While I'm not always sure which is the cause and which is the effect, I must admit that since I started listening to more Graham Repulski (new to me cassettes of his) I have also been finding myself listening to a lot of Matthew Sweet. So I don't know if listening to Graham Repulski reminded me of Matthew Sweet or what the influence is exactly, but I feel like it has to be something more than mere coincidence.
This loud rock on "Negative Highlight Reel" skips around. It has this feel of something from the MPLS scene mixed with Alkaline Trio. Even if I've said it before, it's not been said enough: Graham Repulski has this songwriting style where he can rhyme words and it's just something that you cannot teach-- you either have it or you don't. Side A ends with this slower, instrumental acoustic number and nothing really surprises me anymore but it is interesting that these songs aren't all with lyrics.
On the flip side there are these muted vocals which almost sound as if they're coming out of a drive-thru speaker. There is drumming at first though, so it is a song, but then it breaks down into just the vocals which now sound more like a whale than the drive-thru. Lots of guitar notes come out in a darker way and on the whole you could think of the second side of this as being more of the "experimental rock" side because there aren't really any traditional songs which we have heard from Graham Repulski before and know he is capable of producing.
The only word at the bottom of this Bandcamp page in terms of a "description" or "credits" (I forget what goes there exactly, it's been so long since I've uploaded anything to Bandcamp) it simply says: "Goodbye". I hope that this does not mean this is the final release from Graham Repulski. The way he released all of this fuzzy rock but also the odd songs you didn't know how to place is rare right now, especially when cassettes come with the music. So I'm holding out hope that this is not the end of Graham Repulski and you should support him so this might not really be the end.
$3 //
https://grahamrepulski.bandcamp.com/album/negative-highlight-reel //
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