Thao & the Get Down Stay Down – A Man Alive

Music for a specific mood

Everyone has a type of music to listen to in different moods and while one type of music may be liked a lot during one mood, it may be loathed in another. Likewise, music tastes vary during different times of the day as well.

A Man Alive can be described as one such album, which really needs a specific kind of mood to enjoy. It consists of a set of twelve songs exploring the genre of experimental indie rock and has funny soundscapes in the middle of songs, some even hurting the ears if the volume is cranked up too loud. Seems like a majority of those weird sounds were obtained by the old-fashioned modular synthesis methods. However it will not be wrong to mention that even though experimental music takes some time to really get the hang of, this album might not impress a lot of listeners especially since not everyone listens to a record and goes in depth to understand the lyrics.

There are a couple of songs that are moderately noteworthy of mentioning. “Nobody Dies” is probably the best song in this record and has a right match of good songwriting and lyrics. It reflects a lot about a troubled childhood and differences between a family and the father signifying mental and physical abuse. “Guts”, a medium paced track talks about how the father could have come and visited the child, as it wasn’t hard to reach her. The chorus of “Give Me Peace” resembles the likes of indie pop music if it was orchestrated it a different manner. However it is interesting to hear how the melodies are deliberately made to resemble a dense and sorrowful atmosphere with a unique songwriting style.

A Man Alive mostly revolves around issues of a depressed childhood and some serious parenthood issues. This reflects through the overall gloomy sound of almost every song. There are not even a few songs that would deviate towards happy and catchy music.

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