Albums

Aurora – All My Demons Greeting Me As a Friend

Released 2016.03.11

I don’t know exactly when my first exposure with Aurora was, but I can say my exposure of actually becoming a fan, was through Sigrid. Which is kind of funny because I feel like it more often would go the other way. I don’t know that Sigrid and Aurora are “friends” exactly, but they have, I dunno, been in the same room together, and re both originally from Norway. Though Sigrid seems a bit more based in England, Aurora is decidedly Norwegian.

I’m sure overtime my music tastes will evolve again, but for the time being, Aurora is definitely my top pick for favorite artist. I can’t really articulate exactly why, but there is just something, quote magical and wonderful about every track she has done. Like, seriously, solidly, every track. Her musical style reminds me a lot of Björk or Enya.

I’m not here now to write about every track, though in time, probably, I will. I am here to talk about her first album, All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend, or, for my own sanity, simply All My Demons. Similar to the case with CHVRCHES, Aurora is an artist that I am sure I heard before becoming a fan, I just didn’t really put much into it. Her first album, is also my top most listened to album, at least, according to last.fm. I’ll be running through the Deluxe version of this album.

There is a lot of variety to have here, but all of them share a sort of, primal energy. Aurora incorporates a lot of traditional Norwegian sound and vocalizations along with modern electronic music and methods. It creates an incredibly powerful vehicle which Aurora uses to push her message. Oddly enough, while her message have a clear, “love everything and everyone” sort of motif, she has mentioned before that a lot of her songs are left to “personal interpretation” by the listener.

The album itself is up and down on it’s emotion and tones as well. Almost all of the tracks are underpinned by a sort of lingering sorrow, but other push it to the forefront. Some tracks like Runaway, Winter Bird, and Lucky, which are hopeful but sad. Others are much more sorrow and sadness, like Under the Water, I Went to Far, and of course, Murder Song. Murder Song is particularly interesting in it’s two versions, the less often heard album version has a much larger and forceful push to it, while the more commonly heard acoustic version bonus track is much much more low key.

But there is also plenty of emotion from the upbeat tracks, which are some of my favorites on the album. Warrior is the commonly known classic. Running with the Wolves is very full of primal energy and builds to a fantastic climax. Conqueror has a great beat and tune, though Aurora has mentions she dislikes the track. I don’t know, but I suspect because it has a bit of a, subservient theme, which feels like it pushes against her otherwise fully independent spirit personality.

Probably my favorite song on All My Demons… is Black Water Lilies. It feels a bit less complex than a lot of the other tracks on the album but I really like the running melodies and overall sort of, happy lyrics with a sad-ish sound it has throughout, though it’s mostly positive energy. It wasn’t a song that was initially my favorite, but its one that grew to be so after digging deeper into Aurora’s overall sound.

I can’t really say I can give an unbiased overall opinion here, but i can say it’s my favorite Aurora Album and it’s also one of my favorite, overall albums.

Dodie – Hot Mess (RSD Vinyl)

Released – 2022.09.30
Vinyl – 2023.04.22

I am not real sure why Dodie put out another EP, Hot Mess, as a follow up to her first album Build a Problem. Following her online suggests that she writes well, a lot of music, feels like there would be plenty for a while album. I mean, yeah, there is some of it that’s kind of weird and a bit banal, but that didn’t seem like it held back her album. But here we are, with a fresh, 4 track EP.

I also want to take a moment to talk about this particular release, as I’ve picked this album up from the Record Store Day exclusive release version. I don’t believe it’s available on Vinyl otherwise, nor do I know if there are plans to release it later, but this release is a special translucent vinyl disk, and man it’s so very neat looking. I know this isn’t the first translucent disk ever released, but it’s the first one I have. This is the sort of thing I hope to, somewhat, limit my vinyl collection to, these neat special releases.

The album itself had 4 tracks total, 2 on each side of the record. I very much greatly prefer the tracks on side A, versus side B and it’s currently the album I have sitting on my turn table to just “push play” on occasionally.

Side A has Dodie’s last two singles on it, and similar to my complaints with Build a Problem, both of these tracks feel a bit more “complete” than the Side B tracks. The opening track is the title track, Hot Mess, it hits most of the “Dodie high points” with some wonderful harmonies and a subtle build up of some string based backing tracks. It’s quite nice and despite being a pretty short track, it feels about right on length.

