Review Summary: Perfect for walks in the park in Wooster, Ohio on a chilly October morning, yet...
Nowadays, almost anyone with recording equipment with any semblance of talent (whether it be non-existent or not) can record something and post it online for all to hear. I’ve done it to very, very poor results, and I can assure you others have done it as well. To get to the point, is that just almost anyone can release something now with the emergence of platforms such as Soundcloud and Bandcamp. It doesn’t matter what it is, there’s a guarantee someone somewhere out there will eat it up and champion it in whatever way they see fit. Is there some extremely promising talent to be found on these platforms? Absolutely. Is The National Park Service one of the rare few?
Maybe?
A one-man ambient folk acoustic experimental act from Cleveland, Ohio, The National Park Service has reportedly been recording since 2011, and releasing dozens of recordings at a fast rate. Considering the rate he releases his stuff, it comes as no surprise that his debut LP
I Was Flying is rather okay instead of the astounding ambient folk album it could’ve been if the compositions were more interesting and relied less on hazy loops that go nowhere. The album as a whole is perfect for a chilly autumn day, as described on the Bandcamp it is from. Perfect for a chilly day in mid-October, sure, but the music is simply not interesting and uses ambient sound clips that add nothing to the music.
Road Dog and
Memory Peel are the greatest offenders, the former consisting of what amounts to the rocking rhythms of a washing machine and a obscured voice set down several semitones. The latter uses droning synthesizers and reverberated guitars doused with delays over a creaking chair in what seems to be an attempt at an atmospheric finale to the album, but is misguided in its repetitive nature.
Stormwatchers on the other hand, uses an effective mix of echoing guitars, hushed synthesizers and reserved percussion that emits a shoegaze vibe. The other defining track,
Woods Club uses its nine-minute runtime well by using a massive amount of overdubbed twangy guitars and what seems to be a morse code that fades in and out during the track’s duration.
Does The National Park Service have potential? Surely enough, the project does. It comes across as something relaxing, and is promising as well, yet overstays its welcome with its repeating tape loops and random samples. The end result is something that is just simply average. Nothing on its too bad, but the best material on here is nothing to be astounded by.
