sign crushes motorist - i'll be okay (2022)

Styles: Slowcore, Slacker Rock | IE

I haven't listened to much Slowcore, but someone who's been making enough waves in the scene for even me to notice him is Liam McCay, known under his various aliases with sign crushes motorist being the most popular one. 

This record is pretty short, just under 30 minutes, albeit it's a double-edged sword. It helps it not get too tedious because there really isn't much variety but it also means the tracks are mostly quite short so they don't get any time to flourish. What you do have here is just mostly mediocre, meandering Slowcore. McCay isn't much of a lyricist, with the writing sounding almost parodic at times with how basic it is. 

„You seem happy with him

Wish that I was him

Wish you were here

Wish you were here“

-Wish-

It's disappointing because a better songwriter could make these lyrically simple songs have so much more emotion and impact, but the performances here leave much to be desired as they are largely bland and uninspired. What could be some deeply vulnerable music ends up falling flat. Instead of sounding sensitive it comes off as whiny. The longer tracks generally benefit from their lengths, especially the best one, 'theres this girl'. The other notable one is 'Last Friday Night' which is a strange cover of the Katy Perry song. The production is flat as usual but Liam's vocals here are very fragile sounding and it would probably be a great and memorable cover if the execution was better. That's the problem with this album in general, mediocre or even good ideas sometimes sabotaged by a lack of direction, originality or memorable songwriting. The closer is a strange combination of Hereditary and Moral Orel dialogue, which just feels forced (Nice title though). A lot of the popularity that comes from this is because it's simply many people's first introduction to the genre.

5.5/10

See also: Duster, salvia palth, bl4ck m4rket c4rt

Listen here: Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp

- kreyzi