Welcome to my music review series, Consummate Professionalism. This is Volume #3; in it, I’ll be reviewing “Tour Is Not A Road Trip” by A Day Without Love. Serving as a sneak peek of his upcoming album, this quartet of singles will leave many of you with mixed emotions.
Tour Is Not A Road Trip
By A Day Without Love
Vocals and Songwriting by Brian Walker
Mastered by Gary Cioni
Genre: Rock
Subgenre(s): Alt Rock, Indie Rock
Record Type: EP
Summary
Full disclosure, I completed this review much earlier than I planned to; I decided to move this one up in my review queue, since I sometimes prefer to review things soon after they’ve come out. I was informed that this record’s release date was last week, so I offered to bump it up accordingly, to get it done as close to that date as possible. Rest assured that this has no bearing on my actual analysis of the music, positive or negative.
At the same time, it’s also taken me a bit longer to finish writing this review. This is partly because it’s been pretty difficult to describe my feelings toward this music in a coherent, objective way. I’ve racked my brain to think of the perfect summary, that neither overstates or understates the positive or negative aspects. After several hours of pondering, I have come up with one phrase that describes my thoughts in as accurate and concise a way as I can fathom:
“It sounds like it’s good, but it’s really not”.
This is such a hard thing for me to put my finger on. It’s not bad by any means, but I certainly wouldn’t call it particularly “good”. It’s somewhere in between, erring more toward the side of “I mean, it’s alright” and thankfully missing the mark of “meh, no thank you”. What makes this effect even more pronounced is that it’s hard to point to one single element and say “nah, I don’t like this”. Just the whole thing creates a sort of je ne sais quoi–though it should more appropriately be called je ne sais pas pourquoi je n’adore ça.
Let me explain it like this. Imagine your friend tells you about this small, family-owned restaurant in town. Nobody really knows about it yet, but your friend speaks highly of it, and the pictures he showed you of the food make it look great. So you decide to check it out after work one day, and you’re awestruck from the moment you walk into the door. The ambience is superb, and it has some of the kindest staff you’ve ever met in your life. So you go all in, and decide to try out the seafood platter that your friend recommended you get. The waitress brings out the steaming hot plate of food, and you can’t help but to dig right in. You take a bite of the shrimp. Could be better; a little too much breading, unsalted but it’s serviceable. You break open one of the crab legs. It tastes like it was boiled in hot dog water, but a little bit of butter and it goes down smoothly enough. You scoop up a few calamari and pop them in your mouth. They’re pretty good actually, a little too greasy but it’s no big deal. You try out the salted codfish. It tastes like frozen fish sticks. Slightly disillusioned, you pay for your meal and head home, when your friend asks you how you like it. So you think to yourself “did I like it? I finished it all, the staff was nice, but the actual quality of the product? I don’t know, man.”
Listening to this LP is like dining at that restaurant. The technical elements are good, superb even. Walker displays a talent for lyricism, and the guitarist really knows what he/she is doing, bringing a variety of skillfully played riffs to back up the vocals. But, for some reason, all of these elements are better off separate; they fail to come together to create a song that reels you in, that leaves your ears wanting more. At times it feels artificial and overproduced, like the kind of music you would hear a fictional mid-2000s garage band play. Some of the lines are good enough to get stuck in your head, and have you humming along to the melody for hours to come. But it falls flat in that it’s never anything I would imagine voluntarily listening to, say, on the way to work, or while doing the dishes.
That being said, I would certainly not say to not listen to this LP. Just don’t expect to be blown out of the water. This band and the team behind it definitely have a lot of potential; I can feel it. I’m seriously considering buying the full album just to see if those other tracks fill in the blanks, so to speak; I definitely want to hear more of the lyricism that stood out to me in this track selection. As it stands, though, it seems to have overshot what it was trying to achieve, falling short of the throwback rock hit that it was presumably aiming for.
