Family Average: 4/7

Look to the skies! Ah man nothing like when the sky goes all pink right? Let’s all have a look at this. It is a video I had found on the youtube where the sky was alarmingly pink. Now that you are all in the mood check out this album by the psychedelic super pop group known as Pink Skies. We all had a listen and then had some words to say on the matter.

Listen along on Spotify and read on to find out:

I’m not the best when it comes to categorizing or pinpointing the types of electronic music out there, but to the best of my knowledge I guess this can be described as neon pop with a bit of low-fi and synthwave thrown in. I also can’t exactly pinpoint what it is I like about this album, but safe to say I dig it. It’s got that echoy feel to it and sounds the way bright blues and purples look shown through a low res led screen.

The musical accompaniment is your usual fare, got high hats and some keyboards and…okay I’m at a loss here I have no idea what you call the electronic stuff that goes bwop and rrinnn you just know it when you hear it. They mix together well though, and change up the lineup for each song. As for the vocals, once again the terms I should probably know are escaping me. It has that quality that’s not like, a deep voice coming from the gut. It’s rather more superficial and nasally. Kinda like Passion Pit’s vocals. It works with this music though, anything more robust would have sounded out of place.

The first song “Gettin’ Old” does a good job of establishing the vibe for the album. Each consecutive song builds on this while still developing their own unique sound. “Reflections” was where it really started to get my attention. The inclusion of trumpets was a nice touch, you don’t normally hear that in this kind of music but they were incorporated well. “Start. End” felt weak in comparison though. It had that funky feel to it but after a while it kinda just devolved into static in the back of my mind. “Just to Get By” brings your attention right back though. It really leans into the synth and it’s got a beat that gets you going. “Portland” sounds the most synth and vapor-isa of the tracks, more distant and abstract. It’s a nice punctuation to end the album.

Pink Skies definitely evokes the feeling of a sky on the brink of sunrise/sunset that’s morphing into a medley of colors. It’s an album that you can find yourself getting lost in, something nice to put on while you’re chilling or working on art.

5/7

This band clearly derives a lot of inspiration from this whole Neo-Psychedelia craze that is shaking the nation. In particular a lot of their songs align with the tune The Less I Know the Better by Tame Impala. This is largely due to its use of a similar sounding bass riffs and tone. You know the kind that goes “whoump whoump”. I am sure there is a name for it and I will ask Kevin for it at a later date.

That being said taking inspiration from another band is nothing to fault. Once you get past the similarities this is a component album. The synths are pulsating, vocals are sincere, and them electronic drums are crisp as a batch of apples. Is it called a batch or a bushel? At any rate its well made. The best parts of the album for me were ones when they step out of the neo-psychedelic genre. The track “Gettin’ Old” has a sweet little R&B vibe to it. It gave a lot of the elements a chance to shine without being lampshaded the distortion present through the rest of the album. The vocals come through on that diddy better than the rest of the album.

This group has got a lot of talent between them. Being their first release they have a strong foundation. I hope they use it to venture into new and exciting territories.

3/7

This is pure feel good, sunshine and neon lights kind of pop. Through an indie pop lens, Pink Skies draws influence from psych rock and experimental electronica, creating a master list of songs to zone out to. He's sussed that lovely, kind of lush and hazy texture of a sonic and synth soundscape, that warbles and gets woozy at all the right moments. He's also got a great falsetto that vibrates over the well-layered instrumentation, and despite its intent to be laidback, it feels pretty high energy.

That being said, this is West Coast chillwave indie writ large. I like it (a lot) but I've also heard it before (a lot). There are major parallels to Tame Impala and Glass Animals, to the point where I thought I was listening to Kevin Parker himself. This guy is majorly talented and seems to have an innate ability to produce this kind of work, so he's no doubt going to get a lot of well-deserved attention. I'm just eager to hear more experimentation from someone who understands this genre so well.

5/7

This sounds so much like Tame Impala, it makes me a bit uncomfortable. It’s literally borderline plagiarism. It’s not only the voice of the singer, it’s the sound of the bass, that high treble kinda sound, the phasers, the synths, the echo on the voice. It’s also in the composition, the breakdowns, the intros, everything, it’s crazy. The weirdest coincidence is that I listened to “Currents” just last week, so it’s pretty fresh in my memory haha. But this band kinda sounds like if someone wanted to play Tame Impala but couldn’t afford the rights, so they go for a knock-off version that would sound as close as possible to the original. It’s great, but it’s not as good as the original.

Now, I got to say, they’re pretty good at mimicking that sound, which is not an easy thing to do, so they earn my respect for that. And the production is pretty good quality for a first album. If they put all their efforts into making songs more like them and not like Tame Impala, I think they could make really cool stuff, because they definitely have talent. Like the verse in the song “Reflections”, that’s the only moment where I felt like they finally played their own thing. It sounded different, but in a really good way. Overall it makes sense to inspire from another artist for your own creation, literally everyone does that, but there’s got to be a balance with your own personal ideas.

3/7