'Self-Titled' By The Grownup Noise

Wednesday, 12 August 2009 , 0 Comments

The recently released, self-titled debut by The Grownup Noise is a songwriter's album. Although the music on the album is actually quite good, the songwriting craftsmanship displayed throughout is really the highlight. Its hard to say what is 'perfect' about music, because everything could be 'perfect' depending on the beholder. But as far as I am concerned, the songs on this album are damn near perfect- allow me to explain myself. Songwriting, good songwriting anyway, should first and fore most feel organic, allowing the piece to flow from beginning to end with purpose and reason. There is nothing worse than a song that feels like it was stapled together. Not that a song shouldn't take risks, or even be progressive, but everything needs to flow organically for it to be a successfully written song. The Grownup Noise' first album maintains that organic flow in each and every song. The hooks are all well written, the melodies are very strong, the dynamics and instrumentation of each song are executed with the utmost professionalism. Although the band is primarily electric, the inclusion of an acoustic guitar gives the songs an extra layer of depth, and while many would see this as straight forward indie-rock, the inclusion of string accompaniments and well-executed dynamics (soft or very loud symbol hits, all of the instruments hitting in sync on an upbeat, accent notes hit on a piano that are faintly heard, etc.) gives this music a very orchestrated feeling that helps to bring these seemingly simple songs to a new level of complexity. The music itself is indie-rock that, although feels more on the soft side, never looses its edge and intensity. If I had to compare this music to other musicians I know from the past, I would say that the vocal work most resembles James Taylor, but the music itself is actually quite reminiscent of Weezer. Now if any of you reading this know either of these bands, this is a pretty interesting combination to have. The original concepts for these songs seem to be based on a chord progression as opposed to a riff or a single melodic line. Although I do find that songs based on a chord progression are typically the most well developed songs, the chord progression still needs to be interesting and well written for the rest of the song to develop correctly- a boringly simple chord progression means a boringly simple song. Thankfully the songs on this album are composed with very interesting chord progressions- my favorite thing that I heard on this album, which is used quite often in jazz, is the use of hitting a harmonic minor 7th which then resolves back into the 1, or the root note. This is a beautiful execution of tension and resolution! As a first statement, this album is quite advanced- the songs are well developed, the vocal work is excellent and the musicianship is fantastic. There is already so much out there, it is always nice to hear a new artist hit the music scene with such creativity and, more importantly, inspiration.

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