Written by Louis Pelingen Let’s all be blunt: there’s nothing wrong when pop-rock band MoonDream City starts embracing experimentation and throwing a ridiculous number of ideas at the wall. In order to eventually find artistic growth, it’s always a good thing for an artist to just test the waters in whatever genre or style shift they’re trying to approach and go from there, where eventually, they’ll be able to find some focus after trying whatever diversion they’re digging into. Experimentation could either be a hit or a miss. It could be successful or novel. There’s no in between. This eventually extends to how an act markets a shift in their sound that doesn’t always mean it’s bound to be the next “new genre,” an intriguing observation in forming a unique distinction amongst their contemporaries, even if this marketing trick will be a double-edged sword. Garnering the reactions that they might want, but not exactly the ones they’ll need long-term. These observations are relevant to Bon Jubert and Muntinlupa Jazzcore Society, acts that operate under the recently coined “ebascore”, a newly formed sound that loosely combines socially aware themes alongside jazz, funk, metal, and spoken poetry elements, then displays all of them with novelty and flashiness. MoonDream City’s ‘Road Song’ is a recent addition to this, throwing away their pop-rock instincts and replacing them with intense vocal shouts that toss between nu-metal, jazz, and funk grooves. On the basis of the finesse and volume alone, the song definitely pulls the listener into the whirling chaos that the band brings to the surface. A brief enough tune that unleashes emotional wallow and technical verve, but doesn’t exactly do much more with the compositions. Serving as a direction that brings the band to something new, but with the way the song is promoted paired with the hollowness of “ebascore”, the track falls apart really fast. What fails with the band’s attempt for their stylistic shift is twofold: one is the social commentary that’s given with vague winks, relying upon shouty complaints rather than precisely delving deeper into what made commuting such a hellscape for everyone. It may unleash those enraged emotions, yet their observation feels short-sighted and individualistic. Focusing a lot more on losing one’s beep card, switching from another FX, waiting for a less crowded jeepney, and lacking change to pay for a trike. A presentation of everyday occurrences that don’t offer much depth about the issue being discussed. But the more concerning issue is the flashy presentation that shrinks the execution to a mush. Bringing raw intensity that disguises the lack of structured melodies, flashy musicianship that simultaneously becomes self-indulgent, various genre fusions that are stitched in a half-baked way –- all of which only leads to the novelty of the sound borrowed from spoken-word style of Radioactive Sago Project or The Axel Pinpin Propaganda Machine ending up flimsy and surface-level, delivered in a neutered manner that doesn’t try to reach the verbosity and the melodic flourish of such acts. Leaving the output to end up like a sketched out impression of those sonic reference points, rather than allowing the band to take bigger risks and go for broke with their stylistic shift. To the band’s credit, it is a curious diversion from wherever they’re aiming to go in the future, yet the general ironic promotion and how it translates to the music only results in a song whose novelty and flash don’t bring more to what it’s being hyped about from the start. What ‘Road City’ — and the general “ebascore” trend as a whole — unfortunately sounds like an Oscar-nominated flick that aims to bring deeper themes, but once watched, the actual insights end up shallow and self-impressed. Stuffing technical stylism more than injecting substance into its thematic essence. Support the art and the artist:
Tag: Rock
TRACK REVIEW: Ame – Ipagpatawad Mo
Written by Louis Pelingen In treading back towards the nostalgic 60s rock ‘n roll, Ame manages to fit themselves well, as their musical prowess shows how well-equipped they are in approaching this sound on“Ipagpatawad Mo.” From Zarviel’s hollering vocal presence that firmly cries his call for affection, the blustering blues rock progression and wild guitar solos, stomping drum rhythms, as well as the occasional bright piano lines and vibraslap rattles. They all check out the boxes of what makes that era of rock ‘n roll quite compelling and runs with an all-killer, no-filler direction. The other part of what allows the tune to punch through is the production. Having Max Cinco and Paulo Agudelo doing most of the production duties alongside Sam Marquez handling the mixing and mastering duties means that most of the instrumentation lets their vibrant melodies shine through without overlapping with one another. The emphasis is on “most” however, where despite the already colorful mix, the dynamics could’ve been just a bit more spaced out, as the bright piano lines do get trampled over with the low-end and various guitar sections being so flashy and excessive. “Ipagpatawad Mo” is the kind of nostalgic callback where it’s clear that the band knows enough of the sound to recreate it with good intentions. It’s a straightforward attempt for sure, yet it allows Ame to flex more of their musicianship as they stray away from the mild pop soundscapes that they’ve started with. That shift to explore more melodic intricacies is, at the very least, a kind of forgiveness worth accepting. SUPPORT THE ART AND THE ARTIST:
