ALBUM REVIEW: AJR - Neotheater (2019)

 Yup, we’re back with another album review already, what’s the album we’re looking at today?

AJR - Neotheater (2019)

Genre(s): Electropop, Alt-Pop

Full confession, I actually have an old ranking of this album’s tracks somewhere on Pulse Music Board, but honestly I don’t think it’s aged very well, the whole ranking was made when I still had a really intense hate boner for AJR and it’s just me insulting the guys from track to track, and it’s not nearly as funny nor entertaining as I thought it was at the time. I’ve been more negative than positive to AJR’s music as a whole, they even topped my 2021 worst list with “BANG!”, but they do have some songs I can safely say that I like, such as “Sober Up” off The Click and even “Way Less Sad” from their followup album to this. And I’ll be honest, with time putting some distance between me and “BANG!”, I don’t think it’s nearly as atrocious as I used to think it was (it’s still absolutely very bad, though), with that, I decided to give this album another chance and properly judge it, so what did the Neotheater deliver with its performance?

Ok, trust me, as someone who’s listened to three of these guys’ albums, this is the worst album I’ve heard from them by a long shot. I’ve never really been a fan of AJR’s overall sound, where it feels like they are trying to imitate Twenty One Pilots and failing by seemingly throwing together noises and effects at random and calling it a day. There are at least some fragments of good ideas lyrically and musically here, such as on “Wow, I’m Not Crazy” where there’s a pretty strong melody but frontman Jack Met’s falsetto is the equivalent of a person with DCG Syndrome that inhaled a bunch of helium. Or on “Birthday Party”, where the underlying production sounds weirdly clunky, which unfortunately wastes the potential of the content, written from the perspective of a newborn baby describing their first minute in the world, and that’s not to mention the baby voice which means that even if you can skate past the clunky production, it’s gonna be an utter chore to listen to.

But somehow, “Birthday Party” doesn’t even have the clunkiest production on the album, that would go to “The Entertainment’s Here”, where the horns for once sound triumphant but the piano throws me off really badly. And yeah, even separating the fact that AJR, some of the easiest and biggest targets of hate in the music industry made this, this album’s worst aspect throughout is easily the production, where you’ll get some promising moments/ideas that get immediately handicapped by a skin-crawling production/musical choice. Even on “Dear Winter”, a song I loved way more once upon a time, but soured on me thanks to the clunky lyrics (at least Jack Met’s sincerity in the song pulls it out of being bad for me?). The song is really sweet track though, dedicated to his future daughter that he wants to name Winter even though he hasn’t met the mother yet, the sincerity in Met’s voice at least do enough for me to tolerate his falsetto and the really awkward lyrics, such as him wanting to teach his daughter to curse.

So if you want my final thoughts...well, let me put it this way: this doesn’t have AJR’s worst moments but neither does it have their best moments, and as a whole the songs still give me a migraine, I’d like to think my reasoning for hating this album is more concrete than it was previously, final verdict...2/10, definitely skip this. Yeah, even though I’m not as angry with this album as before, it’s still trash. As for the best track on the album, um wow, not many options here, but I’ll go with “Dear Winter” for the best, for being charming in its awkwardness the same way “Hey Soul Sister” by Train worked for me, and let’s go with, I guess “Turning Out Pt II” for honorable mention? Look, it’s not good but it’s passable, I’ll take what I can get. Now for the worst..there’s a lot to choose from but I’ll go for “The Entertainment’s Here” as the worst and “Birthday Party” as a dishonorable mention, that said, both are pretty atrocious and the latter was only saved from being the worst because I at least see the potential in its lyrics. If the baby voice was any more grating, it probably would’ve gotten that spot.

So that's that, thank you guys so much for reading! Next album review is probably gonna be another album from these guys, so until then, I’ll see you!