Perhaps the major victory of Indie Rock was to step away from the vocals “over” the other stuff and get into the gear of vocals “beside” the other stuff. Perhaps the major victory of music writing is grand statements about a genre that ended in the mid 00s… or maybe it’s saying when things ended. Either way this record does the “over” “beside” thing pretty heavy and sort of hits the in between point on many tracks.
The songs are built around the vocals, mostly. The vocals come in most “over” the mix at the beginning and ends of the tracks depending on the structure. Most of the stuff is either front loaded or back loaded, with build ups and break downs making themselves known at those places respectively. Keeping it together in the middle allows for vocal squalls over heavy good ole’ rhythms and just right of jagged guitar playing.
The squalls often lead quite well into chants and with the rhythm and fun time distorted but under-control guitar locked in, there aren’t many problems. The singer locks in his voice and yell-speaks stuff like “didn’t feel much like working.” The chants of course have the low mixed back up vocals of ladies and men on them, but that’s not “mixed in”, “over”, or “beside” so there of no importance here. The guitar starts moving on the break downs of many of the tracks and that is where we step into the “beside” territory. The vocals come down from a chant and the cymbals start to come in. Again, the cymbals aren’t sharp or out-of-control but rather, just angry and heavy enough to signal the “fun time.” The vocals rub up next to the now jacked up beat and the whole thing marches on. The guitar sound doesn’t really switch, ever. The drums keep similar beats and never really change. The bass comes up in the mix, maybe.
There is that voice though. Southern and male, jacked and stubborn, always reaching for the fun zone, linked to the guitar. Is the voice affected? I don’t know, but it has the longing for the good ole’ rock dayz vibe to it, that can be seen around now. It’s fun, he’s from the south. Smear the record with that voice and then mix it in every once and awhile.
