Review Summary: Exposition is a mix between post-rock and indie with stunning composition and excellent instrumentals. It's just missing something...
Ever since I bought this album I have been praising it as one of my favourite albums to all of my friends, explaining how it is dynamic, fresh, the instrumentals are complete. That just scratches the surface of this bands talent. But ever since that I have been trying to find out why this album is not worth a 5. It can’t be, it’s a debut! Maybe by reviewing it I will discover what it is missing.
The album begins with a rising sound of people conversing, perhaps in a bar or restaurant in the opening
Today I Became a Realist. Then the vocalist Mickey Russell bursts in with the lyrics
”the sad face of dreamers/waking to the life that passed them by” with an odd but almost unnoticeable reverb/chorus on his voice. The chord progression is one of my favourite in almost any song. The sound of people talking never dies down through the song and can be heard between stanzas. The acoustic solos show that these guys have talent and are versatile because they don’t sound like electric solos just played on an acoustic, they sound proper and are fitting. The song dies down as it sounds like children sing along with Mikey. There is a crackling like an old vinyl record and an electric piano that builds up again to the first electric song:
Time Will Bind Us to the Guilt of Commitment
Being relatively calm in the beginning with almost reggae like guitar chords and a ghostly guitar solo with Mikey holding it together. The bass sits in the back with an excellent line as it follows the drumming; there is no one person in this band that stands above the rest. Then it gives in to the first loud dynamic, although short and not very impressive it keeps the song from being monotonous. It keeps going; building up and falling back down another time to a lower point that before. Just when the song seems to want to die down to a dull, ghostly solo with light drums it quickly jumps up and almost explodes into a loud, aggressive section which is almost a wall of cymbal crashes, snare hits, guitar chords, slides, bass and Mikey belting out
”Our time will find us again!. Then, again, it settles down, mellows out to a chord pattern. But it isn’t over: it starts up one last time even louder but much shorter than the former.
The production value on this record is astounding considering they are on an Indie label and this is their first album. No tone, treble, mid or bass, is harsh to the ear and is perfectly mixed. Every small nuance that they wanted in their music was incorporated to evoke an emotion or atmosphere. And they did it well.
With so many songs over 5 minutes (three are over 7) this album just keeps going, but it doesn’t drag on and take forever to end because the melodies and the rhythms just keep you into the music long enough to listen to it, and maybe listen to one of the songs again. An example of how
Wax on Radio place an atmosphere in their music is in
Remembering at 2:37 to 3:15 where the melody of the song is played on the guitar with a bassy tone to it and very light, relaxing rhythms behind it. It almost feels like something that would be appropriate at a funeral.
Now, all of that is what I love and like about the album: the melodies, the instrumentals, lyrics, song structure and dynamics. But what I find I don’t like about the album is at there are parts that seem like filler, such as at the end of my favourite song
When in Rome… there is about 3 minutes of the bass tapping riff played with dying guitars and crickets getting louder and louder. If it ended in about a minute it would be a very well done part of the album, but they dragged it out too long. These are always at the ends of songs so it isn’t as if you will have to skip through parts of the songs to get to the good stuff, just press next on your music player.
I still can’t find what is missing in this album; it just doesn’t feel like a 5/5 to me. I love the album, I listen to it a lot and haven’t gotten bored, the vocals may not be the best but they are fitting. The band just doesn’t seem to differ in song structure enough. What they have now is amazing but the problem is: the rises and falls are abrupt and sudden at points and could be longer and more drawn out.
Pros:
Consistent
Excellent Structure
Melodies are Catchy
Dynamic
Great Bass and Drums
Guitars are almost alive and don’t detract from the rest of the recording
NOT Monotonous
Cons:
Dynamics (rises and falls) are a bit short and sometimes abrupt
Songs may be too long for some
Album may be too long for some
Vocals sound a bit sloppy at some points
4.6/5
myspace.com/waxonradio