ALBUM REVIEW: juan karlos – Sad Songs and Bullshit Part 1
Written by Louis Pelingen The recent meteoric success of Juan Karlos stemming from one of the singles on their recent release, “ERE,” – enough to build enough traction to debut at no. 177 on the global Spotify charts – signifies how ingrained he has been in the local scene for the past couple of years. Despite some shaky conflicts that occurred before, when he eventually stepped into the broader swells of pop rock carried through his emotive delivery and songwriting ever since he and his band started off with ‘Buwan,’ it garnered widespread interest for Juan Karlos to keep going along on their overall grand yet simultaneously dull and stilted sound. It is a sound that is starting to feel rather frustratingly overdone in recent memory, expansive and well-produced but lacking in interesting songwriting throughlines. Despite the success, the band’s new entry in their catalog is deeply entrenched in post-breakup frustrations Juan Karlos has gone through, laying down these love songs initially written for a compilation that eventually became rather bullshit to him after his breakup last year. Hence, these melancholic songs are now packaged on Sad Songs and Bullshit Part 1, the first installment of a two-parter project dipped in a baffling release strategy to slice the 18 written songs into two parts instead of picking the strongest songs to make a focused release (even if this strategy has started to work for the band given the success of “ERE”) all centered on amping up the overall display of catharsis from this heartbreak. This project is confident in putting up these raw emotions in the open, presenting an attempt from Juan Karlos to make it closely personal as he belts out strings of crowd-ready hooks toward this post-breakup narrative that has struck the mainstream local scene time and time again. Yet, to be blunt, this approach starts to hit clumsy and route results, where the blatant move to lean towards the 2000s era sonic palette from the instrumental tones just falls short in a lot of its ideas, where there aren’t that any interesting swerves on either melodies or production. The other reasons this record does not stick come from Juan Karlos’ vocals and songwriting, where his emotional bellows start to get overbearing, and his songwriting leaves nothing but the surface-level poetry surrounding him circling around the heartbreak in a self-important framing. His shouty croons on the pop rock swell of “Time Machine” and “ERE” become a head-scratcher, especially with the latter track where his delivery of the profanity on the hook only sounded silly rather than convincing. The acoustic heartbreak reflection on “Lumisan” is a bland Ben&Ben takeaway due to those vocal melodies. And the adult-contemporary cut of “Manhid” is nothing short of anything special despite the well-produced shuffling melodies. But the tracks that make this overall narrative quite sour are the piano ballads “may halaga pa ba ako sayo??” and “Tapusin Na Natin To” featuring Paolo Benjamin, from the details that only imply a guarded deflection on dealing with this heartbreak to Juan Karlos’ vocalization at its very worst, tends to push further to the point of being obnoxiously overdramatic. And those tracks eventually color a lot about the record, even with the gorgeous Sufjan Stevens-esque acoustics of “Gabi” featuring Zild and “Paruparo” or the communal vocals that help elevate the title track. Whatever quality they do have just gets stifled overall. Stacked to the gills with uninteresting elements culminating in a lackluster project coming from the soundscape that leans on 2000s sonic aesthetics without any interesting melodic or instrumental flair, vocal emotionality that only gets overdone and annoying, and, of course, songwriting circling around reflections on Juan Karlos’s past relationship delivered with a pompous and shallow affair that serves to deflect around it. Though given the title itself, it sure is rather apt to call it that, an album with many underwhelming sad songs and a lot of self-important bullshit. Support the art & the artist: