Five Seconds Flat - Lizzy McAlpine

Ahhhh good evening good evening good evening. Ok, so this album is definitely decent. Some pretty awesome instrumentals and cool chord progressions. Lizzy also has a great voice, so that helps. We are absolutely dealing with singer-songwriter stuff here though, and that comes with its downsides. One of those is that it does sound pretty similar the whole way through. I'm not saying all the songs are the same. They aren't. But this feels like Lizzy could have explored the space she is occupying with this album a little more.

And that's another thing...the lyrics here are really really mid. Like...almost dull. Every so often we have what feels like an honest bar, but most of the time it seems like she's trying a little too hard to make something memorable. It just doesn't hit as she probably wants it to.

I will say the highlight here is "erase me". Probably because of Jacob Collier, unfortunately. He adds a lot to that song, and it feels like one of the few that goes out of the zone of quiet singer-songwriter regularity.

But that's a great segway into the last issue with this thing. Why do the vocals sound like a damn ASMR video? Lizzy...Lizzy...take your face a little away from the mic? Perchance? She's absolutely SWALLOWING the microphone. I would NOT believe that she recorded most of these vocals more than an eighth of an inch from her mic. Jeeeeeesus. 10/4 foolish behavior.

Stiff. Elegant. Inward.

Not So Bad 6