Never Times | Heavy Sighs

Family Average: 4/7

It is about to get real heavy up in this piece. The sound of a heavy sigh is most likely “WOOOOOOOSH”. There are some of those sounds on this album. Other sounds on the album include synths, words, and drums.

Never Times operates out of NYC somewhere near and dear to our proximity. In that space, he has managed to put together a lovely collection of electronic influenced songs. What on earth did we all think about it?

Listen along on their Bandcamp and read on to find out:

Heavy Sighs by Never Times feels like a sigh; like the artist is breathing out a lot of bad juju. I appreciate the amount of experimentation in regards to sounds, and how they can be used or distorted. The best moments for me on the album come from the waning guitars, looped beats, and synth-driven melodies. My favorite part comes about a minute before “Party By Myself”, when the vocals drop for (what I think is) a quick guitar solo. There’s a very clear emotion in that moment that sometimes can’t be found on other tracks.

Overall, I dig the psychedelic vibes and the obvious love for creating sounds. It reminds me of The Beach Boys or contemporary artists like Panda Bear. I think Never Times could take some cues from these two artists in how they marry the different aspects of their sound. That being said, I would definitely give Never Times a chance whenever they release more music.

4/7

What a nice, lo-fi, neo-psychedelic mishmash of wavy and woozy sounds. Following in the experimental footsteps of Panda Bear and Animal Collective, Never Times seems to fringe on the whole chillwave and bedroom pop genres, creating some pretty lush, electronic, and semi-sonic textures. It’s a real skill to be able to create immersive, atmospheric tracks using only a synthesizer, a sampler, and punctuating vocals, and few do it well. Never Times maintains a feeling of organic experimentation to the carefully produced tracks, varying the pace throughout to allow a sense of progression. And while the depths of sound are pretty impressive, lithe and even sophisticated,  it lacks a distinctly idiosyncratic quality. I feel like he needs to cut through the echo, reverb, and gurgling beats to carve out a more unique, individual sound. Nevertheless, the debut is a sonic showcase of his ability and vision, and I’m eager to see what else he has up his sleeves.

4/7

Welp. I’m sorry to say that I just wasn’t really into this album. I’m not sure if I’m just not the right demographic or if other people have the same issues with me. I can appreciate lo-fi, psychedelic, and chill r&b/hip hop—but this album is all of those things at once, and not in a good way.

The album is so unfocused that nothing really lands, and it’s a real shame because you can really see the hard work and talent that was put into this. I feel like the production was being pulled into too many directions and trying to hit too many genres.

But not everything was so bad. I really enjoyed the track, “Party By Myself” because it really went all in with the noisy and experimental sound that was just a pleasure to listen to. It really reminded me of Julian Casablancas’ new work after The Strokes. I don’t know if that’s just more telling of my taste in music or something else, I don’t know.

All in all I can see the talent and hard work these guys put into the album, but it just wasn’t for me. I am, though, excited to see what they put out in the future because if they hit their marks I can definitely see them being really good.

3/7

“Play it late at night while you eat Chinese food, and it is raining outside. That's the best I can do to distill the kind of ascetic this song brings to my mind.”

First of all, this album has Chuck Person vibes firing out of this. Firing on all cylinders like some kind of vapor wave possessed pool mobile. (Go listen to Echo Jams Vol 1.)

This was a pretty fun album to crank up. It was always teetering towards that glitchy lofi end of the spectrum. That said, it kept pulling back away towards the regular, safe side. I would have liked to see it spill over and make a big mess. Still I would not say I am let down by the album. They do work in some computer mischief towards the very end. However it seems more like an afterthought rather than something that was meant to be the focus of the album. When I say computer mischief, I am talking about wonky, distorted noises.

I like downtempo. I like whooshing, and morphing reverb. This album has these things. Play it late at night while you eat Chinese food, and it is raining outside. That's the best I can do to distill the kind of ascetic this song brings to my mind.

I appreciate that they try and break it up with that almost outsider house song towards the end, but I don’t think it was really working.

I am glad this guy is trying to make new weird sounds (with chill intentions).

4/7