The Daily Spin II

Goldroom | West of the West

Welcome back to the Daily Spin. For the uninitiated, this is the series in which I review an album every day of 2025.

As was the case two years ago, my favorite song from each album can be found at the playlist linked here.

Album: West of the West (2016)

Artist: Goldroom

Link:

Goldroom joins Local Natives in the category of “damn, I think the remixed stuff is almost better than the solo projects” - which, like Local Natives, is not the diss it may otherwise present as. I just really like how this sort of soft West Coast sound can be manipulated - and it doesn’t hurt that some of my favorite artists have taken a crack at it.

Part of the charm of artists like Goldroom are that their music is so malleable that it’s widely interpretable - this is nice, but it does have its moments of lacking. Most notably, like yesterday, we run into a lot of pretty plain instrumentation, vague vocalization, and generally inoffensive content. I’m not saying I need to be blasted by slurs (sit back down, Ye), but I do think there’s a point where saying nothing is beat out by silence.

Still, the bones are pretty enough that the body stands cute in the right lights. It’s plenty enjoyable if you don’t think too hard, and given that it’s been hard to dodge that lately, I can’t fault a good escapist record.

Rating: 7/10

Best Tracks: Back to You, Lying to You

Worst Tracks: Underwater