fair to say that Buddie nailed their debut.

All in all the new EP from Buddie is a clear stand-out within its genre, a fresh voice and perspective from a talented new songwriter with a dynamic musical core as his vehicle. Change of Scenery is as fun as it is earnest, a raucous album intent on engaging the world rather than escaping it, a thoroughly enjoyable musical paradox. We can’t wait to see what this promising young band does next.

7.8/10 (Stand-Out)

For more information on how we score albums see:

https://notasound.org/2018/11/01/our-rating-scale/