Monkey Soup – Nature Songs
Monkey Soup has been a personal favourite artist of mine on Deko.fm since its inception, which makes one think I would have eagerly reviewed this album on release. Unfortunately, his debut was underwhelming compared to his preceding releases, reserving my sense of urgency.
The album starts well with Playground, a stunning opener with a dull composition. The wide variety of instruments are pleasant, though instead of amplifying the impressive energy it opens with, it whimpers. Look to Kyle John Kenowski’s opener on Need Disease. It does the same thing more proficiently. Next is Squall; a track cluttered in a cute manner, but muffled in all the wrong places. A more proficient mix would have gone a long way, though it doesn’t excuse the individual elements being out of time with one another, nor the underwhelming vocals. The menacing strings on Possum sound impressive, though the overall composition is lacking in its first half due to the dull vocals. The outro is loud and engaging, though nothing noteworthy. The album takes a major nosedive following these tracks.
A lot of the proceeding tracks are non-memorable standard indie rock fares, with memorable instrumental outros. The outros on songs such as Fallen Timbers and Raccoon Fight are quite remarkable; a testament to Monkey Soup’s ability of blending field recordings with lo-fi indie rock. Too bad he focuses on the former more often than not. Much of the remaining instrumentation is too cluttered for its own good, nor can it deter from the bland vocal delivery. The closer, Arborvitae, is the only exception. The song actually focuses on a unique, creative soundscape that’s both enchanting and maniacal. Too bad it abandons these ideas halfway through in lieu of a generic poem. Even worse of an offender is Spotted Orb Weaver; existential dribble.
Whereas previous Monkey Soup singles were very proficient in their song-writing, the hazy and lazy approach to songwriting is lacklustre on his debut. Upon re-listening to his previous singles, I’m unsure of where the artist went wrong. Perhaps its because the album over-relies on a lo-fi aesthetic; one that’s been overly abused to this day. I’d go as far to say it’s because these songs feel rushed and sloppily put together; they were a project for art school, afterall. Every element in his previous efforts have purpose, whereas here they feel included for the sake of it. Here’s hoping he spends more time fleshing out the next release.
Average
Listen to it here:
https://soundcloud.com/monkey-soup/sets/nature-songs
Monkey Soup - Nature Songs
