I don’t actually like a lot of this album, funnily enough, but I’m reviewing it anyway. Why, exactly? Well a lot of it is very hip-hoppy and disco friendly (yes, all at once) so it really is not my kind of music at all. And yet I like a surprising amount of it.

It’s a really varied record actually. The single Shout Out is pure electro-pop fun, there’s some Cypress Hill-style stoner hip hop in there, some very dancey stuff and some songs which border on ambient electronica.  It reminds me just a little of Gorillaz in that respect.

So why is it exactly that I find myself enjoying large parts of an album which is for the most part in a style I normally wouldn’t touch with a barge-pole?  I think that diversity has a lot to do with it, actually.  Instead of ‘hearing a genre’ and writing it off on the basis of overall sound it made me actually look for the merits of each individual song.  To be fair, there are still songs like APC which I don’t like, nor am I ever going to, but within the context of the album they still work quite well, even for a recalcitrant indie kid like myself.

It helps, I think, that I really like Shout Out, so I was approaching the album hoping to like it, rather than sitting back and waiting for it to impress me.  So this may sound like a really mean review, but it isn’t supposed to be.  Honestly, I shouldn’t like any of this, but I’m enjoying it far more than I would expect to, which given how outside my usual territory it is is a really pleasant surprise.

Honey Claws – Shout Out
Honey Claws – Giant Town

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