Album Review: What Choas is Imaginary by Girlpool

I find this album to be interesting. It's long at 14 tracks and feels long. But I don't think you could say a single track is bad. Problem is there isn't a track for me that stands out either and so I'm left wondering if I like the album or don't like the album. I went and took a look at this band on allmusic as I had never heard of them. This is the band's 3rd album and though I haven't gone back and listened to their earlier albums apparently this album is much more ambitious in sound, but also quite different in approach. Apparently their thing has been singing together and harmonizing in a very stripped down presentation. In fact when I went to youtube and searched for a video the first thing I got was their tiny concert performance from 2015 and it is definitely nothing like what I'm hearing on this album.

Of course this is a natural progression for artists, especially those that start out as independents. Once they actually have some success and some production money they try and bring their vision out fully. It complicates things to say the least. That stripped down harmonized sound is what attracted everyone and now you are doing songs with string arrangements. That's a big jump and many fans will jump off. As for me I'm new to this band and so I came in expecting nothing. What I got was a collection of 14 songs that are solid, but lacking something. There is no cohesion to the album. They literally sound like two albums put together as one.

Of course seeing as the allmusic reviewer has the same problem I'm no longer sure if I had this thought first or if the review simply helped me to grasp it. Still as you move from one leading the song to the next they sound like they come from completely different albums. Both being influenced by late 80's and early 90's alternative but very different influences. In the end it really does feel like two different albums put together and it doesn't work. It makes those 14 tracks feel very long. Following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 2 out of 5 stars for Not Bad.