The Future Isn't What It Used To Be by Exit Calm
I am going to say straight off the bat that I struggled with this one. On the initial play through I was left with this feeling that I should be enjoying this album much more than I actually was. The fact that this was proving not to be the case turned into a bit of head scratcher for me. This album was obviously not quite working for me but putting my finger on to the why was proving troublesome. Music is often about how it makes you feel and trying to put that into words isn't always easy at least for me.
First of, I think I went through a similar process to Carvalho - ticking off mentally the various references to other bands. I did wonder for a while if this might have been the issue for me. Perhaps they were a little too derivative. Thinking about it a bit more I realized that wasn't really fair. Most music we listen to derivative. I know if I was going to criticise this album for that I may as junk most of music collection too. No it wasn't that.
It had to be something else.
So I listened to it a few more times this time paying more attention to each song and I think I finally got what was troubling me. There were snippets, passages of play, certain guitar sounds, and I found myself thinking oh yes I really like that, that's more like it. The band can certainly play there is no doubt about that. My problem, and it most probably is all mine, is to these old ears those snippets never joined up long enough for me to really enjoy what I was hearing. There were always too many bits in the middle where I screwed my face up.
It's a real shame because I really wanted to like this but I well and truly bounced off this.