Having done music reviews in some form now for 11 years, I’ve
\ndiscovered there are two main types of albums: those that hook you
\nwithin the first few notes, and those that you push away after the
\nfirst few notes. Pretty early on, you can tell if you’re going to
\nlike an album that you’re listening to – though I’d also be the
\nfirst to admit that these rules are quite flexible.<\/p>\n
However, the hardest album to review doesn’t fall under either
\nof these categories. No, the most difficult type of album to review
\nis one that is difficult to garner interest in, even after the
\nfirst few songs. Today’s example, East Lansing, Michigan’s own Fat
\nAmy and their latest release
\n5-Way Switch<\/i>. My interest in the album didn’t kick in until
\naround the half-way point – and for some listeners, this might be
\ntoo late.<\/p>\n
Led by the vocal stylings of Bobby Guiney and the two-guitar
\nattack of Kirk Reedy and Mark Meyers, Fat Amy tries to build an
\nenergy level on “All The Same” from the sparse drums of Jeff
\nGensterblum to the eventual sonic onslaught (including, of course,
\nbassist Matt Jackson). The problem is that this song really doesn’t
\nhave a hook that captures the listner’s attention, and comes off
\nsounding a bit bland – not the way you open an album that you hope
\nwill break you into the field of national prominence.<\/p>\n
In fact, I found it very difficult to get through the first four
\nor five songs on
\n5-Way Switch<\/i> – and often found myself restarting the CD
\nplayer because I had become distracted while listening to it. It’s
\nnot that songs like “In The Middle,” “Come Undone” or “Fortunate”
\nare bad songs, they just lack the kind of punch that I would expect
\nfrom a young, hungry band.<\/p>\n
And maybe this is the problem – the fact that Fat Amy is still a
\nyoung band. One of the biggest pitfalls I hear in music from a band
\nthat hasn’t been together a very long time is the songwriting lacks
\na certain maturity to it – and I don’t refer to slipping to
\n“cock-rock” in this instance. The only cure for this is to earn a
\nfew scars slugging it out on the road to gain experience.<\/p>\n
When Fat Amy does finally throw
\n5-Way Switch<\/i> into gear with “Bourbon” and “Break The Ease,”
\nthey show just how good they could be if they give it a little
\ntime. These songs are eruptions of power and two-guitar attack that
\nrival the best of them. And while the energy level dips a bit on
\nsongs like “Bleed On,” “Early November” and “Odd Man,” they’re far
\ncries better than the songs used to open up the album. Even the
\nacoustic number “Blue Nubb” was interesting to listen to.<\/p>\n
The obligatory “hidden track” about 24 seconds after the
\ncompletion of “Blue Nubb,” sadly, is the best song on the disc – a
\ncover of “Temptation Eyes,” whose original artist escapes me right
\nnow (I want to say it was the Guess Who – anyone who knows, please
\nenlighten me).This song stays surprisingly close to the bone of the
\noriginal, and is great fun to listen to. But anytime the cover song
\nis the best, you know that much work needs to be done.<\/p>\n
I have no doubt that Fat Amy will continue to grow as musicians
\nand songwriters, and future releases will be sure to set the
\nspeakers ablaze – there are moments on
\n5-Way Switch<\/i> that serve as evidence of what is to come.
\nThing is, they’re not there yet – and what we’re left with is a
\nrather average album.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7324],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-38821","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-fat-amy","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38821"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}