Against The Current - Past Lives (2018)

I don't really listen to a lot of music in my free time, on account of having to commit to a not insignificant number of instrument practice on each day. Still, I tend to hoard data, as I might have mentioned in the past, so I have a lot of music on my phone, just in case I want to listen to music. Almost everything I ever thought I might like lives on there, in a shallow folder structure, sorted vaguely by artists. However, I've always been of the conviction that albums are the best way to understand a piece of contemporary music, whether the artist intended for it to be that way or not. It's got something to do with my own stance on Roland Barthes, but that might be a topic for a future essay, so I won't get into it here. Suffice it to say that the most influential music to me personally, I've always consumed in albums. MCR's Black Parade, Green Day's American Idiot, and even full Musical soundtracks. In light of this, it seems odd to me that I tend not to listen to entire albums, even though it's arguably the correct way to listen to music for people like me. So instead of pressing "shuffle" every time I want to listen to music, I'll start going album for album, slowly, all the while cleaning up the chaos that is my music library.

The first album I'm checking out is "Past Lives" by Against the Current. I have a personal weakness for bands that started out on platforms like YouTube, because it so starkly defies the way music was sold before that became a viable way to market a band. Against the Current also has a history of collaborating with other artists on the platform, so for a time, they popped up everywhere in the YouTube musicians scene. It made them feel very grass-roots at the time, and I never expected them to stay that way, if they wanted to make a living doing what they loved, I feel slightly nostalgic for that time.

"Past Lives" is the second album officially listed in ATC's discography, and while they had been around for a while when they put it out, it still feels very much like an early project to me, on a listen-through. My own attempt at trying to understand it as an album somewhat struggles with these sort of projects, perhaps because they were never meant to be understood as a single narrative spread over 15-or-so tracks, but rather as a showcase of some people who like to make music together, and that in itself is fun enough to justify its existence. It's perhaps indicative that there is nothing like a "title track", something that most other albums that I tend to gravitate toward have and often serves as either a personal note from the artist regarding which song to give some extra flowers to, or even a thesis statement that becomes the center-piece of the project, connecting the other tracks. Because I generally like their music though, in all its almost-progressive pop goodness, and since I haven't yet decided on a good format for these, I might as well join in the experimenting.

I have my definite favourite tracks in this album, "Strangers Again" makes for a good start in my opinion. It's got one of the stronger hooks, and its production hits a comfortable middle for the rest of what's to come. I think there's really only two or three other tracks that compare in terms of the hook, but unfortunately, I think there's not too much else to it. Even for someone who is not at all in tune with current music, the verses and lyrical stylings seem very mid-2010s to me, and while the hook comes in very nicely, the verses seem very low-energy, perhaps to make space for the lyrics, which don't strike me as anything special. I'm personally not a great fan of repeated lyrics within verses, if I can't find a good reason why they would need repetition, and the verses each include these at a specific point where the melody loops as well, which feels a little bit clunky when I think about it too much. Perhaps this is why I always thought the verses didn't flow as nicely as the chorus does. The chorus on the other hand I think is really well done. Melody-wise it's got a bit of a stadium feeling, with a respectable range, and very nice orchestration. Lyrically it also flows quite well, due to a good follow-through on the enjambments. Speaking from a grammar perspective, the chorus could be comfortably read as a single sentence, and none of the language was horribly twisted to fit its metrum either.

The second track - "The Fuss" - incidentally, is the first original song I've ever heard from them. I must've found it interesting enough at the time, what with the slight funk influences, but listening back now, I'm not sure I really like it. This repetition I mentioned earlier hits really hard here, and somehow it feels like it tries too hard in the chorus. A track with a similar tone, and much more successful execution I think can be found in "Voices", which manages to keep the tone between verses and chorus consistent nicely. Lyrically these tracks seem a little less tight than the chorus in "Strangers Again", though perhaps this is because both have more going on rhythmically as well. All I can say is that in "Voices" it's not distracting, partially due to the interplay with the instrumental licks worked into it.

"I Like The Way" is one of the other tracks with a really good hook, but it melodically it's a bit on the simple side. That's not bad, it makes it catchy, and due to the up tempo, it makes for a pretty fun driving song, if one finds oneself in the need for one. At this point, I think it merits mentioning that the topics chosen for this music seem very run of the mill, and not particularly eye-catching to someone accostumed to 2000s pop music. If I had to group this track with another from the same album, it might be "Friendly Reminder" or "Sweet Surrender", even though I find the former much less stand-out than the latter.

"Almost Forgot" is probably my favourite track from the lyrical perspective, and it's decently catchy. Not only does it scan nicely with the melody, their verses have some characteristics from patter songs, or perhaps almost rap verses, without standing out negatively. It also matches the topic of the song, describing a relationship that has always been somewhat difficult or downright bad for the lyrical subject, but the good times feel too much like a whirlwind romance to leave it behind. Having the verses rush by in a river of syllables is very appropriate.

While most of the tracks that I haven't mentioned so far, feel mostly like filler to me (or perhaps they are dance tracks, which are just not for me, empirically) I want to highlight "Scream" and "NIJI" for what feels like distinct J-Pop influences, or at least those facets of J-Pop that made it over to Europe. NIJI seems much more overtly written for Japanese audiences, because the lyrics are partially in Japanese, and even the lyrics are in English, they carry the particular diction that it often gains in J-Pop, when it needs to be grafted onto a metrum that was written with far fewer syllables in mind. "Scream" is still by far more interesting musically, borrowing melody snippets and even the occasional harmony from the Orientalist conception of far-eastern music, but has enough taste not to make the song itself about anything overtly Asian. As far as using these musical elements goes, I think that's as sensible as one can go about it.

I've heard most of these tracks before and have largely made up my mind about how I like them. I'll not likely to listen to the album in its entirety for any storytelling, but I did find enough interesting things in "Voices" and "Scream" to add them into my usual rotation.