a review by mxtthewdelrey for minho
From the synth intro of the opening track “The Game”, I can see why someone would recommend this album to someone with a music taste like me, and I was pretty intrigued coming into this project with an opening track as ostentatious as this. The synths are overpowering to the vocal, almost headache-y and hard to palette. The vocal performance is quite emotionless up until the point where the lead singer repeats “If that’s not enough / We’ll always have tonight” passionately over and over again until it’s a bit like being in a dream-like state. Overall, it’s a difficult opener to process but it had me fascinated.
The driving drum beat in “Heartbeats” is brilliant. I think the levels in this track are balanced so much better than in “The Game” and the vocal performance and lyrical content is overall more impressive. It’s not as synth-driven which I prefer as it doesn’t feel as GarageBand starter-pack reminiscent so it feels like a more fully realised and finished piece of work.
“White Nights” is so pretty and makes me so happy to listen to. Each track on this album so far is better than the list. That first lyric “What can I say to make you feel whole?” is so hopeful and sad at the same time. Lyrically, it’s not that far from a Hannah Diamond song but driven by real instruments rather than electronics.
“Staring At The Walls” has the most interesting melodies so far. However, I feel like my one problem with this album so far is that the vocal delivery is mostly quite lifeless - this is the same problem I have with Allie X’s music (which is pretty similar to this except this is softer). The chorus on the song is one of the shining moments where there’s a bit more emotion coming through.
“Broken” oh that intro is cool
this one was quite forgettable overall. It seems a bit filler. Needs more passion! The actual song itself is good but someone with a more powerful voice like Sky Ferreira could do a better job with this. The last verse is my favourite part.
“Strong Hearts” has a really fun intro. This track is better because the stronger use of vocal effects means that they’ve made the lack of vocal delivery work in their favour more. I love the message of the chorus, again it’s very hopeful-feeling and #relatable
“When The Strings Are Gone” is a track I was super excited for because it has such an interesting title. and it started off well, but god I could do without those synths
and girl I was expecting that title to be a really interesting lyric but that chorus is SUCH a cop-out. The pre-chorus though, that is BEAUTIFUL
I was really impressed with the melodies in the verses on “Day Drinking” but again the chorus was really lazy. “Waiting For The End To Come” came right on time (
) because it’s finally a song where the lyrical content throughout the whole thing is consistent!
“Lying On Your Grave” is SUCH a good closer. They really saved the best till list, huh? It’s darker which works better to compliment the singer’s dull tone. It’s almost reminiscent of some of Princess Chelsea’s older stuff. This is definitely a track I’ll be returning to. The instrumentation and the vocals work great together, and that makes it such a satisfying ending to the album.
Overall notes
Half the time when listening to this album, I was thinking of other artists who these songs would be better suited to, or ultimately things that I think could be fixed up to make it a better song. The singer’s vocal delivery does lack passion and a lot of the songs lack substance. When listening to an album, I like looking for the defining moments where it really feels like a highlight and I say “yes! this song slays!” but I think this album had few of those.
It was a nice listen and there were some really enjoyable tracks but there are only a few that I would return to in the future, but that’s just a personal taste thing - I can totally see why others would love this album. Just for me it was a tad too synth-driven throughout and the use of real instruments didn’t really work well with the emotionless vocals where in comparison it works for Hannah Diamond because she doesn’t use acoustic instruments and her tone is a lot more beautiful to listen to. I don’t think the lead singer of Priests’ vocal tone was captivating hardly at all sadly
The highlight tracks for me were “Heartbeats”, “White Nights”, “Waiting For The End To Come” and “Lying On Your Grave” because they felt like the most consistent throughout. There were good melodies and lyrical content and the instrumentation was more balanced to work in favour to the vocalist. Elsewhere on the album, I think there are tweaks that could be done to level some things out or to get rid of synths where they just felt unnecessary to the atmosphere of the song.
Those four I just mentioned are added to my Spotify playlist! Thank you for the recommendation minho, I always love to delve a bit into other people’s musical worlds and even if it’s not always my cup of tea, it’s fun to evaluate and look at the positives + why other people like stuff.
6/10
worst track: The Game tbh, those synths were far too much
best track: Lying On Your Grave (slay
)
now listen to VIPOTY hoe 
Thanks.