Influential British
label Pterodactyl Squad is releasing a power pop/rock album. The
Teal Album is Ryan King's, aka
Ramyn King, debut release under the moniker, having previously worked under many different others, VGMing since '09. However, for a release on
one of the oldest and most important chiptune labels going, there is
a surprising lack of chiptune here, but that's not to say what makes
up the rest isn't fantastic.
The Teal Album
perpetuates itself as the culmination of early Weezer mixed with
Megaman soundtracks. Whilst the Megaman influences don't shine
through, Ramyn King does manage to create a series of brilliant
Weezer tributes with enough electronic flairs and new musical ideas
to raise itself above simple fan-boy copycatisms. 'Kyofu' opens with
almost math rock tones before getting all 'anime opener'. The track
then hits a peak when vocals spitting the album's catchiest hooks and
arena-rock level bridges collide; Foo Fighters via Weezer in a synth
shop. 'YUKO' ends the album on a high, with sliding electronic tones
that slowly reign dissonant before building into a powerful and
unfathomably catchy closer, as backing vocal 'oohs' give the closing
power pop moment some serious melodic bite.
Elsewhere
Weezer infulences are even more prominent. 'mm4.nsf track-11' sounds
dangerously close to 'No One Else' in its introductory sections,
before Ramyn takes a diversion and turns rock-opera in the
electronics, before ending in shoegaze atmospheres and vocals. Also,
opener 'password screen' does a fantastic job of anchoring the rest
of the album, with a track so Blue Album that if it were
released by the LA quartet this year it'd be considered a comeback.
The lyrics on a whole follow their patterns too, pondering subjects
from playing videogames in pants to fucking on the floor. The vocals
always sound incredible though, in fact bar some of the detached
sounding electronic components, the production on the album as a
whole is genuinely astounding.
The
album does take a slight quality dip with 'vitamin d actually
prevents acne' and 'last magdalene'; the former featuring the least
affective hooks on the album and the latter taking an odd stylistic
shift and going Smashing Pumpkins in its 90s alt moodiness, to the
track's detriment. Even with the slight dead weight of these tracks,
the rest of the album is incredible in its scope, ambition and
execution. Never mind the electronic gimmick side, this is an
incredible 7-track display of power pop/rock being done as good as
the stadium-filling best.
Favourite track: Kyofu
