Review Summary: I'm sure there's a new genre being pioneered somewhere here.....maybe..
First Place Science Project are:
Matt Thomas: Music
Cory Lockwood: Lyrics and Vocals
Lead singers are interesting creatures. They are normally the face of whatever band they are fronting, yet set them loose to create music outside their bands’ sound and often you’d be hard pressed to find much similarity between the two. Now this is a good thing as it shows diversity and open-mindedness within the band. In the case of Cory Lockwood, lead singer/screamer of A Lot Like Birds and illegitimate evil brother of Jon Mess, this open-mindedness is taken to an entirely weird level. First Place Science Project can best be described as some sort of mutated,angry psychedelic/rap hybrid and “Really Experiment” is here to take you on a strange, but not necessarily trippy, ride.
At a scant 8 songs clocking in at 15 or so minutes, “Really Experiment” seems to know exactly what it is, an outing for Thomas and Lockwood to show us some creative ideas and not some project people should be taking too seriously. Filled with weird instrumentation all tuned and arranged in a hip-hop and funky style, it’s immediately evident that this is absolutely nothing like A Lot Like Birds. Along with the instrumentation, Lockwood’s piercing screams are the co-focal point here. Close to 95% of the record is screamed but his flow and the beats keep everything held together nice and tight. Comparisons between this release and Jon Mess’s recent release “Defying Gravity” go as far as they’re both weird and that’s it. Lockwood’s excellent lyrics also make the transition nicely along with some light relevant sampling for good measure.
Lockwood and Mess have been compared and contrasted since A Lot Like Birds became famous for obvious reasons. They both fill similar roles in similar sounding bands in a similar sounding way. They both also obviously have a taste for the weird stuff but with “Really Experiment” a much more focused (in that it was purposely made to sound like music the whole time as opposed to “Defying Gravity” which leaves one wondering at times) effort is exhibited in comparison to “Defying Gravity”. From its hot beats to the weird castrado-esque feature by Kurt Travis, this release is purposefully weird, but that all goes towards proving that lead singers are indeed interesting creatures.
