Review of: 'Love And Loathing' by With Confidence

With Confidence were one of the bands that I first assumed would be the ones to replace All Time Low after they abandoned pop punk altogether in favour of electro pop after their switch to the Fuelled By Raman record label. They seemed almost positioned to be that follow up band, even working with the same record label that All Time Low did before their departure: Hopeless Records. On top of that, I had real hope going into this new album based off how much I enjoyed their 2016 debut full length album 'Better Weather', mainly because it was a rock album with pop elements rather than the other way around.

As such, I had real hope going into this album. All I was hoping was that the band would continue to play to their strengths and keep making heavy punk music and not get engulfed by the wave of pop rock bands going all out pop. So, what did we get on their new album 'Love And Loathing'?

Here's the thing. If, like me, your coming out of 'Better Weather' hoping for With Confidence to continue in the heavy pop punk vein, you may be initially underwhelmed by this album. I'll admit it, I was far from sold on this album even up to five listens in, but, when it clicked, 'Love And Loathing' by With Confidence is the kind of album that seemed pre packaged to be one that would appeal to me and tug at my heartstrings and refuse to let go. 'Love And Loathing' was the album that I never knew I wanted from With Confidence, but I'm so glad we got it.

So how did this happen? Well, the best place to start is the production where, in comparison to their debut, is significantly frailer and lacking in the same abrasive instrumental crush 'Better Weather' had. This will be a let down for a lot of people, and I would potentially even include myself in that category, but having listened to the album a good dozen times, I can confidently say the production on this album is pretty great. When the worst it gets is the more rigid melodic approach on 'That Something', and 'The Turnaround', you've got a well produced selection of songs. If there's one thing I will give this album plenty of point for, it would be the bass lines. In a genre where the bass can so often be swamped out by heavier production around the guitars, it's truly refreshing to hear songs like 'Spinning', 'Dopamine', 'Better' and 'Tails' where you can really hear the bass supporting but never intruding the main melody.

The melodic balance on this album is, overall, pretty breathtaking. From the simple, stripped back gentle guitar melody on 'Pâquerret (Without Me)', the tremendous hooks on songs like 'Spinning', 'Sing To Me' and especially 'Dopamine', and how the screamed vocals are mixed slightly further back in the mix to intensify the desperate mix of sadness and anger explored on 'Icarus', all these moments are truly excellent, but pretty much all the songs here work for very similar reasons: melodies. I criticised State Champs' latest album 'Living Proof' for occasionally lacking a lot of melodic cohesion; the melodies were often there, but swamped out by huge guitar and drum progressions. No such problems here as the melodies sit firmly at the front of all these mixes and hence the album can't help but stick in the brain.

The intense commitment to melody that runs across this album almost makes you wonder why the production team even bothered with the thin backing synth that runs through the verses on 'That Something', but that as well as the lumbering percussion groove on 'The Turnaround' really are the only time on the album where any blatantly synthetic instrumentation is used badly. You do get some more synthetic elements on some other songs like 'Better', but they are mostly pretty well blended and only serve to accent the main melody rather than overpowering it.

But, I've danced around the real reason this album works as well as it does for me for long enough, let's talk about the songwriting. The thematic arc on this album transcends anything All Time Low have ever written, even in their prime. In terms of albums exploring complicated feelings within relationships, it's no 'Astoria' by Marianas Trench or 'Melodrama' by Lorde, but it still shows a band looking to write maturer songs, and doing it right. It all starts on 'That Something' where lead singer Jayden Seeley is in love and enjoying himself; he's clearly under the impression he has found something truly special with this new person in his life. Even when the relationship enters its first stages of turbulence on 'Sing To Me', Seeley is convinced that they just need to hang on to each other.

However, this does not last long. 'Moving Boxes' is the first implication that something's gone wrong as Seeley describes the broken relationship, but how the lingering feelings (or 'boxes' that the girl has left behind as the song phrases it) are making it difficult for him to get over her. And, despite attempting to commit to getting over her on 'The Turnaround', he never truly does. He spends the next two songs wallowing in what could have been if he had done things differently, but the true dramatic turning point on the album comes on the album centrepiece track 'Spinning' where the girl that Seeley thought he said goodbye to for good earlier on the album comes back to him willing to try again.

Obviously Seeley accepts this offer thinking he's finally got his happy ever after, but it does not take long for the cracks to begin to resurface, and with it we get the album standout, 'Bruise'. Seeley describes the relationship as the pair 'pressing on a bruise just to feel something'. It's a heartbreaking way for the relationship to end, but it needs to for the better. Seeley even lets his frustrations with with himself out. After all, he did not let the relationship end naturally in the first place. Instead the pair are left picking up the pieces of the broken relationship, and any shred of dignity that was left from it.

