This is a difficult album for me, the problem being that there are one or two tracks that are absolutely brilliant, which does seem to overshadow the other material, making it seem that a few tracks are filler material.
This is Miss Massive Snowflake’s second album, and is built around singer/songwriter Shane De Leon who exhibits a highly developed sense of humour, with wit and biting sarcasm.
The starter track ‘Good Morning’ starts off all lazy guitars and chiming glockenspiels, which lulls you into a false sense of security as your mind drifts to thinking of The Velvets' ‘Sunday Morning’ before the lyrics hit you with all the subtlety of a flying brick: -
“Good morning, it’s a bright, bright day, Good morning, it’s a bright, bright day, So I declare peace, but the King says “war”,
But it’s not his kids that are fighting in some fucking war.”
The song then carries on about social injustices and for a starter track is a bold statement of intent.
‘Be Brave’ has echoey vocals and a melody based around a guitar line that sounds like it could have come from Bowie’s ‘The Man Who Sold The World’, but after ‘Good Morning’, the lyrics just don’t hit as hard: -
“Yeah, you got me, yeah, you got us, and we’re the people that you can trust”.
This then dips even further with ‘I Do’ a chimy whimsical little number, which is all about marriage.
Track four; ‘An American’ pushes the bar way back to the top. This is a brilliant, bitter vitriolic song, which chugs along and has some nice jazzy trumpet work courtesy of David Chaparro. The lyrics here are spot on: -
“Hello, hello, hello, hello I’m an American/ Look at my clothes; they’re made in Pakistan/ By a girl who’s ten.”
The song is a brilliant denunciation of consumer society and carries the biting line: -
|
“And what I believe depends on, How much I have to spend on, fuel.”
The band’s blurb states that they have ‘protest songs that come off like party anthems.’ Well, they’re not wrong here and this track is one of the best on the album.
The next song ‘Two guys’ comes across as a gay anthem and preaches tolerance, however, at just two minutes and three seconds long, it doesn’t stay around to leave its message, and seems somewhat a bit of a wasted opportunity.
‘Happy Birthday’, and ‘Shock and Awe’ are both forgettable, which does mean that this album is distinctly one of highs and lows.
‘Knife Blade’ is a bit better being all about a gig and poking fun at the “rednecks spitting insults” during the sound checks. This is followed by ‘Good Night’ which could have been better if it hadn’t been let down by some wishy-washy lyrics.
Finally, the last track ‘Encore’ lets the album go out on a high, a jazzy based melody, and lyrics that fit the mood perfectly: -
“I can’t sing in this smoke, Yeah it’s thick enough to choke/ All the people that are gathered in here, But it’s the talk of the crowd, There’s so much and it’s so loud/ I can’t hear it up here… On the stage.”
Overall, I have to say that I enjoyed the album, but if the four best tracks had been gathered together as an E.P. it probably would have scored a lot higher.
|
