Review Summary: Owl City bubblegum pop meets Midwest Emo meets.... Vaporwave?
Maybe I'm overreacting. There's a possibility that I've been so detached from the Emo genre due to its oversaturation of the same ole sound that, nowadays, any deviation from the formula brings me such enjoyment and satisfaction. It's true that, as I've gotten older, things that would've made younger me cringe and tag it as "poser" has evolved into the very thing that I'm desperately on the search for, some sort of amalgamation of all the things that I love and appreciate about my favorite genres of music.
Anyways, I randomly fell into Dan Mason's discography when I redownloaded World of Warcraft for it's Wrath of the Lich King re-release. I wanted some chill background music to put on while I gamed out of my gourd, and that's what I got. His first few albums are pretty straight forward vapor/chillwave and not bad in any sense of the word. As I got more and more closer to his present releases, I noticed striking differences, mainly the use and incorporation of his vocals. The general sound was still the same, though I wasn't blown away by his singing ability, they were just there. I then got to this album I'm Not Going Anywhere and let me tell you, I was completely...... Unimpressed. It was such a stark divergence in his sound with heavy acoustic guitar and shallow lyrics about hating himself, wanting to die, etc. etc. Boring and trite stuff, and after the second song, I turned the album off.
And there are, admittedly, a lot of things here that can be dislikeable: most of his vocals are so heavily washed over with affects that it sounds corny, the twinkly guitar, which is used in just about every song, can be rather simplistic, the synth and keys can be a little disjointed when packaged together with everything - each track here can be an example of one of these traits, especially put within the context of his discography.
However, to give Mason and this album the benefit of the doubt, there is such a distinct character to this album that, even after a poor first impression following two songs, I soon came back to give the whole thing a chance, and I'm glad I did; the things that I initially disliked, I now found incredibly charming. His vocals, though still kinda cheesy, has an airy feel to it that gives me a Myspace-era Emo sentiment to it (I'll Let It Bleed; Drift Away; Burn), the guitar is twinkly and Owen-esque (Air), and the keys, my goodness the keys, are not a sound you'd expect from this album (I could see a top 40 artist producing Heal; Glass can only be described as Doomwave). All of this packaged together simply just... works.
Overall, this is an album that can be easily hated. It's a mixed bag of genres that wouldn't typically have common traits and features, which can be off-putting and unenjoyable. Maybe it's just an itch I didn't know I needed scratched, but this is a much needed reinvigoration of the Emo genre in my eyes, a boundary pushing album that incorporates things that shouldn't necessarily work in this generation, but does and almost flawlessly.
