Review Summary: The refusal to accept any standard short of perfection; perfectly repulsive.
This review is a submission for “Review a Random Album Game: 2020 Q1 Edition”
It’s never too late to have fun. Sometimes you just got too busy in your 20s, exhausting yourselves with an outstanding amount of workload, ambitiously chasing your dream without sparing any moments for self-care and well-being. Now that the 20s, which are commonly associated with the time of youth, have been depleted, your 30s now has come. It sounds like a time to, maybe, start a family and move on with your life… Right? No, screw that. It’s time to play hard! Don’t you remember those times when you wished to get wasted instead of working yourself to death? This is also still a perfect time to start getting yourself a hobby since you have all the time and money. Living life to the fullest in your 30s, what a joy.
No, the rambling that I mentioned above isn’t to describe the situation of Hotel Mira, but it’s rather an impression that
Perfectionism gives me. Regardless of whether the situation is applicable to anybody or not, this record is the butchered version of it. It takes all the positive aspects and turns it into a mush. It’s like eating your favorite sandwich, but it’s pureed and you drink it like a milkshake. The varying texture and flavor of each ingredient of a certain dish are what makes it palatable and enjoyable. However, Hotel Mira seems to smush the perfectly fine ingredients of rock music by cringe-worthy lyricism and out-of-touch theme. Each song sounds incoherent as it is difficult for me to paint a clear picture of what it’s telling me. When I try to analyze lines like “That's not love/ It can't be love/ If that was love/ I'd be in love”, it only left me with some confusion and chronic existential crisis instead of some comprehension. The bland vocal delivery doesn’t help to salvage anything either. While the hooks could undeniably be infectious at times, it also increases my desire to develop a vaccine for those who experience similar symptoms like mine, such as having a midlife crisis in my 20s after listening to this album. Perhaps the instrumental is the only saving grace from this mess titled as
Perfectionism. Unfortunately, it only falls into the category of generic radio rock from the early 2000s, not that it’s terrible, it’s just average at best.
Perfectionism is like your inappropriate uncle at a family reunion. There is a potential that he might say something genuinely funny. But most of the time, it’s uncomfortable to have him around. “Aren’t you a little bit too old for this?” is the question that arises silently whenever his antics are showing. It’s the same question that I would ask Hotel Mira for this mess of an album. The reason being is connected to the potential audience, it's for people who are a bit too old to spend their youth, have acceptance for slight amount of inappropriateness, and enjoy a basic level of radio rock music with an unintelligible theme. In other words, I hardly recommend this album at all. It feels like the perfectionism that Hotel Mira pursued is perfectly repulsive; they succeeded.
