A negative review for an album I actually enjoy: Avalon by Anthony Green

After leaving Saosin and taking a break from Circa Survive, indie punk luminary Anthony Green came out with a solo album called Avalon. Green said it would showcase his acoustic side and have a “camp-fire vibe.” Even though the album got decent sales and a lot of fanfare from the alternative community, it remains a very weak album.

The first two songs on the album are very deceptive. ““She Loves Me So”” starts off the album with a simple song that can only be described as acoustic chill-pop. Lyrically, it is a very repetitive song, which is the case with pretty much every song on this album. With that said, this song would've been the perfect opener to Green’s acoustic “camp-fire” album. Yet Avalon is not that album, which is apparent as soon as the album’s single, ““Dear Child (I’ve Been Dying to Reach You),”” plays. Instead of being acoustic, this song goes straight back to Green’s pop punk roots, making it seem terribly out of place in the album. That is until you listen to rest of Avalon and realize that the whole album is a bunch of random songs that don’t really fit together.

The remaining songs seem drastically uninspired compared to the first two songs. The album ends like how it began, with a song that seems perfect for Green’s “camp-fire” album. Yet that album doesn’t exist, and the last song, ““Devil’s Song (This Feels Like a Nightmare),”” only brings out the fact that Avalon is an uneven and insipid experience.

Before Today by Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - An Album Review

These days it’s not hard to find band that refers to themselves as “retro”, “old school”, or the hundreds of genres and sub-genres of music that try to sound like they are from another time. Ariel Pink and his group Haunted Graffiti have gone beyond these adjectives with their new album “Before Today”. In fact, every song on this album seems as if they were produced in a time machine where everything between 80’s synth-pop, 60’s psychedelia, and even 70’s funk collide into one crazy album.

Each song has its own identity with no song really sounding the same. For example, their song “Bright Lit Blue Skies” sounds like the Ramones experimenting with 80’s synthesizers, while the song “Butt-House Blondies” sounds like Nirvana collaborating with Syd Barrett for one crazy-ass song. However, the album’s best songs are when their sound has no band to compare to, especially the songs “Round and Round” and “Fright Night (Nevermore)”.

The lyrics sometimes feel basic and dull due to the pop nature of the songs, but usually they add a poetic resonance that you can’t really explain. The only other flaw about the album is its finale: “Revolution’s a Lie”. It’s not that it’s a bad song, for I actually like the band’s decision to try a post punk song, even if it sounds exactly like Joy Division. It just feels like an out of place song that makes the whole album seem like a collection of singles instead of an experience. Honestly, it would’ve worked better if the album had ended with the track before the finale: “Menopause Man”, the album’s most cathartic and (seemingly) personal song.

“Before Today” is an album that not only showcases Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti as insane geniuses, but also gives listeners an epic musical experience, as well as the strange and irrational feeling that you are going back in time.