The Daily Spin, July 12
The Front Bottoms | Talon of the Hawk
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.
If you want to suggest an album, good news! You can do so right here!
Album: Talon Of The Hawk (2013)
Artist: The Front Bottoms
Link:
This is good, solid indie rock. It’s a bit Costco-brand Mountain Goats at times, but that’s not a bad thing.
The album excels particularly when it leans into the grunge - both ‘Twin Size Mattress’ and ‘Peach’ stand out, in no small part because they strike at the heart of the crossover between indie and punk music with precision, leading to music in which both genres shine without overpowering the other.
It doesn’t always sit perfectly clean - the album opener really struggles to find that balance, sitting well beyond punk and leaning more into whiny emo-like vocals in a way that doesn’t really fit the rest of the album nor the backing instrumental of the track itself, but that’s thankfully a relatively rare misstep on this album.
There’s a ceiling to its score, largely because it doesn’t ever really feel innovative - like I said, Costco Mountain Goats is still very good music, but I cannot, in good faith, call it spectacular.
Rating: 8.2/10
Best Tracks: Peach; Twin Size Mattress; Lone Star
Worst Tracks: Au Revoir (Adios)