The Daily Spin, August 19
Doc Robinson | Deep End
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023.
Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here. Additionally, you can check out a list of my favorite song from each album right here.
Album: Deep End (2017)
Artist: Doc Robinson
Link:
Despite a pretty slow start, Deep End morphs pretty rapidly into the sort of album I could very easily see myself coming back to time and time again, a gently urging indie record that takes a bit to settle in, quickly finding its wheelhouse thereafter.
That’s not to the say the opening tracks are bad, by any stretch of the imagination, and the doo-wop creativity employed therein is pretty cool, but it definitely isn’t really to my taste, and I feel like the vision present from ‘Older’ onwards is not only more suited to the band itself, but better suited to my taste too.
The strongest track happens to be the most popular one as well, track 10 - ‘Break My Fall’, a song that’s been featured on the phenomenal tragicomedy Bojack Horseman - I think it has the best vision for what Doc Robinson as an artist can accomplish, plying indie-folk vocals and pared down instrumentation into a Lumineers-esque campfire sort of vibe, the type of song that, while melancholy, also feels oddly hopeful in a really lovely sort of sense.
That, to me, is the strength of this album - built on the backs of hope, and it bleeds through in every sense. I have to love that.
Rating: 8.2/10
Best Tracks: Break My Fall; Older; Borderline
Worst Tracks: Cut Me Loose