You would have thought that coming out of a song like 'Pâquerret (Without Me)' that Seeley would have finally got over the girl in question, but 'Dopamine' proves that this is far from the case. To the untrained ear it may initially appear to be a love song in a huge anthemic declaration of love, but the reality is significantly more heartbreaking as Seeley hopelessly reflects on the previous events of the album and the struggle of having such huge lingering feelings and having no idea what to channel those feelings into.

But it's the closing track 'Tails' that might be the most interesting song on the entire album as Seeley reflects on the chaos that this chapter of his life has brought him and how it wasn't worth it. He links the messy relationship to the two of them 'chasing their tails'. In other words, not falling in love out of any desire to make anything of it, but simply for some kind of rush, any kind of rush. Undoubtedly the only way an album like this could end.

'Love And Loathing' by With Confidence is the kind of album that may divide fans of the band, but I can't help but love it for its rich thematic arc. It's an album about desperately trying to make the conscious choice to get over someone and the consequent struggle that comes with knowing it might not be possible, but ending in the pleasant note of acknowledging that if you are to grow as a person and truly learn from the experience, you need to turn your back on what came before, and keep striding forward.

I will restate what I said at the start of the review, I had no idea I needed this album, but now I have it, I have no idea how I couldn't see it coming as a natural progression for a pop rock band looking to write more mature songs and refine their production into something more pop friendly whilst still keeping a ton of the elements that made With Confidence so damn good in the first place. It's a 4 / 5, an improvement on their debut, and an album anyone slightly interested in pop rock should check out.

Rating: 4 / 5

Best Songs: 'Bruise', 'Dopamine', 'Spinning', 'Tails', 'Better'

Worst Songs: 'The Turnaround'

Review of: ‘Talk Of This Town’ by Catherine McGrath

Country music is dead outside America…or is it. The Shires made history be securing the first ever top ten country album on the UK charts with their debut ‘Brave’ in 2015, and Ward Thomas did one better not long later when their sophomore album ‘Cartwheels’ went to number one making them the first country act to secure a number one album in the UK. It’s getting better.

The freshest talent that has a lot of buzz behind her at the moment is Northern Irish country singer and songwriter Catherine McGrath who, after two EPs and having toured with both Dan + Shay and The Shires, finally has a debut album out in the world after what seemed like a wait of forever.

My expectations were undoubtedly high, but I knew that providing the label give the production team a budget this album would deliver, and we could collectively add another name to the list of people flying the flag for country music outside the USA. Did it deliver and meet my expectations?

Well, yes and no. However much I would say I thoroughly enjoyed this album, I can’t help but think that it was also a missed opportunity, and that is almost always down to inconsistent production. I get that this is a debut album, but you would have thought that, with McGrath’s growing popularity and all, the label would want to capitalise with something better than this. As such, we get a very good album, but one where the wasted potential is blatant. I will use a lot of positive superlatives to describe this album, but there are looming issues that ultimately contribute to an album that is very good, but not quite great.

By far the most consistent part of this album is Catherine McGrath herself. Her voice is a natural fit for pop flavoured country with just enough unique rasp in her voice that make her stand out in comparison to other pop country singers, which almost makes me more frustrated with how her talent is misplaced across this album, and that takes us on nicely to discussing the production on this album which is mainly a mix of real and fake percussion and hazy synths blurring together otherwise likeable melodies with a hint of guitar and banjo sitting at the back of the mix that occasionally comes forward to remind you that this is a country album.

I should reiterate that this is not a deal breaker for me whatsoever, but even with that in mind there are still moments where I can't help but cringe just a little bit at some of these production choices. The synth fragment that adds nothing to the verse on 'Just In Case' might be the most blatant example, but what baffles me more is why there are skittering hi hat progressions carelessly crowbarred into the back of the mix on 'Talk Of This Town' and 'Wild' not contributing to any kind of groove or melody that sound like they've been imported off the latest mainstream hip hop hit rather than anything remotely resembling country.

Obviously you can't forget the clear abuse of thin programmed percussion on the verses of a lot of these songs, but when real drums come in on the chorus anyway, I'm left wondering what the point was in the fake percussion in the first place. I can tolerate this in pop country to an extent, but 'Lost In The Middle' is my personal limit. The song that attempts to worship country music for being her personal escape from her everyday routine, but even if it is very poppy country that McGrath intends to worship, the very least the production could do was inject the song with some unique country flavour beyond the stiff percussion and millennial whoops that turn up on this song.

