GutterPutter

Japanese Breakfast is, ever since its inception back in 2013 & its debut three years after, an indie-pop brainchild of a Korea-born frontman of Little Big League Michelle Zauner. Making a name of herself with her dream pop-directed style with an air for melancholia, the musical project take its roots as being one of the more notable names to have come out of the indie scene in the last half of the 2010s with records like Psychopomp & Soft Sounds from Another Planet receiving attention from the press. Gradually getting better with each passing song, many were expecting the next album to be a big hit in its discography with an impressive average of 88 in Metacritic, it shows its appeal well with much of the praise being given towards its more chamber pop direction and its jocose impression. I can commend the direction of the album, but it’s one that I can’t find myself invested in for a long while.

If there’s one part I can praise the album firstly, it’s that their first two tracks are near-exemplary indie pop hits in ‘Paprika’ and ‘Be Sweet’. The former is outstanding as an exposition to the genres of the album thanks to the layering of Zauner’s singing to create an angelic harmony over the horn instruments which enriches its grandeur. The hitting of the snares alongside the cello & violin performance adds to the epic textures & the fantastical chorus is straight out of an impressionist work:

‘How’s it feel to be at the centre of magic

To linger in tones and words?

I opened the floodgates and found no water, no current, no river, no rush

How’s it feel to stand at the height of your powers

To captivate every heart?

Projecting your thoughts to strangers who feel it, who listen, who lingers on every word’

Thus by far, the emotive strength found in the freedom of expression is apparent through the triplets of ‘no’ in the first half & ‘who’ for the second, encapsulating the thesis of optimism that is injected into the entirety of the album. The fairy tale-like impression that comes out of one’s mental stance being ‘the centre of magic’ alongside the modernised interpretation of a Prince Charming figure in the pluralised ‘strangers’ infers a genuine passion for being a musician in an otherwise tough industry to succeed in. There’s so much life in the song that it feels like a much-needed push in developing a positive mindset.

Aside from ‘Paprika’, there’s also ‘Be Sweet’ which might well be best described as a sunshine pop single ripped out of the 60s’, mixed with the delicacies of dream pop, synth pop & perhaps even a sprinkle of reminder of new wave. This leads to it being another favourite of mine as it’s both an effective tribute to the bubbly innocence of older pop songs & yet, there’s also a sort of timelessness from its kaleidoscopic genre influences that makes it more than a sum of its parts. It’s utterly romantic, so apparent in its search for unconditional love, that you can’t help but admire the sentimentality of Zauner’s theme. I won’t place it above ‘Paprika’ of course, but it’s such a heartfelt tune that a commend is well worth giving to.

What this leads to however is a sense of dullness, not out of its derivativeness, but perhaps more out of how the two tracks that I’ve covered in detail is such a peak of the project’s focus in the beginning that the later tracks failed to strike the same cord to me. ‘Kokomo, IN’ carries on the accessible art-sunshine pop from ‘Be Sweet’, but the dream pop aspect starts to leak in more to the point where the hopeful poignancy can come off more as being dreary for all the admirable chamber instrumentation. ‘Slide Tackle’ has a dope sax solo in the middle, yet the lyrics haven’t impressed me all that much as it reaches a point of repetition where it feels more like an insipid pop songwriting than the borderline-poetic twee in the first two tracks. ‘Posing in Bondage’ shows an unexpected downtempo turn in its introspective take on a divided relationship with 2/3 of the song having a trip-hop rhythm. It’s an interesting left turn to have, but it’s one that isn’t worth including in the album & is one that proves to be uninteresting in my opinion. ‘Sit’ is nothing short of an instrumental flex as we transition from a danceable sequence rhythm to the reverberated drumming & synths as it concludes into a fainted piano playing amidst the quiet distortion of the guitars. The vocal performance & the lyrics? It’s one that I personally find to be a meh which comes close to cancelling out what is otherwise a great instrumental performance.

As we close in to being over the second half of the album, ‘Savage Good Boy’ starts off with a squeaky vocal which can come across as being off-putting & you’re going to hear it a few times throughout the song. It’s short, rather obnoxious & there’s little that is worth praising for me; it feels like there’s a bit too much ideas being pumped into what is otherwise a 2-minute song. ‘Hell’ is supposed to come back to the notion of complete dedication to a love interest, but it’s also one where I start to feel like some portions of the album’s production can come off as being distracting. The keyboard playing is lovely & the rock instruments continue to rock on, but the vocal can come off as being rather sleepy & not in a good way when you also have trumpets pumping out at just over the volume of Zauner’s voice. ‘Tactics’ start with a melodious playing of violins & cellos before we settle into what appears to be another homage to the retro-sunshine pop. This time, it’s one that fails to do much to me. I find the explicit showing of the album’s chamber pop influence to come off as being a tad too predictable in a way that you can tell that the songwriting is going to be similar to most other acclaimed hits & that at the end of the day, it’s a rather forgettable listen.

As we close in to the denouement in ‘Posing For Cars’, we start to see a glimpse in a narrative which depicts the dependency in the relationship between Zeuner & her husband. The retro-like production style is now more comparable to Lana Del Ray whose subversive takes on the pop music its golden age is a more decisive re-invention of her inspirations than Japanese Breakfast’s depiction. By the time we’ve reached to the end of the album, I can’t help but feel that for all the hype that’s been given into it, Zeuner’s lyricism doesn’t feel like it’s able to convey her affection in such a manner that can drag you into her realm as easily as the standouts that I’ve mentioned one too many times now. It ends with a guitar solo that, according to an interview with The Ringer, was supposed to convey the feeling that is otherwise impossible to describe in just words much like Wilco. The problem is that once you’ve listened to the record & leave with a similar level of phlegm as I do, all you can hear is a phoned-in mimic of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Freebird’. You can admire the technicality & the cohesion between the instruments, but if you failed to make one guitar solo special enough to stand out or well-executed enough that its influence can be accepted, it’s only going to come off as being a cheesy way to end the album.

In conclusion, I can say that I admire the album more for its ambition than in its execution. You can see how Zeuner’s pursuit of elation carries itself out throughout the album & how the instrumentation all come together to make a more crisp modernisation out of the 60s’ pop music. Apparently, that doesn’t help to overshadow its flaws as it has yet to successfully meet the highs that is set by the first two tracks. It’s an admirable depiction of what it’s like to be in love, but when it reaches a point of being mellow, it struggled to dig its way out to make way to a more frantic burst of declaration.