| Rating: | ★★★★★ |
| Category: | Music |
| Genre: | Alternative Rock |
| Artist: | Thoughts And Notions |
Thoughts And Notions returns with a bang!
Expansion is always good. Thoughts And Notions' brand new self-titled album is a proof to that. The last time I reviewed their debut album, In Awe of His Amazing Love, I marveled at this young band's eagerness and passion to bring forth their faith driven songs with no nonsense approach following the trails of foreign CCM bands like Jars of Clay and Sixpence None the Richer. This time around, they have expanded their songs' themes as they seek to continue on with their songs' stories. Before listening to their new album, I highly recommend that you should be able to listen to their debut album. Somehow there is a continuity between the two and the themes of the songs from this new album would better be understood if you get to know the root story and the vision of this band. As always, owning a Thoughts And Notions album is like opening an inspiratonal storybook. They just don't give you the standard CD sleeves featuring Album Credits, Lyrics, and Thank You's, but they also communicate to us through an introductory message that shares their thoughts about the album that you have in your hand. Before I could go on and start writing about the album's song contents, I could not proceed without mentioning this album's concept packaging. First things first, the album is packaged in an eco-friendly brown envelope wrapped with a colorful sticker that balances the thoughtful environmental friendly packaging and the eye candy visual artwork done by Jeniffer Aranaydo. And if this alone would enchant you, wait till you get to open the envelope and take a peek at what's inside. The album is loaded with thingymagigs that will make this album even more worthwhile. It contains 2 pre printed CD sleeves, a lyric sheet, a band name sticker, and a Lyric card of the song Beloved Savior. They are calling this album as a "Build Your Own Album" concept as the stuffs loaded in this album would help you create your own album by choosing which of the pre-printed CD sleeves to use if you decide to transfer the CD in a Jewel Case. The pre-printed album cover artworks varies in such a way that it would cover various album cover preferences from the artistic taste (A Mandala painting album cover design courtesy of Kelly Palaganas-Ramos), a more commercial taste (A fresh and light on the eyes album cover design by Alvin Carreon), or to a more personal touch by designing your own album cover utilizing the lyric sheet which has a blank face for you to use as a canvass for your artwork. The packaging alone is no slouch, and this is really a well thought of album presentation. The band clearly expanded the dimensions of audio cd album presentations by making this more personal. Looking at it, it's like a gift from the band to their friends and listeners.
Seeing that the packaging of the album was carefully planned out, I guess it would be fair to raise your expectations on what the album's song contents would be. Specially after knowing that it has been close to 4 years since the band wrote their first song for their debut album (which was wholly a Jasper Tan-Wilbert Tan songwriting tandem), and knowing that the songwriting creative process has been expanded to accomodate the contibutions of the new members (Adonis Berongoy, Erickson Gloria, and Doris Bangot). The album opens to a rousing track called Arise which was written by Jasper and the new members. Indeed it is a rousing song (no pun intended), a perfect song to kickstart the album as it awakes you with it's bouncy guitar riffs, especially when you reach the stinging guitar solo lead up to Thrina's hypnotic wailing of "I will never give up..." I could perfectly imagine this song to be the band's curtain raiser song in their gigs, good song to fire up the crowd. The ending of this song would segue to the opening guitar riffs of their chosen carrier single, the Jasper-Wilbert penned song called Runaway Angel, a riff heavy soaring alternative rock song that is textured with keyboards, giving it a fuller and richer sound. The lyrics is quite poetic and dazzling, playful even, with a smart choice of words that blends in nicely with the many layered sound. Thrina has expanded her vocal acrobatics which is nicely featured in this song. The band turns heavier and louder in the third track of the album called When as Wilbert and Jasper tries to raise their songwriting creativeness to another level. Well, truthfully this song is hard to decipher, from the lyrics down to it's sound. But this is not a song disaster mind you. It's just that this song is most probably the hardest to digest of all the songs in the album. It sounds loud and heavy but still melodic nonetheless, and the lyrics are so deep, which in a way deviates from the simpleness of the band's trademark lyrics. Being the oldest members of the group, I guess both of these guys valiantly tried to experiment on this song. The next string of tracks in the album will show the band's softer side. First up is the song called Cloudy Day. It is a direct descendant of the band's biggest hit song from their debut album called Earthbound Angel. Written by Adonis and Erickson, Cloudy Day has all the right formulas for a sing song ballad. They wrote this song with the appeal of Pinoy's love for ballad songs. The next song is a song that features guest violinist Jan Martin Legazpi's violin tracks. This song reminds us a lot about Freddie Aguilar's song called Anak. Mr. Legazpi's violin tracks soulfully tugs our heart strings as it perfectly blends well with the lyrics of this song which talks about a parent's undying love for their child even if the child has decided to tread his own path in life. Jasper and Wilbert brilliantly captures our sentimental side with this song's heart tugging lyrics and music.
