Justin M. Wilsey is an artist who recently released Ugly. The album is lo-fi experimental grunge you could say. It’s not pretty music by any stretch of the imagination and maybe that’s where the title came from.
Up first is “Ugly” which starts with low drones and a sample of Jonah Hill from Superbad. It’s explicit and the whole song just feels sort of shady and dark from the lyrics to the textures. Wilsey’s vocals seem purposely delivered on the darker side. The vibe was interesting to say the least and his style was unique. Up next is “Better Than This” which is a very lo-fi recording. It’s a more basic song that is stripped down. Wilsey is strumming a couple of distorted and fuzzy major and minor chords. There is some light percussion of some sort. He sings “I know what I know.” The melodies are memorable but took a couple of spins to fully appreciate. “Muse” is about a minute-and-a-half long and he was trying to be a little more angry and explosive on this song. It’s chaotic and it was hard to tell what he was saying because of how expressive the delivery is. “Less Drama (when you're not around)” is a little less angry and more just melancholy and maybe dismal sounding. It’s atmospheric with tons of reverb and he does a good job creating a dark tension here with sharp edges. He starts to stretch his voice and the song just feels like it’s ripped apart at the seams before coming back together. “I Smiled” introduces a hip-hop beat out of nowhere and really sounds like a completely different artist because of the programmed drums. Wilsey laments with tons of expression. “You Will Never Know” is stripped back with just clean guitar and vocals and was a great way to close the album As an engineer myself I think the production and recording quality was lo-fi but also different. For example, the guitars are all high end on “You Will Never Know” but that type of sonic imprint is not on any other song. I like that Wilsey has a lot of ideas and l also don’t mind the darker and indignant tones but I think working with another engineer might be worthwhile to at least get another ears on the frequencies, tones and textures which create cohesion on a release. At the very least a seasoned mastering engineer could help with the technical aspects. Wilsey has a unique vision that is for sure and am excited to hear more. I hope to hear more from him because his music certainly got my attention.
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