The Daily Spin, January 5
Clans | Chapter One
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023. Today is day 5 of 365. We’re one seventy-third of the way there!
Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here.
If you want to suggest an album, good news! You can do so right here!
Album: Chapter One (2020)
Artist: Clans
Link:
Much like Niko Monjarez - alias Clans, Chesney Chesney, Marathon, Street Jobs, or Super Coupe - seems to have a hard time settling on a singular focus, so too does his music. Chapter One is an eclectic collection of music that sways between RnB, hip-hop, lofi electronic, outright soft work, and some nebulous cross between all of the above with rock influences overlaid on top? It’s decadent, almost to the point of being overly sweet - and I’ve got enough of a sweet tooth to know what that tastes like.
The unfortunate thing is that when Chapter One is good, it’s so good - but those fleeting moments of ecstasy are so brief and replaced so rapidly that you never get a chance to properly indulge in the sensations created and built upon, because instead you’re getting yanked around from The Head And The Heart to Miki Fiki to something almost Bill Wurtz-like.
It’s excellent music, really, but the total lack of cohesiveness really glares through because you can never get a sustained groove going. That’s not necessarily anyone’s fault, per se, but it should almost be regarded as a compilation rather than an album - the only thing it feels like these songs have in common is a mutual artist.
Rating: 6.6/10
Best Tracks: Ride; Glendale
Worst Tracks: Easy Love, Alibi