Friday, December 5, 2014

MP3 Review: Booksmart "Strange News"


[Name Your Price Download // https://booksmart.bandcamp.com/album/strange-news]

While these four songs from Booksmart are primarily a combination of vocals and acoustic guitar to call them folk or even folk punk might just be too far a stretch in the sense of the term being general.   While it can apply to a very specific sound and I don't mind using it for other artists, I just feel as if the songs on "Strange News" are neither really folk nor folk punk.

The first song has this direct quality where it seems straight to the point ala Cake, but then there is also a bit of the Violent Femmes coming out as well and I am always fine with that because I feel that is one of those bands I just love (in my younger years and still to this day) but don't hear enough of an influence of in modern music.

What comes to follow shows that each of these four songs brings something different to the table.   There is this underlying tone of someone like Ben Kweller in the second song as it's just this sort of almost pop love song mixed with the Get Up Kids.     The third song has a strong quality of the verses of The White Stripes song about being friends (Which Jack Johnson covered on the Curious George soundtrack and I do believe I've heard the Jack Johnson version more than the original) and while the last song, "I Can't Dance" is not a Genesis cover it does have those piano/organ harmonies.

Regardless of your opinion on Booksmart, which is a name that has come up here before and if you are like me you hopefully already are a fan, this music is just wholesome.  It's what I think of when someone says "singer/songwriter" and I think of the best possible outcome without being too cliche.    Along with a timeless appeal (Both in the way I could listen to these songs forever and in the way that they could stand the test of time) these songs aren't the exact type of radio pop songs that will get stuck in your head but they will infest your soul.

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