It's not like 'Cinderella' is much better with how close that thin snap is layered to the front of the mix against hazy production that does not have the tune it needs to connect fully. 'Dodged A Bullet' suffers from similar problems. But, with those criticisms out of the way, I will give this album huge credit for one thing: the melodies. From a compositional perspective this album is kind of amazing even if the melodies are stiffer or more synthetic than they could be, but I can tolerate that to a large extent. The infectious guitar lead on 'Talk Of This Town', the choppy but no less catchy groove on 'The Edges', the more organic acoustic elements on 'Just In Case' and 'Good Goodbye', and, perhaps most impressively, how the rich strings arrangement balances perfectly with the piano on the closing ballad 'She'll Never Love You'.

These are all solid moments, don't get me wrong, but they are ultimately not where the majority of my interest in this album came from, that would be the songwriting, and it unquestionably saves this album. McGrath and her team of co writers may not be reinventing the wheel, a lot of these songs do rely on a fairly straightforward template after all, but then you dig into the details and discover a songwriter that's head and shoulders above so much of mainstream country. Sure, there are fairly straightforward love songs on this album like 'The Edges' and 'Don't Let Me Forget', but in the former case McGrath uses a cute puzzle metaphor that keeps the song memorable ('if life's a puzzle, you are the edges') and in the latter case she acknowledges that the relationship may be on the edge of extinction, but she just wants to make the most of the time they do have together, and, even if it ends soon, she wants to keep hold of the memories they made together; there's undoubtedly real dramatic pathos to that.

Then you get the lightweight love songs that coast by on breezy grooves and McGrath's natural charisma like 'Good At Love' where she's looking to break out of her comfort zone and take more risk with the guy in the relationship, and 'Just In Case' where despite realising that it's probably not the 'real thing', she still wants the guy to kiss her: if only for an escape.

McGrath is also not afraid to put complicated emotions on display and she's all to aware that that happy ever after that she seeks on songs like 'Good At Love' and 'Cinderella' does not always come. 'Thought It Was Gonna Be Me' is the most obvious example in this department as McGrath arrives at the party in her new dress thinking the guy of her dreams is waiting for her, only to realise that he's there with someone else. The way that McGrath is able to condense the complicated emotions of that single moment into a killer song shows her maturity as a songwriter. 'Wild' might be even better as McGrath finds herself with a heartbroken guy at a Coldplay show, but is frustrated at his unwillingness to commit post heartbreak. The fact that there is no direct reference to whether or not the two of them end up together and get that happy ever after is very powerful.

The breakup songs are similar in terms of the detail and well framed complex emotions that McGrath brings to the table. 'Dodged A Bullet' is a lesser cut from the album, but in terms of capturing the mingled mess of emotions that comes with feeling of coming out the other side of a breakup with lingering emotions, even if the guy was not all that good to her, you could do a lot worse, even if there's not a huge amount of detail about the relationship pre breakup or how they ended up together in the first place. Both 'Enough For You' and 'Good Goodbye' are much better songs, both about the breakup for all the right reasons, either because the guy does not treat her at all well and she's left wounding why she tried so hard to impress him in the first place ('Enough For You'), or because neither McGrath or her partner cared enough to begin with and both sides came out of the relationship all the stronger ('Good Goodbye').

But overall, your enjoyment of this album will mostly come down to whether or not you can tolerate overproduced pop country, but, whether you like it or not, we have certainly not seen the end of Catherine McGrath, and if this album is the introduction to country music that it could well end up being for so many people on this side of the Atlantic, it's a pretty solid introduction.

Rating: 3.5 / 5

Best Songs: 'The Edges', 'Thought It Was Gonna Be Me', 'Wild', 'Don't Let Me Forget', 'Good Goodbye'

Worst Songs: 'Dodged A Bullet', 'Lost In The Middle'

Review of: ‘The Tree’ by Lori McKenna

If you mention the name Lori McKenna to anyone who has an interest in mainstream country, most likely they’ll have no idea what you’re talking about. The reality is that she is responsible for several country hits including RaeLynn’s ‘God Made Girls’, Tim McGraw’s ‘Humble And Kind’, and, perhaps most famously, Little Big Town’s Grammy winning ‘Girl Crush’. On top of writing hits, she’s also wrapped up considerable critical acclaim for a lot of her own albums like ‘Lorraine’, ‘The Bird And The Rifle’, and this new album ‘The Tree’.

