The 2kDozen 500: #50 - Porcelain Raft, "Strange Weekend"

Felt quite well disposed to this before I'd heard it. Although the name didn't make so much sense - smooth travel, perhaps?

"Drifting In and Out" opens things neatly. It has that chillwave thing going on, but wrapped around a pop-rock sensibility. Touch of the MGMTs. "Shapeless & Gone" even has a resemblance to The Jam's "That's Entertainment". That kind of snappy melancholy that Noel Gallagher is always reaching for with his stubby little toe-like fingers.

Then comes "Is It Too Deep For You?" and I'm starting to think I may grow a little tired of the blur. It's beginning to sound a bit passive-aggressive: "I hope you're in a nice hotel/../With someone who cares over you". And his voice sounds slight; "No, you didn't mean to hurt anyone/I'm sure". And it becomes more and more apparent he's just strumming away on an acoustic guitar. He's not drifting off into an oblivious cloud with world-weary resignation (as some reviews have suggested), he's hiding in the gaseous sound to take catenaccio pot-shots. "Needless to say I had the last reverb..."

By the time we get to "The Way In", I'm already on the way out. Do you read what I did?

Rating: Mama's Boy out of Roma