Rocket - By Alex G
ALBUM TITLE: Rocket
ARTIST: Alex G
GENRE: Lo-fi / Indie Rock / Folk Rock / Metal / Jazz
When I first listened to Alex G’s new album Rocket a couple of weeks ago, I was only half-listening while failing to get a grip on the scout class in Battlefield 1. Then “Brick”, a metal-esque track, came out of nowhere halfway through the album. I turned off the Xbox and checked my phone to make sure that the playlist hadn’t ended. What the hell is this? I thought to myself. The entire first half of the album is a mish-mash of different musical styles and tones which don’t seem to have much in common at first glance. Some tracks like “Witch” feature heavy distortion and disjointed vocals typical of lo-fi, while others like “Powerful Man” have very clear vocals and feature a fiddle, giving them a more polished folk-rock feel. At the end of my first listen I had enjoyed most of it, but the album felt like a strange of conglomeration of nice sounding songs.
On my second, closer listen I realized I was wrong. Rocket is a modern pastoral. It combines lo-fi, folk rock, and some jazz to create a unique sound, however one that is somehow still very traditional. A pastoral is a genre that conveys a spiritual message about a complex subject in a series of simple tales. Throughout the album, Alex G plays with notions of complexity. A part of the song such as the melody, the lyrics, or the distortion will elaborately transform what are otherwise straightforward songs. The dark coming of age story concealed in Rocket deals with guilt, crime, and existential fear, and is encapsulated in its deceptively simple songs. Yet in the first half of the album, these tracks are all stylistically unique. The larger chaos of the album and of the lyrics of each respective track are hidden by their illusive tones. “County”, a song about being caught with heroin, is made into an upbeat dream pop track.
Rocket shines in its first half because of stellar numbers such as “Proud” “County” and “Brick”, and its lack of uniformity. “Proud” is a classic coming of age song that explores both fear of and a yearning for the future, which showcases the album’s feel and sound in an upbeat blend of folk and lo-fi. “County” is just an all around beautiful sounding song that introduces the dark prison narrative running throughout the album. “Brick” introduces an abrupt metal sound that re-engages the listener after a short instrumental section in the middle of the album. It’s surprising, engrossing, and unique.
The second half, however, abandons to an extent the more medley format of the first half and ends with six tracks that were hard to distinguish from one another. I felt this was a mistake, as the album did well with the more chaotic feel represented in the beginning. My dissatisfaction might also have stemmed from the fact that I just didn’t enjoy “Judge”, “Alina”, and “Big Fish” as much as the rest of the album. I felt these songs lacked the energy of the rest of the album and the latter two especially were somewhat more generic. However, Rocket comes to a powerful end with “Guilty”, which brings the themes of guilt, depression, and a fear of the future that run throughout the album out into the open, supported by some snazzy jazz instrumentation.
Listen to Rocket below: