{"id":14555,"date":"2018-05-01T15:30:37","date_gmt":"2018-05-01T19:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=14555"},"modified":"2018-05-01T15:37:32","modified_gmt":"2018-05-01T19:37:32","slug":"album-review-mailman-yang-yin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/05\/01\/album-review-mailman-yang-yin\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Mailman — Yang Yin"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The concept of duality is a popular one in literature and the arts; West Sussex, England-based recording artist Mailman (known at home as Jamie Stanley or \u201cStan\u201d) explores the subject on his latest release, Yang Yin<\/i>. The idea is simple: a full life is neither all light nor complete darkness; it’s bits of both. In fact both are necessary, and only when true balance is achieved \u2013 by acknowledging and embracing both \u2013 can one live fully.<\/p>\n

Of course that can sound a bit head and philosophical, and this is a rock album, after all. But with Yang Yin<\/i>, Mailman has crafted an album of melodic, vaguely progressive (but not intimidatingly progressive) songs that can be enjoyed even if the underlying theme isn’t taken into consideration.<\/p>\n

In fact, using a clever gambit, Mailman provides two handy playlists of the album on his Soundcloud page. One starts with the \u201cLight Side,\u201d while the other sequences the \u201cDark Side\u201d first. I give a slight nod to the sequence that puts lightness first. The songs are well-constructed; the arrangements are never cluttered. Mailman’s songs have a strong melodic quotient, and while most of the songs are mid-tempo rockers, each has a strong hook upon which the entire tune is developed. Some listeners will detect hints of Pink Floyd in tunes like \u201cFrontiers,\u201d but the overall vibe of Yang Yin<\/i> is a bit less doomy and melancholy that that reference might suggest.<\/p>\n

Stanley’s voice soars above the clean and catchy arrangements; even on the uncharacteristically peppy \u201cOwe it to My Heart\u201d (which sounds a bit like prime-era Electric Light Orchestra minus the extra instrumentation) there’s a unified vibe that holds the album’s 20 songs together nicely.<\/p>\n

Tuneful pop-rock with an emphasis on songcraft is the hallmark of Mailman’s Yin Yang<\/i>. Listener who require a bit of grit in their music might find the album \u2013 especially the \u201cLight Side\u201d a bit too friendly and upbeat, but most listeners who appreciate a memorable tune will find plenty to enjoy on this set.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The concept of duality is a popular one in literature and the arts; West Sussex, England-based recording artist Mailman (known at home as Jamie Stanley or \u201cStan\u201d) explores the subject […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14544,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,62,65],"tags":[3421],"class_list":["post-14555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-rawk","category-review","tag-mailman","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14555"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14556,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14555\/revisions\/14556"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}