God her accent is so hot. This Vancouver born, London raised artist has influences from artists ranging from The Beatles to legendary Icelandic singer Björk. This poppy album starts with the track ‘Almost Happy’, which has quite a catchy chorus and references to pop culture and daily casualties.

The instrumentation of this album gives off a happy-go-lucky vibe, but the lyrics speak a different tale of building up to some sort of climax or uniform conclusion that never really exists. ‘Almost Happy’, not fully. ‘Fast as I can’, but maybe never fast enough…Almost as if we were all ‘Doomed from the start’…

I could totally see pieces of this album being used for certain TV shows (the first to mind would be Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt). In fact, some of Kym Brown’s music has been featured on Netflix US films! Her vocals are very smooth, especially in ‘Princes Avenue’, where they give off an almost gospel vibe with the simple piano tune.

Her vocal expression may not receive as much credit as I can give in this review, but a great example of the detail put into the vocal delivery can be found in the track ‘Whatever’. The use of monologue synths mixed with a beat that can only be described as city-like leads this album to be an easy listen that (in my own mind) tells the story of a little nobody who shares stories from their simple life, woven together through a journey where the protagonist eventually finds themselves in the same city they once felt lost in; just as any caffeine-sipping ‘cityzen’ eventually does. I was hoping for more of this careful vocal delivery in the other tracks with perhaps a bit of a more salient narrative and cohesive finish, but her soft-spoken side is just as damn good. Just as many of the individual tracks left me wanting more, the closing track left me feeling like there was a climax that was still missing. Maybe this was intentional. Maybe Kym Brown’s story is yet unfinished.

Favorite Track(s): Whatever, Question Mark, Arms Length
Least Favorite Track(s): Get the Stuff
7/10

By Showering Thoughts
Jun 6, 2016