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Review Summary: Best Wishes is only the beginning to what sounds like a very promising career; unlike their dark lyrics, their future seems to burn bright. Falling in love with music can be a fickle thing; it seems that the more attracted you are towards it, the more impossible it is to listen to all of releases that might strike your fancy. It's akin to falling down a rabbit hole even if you tend to gravitate to only a few genres. Best Wishes came to me at a time where I was becoming a bit disillusioned with my own listening habits. I was simply downloading too many artists and not spending enough time with each one of them. I just wasn't taking the time to appreciate music for what it has always been to me; a simple escape from the mundane, formulaic aspects of my life. New music just always seemed to breathe new life into whatever I was doing. Enter Best Wishes, who take the most affecting parts of shoegaze and folk and blend them into a swirling cloud of hazy joy. While this is the Canadian trio's first release together, one can initially tell that all members have been making music for quite some time separately; unobtrusive drums poke through gorgeously textured atmospheres, complimented by simultaneously beautiful and intrepidly sad vocals.
And there is certainly no doubt that Best Wishes is a dichotomous listen, as the mood can (and does quite often) shift from joyous and upbeat to startlingly depressing. Most songs on this release are so unassuming that it is easy for the listener to miss the brilliant transitions that happen throughout, "Riverwild" being the best example of this. The slow and deliberate chord progressions begin quietly, and swell into a reverb-laden gorgeous melody. The catharsis could have been even greater, but that is unfortunately the downside of this release; even at their most active, Best Wishes would much rather quietly add synth, piano, and other assorted ethereal noise into the background. The drums stay simple, the gently strummed guitars never add too much distortion, and vocalist/drummer/pianist Scott Orr never goes above the weathered croon for a well-deserved emotional payoff. This is not to say that the music is boring at all; on the contrary, the compositions are often dense with atmosphere while still being very catchy. "Clouds" boasts a distorted guitar line that buzzes in and out of the song, complementing a beautiful clean guitar passage that segues into what sounds like a combination of a toy piano and a synth line.
Ultimately Best Wishes thrive the most when they take their time developing the songs; they ease the listener into every new facet of the song as it is introduced. Peeling back the layers of Best Wishes is certainly worth any music lover's time, as the range of emotions expressed through their brand of atmospheric, drug-like folk music is both initially surprising and welcoming. One can't help but be excited about the possible progression for a future full-length when the gang vocals on last song "Friendship" fade out to a hushed Orr proclaiming, "Don't ever let them send you where nobody knows your name/Don't ever go to places where the faces look the same". This album slowed me down and allowed me to take the time necessary to enjoy music again, and that is certainly saying something. Best Wishes is only the beginning to what sounds like a very promising career; unlike their dark lyrics, their future seems to burn bright.
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Album Rating: 4.0
I'm pretty proud of this one, but I would love some feedback on this.
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
http://shop.othersongsmusic.com/album/best-wishes-ep
Also for name your price here.
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Nice job on the review man, always a great read! I can definitely relate to the opening paragraph as well
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
Youth and Clouds are so good. Glad I checked this out.
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Nice one - you're finding your voice for these things, which is very good (:
Couple of itty-bitty tiny things though:
1) Semi-colons. There are a lot of them and some of them should definitely be colons. I'm grammatically self-taught, so I can't really walk you through the finer points because to me it's just kind of "a feeling," but if you can fit the word namely after the colon spot, or if the second clause is adding context to/ explaining the first clause, it's probably a colon.
2) "That" is a horrible word - it's best to leave it out when you can. Thankfully most of the time it's useless, but when it actually has a function you can replace with "which" or (better, because which doesn't always make sense) jiggle the sentence around a bit. The man that writes -> the writing man/ the man who writes. bad example but w/e
Keep it up!
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the more impossible it is to listen to all of releases that might strike your fancy
might want to sort this out, too. there's a stray "of"
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Fantastic review! It has moved me to listen to this and I will do so now. Well deserving of a pos.
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
Atari and Scuro, thanks guys! I appreciate the feedback.
Aspen, I feel like this release could potentially have quite a bit of crossover appeal.
Thank you Stranger, for all of the insight. I already knew that I used semicolons a bit too much lol. Like you, I am most definitely self-taught in grammar, so I go by feeling as well and it does tend to get me in trouble. I will try to look for instances where I am misusing it and reword it. I also agree with 'that' almost always being superfluous, so thanks for bringing it to my attention. I will edit this later on tonight to fix the tiny errors and reword some things!
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Nice EP--I wouldn't mind a full album of this.
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
Yeah, definitely Twig. I'm excited to see what they will be able to do with a full-length.
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Great review, dude. Pos'd from the bottom of my heart. Definitely gonna check this out.
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"I was becoming a bit disillusioned with my own listening habits. I was simply downloading too many
artists and not spending enough time with each one of them."
Damn, can I relate to that.
Great stuff bud, Jonny has already given you good feedback on this one, I'll just point out that in
your first sentence it reads awkwardly, like you've missed the word 'the' or perhaps simply use it
instead of 'of'.
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
@oranges thanks brother, I appreciate the compliment! Let me know if you dig it, man.
Thanks Dan, leave it to me to omit a couple words in the first sentence lol. No matter how many times I proofread it, it just always happens.
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Excellent review as always, signal! Really liked the personal touch you put into the review, especially in the first paragraph. The only thing that bothered me a little is that I don't think you criticized the album quite enough to justify a 4.0 rating, so it reads more like a 4.5 or higher. But that's a nitpick, this was a very interesting read. You definitely got my interest, have to find the time to jam this album.
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
Thanks, Judio! I can see where you're coming from, but the one detractor that I did mention is a pretty big deal to personally when I am listening to music. I suppose I could have talked about it a bit more, but I took some things out while proofreading because it sounded ranty and not even a 4 lol. Thank you so much for the feedback, man.
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No problem, and what I said was only a very small note, your review was top-notch so I couldn't find anything else to call you out on lol. Pretty surprised you're not a contributor by now to be honest.
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
Thanks for saying that, my friend. Hopefully I will continue to progress and snag the title someday. I definitely feel interactive with the community now more than ever.
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
Shoegaze and folk make a great combination
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
Agreed Red. This is so good.
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
This is beautiful. Was a good shuffle surprise today
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