Today we got Halloween Summer, a new album from Greater Manchester based band, Neil Jarvis, which is now a full-fledged band! Hooray for having all your bells and whistles and stuff! Halloween Summer is the follow up to the Jarvis' 2012 release, Weekends.
Weekends was a good album but it wasn’t great. Now, don’t take that the wrong way, you should definitely still listen to Weekends (and read my review!), as it was both the debut release of Neil Jarvis and also just a good album. But as stated on the On the Grind Records page, Weekends was an experiment in sun-drenched pop and hypnagogic rock, a dreamy and hypnotic (hence the name) sub-genre of rock. As with most normal experiments there are good and bad results which is no different here.
Fast-forward to the present and now Jarvis is back with his sophomore release, Halloween Summer. This album really shows the band progressing in the right direction and learning from some of the mistakes of the previous record (or cassette tape in this case). But not all of these mistakes are corrected as there are still a couple tracks that I had a lot of trouble with. One of these tracks is definitely "Young As Me". Although it is definitely one of the more carefree sounding songs on this album it seems to not care a little too much as the vocalising and distortion of guitars seem to hinder to songs quality. This distortion was present in a couple tracks from Weekends too but luckily only really makes a reappearance in this track.
On the flip-side Halloween Summer really shines on it's fast-paced rock tracks and its more instrumentally driven tracks. "Help", "Shred Met", "Good Years", "Shootin' the Breeze" along with many others help to make a very good album all in all. If you are at all a fan of Kurt Vile, Hibou, or even if you just like jam bands or surf rock, then you'll really love this album. Right now you can purchase Halloween Summer by Neil Jarvis on On the Grind Records for £3.00. Purchase comes with a cassette tape and digital download of the album. Below you can listen to a couple of songs off the album.
On the flip-side Halloween Summer really shines on it's fast-paced rock tracks and its more instrumentally driven tracks. "Help", "Shred Met", "Good Years", "Shootin' the Breeze" along with many others help to make a very good album all in all. If you are at all a fan of Kurt Vile, Hibou, or even if you just like jam bands or surf rock, then you'll really love this album. Right now you can purchase Halloween Summer by Neil Jarvis on On the Grind Records for £3.00. Purchase comes with a cassette tape and digital download of the album. Below you can listen to a couple of songs off the album.
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