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Picture this; a freefall from thousands of feet up, with no life
preserver in sight. Hurtling toward the ground at high speeds like
this is fun for no one, unless of course you're spiraling downwards
into a mixture of sounds, colors and rhythms made of gelatinous wonder!
With a Lego style setup of a suicide jumper on the edge of a tall
building as an album cover, this is reminiscent of the intensity of
Forrest Day's track list.
The self-titled album Forrest Day takes a truly unique plunge
into how its genre is heard. Snazzy, fast melodies and randomly odd
pairings with saxophone and violins make for an "ear-gasm"
of sound, not normally heard on your everyday album. Amongst the orgy
of genres is hip hop, reggae, rock, punk and a few other influences.
In an interview with the lead vocalist Day himself, he speaks of recording
almost every track on analog tape and then using ProTools to edit
and manipulate them. This is entirely evident in the fact that the
whole album doesn't sound "over produced" as projects like
these usually do.
The opening song "Sleepwalk" details Day's interesting
night habits. Apparently he falls under the lucky few who take a stroll
in their slumber. He leaps backwards and forward again from a slow
R&B style vocal to a fast paced spoken-word form to represent
his sleep tantrums. Sublime, old school Fred Durst,
and Barenaked Ladies share a lot of resemblances in the way
his message is delivered and he even sounds like bits of them at times,
but clearly maintains his own raspy style. Most of the tracks are
up tempo and heavy on syncopation and accented upbeats, which really
drives home the reggae feel I mentioned. The track "Hoarders"
has a peaceful start, with sultry guitar bass, soft piano, and a slow
and elegant drum build. Forrest let's his liberal views loose on a
politically lyrical rampage that matches the build, making for a great
goosebump flare at its height of climax.
For the most part the album is creatively put together, however,
the theme of the album is somewhat lost due to the fact that the topics
jump spontaneously. As long as the listener doesn't mind a lottery
drawing of subjects being thrown at them, I'd say Forrest Day has
left a brilliant stamp on the world of recording artists and look
forward to their legacy.
-B.J. Robinson
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