Review written by Jon Garniss
I have to be honest upfront. I’ve been excited about this record for years. Ever since I saw the video for Mr. Capgras from the band’s 2016 effort Self-ish, I’ve been thoroughly on board. I loved that record, playing it over and over until my partner at the time nearly begged me to listen to something else. Naturally, I switched over to the band’s previous record, Everything is A Lot. When they released their live record, titled The Real Will Wood, it too received repeat play.
This is all to say that I’ve been buying what Will Wood has been selling for years, and The Normal Album is no different.
The album opens with a four part suite, Suburbia Overture / Greetings from Mary Bell Township! / (Vampire) Culture / Love Me, Normally, which moves gradually from smooth doowop to jagged march, ending in a delightfully sweet piano ballad. Interspersed throughout are references to future melodies on the album, musical themes that soon become familiar as the record progresses.
Next, we move into 2econd 2night 2eer. This song is one of my very favorites on the record. Packed to the brim with an infectious groove and rapid-fire lyrics, this track has a real disco vibe.It’s hard to hear this one and not to bop your head along to the beat. Laplace’s Angel (Hurt People? Hurt People!) is very familiar to fans of Everything is A Lot, chugging along and basking in a tango groove.
The fourth song, I/Me/Myself, is my favorite song on the album. Dysphoria is a hard and complicated subject, but Will tackles it with sugary bells, a soaring sax riff, and one of the catchiest melodies I’ve heard all year. All that and more come together to form an absolute banger, one that has received near-daily play since its release.
I must admit, the first time I heard …well, better than the alternative I wasn’t on board with the change from piano ballad to its poppier current incarnation, but after a few listens through I came around and fell in love.
After that we return to the brass section, as the band rips at breakneck speed through the incredibly groovy Outliars and Hyppocrates: a fun fact about apples. The seventh track BlackBoxWarrior-OKULTRA is worth a listen for the unhinged breakdown alone, and also features a manic melody and thumping low brass.
Marsha, Thankk You For the Dialectics, but I Need You to Leave is another catchy song, abound with references to suicide, mental illness, therapy, and the propensity of a previous generation to bottle their emotions up. It does all this on a backdrop of dense drums, cutting saxophones, and nimble piano rolls. Will recently released a new lyric video for the song, which can be found here. We then roll into Love, Me Normally, a song about normalcy, what it is, and who defines it. The video for this song is one that I would surely go out of your way to see.
Memento Mori: the most important thing in the world is the final song on the album, and is a catchy little romp that reminds the listener that “everything and everyone goes with the passage of time” and “your worries will be over when you truly realize that one day you’re going to die”. It doesn’t matter how normal or abnormal you are, you’re going to die. Enjoy your time.
Check out The Normal Album on your favorite streaming service, and also check out the interview that I did with Will here.
