by
Vegyn
- Record Label: Plz Make It Ruins
- Release Date: Apr 5, 2024
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Apr 8, 2024It’s not only Vegyn’s curation of shifting instrumental sound, from jazzy and transcendental to glitchy and trip-hop symphonic, that showcases his dexterity. At the album’s centerfold, three tracks (“Everything Is the Same,” “The Path Less Traveled,” and “Makeshift Tourniquet”) repeat the album’s title in three different tones: one a scratchy, insidiously inhuman voice, the next a distant human echo that feels like a fading memory, and the last that’s closely spoken like a self-reminding mantra. Its meaning morphs and settles like a redemptive exhale and inhale.
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Apr 8, 2024Throughout, the music has a sort of cloudy yet optimistic feel to it that the artist has described as “happy melancholia” – reminiscent of Fred Again’s masterful “Real Life” albums without necessarily sounding like them – and an innate musicality.
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Apr 8, 2024While it hardly comes across as careless, The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions flaunts a genre-averse attitude that allows his range to shine. The album draws a throughline between the aspects of Thornalley’s sound geared towards the warehouse and those better suited for festival crowds.
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Apr 18, 2024Perhaps an entire project of shapeshifting arrangements would be too personal for comfort, a too-clear window into Thornalley’s mind. For now, he seems content to keep us at arm’s length, his exquisite music a shield against the vulnerability of really being seen.
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Apr 22, 2024The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions, just slightly overcorrects with its mainstream-seeking direction, opting for more James Blake-esque electronic pop and reeling in the eccentricities.
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Apr 8, 2024Nothing as pretty as 2019’s Debold, but it feels like his most accessible project so far – far more engaging than Headache, his recent AI-performed side hustle.