There are a lot of things I can appreciate about different kinds of music and groups that I am hearing for the first time. One of these things being whether or not they immediately remind me of anything else.
Needless to say, originality is very high on my list of must-haves in a new listen.
Her Next Friend’s album “Disaster Casual” is an excellent example of this. Immediately upon hearing the group, I began wracking my brain for other groups, music or otherwise that it reminded me of. For the first three songs of the album, I felt like I was just one step away from knowing what it was that it reminded me of, but to my surprise, by the fourth song I had determined that it didn’t really remind me of any one thing.
While there seem to be some jam-band-like touches in there at points, there is a definite light-rock edge and a very light touch of extremely pop-influenced metal in some moments. What sets “Disaster Casual” apart from some of the main music going on today for me was the fact that they maintained the classic rock tendency to have real guitar solos in the music.
And here I thought everything related to classic rock was completely dead.
One thing that seemed out of place on the record were the vocals on the tracks. While the instruments were fairly free-flowing and natural sounding, and the lyrics were neither here nor there, the voice itself seemed to be forced out of the singer rather than a normal thing that he does. While it sounds slightly picky of me, it really was difficult to get over the degree of discomfort I was feeling from listening to the singer’s voice.
The album on the whole was cohesive to the point where you wouldn’t really notice going from one song to the next, and while this can be annoying sometimes, for this genre and this sound, I thought it worked well.
The song “Girls at the Zoo,” was one I happened to enjoy, and while I wouldn’t go all the way to calling it catchy, it did stand out to me.
On that note, none of the music was especially catchy, but given the genre and the sound they were going for, it seems appropriate.
“Don’t Answer the Phone” was one song I honestly didn’t care for, and as the first song on the album, it really didn’t set a good start for the rest.
I would say that was the only thing I really had a huge problem with on the CD, and the fact that it came right at the beginning and then was over seemed to make things a little bit better.
Like ripping off a Band-Aid, it kind of hurts at first, but eventually you’re really glad you did it. While the music wasn’t my favorite, I can’t fault Her Next Friend. Classic rock on the whole has never especially been my top pick, with a few exceptions (Queen, anyone?), and the execution of the genre and integration of other elements to the music was well done.