My exposure to Mr. Welles comes mostly from a small measure of success he’s found on social media. Many of his protest songs went viral in more short-form content like TikTok and Instagram. While they do put focus on some big issues, lyrically I found them to be rather trite and predictable.
So it was nice to see his latest album take a step back from that; it feels more relatable and retrospective, seems closer to home. I found some of the songs to be a bit dour in parts, but they do start to pick up a bit towards the second half. “Horcrux” has some upbeat and faster guitar work that I enjoyed.
The standout song for me is “Walmart.” It is a more upbeat and fun song with a relatable message. I can see that making its way onto a more goofy playlist.
I’d like to call out the “Saint Steve Irwin” song. It’s not especially good, but the image of the big man himself coming along and choking out crocs is not what I expected to get out of this album.
The worst song for me is “This is not my song.” It is more repetitive than the others and comes across a bit flat. Being a bit pretentious for a moment, I’m not really sure I can gel with the theme of it either; it seems very postmodernist, deconstructing everything down to base parts.
Overall, I think there is something to enjoy here. It has some Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash kind of vibes. 6/10