The Daily Spin, May 25
Typhoon | White Lighter
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.
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Album: White Lighter (2013)
Artist: Typhoon
Link:
Bombastic and anthemic tunes are the hallmarks of Typhoon, a band somewhere between Beirut and Arcade Fire, earnest throughout hallmark indie rock bracketed by wildly swinging brass bonanzas.
It’s got a bit of a Kishi Bashi feeling to it, echoes of Bay Ledges, Bahamas, and Wild Child in the earnest lyricism that feels almost painfully honest throughout each song, driving guitars that never relent long enough for anything but the continued feeling of each moment throughout.
The record tends to get pretty cluttered, and that’s my main gripe with it - too many cooks in the kitchen, too many hands in the pie trying to do too much at once. In spreading their wings to touch so many genres, they tend to misstep and stumble their way through a chaotic mess for at least one bridge in almost every song on the record.
When it’s good, though, god, it is delightful. It’s a snappy, brutally clean combination, one that cuts right at the quick and staunches the bleeding just quickly enough to leave a sting, and with lyrics oft-melancholy in their brighter moments, it’s a hollow beauty the whole way through.
Rating: 7.7/10
Best Tracks: Possible Deaths
Worst Tracks: Artificial Light