Alternative rock band Grouplove, famous for its 2011 hit “Tongue Tied,” recently dropped the album “Big Mess,” a compilation of 11 tracks about love, loss and pursuing the true meaning of life. While the band stuck to a straightforward rock sound with its previous work, “Big Mess” showcases Grouplove’s experimental side as it mixes EDM elements with a more traditional rock sound. While the combination of these two genres creates a fresh sound for individual songs, the album overall lacks coherence.
It seems almost too fitting that “Big Mess” opens with the song “Welcome to Your Life,” as the track comes off as chaotic at best. While the opening verses create an energetic vibe which could easily be the intro to an EDM hit, the song abruptly transitions into a rock chorus which, when contrasted with the beginning of the song, is overwhelming for listeners.
Along with a lack of uniform sound, bizarre lyrics make the meaning of the song even harder to discern. While the band may have been going for a more alternative image, the combination of incongruent beats and nonsensical lyrics causes too much discord to be enjoyable.
As the album progresses, the genre switches to more guitar-heavy alternative rock. Songs like “Standing in the Sun” and “Do You Love Someone” mull over the hardships of unrequited love and the importance of waiting for life to get better, two consistent themes throughout the rest of the album.
While the album’s rock songs lack the excitement of the EDM beats, they have far more profound and meaningful content. The song “Enlighten Me” tells the story of a loss of love and the singer’s struggle to reconcile his feelings. With lines like “I’m on the fence with common sense” and “Indiscretion is a blessing if you know what you want to say,” it is by far the album’s most intriguing song.
While the majority of the album consists of rock blended with EDM, the band also produced two purely EDM songs — “Good Morning” and “Cannonball.” Although most of the lyrics are hard to comprehend because of voice distortion, these songs, especially “Good Morning,” are by far the most upbeat and catchy of the album.
Although Grouplove shows potential in both of the genres it straddles, the band would profit in the future from choosing one style of music rather than trying to satisfy too many tastes at once.
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