The second track, Got Weird is the catchiest track on this EP. The hook is really nice and the lyrics on the whole are super catchy and clever. If Hot Mess is “Dodie doing music,” then Got Weird is “Dodie doing lyrics.” Though it does have this really incredible temp and time change shift near the end. Plus this, really weird video.

Side B starts out with Lonely Bones, a simple number that doesn’t push anything too ambitious but has a nice happy tone going to it. It wraps up with No Big Deal (I Love You) which is a super low key dreamy and quite beautiful song. Neither of these tracks are necessarily bad, which kind of feels like what I was implying above, I just, generally prefer more upbeat tracks in general. If I am going for this sort of mood, I’m more likely to go with something purely instrumental.

The EP itself is pretty good. Unless you really want the vinyl, I’d say it’s perfectly fine to experience it all through more, modern means as well. I will add that while Dodie isn’t necessarily my favorite artist, I really like how she structures her songs and incorporates the mixing in of a lot of less common instruments in this style of modern music. It gives her tracks a pretty unique sound. She also pushes a lot of emotion through her lyrics which makes it all very interesting to listen to and deconstruct.

Wolf Alice – Blue Weekend

Released – 2021.06.04

Though Wolf Alice doesn’t really sound a lot like CHVRCHES, I had enough people in the CHVRCHES fandom channels suggest them as a good group, so I opted to go ahead and give this group a try with their (as of this time), latest album, Blue Weekend. Released in 2021, this is the group’s third full album. They have a sound that reminds me quite a bit of groups like Metric and Garbage.

As mentioned before, the sound isn’t really the same as CHVRCHES, but it’s sort of similar, so I can definitely see the cross appeal. There is some electronic sound to Wolf Alice, but overall its a lot more, Alternative Rock sounds, with a really interesting sprinkling of more mellow folksy-ness to it. In face, despite it’s few points of more aggressiveness, and one single extremely aggressive track, the whole album is a very nice mellow rock album.

Overall, I find Wolf Alice and Blue Weekend to be a pretty good overall album. It has a slick sound all round, though the previously mentioned “extremely aggressive track” feels almost out of place. The whole album has this really interesting fill/reverb going on for a lot of parts with the groups’ vocalist Ellie Rowsell. It sounds like there are several people all singing at once but it’s just the one, for the most part. Which I particularly enjoy.

I’ll touch on some of my personal thoughts on individual tracks going forward.

The album opens with The Beach, which is a really nice big build up track, which starts out quietly subtle but is nice and full and busy by the end with a really great sort of ethereal sound going by the end. It’s a nice fit for the opening track.

The second track Delicious Things follows up along with a much more even and regular flow and pace from a lot of the other tracks on the album. Though a lot of the nice guitar work that exists in this entire album starts to show it’s head here with it’s layered sounds running throughout. It rolls almost continuously directly into Lipstick on the Glass, something I don’t believe really happens elsewhere on the album. I particularly like how this song switches between it’s flowing low key moments then bounces off into the fuller chorus moments. It’s one of my favorite tracks on the album.

It’s followed up by the fourth track, Smile, which is definitely my favorite track of the album. It’s a lot heavier in sound than most of the rest of the album, but not overwhelmingly so. It also features a lot of excellent guitar work throughout, but a lot at the climax. There is a really nice bass guitar bit near the end. It comes in fast and hard and doesn’t stop and I love it.

The follow up though takes quite a bit different direction, and sets the tone for the rest of the album where things are a bit more low key with Safe From Heartbreak. Which is a lot more even toned throughout and features a nice low key picking guitar line throughout. This is part of where the “folksy-ness” starts to show a lot more as well in these back end more low key tracks. A lot of the vocals also feature a nice almost a ‘Capella sounding harmony to them. The low key sound continues in the next track How Can I Make It Ok?, though there is also a bit more build up in this one as the track goes along. The sound layering in the peak end of this track is nice, it’s a bit on the album that I enjoyed a bit extra.

Then there is our “excessively aggressive” track, with Play the Greatest Hits. Don’t get me wrong, I actually really like this track. It just feels, weirdly places in the middle of all of these much more mellow tracks. It has a much more fast paced screamo punk sound to it, which also feels a lot different than the rest of the album.

The rest of the album rounds out with Feeling Myself, The Last Man on Earth, No Hard Feelings, and a reprise version of the opener with The Beach II. The second version of The Beach is quite a different song though, it’s not just, a slightly different version of the same song. Most of these last few tracks are some more much more low key smaller sound, though often with lots of interesting layering of guitars and electronic bits, which is a running theme of the album. No Hard Feelings is particularly good, just before the end of the album.