Joel Smith creates beauty on his debut indie rock record, "Awakening"
Review by Austin Sher
Officially released on October 16th, 2020, Joel Smith has debuted his incredibly powerful new record, Awakening. Please do yourself a huge favor and read along with us for our full thoughts on the album.
Coming in at a total of 11 tracks, spanning 45 incredible minutes, let us potentially be the first to let you know that this album rocks in the best way possible. Being unfamiliar with the music of Joel Smith before delving into Awakening, we didn’t have any expectations. Judging directly by the album cover, considering that’s all we had to go off of, we took it to be more for an ambient record. Oh were we wrong, this album blew our minds from start to finish.
The album opener, “What He’s Leaving Behind”, was the perfect introduction to the overall encompassing sound of the artist. We got a chance to catch up with Joel before the review and he let us know, “it's a pretty simple story about waking up one day and wondering if you are wasting your life on things that are ultimately meaningless.”. Closely listening to the lyrics and making the connections for ourselves, we fully agree. If you’re a functioning human being, chances are you’ve felt similar feelings to the one the artist has expressed, so why not put it into a killer song.
We suppose that at its base, it would be a considered a fairly straightforward indie rock record. For us though it was so much more than that. It creates unique soundscapes and atmospheres, and features a diverse instrumentation that kept us guessing the whole way through. Let us not get through the review without pointing out Joel’s stellar vocals as well. Fitting in right with the overall sound, his delivery and conviction rings true the entire 45 minutes. As much as you could pick out particular songs and put them on individual playlists, we do feel this is an album you’d want to listen to straight through for the full experience.
All in all though, I hope we’ve made ourselves clear, this album rocks and you should absolutely take the time out of your busy schedules to make time for it. You won’t be disappointed in the slightest. So with that being said, it’s about time we let you know to stop reading and start listening!
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