Review Summary: Blue Weekend is a thoughtful album by a very talented band but it is sadly engineered in such a way that I find it hard to listen to.
The Loudness Wars are real. I think any young listener like myself will be accustomed to some excess of volume in the current stream of weekly album releases, and I think there is a certain level of volume that I can commit to so long as the music retains its dynamic range. However, it certainly proves more problematic for a certain kind of record - particularly one that pairs grandiosity with reverberence. I also think it’s a strange case in how certain engineering choices can really affect the listening experience.
That’s true for me with Blue Weekend; an album that I completely respect for its song-writing, genre-hopping and boldness but don’t like to listen to because of its compressed, ear splitting walls of flat noise that muddy a lot of the songs. It makes some of the pieces here difficult to listen to.
There are exceptions where the compression really benefits the song. Perfect example is ‘Play The Greatest Hits’. It works because the arrangements are decidedly stripped down and lend themselves to the punk aesthetic. Noisy, gargling guitar, a steady and full-bodied snare drum and lead-singer Ellie Rowsell cracking out lines with ample attitude as the band go full-hog in the fun. Album opener ‘The Beach’ also lends me some solitude from the noise with its tactile rim clicks and kick drum. For the majority of the songs, it’s a pleasant experience before it builds to a volume of ‘anthemic’ sound that so often crushes the dynamics of many of the compositions.
So many of the songs here build to some kind of crescendo that the compression here is not really suited for. At least not when played directly into my ears. It’s fine for many, of course. There are no shortage of fans of this kinetic and heart-pounding record but when songs like ‘Last Man on Earth’ open with piano promises of John Lenon but resolves to a cacophony of harmonies drenched in reverb and a barely distinguishable string section, I am pulled away from the very enjoyable parts of the album.
Possibly the worst offender here is ‘Feeling Myself’. I’m sure the aesthetics here are intentional but for me, the dynamic range is so compressed that the string section is practically essing; creating a static that is very unpleasant to listen to. It’s a shame too as many of the string performances come as compliments of Owen Pallett, who has demonstrated the dark and unsettling power the instrument can have on a pop song with his own records but that work is really lost here in the mastering. Doubly a shame when ‘Feeling Myself’ opens with a really nice sounding drum kit. I like the snare, I like the hi-hat and the bass guitar that completed the rhythm section.
That is to say, I can enjoy this record much more when it’s playing in quieter moments. That makes sense, I suppose as these quieter moments also enjoy a boost in volume and clarity. I like the ideas, too. ‘How Can I Make it Ok?’ finds 80’s inspiration in the same places as Tegan and Sara, and I love the choruses’ refrain.
“How can I make it okay?
I just want you to be happy
How can I make it okay?
Nothing else is as important as that to me”
That is genuinely sweet and a beautiful sentiment.
Although awash in a bit of unnecessary reverb, ‘No Hard Feelings’ plays things softly and simply and Ellie’s voice is very expressive in delivering this bitter-sweet goodbye. In fact, the whole band is talented throughout the record. There is some great guitar work at the end of ‘Last Man on Earth’. Okay, so it’s mixed on the same level as everything else but Joff Oddie delivers a lot of great moments like this one throughout the record. Ditto for the rest of the group - Theo Ellis on bass and Joel Amey on drums.
I appreciate that this album is decidedly anthemic and bold in its delivery but sadly, it’s hard for me to listen to these songs with the way they have been mastered. So many of them sound nazily, overly-compressed and lacking in range. Not in the same fuzzy dissonance of punk rock and shoegaze but in a matter that makes an album with a lot of layers sound squashed together and unpleasant. My rating might suggest that I think this is a ‘poor’ album but that is not the case. I think there are a lot of great elements in this album that I understand a lot of people are fondly connected with but for me, the level of compression is excessive and makes it hard one to repeat.
