Barking -- Some general thoughts

[Sappys Curry]

I originally liked only six of the nine tracks. The three I wasn't really impressed with are Between Stars, Grace, and Scribble. Well, Between Stars grew on me some more, but as some have said, it is over produced, and Karl seems like he is struggling to be heard on that song. Grace grew on me some more, too, but Between Stars and Grace are still in my bottom three. Scribble is the track I'd rank last. Not too bad, but I wish this album had You Do Scribble as track three and Scribble was like an iTunes bonus track or something.

If YDS was track 3 instead, I'd like the album a bit more, and it wouldn't hurt if Bird 1 didn't have the synth plops. Bird 1 is definitely in my top 3, but it would have probably been my surefire number one pick of the album without the synth plops. It is akin to how the "Heaven, Heaven" refrain in ALAF bugs you OP.

I guess the reason why I'm not very impressed with this album is that some tracks don't impress me much at all. I'm fine with the collaborations, as five out of eight of them I like. The three songs that rank as the last three for me, I just don't happen to like them that much, not really because of the collaboration on them, but just how they sound doesn't do too much for me. Next to them is Hamburg Hotel, which I like, but not as much as the first two tracks and the last three tracks.

So that is five tracks I like, one track I think is alright, two tracks I think are so-so, and one that I can tolerate but don't really care for. It ends up being my least favorite UW album (at least, at the moment it is) out of the six released so far, as I usually like or really like most songs (or all the songs) on the other five albums.

I'd say I'd rate this album as three stars out of five, which is by no means bad. Three stars out of five for an album is, to me, a solid and decent album.