Review Summary: SNCKPCK highlights the passion of music, refining his art along the way.
One of the most common recurring trends in music is that of the aesthetic-driven genre. Whether it's the emotional poems, dark hair and teenage angst associated with the emo scene, or the extensive kerning, armless statues and Windows 95 desktops of vaporwave, all of these trends tend to completely polarize the music community. They always have over-enthusiastic fans claiming anything vaguely related to the genre as hugely important modern artistic pieces, and they always have dedicated haters who (perhaps passioned by the fans' overenthusiasm) claim them to take no skill and have absolutely no worth. Later on, past the veil of current emotional stances, as it turns out, the answer is usually somewhere in the middle. SNCKPCK, the alias for Daniel Alexander, is a contagiously positive person who uses his semi-unique personality to help make heavily aesthetic music. It lives off of the variety that only a bandcamp bedroom producer could pull off, ridiculous positivity, sheer enthusiasm, unmistakable modernity (one track is titled "a sunset so perfect it doesn't need a filter") and a presumably conscious lack of typical musical merit. There are dedicated fans, and Alexander consistently reflects that dedication. It almost seems like he's more of a character, or even a caricature than a musician. But unlike some artists that just live off their caricatures and ignore their jobs, there's something magical about the music.
LAVA PAL makes you want to stop caring about pretensions, cynicism, rights, backgrounds, and controversies. This isn't the kind of album that pretends to be immune to criticism, it just allows for a fresh look on criticism and music as a whole.
Imagine relaxing at your best friends' house, listening to him strum silly songs to his girlfriend on the ukulele. (Suspend any cynical disbelief for a minute and imagine that this isn't awkward.) Sometimes
LAVA PAL comes across this way. But in other parts, mostly the later half, it shifts into charming synth work, often largely instrumental. He even has some nightcore (or Chipmunks, depending on your perspective) and shoegaze influence on "imagine a girl" and "a perfect day with you," respectively. Transitions between these styles are surprisingly smooth, deciding to cohere by mood rather than genre. "you look like a cat when you sleep" is a highlight, combining both synths and ukulele work. Perhaps the biggest achievement of that song is that it manages to make a Microsoft Bob style reading of "I want to kiss you, in a spaceship, upside down" positively cheery, if futuristic, rather than the usual spine-curdling. Both traditional and modern styles are approached quite nicely. On previous releases, most songs had a "feat.", but this time he apparently figured out how to do it all on his own, which is impressive, given the variety. Sounds range from chipper bleeps and bloops vibrantly dancing in "windows 95: lava edition" to blatantly romantic vocals and default piano synths reigning in "a perfect day with you."
LAVA PAL, although it doesn't entirely rely on it as much as some past SNCKPCK releases, is defined by its mood. This time around, it's silly, fun, loving, and, as always, relentlessly cheerful. The lyrical and instrumental themes are significantly more balanced than his other releases, along with many other bands.
COOL VIBES often struggled to catch the proper placement between dance, cheer, swagger, and humor, although it was a very admirable effort. On the other hand,
songs for someone you love was consistent but very one-track-minded. But this time, he finally gets a solid mix between the two ideas, and even gets the timing just right. The album is fourteen songs, but none of them are very long, which is pleasant. It understands the delicacy between interludes and full-length songs, fun and story, kindness and laughter. It reaches that perfect mix of cohesiveness and diversity.
Lyrics range from funny to childish to romantic to factual to surreal to imaginative to all of the above.
Some examples:
"Hey, you there, I like you, so I'll go to bed, with you in my head."
"The pizza man is at the front door, are we gonna get it? That's a stupid question, heck yeah we're gonna get it."
"If we, were, skeletons, I'd be, your, skeleton, I love you, so much. ('I don't think you get it, I love you so freakin' much, okay?')"
Admittedly, hearing the word "freakin'" probably brings back immediate memories of edgy middle-schoolers, but SNCKPCK clearly isn't going for that. Instead, he's just legitimately really excited about this girl and doesn't want to make anyone feel bad by cursing. Alexander isn't the type who would ever curse anything. So why would he say something that would make people feel hurt, uncomfortable or offended? He's not trying to clean up his act, nor restrain himself in any way, he's just being a nice, loving person. Speaking of his kindness, he could have done with a bit more lyrical encouragement and a bit less swooning. He tied together the instrumental styles of previous albums, so it'd be good to see him mix together the lyrical styles as well. A significant part of the charm of the album is the spontaneity of the lyrics, so they do often get tiring after repeat listens. And his voice, while endearing, is not pop star-quality. In particular, it's audibly shaky in the grating opener "welcome 2 the future," a track I often skip. Apart from that, he does decently for an amateur. And honestly, with this kind of music, the measurable quality of the instrument, even if the instrument is a voice, isn't really the point. But if you find it hard to listen to an average-quality voice for an extensive period of time, the album has many instrumentals and heavily modified vocals to helpfully break up any monotony.
LAVA PAL is a nice break from the rest of the music world, which all takes itself a bit too seriously. It's the kind of album we "serious" music fans love to hate; it's optimistic, quick, fun, blunt, and very, very pop. But we don't really (or we shouldn't, anyway) hate music like that because of how matter-of-fact it is. Instead we tend to hate it because it tends to be stunningly impersonal, average, and overrated. Life isn't as cheerful as an artist like Owl City or early Taylor Swift would have us believe, and we can feel that fraudulence in the music. That's why
LAVA PAL is
so essential to music - it's incredibly real, and somehow cheerful. It's the actual optimism music is so often lacking. It’s the candid smile instead of the “smile for the camera.” It does have pitfalls: over-reliance on the same lyrical concepts, some songs that taste like Splenda instead of sugar, and above average, rather than great, bedroom production. However, it has everything else needed for a great piece of work. It's both modern and retro, trying out new sounds while exploring a mood of music that hasn't really been properly pieced together since
Pet Sounds. It's cohesive, tying and mixing together genre after genre into one solid mood. It's varied, with only a few songs sounding too similar. It's lyrically and melodically emotional, cheerfully living life to the best of its ability. It's surprisingly cohesive. Above all, it's unique. Nobody but SNCKPCK makes music like this, optimism without the naivety, a jam session without the muffled comments. He grabs moments of pure, unadulterated, stunningly legitimate joy, pushes them together bravely, and nicely asks us to go ahead, give it a shot!
