RATING: 8/10
Must Listens:
- RACECAR
- BAD NEWS
- DEITY
Aries long awaited first album is finally here. The former producer YouTuber turned up and coming anti-pop star is one of my favourite young artists and I think 2019 will be a huge year for him. WELCOME HOME is 9 tracks, 5 of which we haven’t heard. While RACECAR and SAYONARA remain two of my favourite songs of his, CAROUSEL and SANTA MONICA are still such solid tracks. He released them months apart, letting each of them run their own course until they started to die down in attention. I really hope WELCOME HOME brings more attention back to these previous singles, because they deserve so much more support than what they already have.
Introducing something new, Aries gives us a more acoustic and stripped back feel on DEITY and AMY’S GRAVE. These songs (and the others we hadn’t heard before like PONY and HOME) really round the album off for me. The singles released began a theme of nostalgic love but listening to the album as a whole, he more obviously explores the nostalgic heart ache and teenage angst that overstays its welcome. Aries has such a huge talent for melodies, whether it’s the emotional chorus of HOME or a more climactic feel on CAROUSEL, he finds a perfect blend of pop and emo-rap. This talent provides some of the highlights of the album with lines like “I left all of my demons on read” on BAD NEWS. Check out his new music video he released for BAD NEWS.
Each song has its own pop appeal, especially the 4 songs that we had first heard, but this doesn’t mean they sound the same. While this was something I was worried Aries would unintentionally do, he thankfully has too much curiosity which allows him to continue to explore the lengths he can take his phenomenal production and genre-bending talent. While this genre-bending is great, I feel as though Aries drowns in his influences a little. Though this doesn’t seem to be a huge downer on the album, especially not on the overall artist as he has such a good understanding of his own aesthetic evident in his music and music videos. Sometimes I like the music even more after seeing the edits in his music videos, and the features from Cody Ko & Noel Miller.
But back to the album, it’s really met my high expectations. I can definitely see Aries becoming a huge figure in the emo-rap and alternative pop/rock scene. I’d keep a close ear to his Spotify and an even closer eye on his YouTube.
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Frank Tremain 