I might not make posts every week, just weeks where an album feels important...
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07.28-08.03
Galleons - Galleons (Self-Titled)
Honestly, I didn't know this album existed (I was only familiar with Violent Delights before listening to this) until I saw a listing for it on eBay for $120 on Tuesday. I was like "wtf, how is an album from 2021 already at such a high resell price?!?!?" I immeditely started looking for answers, finding out that Galleons is self-funded and only restocks albums when it's seen as most profitable (or something like that), since merch takes up so much time and money and they like to use their money on making music instead. At this point I had spent way too much time learning about a band that I have barely listened to, leading to me giving this album a try.
As someone who adores intro songs, even on albums I dislike, 'Playing With Fire is Such a Cliché" is easily one of my favourite first tracks ever. I even keep it in the corner of my site (as of now). The descriptions of the story paired with the song itself gave me goosebumps on the first listen, and still give me goosebumps after listening so many times. Along with a couple other songs from this album, the lyrics/verses feel like they're from two different songs, mixed into one. It put me off at the first listen, but after getting used to it, it's an unique and intriguing storytelling method that I hope is something that they do in their other albums.
I just wanna say that IDK what everyone is saying when they say that this guy sounds like Jonny Craig... I can see similarities in what they do with their voices but not enough for so many people to keep on bringing it up... maybe I should pitch him up and then I'll be enlightened? Aside from that, some of the songs really reminded me of JC's Emarosa/DGD stuff. The track that felt the most like JC was 'That Ain't No Crown', everything about the line "with answers to questions that we will never ever know" immeditely reminded me of Jonny's last part in Purple Reign in the greatest way possible. While this album has it's similarities to Jonny Craig, it still feels fresh and special. This album gives me both goosebumps and this weird turny feeling in my stomach... I've been waking up with these songs stuck in my head all week.. I'm not sure if this is from the band themselves or only a fan theory, but I heard that the album cover is supposed to represent "a fairy tale gone wrong". I'm pretty sure this isn't a concept album (I like shared theme albums more than concept albums anyway), but these guys take this theme and do it in one of the sickest ways ever.
Speaking of the album art, you gotta just look at it... the art style is perfect for the theme and songs, but the colouring and shading is what makes it my favourite album cover out of the 4. You could make an entire book or movie based off of this artwork alone. I hope to turn this into a 3D display sometime, if I do it'll be in the "paper" section of the site.
Favourite Track: I Travel East as Fievel Goes West Pt. 3 (I know how much I said I loved Playing With Fire is Such a Cliché. But this... IS THIS SONG REAL??? The tension, the buildup, the rage, the orchestra, pretty much everything is perfect here.)
Least Favourite: Let's Pretend (if I hadn't heard it in the 2020's, I would probably like this song... it's just too similar to that (thankfully) short lived pop trend of turning childrens songs into hate letters to their exes... I can understand why they would make this with the theme I talked about earlier, but compared to the rest of the album this song feels like a lazy interpretation of that theme.)
On Loop: Hate the Player, Not the Game (53 plays!)
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You've made it to the bottom!!!! Go and play with Gavin now