Welcome to the Music Reviews Archive!!!

Here you can find reviews from our talented WVCW staff from the past. It’s not that we don’t love them, we just ran out of room on our other page and moved them here.  Anyways, here are all the reviews that you might have missed from us.

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Artist: The Graduate. Album: Only Every Time._______________________________________________ out of 5!

By Mechelle Hankerson

The Graduate has had a rough few years. After the release of their first album, Anhedonia, on Icon Mes, the label folded, leaving the band without a label. Luckily, Razor and Tie picked up the band and they were able to release Only Every Time.

The band straddles the line between experimental music, like The Arcade Fire,and more accessible and upbeat alternative music. There’s clearly special attention paid to the actual music of the band and not the lyrics. It’s not that the band doesn’t deliver with their lyrics, but the actual instrumentation of the band is more impressive than some of the themes of the album. There’s nothing new or thought-provoking about the
lyrics in any of the songs, but the straight-forwardness of the words lets the listener fully appreciate how much went in to the music of the album.

The album opens with “Don’t Die Digging,” which definitely taps into the bands experimental side. There’s distorted guitars and musically, is like a toned-down Dance Gavin Dance. The album segues into the other side of the band with “Siren,” which is more like their musical peers: nothing ______________________________________________________________incredibly special, but it’s executed well ad vocalist, Corey Warning, ______________________________________________________________really saves the song from being just another mediocre genre-bending ______________________________________________________________song.

______________________________________________________________“Pull Me In” is definitely the standout track on the album. Compared to ______________________________________________________________the rest of the album, it’s simple, with guitars, piano, and drums. The ______________________________________________________________lyrics are simple, like the rest of the album, but for this song, it really ______________________________________________________________works as an advantage. The song stands on its own and has a ______________________________________________________________somewhat ballad-like structure, but isn’t overdone or painfully ______________________________________________________________desperate.

______________________________________________________________The rest of the album doesn’t differ from The Graduate’s tried and true ______________________________________________________________formula, but that’s not to suggest that the whole album sounds the ______________________________________________________________same. The band seems to be aware that its strength is in their actual ______________________________________________________________musicianship, so they make sure to showcase that and it works for them ______________________________________________________________to put out a solid album for people who prefer good musicianship over ______________________________________________________________good poetry.

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________________________ out of 5! ________________________________ Artist: The Constellations  Album: Southern Gothic.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________By Mechelle Hankerson

The Constellations’ debut album, Southern Gothic is supposed to be a concept album about the band’s hometown, Atlanta. The Constellations though, seemed to have forgotten the concept when writing this album.

For the first two tracks, the band is always a subpar version of some other band. The opening track, “Setback” sounds like a less-rock Red Hot Chili Peppers and the second tack, “Perfect Day” sounds like a more folky Muse.

The band draws from clear hip-hop influences with producer Ben Allen, who works with Cee-Lo, who lends his talents to “Love is a Murder” on the album. The song isn’t notable, but it’s better than the other guest appearance: Asher Roth on “We’re Here to Save the Day”. In and of itself, the song has a decent message, but it doesn’t really fit into their overall concept of the album.

The band features a number of people on myriad instruments, but it’s difficult to hear all of the members, or even recognize just how many people it takes to put out the dark and unimpressive songs.
The lead male singer, Elijah Jones has a very distinct voice, one that distracts from any amount of musical talent the band tries to
cultivate and display.

The first inkling of said talent comes on the eighth track, “Step Right Up”, a 9-minute
half-spoken, half-sung song more or less saying Atlanta is a circus. It has weird,
over-dramatized spoken-word verses, but the choruses are catchy and make the
song. Most of this is due to the use of a female vocalist, who for the rest of the album,
mostly stays quiet unless its with her prescribed instrument. “Step Right Up”
is the beginning of the end of the album. After it, it starts to slow down, which
makes sense because the whole concept aspect of the album is supposed
to take the listener to 2 a.m. in Atlanta, and there probably isn’t weird
circus music going around any town much past that time.

The album slows down after this and pretty much fades out. There’s nothing notable
to impressive or even relatively catchy about the last few songs, but they are
markedly different from the rest of the album. The album ends with nothing special,
it ends without the listener even really realizing it ends. There’s probably some
gems on this album for someone who likes a loose concept and over-exaggerated
instrumentation.Otherwise, Southern Gothic is just another poor concept album.