Rating
Overall Rating:
50/100
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This record is dead center in terms of overall quality. It’s neither good nor bad, neither legendary nor forgettable. It is as it is, and as it always will be. The vast majority of people will think it’s “okay”, and then approximately 1% will hate it, and 1% will love it. It all evens out; I can’t imagine giving this any more or less than just what it has. I do recommend listening to it, though, because I’m sure there’s a small but resolute subset of you that will listen to this and say “what is she talking about? This guy is seriously the best!” My analysis still stands regardless.
Song Quality:
5/10
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My analysis of the songs’ overall quality is approximately the same as my analysis of the record as a whole They aren’t good enough to be considered god, but they aren’t bad enough to be considered bad. The bad elements breakeven with the good ones, leading to what amounts to tracks that are just “okay”. Though there is some divergence with the individual quality of particular songs, both positive and negative, none is enough to push the score up or down any substantial amount.
Flow/Transition:
2/10
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Though not inherently bad, per se, there appears to be very little rhyme or reason as to the specific ordering of the particular tracks included in this record. Each song has its own distinct style to it that is only loosely related to the other songs. The only reasoning I can think of is that they wanted to include variety of songs that showcase the general sound across the full album. If that’s the case, that’s fair enough, which is why I’ve withheld a score of 1.
Technical Quality:
4/10
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Different elements to the songs seem to have differing levels of quality. The instrumentals, though slightly dissonant ant times, are generally likable and well-done. The vocals, however, could use could use some work; they have an amateur, untrained sound to them, enough to lower the overall quality of some of the songs. Honestly, if the producer went back and EQed the tracks a little more carefully, and the vocalists spent a little more time practicing and honing their craft, then I would certainly give a much higher score in this category.
Lyrics:
8/10
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The lyrics, in my opinion, are the defining aspect of the record. Walker has a particular knack for lyricism, creating verses that are catchy and entertaining while also maintaining their poetic merit. Though perhaps coming off as simple and superficial, the word choice and melodic composition give the songs a certain charm to them that’s hard to describe. They’re beautiful in their simplicity, and don’t seem to be trying too hard to emulate any particular style.
Bonus Scores
Tell-a-friend:
2/5
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In its current form, “Tour Is Not A Road Trip” is nothing especially remarkable. I have withheld a sore of 1 because there is still plenty of artistic potential contained within, just waiting to be released. If things were covered by more experienced musicians, or perhaps touched up and redome a little more professionally, I could really see these songs becoming hits.
Replay Value:
2/5
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I realized that my analysis of the replay value turns out to be almost identical to that of the “Tell-a-friend” category. I don’t have much to add, so I will just copy and paste that text here. “In its current form, “Tour Is Not A Road Trip” is nothing especially remarkable. I have withheld a sore of 1 because there is still plenty of artistic potential contained within, just waiting to be released. If things were covered by more experienced musicians, or perhaps touched up and redome a little more professionally, I could really see these songs becoming hits.”
Originality:
1.5/5
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Due to the overwhelming average-ness of the record, I can’t point to any one thing that I would classify as original. It just sounds like rock music; no more, no less. Though some elements are indeed quite well-done, they are not executed in a way that is particularly unique in any major way.
Best Track:
DIY Or Die
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DIY Or Die is the undisputable standout out of all the tracks included in this LP. The first song on the record, though presumably the second song on the upcoming album, this was a great choice to include among the other songs. Though it still carries some of the flaws associated with the other three tracks, this one manages to overcome them with its catchy melodies and stellar lyrics. I found myself humming along to the tune of the chorus for the rest of the day after I was done listening. If you don’t listen to any of the other songs, at least listen to this one.
Comparable to:
Ween, Drake Bell
Vibes:
Casual, Garage band, Grunge
Stats
Runtime:
10 min, 50 sec
Average Track Length:
2 min, 42.5 sec
Content Warning(s):
None
Number of Tracks:
4
Maturity:
All Ages