GGGOLDDD – 'This Shame Should Not Be Mine' Album Review

Tracklist:

1. I Wish I Was A Wild Thing With A Simple Heart 2. Strawberry Supper 3. Like Magic 4. Spring 5. Invisible 6. I Won’t Let You Down 7. Notes On How To Trust 8. This Shame Should Not Be Mine 9. On You 10. Beat By Beat

I really struggled to write this review as I don’t think I’ve ever listened to an album quite like this one. It started to remind me of so many bands, so many genres, so many styles but it is genre defying. It point blank refuses to be categorised.

It’s atmospheric, unsettling and has a sense of dark foreboding throughout and yet there are moments of pure bliss. There is a beauty and fragility to this music and also a malevolence. For long periods of listening I really wasn’t sure what I thought or felt.

It’s not a Pop record, it’s not a Rock record, it’s not Dance, it’s unique. It has a sense throughout of some really intense feelings, you almost feel like you’ve been allowed inside someone’s troubled psyche, I don’t know the genesis to this album but if I guessed I would think something troubling had happened in the run up to it’s recording, on the other hand perhaps this band are just masters of what they do!

Just when you think it’s becoming too unsettling and too challenging it suddenly changes, introducing something unexpected, something resembling poetry, a moment of light in the darkness.

I don’t think I’ve felt as challenged by an album in a long time. Did I enjoy it? I honestly still can’t decide. It left me unsettled, yet strangely exhilarated. At one point I even thought the band were going to slip into Laurie Anderson’s O Superman. It really is the most confusing, beautiful and emotionally challenging record I’ve listened to in a long time. Every time I thought I was starting to get a handle on it the band changed again.

There are some really challenging lyrics, some moments of musicality that stay with you and yet my overwhelming feeling is I can’t decide whether I enjoyed this album or just really respected, admired and appreciated it. I think this is a debate that will continue to rage for some time!

It’s not a party record, it just is what it is, an interesting, challenging (I know I’ve said that repeatedly already but it really is the best word to describe this album), and thoroughly absorbing album. Don’t listen to it if you like your music easy, but if you enjoy listening to something that will make you think, make you feel and make you wonder about what you’re hearing this is the album for you!