We have reached the point where most everyone has access to tools that used to be owned by the lucky few. Sharing thoughts and words with a mass audience was once the domain of powerful figures with printing presses, but the Internet age allows anyone with a laptop and a connection to find a crowd (sort of what I\u2019m doing, or at least trying to do). Making a movie meant obtaining expensive camera and sound equipment, then buying reams of film to record the process. I can make a film on my phone, edit it, then put it online for all to see \u2014 in a matter of minutes.<\/p>\n
But writing thoughts on a blog doesn\u2019t make people professional writers, and throwing a movie on YouTube doesn\u2019t make someone a filmmaker. And yet a lone figure in a bedroom armed with a Casio and Pro Tools is praised as a premier musician (too often by a blogger), dubbed the next Bernard Sumner or Martin Gore.<\/p>\n
Backed by fuzzy synths and distant vocals (or is that distant synths and fuzzy vocals?) Justin Vallesteros, through his musical nom de plume Craft Spells, is gaining lauds for tapping a lost \u201980s esprit. But in his six-song EP Gallery, Vallesteros channels an \u201980s colorless and unimaginative \u2014 though the sound quality is reminiscent of a cassette tape used again and again, more tragic than nostalgic.<\/p>\n
My main issue with the work is once Vallesteros finds a beat, he maintains it throughout each song without much exploration. The opening \u201cShe Left With Me\u201d has promise, a dreamy guitar echos in the background as the synths churn out an OMD meets Pains of Being Pure at Heart mixture. But the drum machine is too pungent and Vallesteros\u2019 voice never rises above the fray, it stays even-tempo and uninteresting. The following \u201cWarmth\u201d prolongs this monotony \u2013 the nice little guitar-play pushing along the beat grows tiresome by song\u2019s end, dawdling in the final 35 seconds several beats longer than it should.<\/p>\n
\u201cBurst\u201d has potential \u2013 it captures a winning Manchester sound, one-part New Order, one-part Stone Roses \u2013 and it\u2019s the one track where Vallesteros understated vocals make sense. It doesn\u2019t linger like the previous songs, there\u2019s a bit of style and editing to this song.<\/p>\n
But \u201cLeave My Shadow\u201d quickly disrupts this uptick, calling to mind the Happy Mondays album where the drug-hazed Ryder brothers wrote vapid beats without adding any lyrics. True, there are lyrics in this song, but they are too casual for anyone to care.<\/p>\n
I understand in a live setting Craft Spells is solid and impressive, as the use of a full band brings Vallesteros music to life. But in album form, Gallery\u2018s songs are listless and lack inspiration, best left behind bedroom doors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We have reached the point where most everyone has access to tools that used to be owned by the lucky few. Sharing thoughts and words with a mass audience was once the domain of powerful figures with printing presses, but the Internet age allows anyone with a laptop and a connection to find a crowd […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1499,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[470,471],"class_list":["post-1498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-craft-spells","tag-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1498"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1501,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1498\/revisions\/1501"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}