The Morning After Girls - Alone

Genre alternative Publisher Any Sound Inc External Links

How do you describe the Morning After Girls…well, pretend the melancholy of Nine Inch Nails had a baby with the pop sensibility of Oasis, and I think its pretty much what you’d get. “The Best Explanation” starts off the album. It takes almost two minutes for it to kick into a higher gear. Before that it maintains a spooky ambient vibe which is pretty cool. A laid back Misfit-esque riff and a great drum build lead to a nice crescendo in “The General Public”. My pop sensibilities tell me this is one of the songs that has a good chance of being a single/radio hit. The hook in the chorus is damn good, and the production really shines on this one. 

Alone is another one with great potential. It’s also a great example of how I believe the band is influenced Oasis as the acoustic guitars combine with the electrics in much of the same way. Most noticeably in the lead fills which add a lot of color to this music. There are some people who tell you that when they listen to music, they can see a color. Well when I listen to this song I see rainbows. This song gives me a feeling of just liveliness and vibrance despite the lyrical content. It’s very fitting that “Death Processions” is the loudest and heaviest track on the album. It shows the boys have been doing their metal homework. We get a lot of eerie almost whispers in this one, but its done with pretty much zero musical dissonance. It would have been great to hear that in a song with such a foreboding and dark title.

“Part Of Your Nature” and “Still Falling” aren’t really anything to write home about. They are nice songs but sadly I think they are more album filler than anything else. “You Need To Die” starts off with a great melody which is repeated throughout the song. It’s just a wonderful little 6 note or so progression that may not ever leave my head. It's clear to me at this point that the band isn’t much for vocal line hooks but they do seem to have a few musically. It's also very apparent in this song that they love to layer things because other than the standard instruments, I counted at least 3 or 4 extra ones sprinkled here and there along with some great doubling of the raspy/haunting whisper we hear throughout the album.

Well it takes a whole 8 tracks but we FINALLY get a happy sounding tune in “To Be Your Loss”. The lyrics can go either way as to whether or not they are positive, but the music is very happy sounding. Its almost as if for this three minutes and 19 seconds the band let the sun shine in on them. It was actually a pretty decent song so I hope they let the sun shine in again in the future. The band retain some of that positivity on “Who Is They”. I think this one has the best guitar solo of the album. Its got that kinda dirty sound on in the face of this completely polished song which is a great juxtaposition. 

“There’s A Taking” and “Tomorrows Time” I think are the albums weakest efforts. Especially considering “Tomorrows Time” is the albums last track. I felt very up in the air as this heavily Doors/Pink Floyd influenced song droned on and on. I like how it adds to color to an otherwise black abyss of a song, but I don’t think it was a very strong way to close an album off.

Overall, I’d say this album is really good creatively as its does do things not heard by anyone in a while or ever, but it just lacks the hooks and that strong sendoff for me. I will definitely keep this album in my rotation for the time being, and I think you may too once you hear it, but I can't see it making its way into a vault of classic albums, despite its color and uniqueness.