I love concept releases, I bloody love them. There’s just something about a group of musicians in a pop combo gathering around and deciding that: Yes! There is more to pop-rock than just working through the same chord progressions, singing the same melodies and changing the names and faces to keep it from being yknow…too “alienating to the general audience”.
Well, I guess making your concept release about Alex Turner and Alex Cheung circa 2007 is a good start to ameliorate the problems above right?
Musically, it does fit the general timbre of what one might imagine Alex Turner’s sonic mindset would be I suppose but it did feel like the lack of dynamics between the songs (they’re all very competently done loud indie rock with some twee spice), didn’t serve the concept as much as it could personally. A couple of slower, quieter passages could have served the personal narratives better I felt.
I do not however want to discourage this! I want to hear a follow-up to this, not necesserily continuing the hypothetical Alex x Alexa thing, but just do concepts in general. The world could do with a more Decemberists-type bands…especially as fun as this one!