Album Notes

I think the death of the album began back with the walkman and the mixtape craze. People became addicted to the customizable variety. With the latest digital conveniences that make it possible to purchase just a track or two off an album, it seems that user-defined playlists (and even the occasional lazyman "shuffle" approach) have replaced entire-album listening.

The sad truth of the matter is that most mainstream artists are incentivized these days to produce an album of sound-alikes, to convince the single-buying listener to buy more based upon their specific enjoyments of a single track. This only increases the likelihood that no one will listen to all the songs on an album in the context they create together. The experience is too boring when all the songs are coming out of the same very-narrowed musical niche.

That's what first caught me off guard listening to Ugly Lullaby. This is an album that draws the listener back to the entire package. Harry J Reynolds has brought enough sonic diversity to the album that, while it remains thematically consistent, you don't get bored or ever check to see if your player is on repeat. He ranges from warm synth-pop on "Charlotte Bay" to rock on "Nightfly II" and knee-slapping alt-country on "Hard Man to Love," and I can't say the variety does anything but keep me coming back for more.

All jokes about the title aside, the album is no snooze-fest. Its intention instead seems to be covering the difficulty (impossibility?) of soothing away the heartache of separation. The quasi-titletrack "Ugly Lullabye" chronicles the emotional trench-warfare behind excuses given during a break-up: "It's a perfect alibi / But you don't care / And so don't I . . . . It's such an ugly lullabye."

If you're looking for the emotional lullaby, try "California," "Just Another Ghost," or "I Don't Belong to Anyone." For a good dose of dark honesty, do "Midnight Angel," "Like I Never Could," or "Love Don't Get Me High." Either direction you go, the experience is a bit like leafing through someone else's diary--despite how similar it reads to your own life, you just can't put it down. You follow along with the lows and highs, captivated by the peculiar familiarity of it all, and somewhere along the way, the writer's catharsis becomes your own.

-James Ronning