Review Summary: While definitely not perfect, Myka Relocate has crafted a fun, stylish, and unique album that's worth a listen.
Myka relocate is a unique band in a post-hardcore scene full of mediocrity and insincerity. They have managed to craft a cool and unique sound and feel to their music. That feel was Very evident in their first album, lies to light the way. Lies to light the way was deliciously poppy but quite heavy at the same time, and was an all-around good album. It still wasn't perfect though, despite being unique in many ways, Myka relocate have made the same mistake as their predecessors in the way that their album flows. Besides two or three singles, every single song sort of blends into each other and the rest of the album is just a blur of screaming and synthesizers...... and while the young souls IS a pretty big improvement from lies to light the way, it suffers from a lot of the same mistakes.
For starters, the strong electro-pop flare evident in lies is back and better than ever in this album, Myka Relocate appears to have learned how to use their Electronic element even better to their advantage to create an even spacier poppish sounding Post Hardcore effect, and on top of that, they've added some well-timed piano scores and echo effects to even further their highly Abstract sound. Unfortunately they could've used these new abstract sounds a little better, because in some songs they don't always flow right and usually don't mix very well with John Ritter's incessant screaming.
Also, Michael Swank's already good voice has improved by leaps and bounds, this is evident in songs like Only steps away, Nerve, Idle Hands, and the young souls. His Voice seems stronger as well as deeper and more mature, but still able to go quite high. Besides the Electronica parts, Michael Swank's voice is one of the Highlights of the Album. The pop-melodies he sings seem to float on top of the song to give it a melancholy pop feeling. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for John Ritter's Screams, in fact they are one of the worst mistakes in the album, John's Screams mixed with the music a little better in lies to light the way, but in this record it almost seems like John's Screams and the Music are fighting for control of the song, and sadly John's screams usually win. They actually are quite, powerful, menacing, and brutal screams. They just mix TERRIBLY with the music and Michael's voice, personally I think the record would've been much better off without his backing Screams.
The biggest problem with the album is by FAR it's lack of Cohesion and order. The four best songs on the record are Only steps away, Nerve, idle Hands, and the young souls. But besides those four songs, the whole album just feels like a big jumbled blur of Synthesizers and Growls and pop melodies. Even though the name of the album is thought provoking, the album doesn't appear to tell any story and suffers from those typical "what the *** are you talking about??" kind of lyrics evident in a lot of Post-Hardcore songs. You may be able to make a little bit of meaning out of a certain song, but don't expect the next song to relate to it lyrically at all. The only relating themes i can even make out at all are some lyrics about betray and anger towards a random person scattered through out songs. But most of that is just covered by indecipherable screams.
Myka Relocate has improved themselves quite a bit, a cooler flare to their music, better singing, and an album that's worth listening to, but not amazing. Go into this album with realistic expectations, and you might actually like it a lot. It's just a shame, because if Myka relocate had worked just a LITTLE harder on this album and had tied up a few loose ends, we could've easily been looking at one of the best Post-Hardcore albums of the year and a Famous Myka Relocate.
Best songs on the album
Only steps away
Nerve (Best song on album.)
Idle Hands
The Young souls
PROS
-Excellent Clean Vocals
-Awesome Use of Synthesizers and Piano
-Deliciously Awesome Pop melodies and sick hooks
CONS
Severe lack of Cohesion
Not much structure throughout
Terrible use of Screaming that makes the album worse
