Today I'm going to show you something new. This new thing is Neil Jarvis. To be more specific, this new thing is this Greater Manchester based musician's new album Weekends.
Weekends was released on November 12th to On the Grind Records. If you want to buy this album
Click Here to be taken to
Neil Jarvis' On the Grind page. Below I will be doing a new assessment where I talk about the good and bad parts of the album. Enjoy!
The Good
Neil Jarvis' new album is a great escape from all the electronic music I've been listening to. Especially now after I just finished my review for Crystal Castles' newest album. You guys have no idea how long these review take. Weekends is an album about summertime and relaxation. It oozes happiness! Jarvis' sound is really interesting too. It's a mix between really chill surf-rock and groovy psychedelic rock.
I wasn't able to find the song "Figure It Out" online but if you buy the album make sure you listen to that track. It is probably my favorite song in the entire album. If you have ever listened to Temple Songs and like them, especially in their Luxury Lice EP, then you will instantly fall in love with this song too.
Even though "Figure It Out" is one of the few sad songs with it's lyrics like "I know you are going to hate me, but we'll figure it out" it masks that sadness and uncertainty perfectly in the groovy chords that all surf-rock is known for. Jarvis' skills in song composition are quite similar to that of Jack Tatum of Wild Nothing and Kevin Parker of Tame Impala in this regard. At the bottom of this review you can listen to a couple of my favorite songs off Weekends except of course for "Figure It Out". Make sure to buy the album to hear that gem!
The Bad
There are really only two things I did not like in Weekends, and to be honest, they aren't that bad. The first is the occasional distortion on guitar. A prime example of this is in the song "Every Night". It starts out pretty good but then it just sounds as if someone pulled the needle away from a vinyl that was playing and it freaked out for a second or two. Like I stated earlier this interruption doesn't stay for long. In fact if it didn't happen at all I'd like "Every Night" because it's a good track despite the distortion.
Lastly, like I've said in the past before if you don't mix up your songs the listener might get bored. This doesn't just happen in Neil Jarvis' album but also in albums by The Drums. After about 5 or 6 songs you just want to listen to something else. But Jarvis does a pretty good job keeping this from happening in the beginning.
In the end I would say buy this album if you like lo-fi surf rock and psychedelic music. It's a good album despite it's tiny issues and honestly those just boil down to personal preference. Neil Jarvis has a lot of potential and I will always be a fan of any surf rock artist out there. Right now Weekends is being sold for a mere £3.00 which is just under $5 for the Americans reading (like me!).
