Album Review: Saint Motel and the Symphony in the Sky
By Conor BoyleLet’s start off with the positives of the album I think the album art looks fantastic. We’ve reached the end of the positive things I have to say about this album.
That might actually be a little harsh assessment of the group’s fourth studio album, in fact, the album’s opener ‘Fine Wine’ kicks things off to a strong start with a good hook and great use of looping strings in the chorus it creates a very danceable track, it’s no surprise this was the first track from the album released and it definitely hooks you in to listen to the rest of the album, unfortunately after this, it’s all downhill.
Symphony in the Sky admittedly gets its worst offering out of the way immediately following its opener with the album’s second track ‘Get it at Home’ where lead singer and songwriter A.J.Jackson repeatedly assures for almost the track’s whole length that he is in-fact going to “get it at home” and while I’m going to guess he’s referring to sexual intercourse honestly I’d prefer if he were getting some songwriting classes; as while I’m sure there were other lyrics here outside of the tracks title much like the song itself they were uninteresting and forgotten about as soon as the track is over (actually I think he refers to a woman’s vagina as their ‘promised land’ at one point during the track which might be in the running for worst euphemism I’ve heard).
This oddly transitions directly into ‘take it slow’; and listen A.J you’re either getting it at home or your taking it slow but you can’t be doing both within the space of one track of each other and I definitely won’t be letting you ‘walk me the long way home’ until you’ve got your story straight.
Perhaps worse than Saint Motel’s clear unreliability here, is that ‘Take it slow’ feels almost offensively inoffensive, nothing about the track does anything to capture your attention, even while actively trying to listen to the song I had to replay it multiple times as I couldn’t manage to get through its 3 minutes without zoning out. It feels like it’s playing things so safe that it ultimately just becomes noise in the background and unfortunately, this sets the pace for the rest of the record.
Tracks like ‘Life’s A Gas’, ‘Pick Me Up’ and, ‘Stay Golden’ just sort of wave over you. I can hear them I know they’re playing and yeah by all accounts it’s pleasant noise but they only register to me as noise not as anything meaningful. They certainly don’t elicit any emotion in me and my heart rate is now at what my doctors would refer to as worryingly low.
While I didn’t like ‘Get It At Home’ it did at least make me feel annoyed in some way and honestly, I think I might rather feel that annoyance than just the void I’m getting from the majority of the other tracks on this album, this is at its worst with the albums 10th track ‘A Bluer blue’ a track I only noticed had happened because I looked at my Spotify and saw I was on the 11th track and that I didn’t even pick up that a whole track had played says enough.
Not every song on the album is entirely un-notable though, ‘Everyone’s A Guru Now’ is a track that actually made me take notice, largely due to the piano instrumentation which makes the song feel a lot jauntier than the rest of the tracks and is just genuinely feels fun.
Unfortunately, towards the back end of the song, there’s an added backing track of childish voices going ‘lalala’ on repeat which I hate more than just about anything and therefore I refuse to give this song a passing grade either.
Sorry guys, so close. We also have ‘Slowly Spinning Out’ the record’s penultimate track and while the track did catch my attention it has more to do with how it reminded me of Keane with its heavier emphasis on piano and drums and lack of guitar, even Jackson’s vocal work here is reminiscent of Keane’s Tom Chaplin. Given my gripes with the rest of this record though this comparison isn’t necessarily a good thing, I mean no one has ever referred to Keane as the world’s most exciting band (sorry Keane) so I’m not exactly looking for Keane from Alibaba.
I’m especially going to put ‘Hold My Place in Heaven’ on blast, a track that just seems out of place alongside the album’s other songs here, seeming so much more dramatic than anything else Saint Motel has tried to present us with here, how it uses strings almost seeming like their aiming to be in the next bond movie yet despite all of this the track somehow oxymoronically still manages to feel just as boring and uninteresting as the rest of the album.
Also for some reason, the track ends with about half a minute of what sounds like an accordion which is a choice one could make. I’m sure an accordion can sound good. Doesn’t here though does it.
There is one shining diamond in this rough of an album however, ‘Steady Hand’ stands head and shoulders above the record’s other tracks. A romantic ballad where A.J. Jackson really shows off his vocal range and sounds like his actually putting emotion into his voice delivering lyrics that feel like they have something behind them backed by a heavy use of strings that strongly bolsters the emotion of the track.
So is it worth listening to this album just to get to this one gem? No.
I mean just listen to the song individually you don’t need to go through the whole subpar album to get here really, if anything this one track really highlights the flaws elsewhere, the lack of sentiment in the vocals, how the instrumentation just serves as a pleasant background rather than supplementing the Jacksons performance, how empty the other tracks feel.
For the most part, there’s nothing really all that wrong with symphony in the sky. The vocal work is good on a technical level, the instrumentation is good on a technical level, the production is good on a technical level, the lyrics are… ok well maybe lyrically it could use some work but outside of that everything here is technically good and at some level that might be the problem here. If a date tells me I’m technically good in bed they usually don’t call me back for another date and really it comes down to the same reason here, just a real lack of passion involved and I’m sorry Saint Motel but without any passion I think it’s just better if I see other bands.
That album art though.
This has been Conor Boyle and I don’t know what I’m doing.
Idk like a 4.8 out of 10 if you want a score on this
