{"id":21030,"date":"2021-05-22T05:30:05","date_gmt":"2021-05-22T09:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=21030"},"modified":"2021-05-19T10:13:53","modified_gmt":"2021-05-19T14:13:53","slug":"album-review-last-days-of-april-even-the-good-days-are-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/05\/22\/album-review-last-days-of-april-even-the-good-days-are-bad\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Last Days of April \u2013 Even the Good Days Are Bad"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-21031\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/ldoa_good_days.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/ldoa_good_days.jpg 350w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/ldoa_good_days-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/ldoa_good_days-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>If one were to combine hooky songwriting, a lush pop landscape and a bit of shoegaze, the result might approach Last Days of April\u2019s <i>Even the Good Days Are Bad<\/i>. The downbeat message of its title notwithstanding, this is a lovely collection of emotion-laden tunes that feature indelible melodic lines.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a pleasing variety to the album\u2019s eight songs. Chiming guitars are all over the record, but there\u2019s an aesthetic that somehow combines intimate\/close-up with gauzy\/woozy. It sounds like a Chamberlin on \u201cHad Enough,\u201d and that off-kilter keyboard \u2013 plus some dissonant tones that persist through the song \u2013 underscores the unsettled lyrical character of the album.<\/p>\n<p>The songs are inviting, but they benefit from close, attentive (and repeated) listening; that approach helps to reveal the charms within. And those charms are many: \u201cTurbulence\u201d has a character reminiscent of Pete Yorn\u2019s early work. \u201cAlone\u201d rewards listeners who stick around hoping for a rocker.<\/p>\n<p>Songwriter Karl Larsson and his band seem intent upon using a different keyboard texture (or two) for every song on the record, and that approach is an effective one. Even though every track is different from the one before, there\u2019s a unity that holds everything together as an <i>album<\/i> rather than a mere collection of songs.<\/p>\n<p>Taken as a whole, the songs on <i>Even the Good Days Are Bad<\/i> create an ambience that seems to capture a slice of the band\u2019s Stockholm. When I last visited there, I was struck by the manner in which locals relate to weather: a sky filled with high, pale grey clouds is described as clear. (We\u2019ve since chosen to refer to such days as \u201cStockholm clear.\u201d) And that grey-not-quite-sunny vibe is conveyed in these tunes. Even the relatively chirpy \u201cAnything\u201d isn\u2019t truly upbeat. Things are not what they at first seem to be.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of misleading titles, &#8220;Downer&#8221; &#8212; which closes the album &#8212; is the best track. It distills all of the record&#8217;s virtues into a single song; its repeated lyrical message and extended run time combine to wonderfully hypnotic effect; nearly nine minutes and it never threatens to wear out its welcome. And that underscores an important fact about <em>Even the Good Days Are Bad<\/em>: even its average songs are good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If one were to combine hooky songwriting, a lush pop landscape and a bit of shoegaze, the result might approach Last Days of April\u2019s Even the Good Days Are Bad. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21031,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,62,65],"tags":[1285],"class_list":["post-21030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-rawk","category-review","tag-last-days-of-april","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21030"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21034,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21030\/revisions\/21034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}