Your Phobia • Unsettled
‘Unsettled’, the recent album from Your Phobia is one that will hit your heart and soul with its blend of heart-warming tunes.
The lyrics are quite remarkable on this album. Each track is comprised of honest, truthful and rather simple lyrics and there seems to be no hidden agenda to the words said. What can be said for this band is their rhyming talent is as simple as the lyrics. It is especially noticeable in ‘Friday Night’ and ‘Prophets and Sage’. Having said this, it is one of the highlights of the album. It’s difficult and mind bobbling to listen to an album where you have to interpret most of the lyrics, so its rather refreshing to just be album to listen and understand. Lyrics like “my life is so complicated, everyone’s opinionated, they’re telling me what must be done” from ‘Overload’ and “you partied too hard, you don’t eat or sleep” from ‘Wasted’ are some of the best lines from the album.
Another aspect that will offer some bracing feelings is the emotion put into the lyrics. On ‘Breathless’, the emotion in the lyrics, pain specifically, is put across though the lead singers vocals when the track hits a point of anger - “she feels like screaming”. As the electric guitar section completes the track, you feel the mentioned individual in the track doing something drastic. The warming vocals lead singer Alex, are simple and subtle through the album. On ‘Future Waster’ the vocals build through the first verse to the chorus with the addition of more anticipation in each line.
One very distinctive element that made a re-occurring performance was the electric guitar instrumentals. As well as on the upbeat numbers like ‘Teachers Pet’ where it bends with the constant beat, the instrumental makes an appearance in slower starting numbers like ‘Prophets and Sage’. The guitar adds a darker side in comparison with the electric instrumentals on two of the tracks. On ‘Overload’ and ‘4*4’ this causes the tracks to become more intense and slightly darker.
One track that gave me an eerie feeling is ‘In My Dreams’. This track is much slower than other numbers on the album, and has a distant string effect. The eerie feel comes from a wobbly guitar bookmark that is present between verses. This album is refreshing, very well constructed and defiantly brightened a small part of my day.