SHE'S ONLY SIXTEEN - WHATEVER THAT WAS ALBUM REVIEW
[Review Written by TFL Contributor 'Protagonist']
As a regular audience to local gigs, I’ve seen artists evolve or mature through time (in terms of their craft). It was out of curiousity to begin with, attending my first gig in Manila back in 2012. These past couple of years, I’m trying to submerge myself to the local scene due to my thirst for new experiences. I came from the amazing world of American Hip-hop, that molded my understanding on the importance of lyricism, the bars and the beats. I’ve stayed a while for American Indie, Death metal (Gorguts is also for girls!), and some old school Britpop. But it wasn’t enough, it was an unending search to my next favorite musical act. Right now, I’m watching a lot of local acts and I’m quite sure that this thirst will not stop any moment. Every week is a new song to listen to, a new band to like or dislike and a new gig to go to.
I can attest that bands can easily become stuck in a musical furrow, producing the same, bland, and uninteresting tracks again and again. I’ve been to many gigs where I just went out in the middle of a performance just because the band played a new song that was too similar to their old tracks or even to other bands' tracks. While I’m not a huge fan of She's Only Sixteen, I was dragged with the over-hype of their latest album release “Whatever That Was”. The band experienced a short hype a while back then ended its ties with Universal Records, which immobilized it to legally release music for a few years.
The band's long-awaited debut album titled "Whatever That Was", is a combination of their old tracks like "Magic", "Sweden", and together with their new tracks. I’m a little bit half-hearted with the album cover, but I guess there is an artistic explanation to it. Though I’m not an enthusiast of incoherent albums (which means albums that seem like a new band is playing every other song), this might not be a big factor on why this album doesn’t impress me that much. Ever since I started listening to SOS, I have always considered them as a rip-off band and it is undeniable that this is a band that just simply sounds like Blur, The Strokes, Tame Impala, Arctic Monkeys (according to their female fans), and San Cisco.
From an article recently published by Youngstar, "She’s Only Sixteen’s new songs no longer hold traces of lovey-dovey feelings but instead often see Seña (or at least, his persona) talking to himself," (See: http://youngstar.ph/evolution-shes-sixteen/ ).
So does this mean the band thinks it has matured? Because for me, this album doesn’t promise anything new, but it does promise that Seña still has exceptional writing skills.
Jumping straight to the album, my favorite track from this album would be “Magic”, (Yes, an old song). The lyrics were still alluring, but the instrumental was far more modest, giving it a well-balanced flow. In fact, in the track “Conversational Liar,” which I also liked thanks to its vocals, took this track from pretty good to great (or maybe even excellent).
There’s a cadence to the guitars and a change to the bass. I also think that this album can be mixed so much better and i seriously consider them to rework the mixing here. The arrangement of the tracks was also a concern, there were tracks like “Does Anyone Remember” that would be better if placed in the middle of the album. I listened to that track three times and there was still nothing too notable about it. It might help if there will be contrast between the verses with some appealing guitar work and the slightly pedantic chorus. You can’t hide the fact that not tuning the guitars for aesthetic value can really affect the whole track. Some songs from the album were well-written but highly derivative. And frankly, the guitar work and the writing reminds me of The Strokes and Tame Impala, from partial chords, inversions, and melodic breaks to simple chord progressions.
Negative news aside, I also enjoyed the ambitious 7-minute track “Coke Head”. It gives me the 2 AM –drinking beer-dirty-dancing-stalking-my-ex-boyfriend feeling. I would still listen to this album, I can file this under the "Songs I would listen to when I’m drunk and vomit together with Washed Out".
We can say that some tracks were not rip-offs, it’s just that this band decided to use the same chord or whatever for multiple tracks in the album. If not rip-offs, we can label these tracks as reusable music. If rappers can do it, then everyone else can do it. So it’s a bit of cognitive dissonance that I rate this as highly as I do because I consider this band as a rip-off band, but sometimes you cannot deny good songs. And well, these guys can write some good fucking songs.
I recommend non-fans to check this album out and try not to write it off as "Ah shit, this sounds just like _____.". The album has its highs and lows, Give it some time and maybe the dissension will give way and lead to bliss instead...or whatever that was for you.
LISTEN TO THE ALBUM RIGHT HERE: https://open.spotify.com/album/0N8PyfQJgquTjUcFZyt2VF