Utopia

200th Review!

And what better way to celebrate than to finally review one of my favorite albums of this year!

I first heard "Golden Age" earlier this year and fell in love immediately. The next day I listened to their entire discog. While they have some good albums, when I got to this one, it was honestly the best LP I heard all month. So I am excited to revisit this and to see if it's just as great as I remember. Ooo I just saw the release date, it was released on my birthday! It's honestly awesome whenever that happens, it's like the album is a birthday gift!

():
Very simple and very effective. I am a sucker for any song that has what I call
"Robot singing" cause this effect ALWAYS brings the image of a robot singing instead of a human voice distorted to sound that way. If there's an album or even a band that just purely has vocals in this effect PLEASE recommend it to me! Shout out to the production as well! Like my goodness it just enhances the wondrus atmosphere the robot singing provides. That fact that it does that so effectively while being subtle and in the background just deserves praise and I am happy to give it what it deserves. This may be just a minute introduction, but it's honestly one of my all time favorites.

Separate World:
This is one of the few songs that didn't make the cut for my playlist. It's grand and exciting to listen to like St. Lucia usually is, but it doesn't have enough oomph of an impact like a lot of other songs are. I absolutely love the backing vocals like always tho. It's a good listen, but I wanted it to be great.

Another Lifetime:
The chorus really carries this one tbh. It's so catchy and fun to sing along to. Otherwise it's generally a fine song.

Rocket On My Feet:
Hmm interesting. The music itself is upbeat, while the vocals vary from upbeat to almost placid. So while this makes for an intriguing listen, I am not enjoying myself with it enough to recommend it... That is fine cause we got the next song that I KNOW I will enjoy listening to again.

The Golden Age:
Don't you just hate it when how you remember a song is better than what it actually was! Cause I fucking do! Don't get me wrong all the elements were still there but it didn't go all entra like I remember. One example is my favorite part of the song. The "🎶la la la🎶" part at the end, especially with the added spice of the guitar. I remember them going up an octave, BUT THEY WENT DOWN??? Like they went up initially but quickly settled at a lower and WAY less satisfying pitch. So that frustrates me even more cause part of what I remember so fondly is there but not how it went in my head for all these months. Sigh, it's fine I guess I can deal with that. I'll just take up the higher pitch so we can harmonize.

The rest of the song is just as fun to listen to as I remembered, no complaints there. All in all while it's not quite as great as I remember, I still really like this song.

( Now I must have put up a 90 for a reason. I must have really enjoyed the rest of the album to have that make sense. The problem is that I don't remember much past "The Golden Age". Eh, I can fix that puzzlement. Let's find out how the rest of the album holds up.)

Memory:
It's a satisfying slower song. It does its job well of settling things down after the larger than life song just before thus resetting the pallet a bit before moving on to the next section of the album. It's fine on its own, but I think I was still riding the high of "The Golden Age" and thought this was a lot better than it actually was. I'll keep it on the playlist since it can play a similar role there when I hit the ever magical shuffle button.

Take Me Away:
I just now realized that St. Lucia sounds A LOT like M83. No wonder I enjoy them so much. The comparison is really apparent in this song. It's great music no matter who is singing it so I am happy regardless! More of this enthusiastic positive energy please!

Touch:
The transition into this song is silk which always gets bonus points out of me. God, now that I had that realization all I can hear is M83. It's not a bad thing, I don't mind when different artists have eerily similar sounds and styles,as long as the music is good then I am happy. And this is good music that will always be an enjoyable listen. Real fun to sing and dance along to.

Gimme the Night:
Again with the smooth transitions! I can see why I was really fond of this album overall back when I first heard it. It's very satisfying to listen to and the music is just great! It's a big reason why I consider "Abbey Road" as the GOAT album. It's such an amazing, satisfying, and complete listen that never gets old. Copying that structure a bit only makes sense. And I won't be complaining. Any comparison to the GOAT is a MASSIVE compliment. So really I applaud St. Lucia, you know not to fix what isn't broken.

The production and the singing is fantastic as always. Very catchy and fun to listen to. It's good music what can I say?

)(:
It's the dreamlike nostalgic 80's synth that I am a sucker for. The vocals add to the ethereal atmosphere. It's the good shit and I vibe SO hard to it without fail.

I like to think that this is the "end" of the album and the three additional songs are part of an imaginary deluxe version. So let's see how well these bonus songs play into the album...

Shame:
Holy crap this is actually amazing! Like even better than how I imagined "The Golden Age" it's SO FUCKING GOOD! Highly recommend you check this one out!

It's more of the synth heavy 80's nostalgia bait, but OMG you just have to listen to it! It's done SO WELL!

...:
HOLY FUCK THAT TRANSITION THO! Damn that was hot! At this point I am just embracing the atmosphere and floating away into it.

Hey Now:
I like the part where he sings hey now. It's all great, but the way he sings it is so pleasant that I consider it a particular highlight. This especially after hearing the last two songs. I am very pleased with this part of the album. I couldn't have finished it off any better! The very ending tho!

Verdict:
Yeah I would say that the 90 score holds up. I was tempted in my thinking process while overlooking my reactions to all of the songs to lower it to an 85. But there's too many highs in this album for me to feel right in doing that. The intro is an all timer as is the final three songs after ")(". The stretch of "Memory" to said ")(" is fantastic as well. Everything else may have their flaws here and there, but I would be pretty bitter to consider those minor gripes override how much I enjoyed a good amount of this album.

I recommend you check it out, there may be some songs that don't quite click, but MAN the songs that do click are going to click HARD. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. I am proud to say it holds up as one of the best albums I have listened to in 2023!