The Consolation Project “Holiday Lights EP”
Upon the first line of the very first song the like “It’s Christmas time” can be heard. I realize now, as I think more carefully about the title of this EP, how much that makes perfect sense. But I must admit that it was the first thing that kind of knocked me off my feet about this EP. I grew a little bit concerned about the quality of this EP as the second word uttered was “Christmas” and I have been notorious for a general loathing of holiday music in any form (The exception being Halloween. “The Monster Mash” can be rocked year round)
Do you enjoy the music of Aimee Mann? I don’t know whether I do or not, because when I first attempted to listen to her music I put on a Christmas theme album by mistake, forever scarring my mind of her image. I’m sure that her non-Christmas albums are wonderful, but all I can think of when someone mentions her name now is that Christmas album and it drives me crazy.
My main problem with holiday music: It can only be played at a designated time of year. If you get caught playing “Jingle Bells” in July, people will have you committed (I would). But, in my mind, great music has always been unhinged by time. This not only is in the sense that something from the 1950’s can remain relevant sixty years later if it’s great, but also that it can be listened to on any given day of the year.
While I did enjoy explaining all of that, it’s not as pertinent to this review as you might think because despite the first uttering of the word Christmas, this doesn’t exactly come across as a holiday themed EP. (Thank goodness)
On these seven songs, I still believe that The Consolation Project sounds like The Verve, which is still not a bad thing. My wife walked in on me listening to them and said she thought it sounds like David Bowie, which Is again something I do not disagree with. Musically, I also hear some Life of Agony in here, but that’s probably just me.
One of the biggest differences I hear on this EP, as opposed to the first full album I heard of The Consolation Project (“Glaciers”) is that the vocals on these songs seem to be a bit deeper, more baritone. I could easily go to Lou Reed, but there is this one song that I always hear on the radio- or at least I used to- and I always thought that it was a ballad by The Hold Steady because they were getting some radio play back then. Turns out, it was actually a song by The Airborne Toxic Event, a band I happen to know absolutely nothing about outside of that one song I think is The Hold Steady every time I hear and I have to remind myself that it is not. So yeah, the vocals on this EP sound kind of along that line, which is a bit of a change from the album “Glaciers”, but overall this is still something of what I’d classify as a Breakfast Club band and the rest of the musical writing world calls shoegaze.
This EP can be downloaded for free HERE:http://theconsolationproject.bandcamp.com/album/holiday-lights-ep-free
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