By Emma Lyons
After a teaser EP “Alone Together” was released in September 2021, Del Water Gap published his first self-titled album on Oct. 8.
The EP featured the songs “Better Than I Know Myself,” “Sorry I Am,” “Perfume,” “Hurting Kind,” “Alone Together,” and “Ode to a Conversation Stuck in Your Throat.”
“Better Together” gave the album a kickstart with it’s fast-paced composition and brilliant lyrics. The song is inexplicably catchy and had me singing along by the third chorus.
The second song, “Sorry I Am,” brings a softer tone into the mix, as the song is a letter to a relationship from the past. The composition is beautiful, featuring soothing vocals blending seamlessly with the lively backing.
A rock feel is introduced to the album with the following songs, “Perfume” and “Hurting Kind.” Both upbeat and the type of song you can’t help but dance to, it’s the type of music you’d hear in the background of a movie.
“Alone Together” brings the attitude of the album down with its haunting melodies and lyrics, only for the mood to be brought up once more by “Ode to a Conversation Stuck in Your Throat” which contrasts the previous with a faster pace, while still maintaining the same vocal quality of the previous tracks.
The second half of the album was underwhelming compared to the first.
The anticipation of the release built up big expectations for the second half. I hoped it would keep the same feeling as the first collection, but it just didn’t match up.
It featured the songs “Distance,” “It’s Not Fair !” “I Hope You Understand,” “Bug Bites,” “Uh-Huh,” and “Shortest Love Song.”
“It’s Not Fair !” follows the mellow moods of “Sorry I Am” and “Alone Together.” However, it was bland in comparison and was much simpler than other songs on the album. It introduces a new raspy vocal quality that doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the tracks.
“I Hope You Understand” has no competition to be my least favorite track. It seems as though this piece was an amalgamation of experimental techniques someone might want to try out throughout a whole album.
While certain parts were pleasing and sounded great, the majority of the song was not. The mashing together of such different things left it feeling messy and had me praying for the song to finally end.
The record concludes with the song “Shortest Love Song.” It could have been better. The composition had a soothing lullaby feeling, but the combination of the vocals and guitar didn’t mesh correctly to actually achieve that.
At one minute and 30 seconds long, it was definitely a short song, and I definitely did not love it.
In between the lower points of the second half, the songs “Distance” and “Uh-Huh” stood out and brought some good music back into the mix and I really enjoyed listening to them.
“Distance” has a nice upbeat tempo and the chorus remained stuck in my head after first hearing it. I listened to it for days on repeat and never found myself getting sick of it.
“Uh-Huh” was my favorite song on this record. Its composition welcomes slow, steady melodies, contrasted brilliantly with the strong chords of the chorus waking you up to the beauty of the piece. This song made me fall in love with the album.
Overall, the album is not bad.
You can’t expect every song to be the best thing you’ve ever heard. Unfortunately in this case, all the bad songs were a part of the second release.
These lackluster parts leave much to be desired, but the high points of the album make you completely forget about them as you are swept away into the music.
Grade: B
It’s like an earworm I never want to get rid of.