A Music Review: "Morning Phase" By Beck
A review of Beck's Morning Phase, released February 21, 2014
The Artwork
The understated, Instragrammed artwork of Beck’s Morning Phase speaks a lot about what the record’s sound will be like. The sun drenched, faded picture matches the syrupy, reverby music within perfectly. That hat though…
The Good
The best songs on Beck’s 12th album have wonderful influences. Bits of classics like the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel and newer legends like Iron & Wine and Ryan Adams show up often, always bent in Beck’s own unique direction. Songs like openers “Morning” and “Heart Is A Drum” have dreamy, floating vocals over beautifully picked guitar and twinkly piano. They may be slow, but they are not boring. “Turn Away” is full of expertly composed vocal harmonies, “Blue Moon” is fast, infectious folk-pop, and “Blackbird Chain” has more than just the word “blackbird” in common with a Beatles song. It sounds like it’s straight out of Paul McCartney’s songwriting manual. Album closer “Waking Light” takes the soft sounds of the entire record and beefs them up just a touch with slight hints of distortion and noise.
The OK
Even the ok songs on Morning Phase are strongly written, just teetering on the edge of boring. “Say Goodbye” and “Don’t Let It Go” are great with exciting hits and performances from the band, they just don’t have that special extra touch the great songs do. “Unforgiven” appears as a welcomed break from the soft folksyness of the previous songs, with hip-hop bass and a sparse atmosphere, but just doesn’t grow or become terribly exciting.
The Terrible (every album has at least one, don’t deny it)
The only real issue with this record are the seemingly thrown in string highlights. Isn’t it enough to have beautiful string arrangements throughout songs? Why do they need to be sectioned into one minute tracks like “Cycle” and “Phase” that people will inevitably skip. It seems smarter to make them the outros to the songs, giving them more meaning and attachment to the albums ideas. The actual songs that stand out as subpar are “Wave” and “Country Down,” which both have nothing truly unique about them, “Wave” even going so far as sounding like acoustic Nickelback (sorry Beck!).
The Verdict
Isolation is the theme of the record. The lyrics show this, but most importantly, the music always seems to have a tinge of loneliness to it. The production is beautifully distorted and empty and heavily reverbed, all contributing to the saloon-like atmosphere Beck seems to be singing within. The record seems to have a sister in Ryan Adams’ Ashes & Fire. Both records are accomplished musicians returning after a bit of a hiatus and both contain simple songs elevated by superb instrumentation and performance, always finding ways to push the typical song formula to a new place, whether it be using odd chords or bizarre instrumentation. Cut out the unnecessary string intros and tracks and Beck has a beautiful renaissance ahead of him.
The Final Rating: 8/10
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