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ALBUM REVIEW: "Adornment" by Grayscale

   Adornment has the instantly catchy trait that all good pop-punk records have, and for the most part they make use of that initial attention grab with solid songs with actual emotional depth. For a pop-punk record to be of interest to me nowadays there needs to be more beyond the catchiness and "get-out-of-this-town" franticness; I've heard it more than enough times by now and it just seems like a lot of bands are riding on that alone without carving their own sound within those genre hallmarks. There were lots of pop-punk records put out last year by lots of bands, and I remember maybe a handful. The first positive to be found in Grayscale's sound is the vocalist; while there is the occasional cheese that is to expected on a record like this, there is enough dynamic range, warmth and grit to separate him from the whiny, annoying sound that hurts my ears on far too many records (bar an unfortunate cameo from As It Is singer Patty Walters on Come Undone, come at me Patty fans). But the biggest plus I find in Adornment is the pacing between the bangers, sing-a-longs and slower moments. On a lot of records it seems like there has been minimal thought put into which songs go where, there's just a slow song here because there needs to be one somewhere and the crossover song here for the same reason - like the main concern is fitting the outline of what a pop-punk album needs to have. While Adornment does tick all these boxes, there is a flow to the order of songs that gives the sense of a complete album, as opposed to a bunch of songs stuck together to sell in a package. The production is everything I think is wrong with pop-punk records, though, so the less said about that the better. So Adornment does stand above the mediocre majority of their genre peers, but I still am not entirely convinced. If you're a pop-punk freak, though, you'll probably gobble this up, it's got more than enough sing-a-long value and hooks to stay in your head all week.

   Favourite Songs: Slipping Away, Mum and Echoes (Carry On)

    Least Favourite Songs: Beautiful Things, Slept

   Rating: C

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