Mornings – Silly
Mornings is a promising up and coming producer from Cambridge, Massachusetts. His second album, Silly, is a relatively straightforward jazzy, funky electronic pop fiesta. While it boasts an impressive amount of talent, the album is unfortunately held back by its popish structure.
Silly boasts impeccable production, yet rather stale songwriting. The album relies far too heavily on simple melodies, yet is admirable in its tension-release dynamic. While the songs are composed overly conventionally, much of the instrumentation is zany and unique. Most impressive are the acoustics, on songs such as Blue and the title track. Some of the ideas feel wasted in space, though; as they strive to be accessible as well as quirky, such as during the peculiar Follow. Furthermore, the album’s structure limits the eccentricity and thus the energy. Peekaboo, for instance, is incredibly well populated and interestingly varied, yet feels completely restrictive by the 4/4 beats. Moreover, every track is lacking progression; they are all style over substance. The vocals themselves do boast a noticeable amount of energy and are even rather enjoyable during tracks such as Fall Apart and the quirky Three Step, though they’re sadly lacking confidence on tracks such as Anything.
Had Mornings broadened beyond standard conventions, Silly could have been a noteworthy effort. Sadly, its too plain due to its restrictive framework. While the instrumentation is lively, the tracks sound rather flat, like an edgy Daft Punk B-side. Thankfully, Mornings more recent efforts have been of greater taste, and hopefully they are a sign of things to come. One can only hope his next big output is not bland pop.
Average
Listen to it here:
Mornings – Silly
