Montreal\u2019s Raveen demand a lot from their music. On this debut album, the trio makes an impressive pop music statement that is no one else\u2019s but their own. They do this by bringing together influences like jazz, R&B, psychedelic rock, chillwave, and trip hop into their unique musical space. Despite these disparate sources of inspiration, Always <\/i>has a focused and singular sound, consisting of contemplative and achingly melodic slow to mid-tempo numbers with gorgeously intricate details, which will impress nearly any listener. In addition, there is a sense of romanticism that is a huge part of the identity of this album, which does come from the music, but more importantly, from frontman Eric Seguin\u2019s divinely melancholic vocals. Altogether, the pop on this album is a special breed.<\/p>\n
The title track is the most sonically captivating and beautiful cut on the disc with its combination of haunting choral backing vocals, dreamy string arrangements, and soft but dark synths. But at just three minutes, \u201cAlways\u201d is also a very abrupt number, a weak point that perpetuates on other songs as well by minimizing their overall experience to some extent or other.<\/p>\n
For example, \u201cHow Does It Feel,\u201d an airy and anthemic pop-rock cut, ends at around three and a half minutes, coming across as kind of premature. But at five and a half minutes long, the last two minutes of the track are filled with an unnecessary trippy musical piece that sounds as if it is possessed, further diminishing the number, which otherwise was so good and had so much promise.<\/p>\n
The psychedelic and dark \u201cWhat You\u2019re Looking For\u201d and the much simpler and poppy \u201c400 Years\u201d also have a couple minutes of unrelated musical pieces tacked on to them after the ending. And although not abrupt, both these songs seem short as well. However, the spacey additional music pieces in this case are truly cool, and even though unexpected and random, they in fact enhance both the cuts.<\/p>\n
Always<\/i> is elegantly produced with a warm sound. This comes with the group\u2019s extensive usage of natural instrumentation and string and choir ensembles. This album is meant to be a masterpiece; yet it\u2019s not. There is something lacking that makes it a very good record and not an absolutely great one \u2013 maybe it is a combination of occasional in-your-face over-sentimentality (like on \u201cTo The Bone\u201d and \u201cAlmost Nothing\u201d) and the absence of the same level of sophistication in the songwriting and composition as in the performance and production. But one thing\u2019s for sure: Raveen is almost there, soon to come out with that blow-your-socks-off masterpiece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":33470,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[10168],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-45288","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-raveen","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45288","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\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45288"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45288"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}