Known for her delicate and understated yet powerful and raw approach to fusing the best parts of country and folk, I was almost certain that Lori McKenna and her collaborating producer Dave Cobb (known for his work in country and southern rock with Jason Isbell as well as for having produced McKenna’s last album ‘The Bird And The Rifle’) would deliver and live up to my already high expectations. So, how is ‘The Tree’?

In short, it’s phenomenal. While to many it may appear that McKenna has not strayed particularly far from the formula that worked on ‘The Bird And The Rifle’, but why fix what isn’t broken. The result is a melodically rich, subtlety and stunningly performed and gorgeously produced album that never fails to amaze me every time. The kind of album that’s hard to really negatively criticise, it’s that good, and a huge reason why the album works so well is Lori McKenna herself and her vocals. In terms of capturing the joy, confusion, and resentment regarding times passage, you can’t get better than McKenna’s subtly emotive delivery. She’s consistently excellent on this album, but the amazing raw emotion that she brings to ‘You Won’t Even Know I’m Gone’, ‘The Lot Behind St. Mary’s’, and ‘Like Patsy Would’ cannot be overstated and are all moments of indisputable beauty on this album.

However, without the right production, the vocal delivery would not be as effective as it is. In this department, Dave Cobb delivers with a selection of rich arrangements that play gloriously to McKenna’s strengths. Cobb gives every song on this album a distinctive and organic instrumental presence, with the only slight misstep being the broader tones on ‘Happy People’ that clashes a tad with the rest of the album. On the other songs you get rich guitar tones, gentle percussion that is mixed only to support the melody and not to stiffen it, and a ton of intricate instrumental motifs all mixed to perfection.

But the real selling point of this album is Lori McKenna’s songwriting, and it might just be the best part of the album. McKenna’s unmistakable ability when it comes to discussing complicated emotions with appropriate framing is simply stunning and something you need to listen to to believe. It may start of fairly simple with ‘A Mother Never Rests’, a song that Brandy Clark did do a tad better on her song ‘Three Kids, No Husband’, but the album truly gets going on the song discussing what it means to grow up on ‘People Get Old’, and the reflection of what it meant to be young on what is essentially a sequel to ‘We Were Cool’ on ‘The Bird And The Rifle’ on ‘Young And Angry Again’, but that does not prepare you for amazing centrepiece track ‘You Won’t Even Know I’m Gone’, a heartbreaking breakup song where the breakup itself is largely in the subtext leaving the text to discuss the efforts of the girl to just make the entire situation go down as easy for a heartbroken guy as she prepares to move out. Littered with the kind of beautiful mundane details, it might be the best song I’ve heard all year, and the way McKenna can pack such a punch in little over two minutes only goes to demonstrate that McKenna is a songwriter at the top of her game.

In fact, there's only one really misstep on this entire album in terms of the songwriting. That being the incredibly misplaced 'happy people don't criticise' line on 'Happy People' that would be intolerable if it wasn't Lori McKenna delivering it.

But there is more to this album than just simple explorations of the past, as McKenna is not afraid to dive head first into exploring what could have been in her life if things had been different. Look no further than 'The Lot Behind St. Mary's', another easy favourite of mine as McKenna reflects on the places that meant so much to her growing up, but as things change and teenage dreams get buried, she now has grown to resent those places for not meaning as much as they did back then, all summed up by this gorgeous line: 'I'm sure the dreamer who built the first trapeze / fell in love with someone who grew to resent the God damn thing'.

And I could go on about how McKenna is a master in terms of crafting lyrical cadence perhaps mostly evident on 'The Fixer', 'People Get Old' and 'The Lot Behind St. Mary's', or how 'Like Patsy Would' is such a potent way to end the album as McKenna reflects and remembers a key figure in her life and vows to keep her in her head whatever challenges she faces in her life, but this review has probably gone on long enough.

In short, the album is stunning, well deserving of all the critical acclaim, and proves once again that Lori McKenna and Dave Cobb are a force to be reckoned with in country and folk. It's a 4.5 / 5 and the highest recommendation. Even if your not familiar with any of the names attached to this project, even if you have had no interest in either traditional country or folk, listen to this album and give it the thought that it deserves. You will most certainly not regret it.

Rating: 4.5 / 5

Best Songs: 'You Won't Even Know I'm Gone', 'The Lot Behind St. Mary's', 'Like Patsy Would', 'People Get Old', 'Young And Angry Again'

Worst Songs: 'Happy People'