Family Average: 2/7

How in the heck did I get here. Everything I have experienced after listening to this record is all different. I can not explain it. Its like Jacobs ladder compressed into sounds. Anyway todays review is of a very unordinary band that goes by the name "Loyal Customers". Lets see how the family's minds held up to this.

Listen along on Spotify and read on to find out what we had to say:

This album sounds like a bunch of people took an acid pill, locked themselves in a studio, and recorded everything in one take. But it's not one of those fun acid trips that produce ground-breaking music. This wasn't a Jimi Hendrix or Pink Floyd acid trip for example. It was more the kind of acid trip that ends up with you throwing up in a gas station bathroom at four in the morning.

My first impression after hearing the first track, which I said out loud to Kate was "well, it's better than silence. silence, and nothing else." After the fourth song, I would gladly choose silence.

1/7 That one point is for the recording tape

*Stares blankly at page for ten minutes*

Wow. Where to begin. I mean I felt the first song worked as nice ambient background music. Then in "Give, Live and Take Secrets" I felt like maybe I was going to get a Defiance, Ohio kind of vibe with these guys. Raw, unedited vocals yet with charm and enough structure to carry along the song. Loyal Customers wasn't quite there. I felt like there was an added echo to the vocals that took away from it, among other things.

Then came the desceent into what I can only describe as "audio torture". If you wanted someone to spill their deepest, darkest secrets, all you'd have to do is lock them in a room and blast tracks 13 through 18. Seriously. I am by no means into experimental shit, and this thing might as well have been playing out of a seemingly broken VCR at some art show in some basement in Bushwick where everyone has shaved heads and are pounding Colt 45's. Almost my scene, but only for the free beer.

Ambient, punk, or experimental. Pick a team. Or "Thank you, don't come again."

2/7 For the glimmer of hope in the first two songs.

Oh dear.

The first 20 seconds of “First Thing in The Morning” gave me a glimmer of hope, and even kind of liked “Hey Kitkat” simply because it was so bonkers, but I was just overwhelmed by the sheer noise of it all. I can get behind tracks that have a sort of atmospheric quality to them, but I felt the album as a whole was just trying too hard to do too much with too little consideration for people’s ears. I appreciate and support anyone trying to push the envelope, so I applaud these guys for that. I know there’s an audience for it somewhere (location T.B.D.), but it’s just not for me.

2/7 (for trying something new…?)  

I appreciate the space given between chords and progressive notes in many of the instrumental portions of the songs. Space is music, the anticipation of what we think the next “proper” sound might be or should be. I think the artist likes to change our minds direction more times than not. I understand the art of repetition; however, I am not a huge fan of the repetition of the harsher sounding instruments. This grated on me more than pleased me.

I think that I am going to have to select “Truths of Pluto” as my favorite song on this album.

2/7