an epic divorce album<\/a>, bitter yet incisive and well-crafted in every respect. The context and intention behind Scalzo\u2019s sardonically titled My Favorite Year<\/i> is less public, but unavoidably similar; it\u2019s a breakup album with an abundance of downbeat lyrics and unhappy endings.<\/p>\nMuch like Zuniga, Scalzo is capable of writing positively ebullient songs when the mood strikes (think \u201cYou\u2019re An Ocean\u201d), but has also penned many a melancholy tune (think \u201cOut Of My Head\u201d). Titling the opening track \u201cLove Lost\u201d certainly points you in the direction of the album as a whole, a breakup song (\u201cTell your friends we had our last fight\u201d) set to a peppy power-pop arrangement. The first thing you notice, though, is that the music feels rawer, simpler and less arranged-and-produced than Fastball typically does; it\u2019s as if multi-instrumentalist Scalzo and drummer\/producer Stephen Belans just set up on a Saturday morning and hit record without putting a whole lot more thought into it than that. <\/p>\n
The other thing Fastball fans will immediately miss\u2014as I did on These Ghosts Have Bones<\/i>\u2014is the vocal interplay between Scalzo and Zuniga. Darin Murphy contributes background vocals on a few tracks here, but in general the vocal arrangements on My Favorite Year<\/i> are as basic as the production. <\/p>\n
\u201cRegretfully\u201d offers another upbeat number about a breakup, while \u201cDon\u2019t Let Anyone\u201d puts a Beatlesque spin on a similar theme. \u201cHalfway Girl\u201d plows the same thematic ground, but with strings that feel somewhat tacked-on, a bald ploy to add interest to an otherwise by-the-numbers tune.<\/p>\n
\u201cZiggy\u201d finds Scalzo working in characters\u2014and co-writing with Chris Stills and Zuniga\u2014but the mood is the same, a sad and lonely tune about a club rat who can\u2019t manage to connect. The chugging \u201cReality\u201d is a tune about a lovers\u2019 spat that feels like one Fastball would\u2019ve sharpened into something with more impact than this version manages. Then \u201cFree World\u201d finds Scalzo co-writing with Britt Daniel (Spoon) and Zuniga, and offers a welcome freshness to the sound, with unusual guitar textures, harmonium, horns and plenty of space in the arrangement.<\/p>\n
The slumbery \u201cLooks Like I\u2019ve Thrown It All Away\u201d delivers three minutes of wistful \u201cyou pulled the wool over my eyes\u201d melancholy, while the dour \u201cPar For The Course\u201d leans much harder on the guitars. \u201cBed I Made\u201d then turns up the backbeat, a muscular rocker with fuzzed out guitars and a rising-falling hook, as our narrator is faced with the destabilizing consequences of his decisions. \u201cBed I Made\u201d and \u201cForever Girl\u201d are probably the most Fastball-ish tunes here, the latter a thrummy, organ-heavy plea to a lover that leads into genuinely upbeat closer \u201cLast Word,\u201d a final stab at happiness in the form of a road song.<\/p>\n
While all of these songs feel like they have potential, most never seem to achieve it; the production feels like an afterthought and most of the arrangements feel unfinished. Even the mix feels off; it\u2019s that rare solo album from an established singer where it feels like the vocals are actually mixed too low. Maybe this all reflects the principal\u2019s state of mind at the time\u2014morose, judging by the lyrics\u2014but My Favorite Year<\/i> lacks the snap and polish of Tony Scalzo\u2019s work with Fastball; it feels like a half-hearted effort that coulda shoulda woulda been better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":34902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[10900],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-46769","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-tony-scalzo","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46769","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46769"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51871,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46769\/revisions\/51871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46769"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46769"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}