March 20 – Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life The Wombats

Genre: That weird alternative indie stuff that you’ve definitely heard before, but isn’t quite “rock”
Year: 2018
Runtime: 37:00
Total tracks: 11
Songs you might know:
– “Lemon to a Knife Fight”
– “Turn”
– “Cheetah Tongue”
– “Black Flamingo”

My prior relationship with this album: I don’t THINK I had ever heard of the Wombats before but there’s a chance I Shazammed them or something. The single “Turn” was featured on an ad for the Netflix program Dating Around and it grabbed me in a way few other songs have. This being the year of An Album a Day, I promptly listened to the whole album. Twice. Back to back.

I’ve listened to this several times and have formed quite a relationship with it already. An Album a Day has put me in a place where I’m not really blasting the same album over and over again the way I used to, and that’s by design. So when a band I’ve never heard of just.breaks through and insists on being played on repeat, it forms a special bond. It may be new in my life, but I am smitten with it.

My impressions this time around: As stated above, I’ve really been liking this album lately. It’s that perfect middle ground between pop and rock that makes my heart sing. We also get a fair amount of lyrical genius with lines like “You could give an aspirin the headache of its life” in “Turn.”

I think what makes this album so wonderful is its ability to feel original and interesting without necessarily being experimental or avant garde. It’s palatable on first listen, but also nothing I easily get bored with after three listens. I’ve been describing it as a Walk the Moon-esque sound but less peppy and upbeat and more melancholy.

Who would enjoy it? People who are into bands like The Killers or Death Cab for Cutie. Also, EVERYONE should go listen to “Turn.” If you vibe with it, you’ll vibe with the rest of the album.