What will a Thoughts And Notions album be if there is no song that expresses their gratitude for God's love? The next song called Beloved Savior would be that song. Beloved Savior is a song written by Adonis and enhanced by Wilbert. It is the song featured on the Lyric Card. This song is perhaps their most honest song to date that speaks about their reverence and gratitude to our God. And the band would like to give this song as a gift to us by using it as the pocket sized lyric card so that we could easily bring it along with us and be reminded of our love for HIM. The next song called A Promise is a Wilbert Tan penned song that has an Orchestraic and grand feel to it. An epic song that enchants you with it's grand sound and dream like tune that could put us in a trance. I could easily imagine this song being played live by the band alongside an orchestra. Seeing and hearing this song live should be a treat. So while this song is grand and a big sounding song, the band strips down to their acoustic guitars in the next song called Safer In My Heart. Jasper and Adonis wrote this song with heart tugging earnestness to show and speak about love's innocent hope and promise. This song clearly shows that the band can also deliver a sound that could capture our attention even if their song is stripped down to the bare essentials. Sometimes we don't need a grand sounding song to garner one's attention, sometimes it would only take us an honest, soulful, and inspirational song like Safer In My Heart to be able to catch our attention and listen to the beating of our heart. The band amazingly shows this facet in them through this song. Doris also provided soulful back up vocals on Thrina's lead vocals in this song. This song also closes the band's soft side in this album as the next song would bring us back to the band's upbeat songs. Like Heaven is a song that closely reminds us of the song My Love Song from their debut album. A hook laden pop song that also shows some traces of Chinese sounding guitar riffs. No surprise there really since Jasper, Wilbert, and Thrina are of Chinese heritage. But this is a smart way of also giving ode to their chinese roots. The last song in the album is where all the band's songwriting creativity comes to a head. Stronger, Higher, Further will show the band members collaborative effort to come out with an anthemic song that talks about hope and courage. Jasper's lyric writing maturity is brightly featured in this song through the use of easily relatable choice of words without losing it's poetic value. I guess this untangles the mess of the song When. By not consciously writing a lyric with the intentions of making it brilliant, but instead allow the lyrics to flow through him and dictate his lyric writing. Meanwhile the song structure was well balanced by the band as the new members provided the song's basic structure and then let Wilbert experiment on the songs final sound. Thus, the anthemic value of this song is kept in tacked as they originally intended this song to be.
But the songs does not end there. The band included two bonus tracks that are so far out from the rest of the tracks in the album. First, there's the tagalog environmental song called Sa Pagsapit ng Panahon. This song has an ethnic and tribal feel to it by using acoustic guitars accompanied by tribal sounding percussions. This song is pinoy na pinoy and as the eco friendly album packaging shows, this band is affectionate towards our environment. The other bonus track in this album meanwhile shows their Mindanaoan roots as they wrote a song in the local bisayan dialect. This song is also sang by Adonis with Thrina doing the backup vocal chores. This song though is actually a full length jingle for a local brand sardines which helped the band financially in producing this album.
Overall, this album has leaped beyond my expectations on their follow up. By expanding the album's packaging concept, song themes, and even the guest musicians and their sound, it actually worked very well for them. And owning both of their albums is an added treat since I'm able to appreciate more the tale that they have weaved in their songs that truly spoke about Faith, Love, Hope, and Redemption. I'm giving this a 5 star for the sole reason that it went beyond my expectations.
Expansion is always good. Thoughts And Notions' brand new self-titled album is a proof to that. The last time I reviewed their debut album, In Awe of His Amazing Love, I marveled at this young band's eagerness and passion to bring forth their faith driven songs with no nonsense approach following the trails of foreign CCM bands like Jars of Clay and Sixpence None the Richer. This time around, they have expanded their songs' themes as they seek to continue on with their songs' stories. Before listening to their new album, I highly recommend that you should be able to listen to their debut album. Somehow there is a continuity between the two and the themes of the songs from this new album would better be understood if you get to know the root story and the vision of this band. As always, owning a Thoughts And Notions album is like opening an inspiratonal storybook. They just don't give you the standard CD sleeves featuring Album Credits, Lyrics, and Thank You's, but they also communicate to us through an introductory message that shares their thoughts about the album that you have in your hand. Before I could go on and start writing about the album's song contents, I could not proceed without mentioning this album's concept packaging. First things first, the album is packaged in an eco-friendly brown envelope wrapped with a colorful sticker that balances the thoughtful environmental friendly packaging and the eye candy visual artwork done by Jeniffer Aranaydo. And if this alone would enchant you, wait till you get to open the envelope and take a peek at what's inside. The album is loaded with thingymagigs that will make this album even more worthwhile. It contains 2 pre printed CD sleeves, a lyric sheet, a band name sticker, and a Lyric card of the song Beloved Savior. They are calling this album as a "Build Your Own Album" concept as the stuffs loaded in this album would help you create your own album by choosing which of the pre-printed CD sleeves to use if you decide to transfer the CD in a Jewel Case. The pre-printed album cover artworks varies in such a way that it would cover various album cover preferences from the artistic taste (A Mandala painting album cover design courtesy of Kelly Palaganas-Ramos), a more commercial taste (A fresh and light on the eyes album cover design by Alvin Carreon), or to a more personal touch by designing your own album cover utilizing the lyric sheet which has a blank face for you to use as a canvass for your artwork. The packaging alone is no slouch, and this is really a well thought of album presentation. The band clearly expanded the dimensions of audio cd album presentations by making this more personal. Looking at it, it's like a gift from the band to their friends and listeners.
Seeing that the packaging of the album was carefully planned out, I guess it would be fair to raise your expectations on what the album's song contents would be. Specially after knowing that it has been close to 4 years since the band wrote their first song for their debut album (which was wholly a Jasper Tan-Wilbert Tan songwriting tandem), and knowing that the songwriting creative process has been expanded to accomodate the contibutions of the new members (Adonis Berongoy, Erickson Gloria, and Doris Bangot). The album opens to a rousing track called Arise which was written by Jasper and the new members. Indeed it is a rousing song (no pun intended), a perfect song to kickstart the album as it awakes you with it's bouncy guitar riffs, especially when you reach the stinging guitar solo lead up to Thrina's hypnotic wailing of "I will never give up..." I could perfectly imagine this song to be the band's curtain raiser song in their gigs, good song to fire up the crowd. The ending of this song would segue to the opening guitar riffs of their chosen carrier single, the Jasper-Wilbert penned song called Runaway Angel, a riff heavy soaring alternative rock song that is textured with keyboards, giving it a fuller and richer sound. The lyrics is quite poetic and dazzling, playful even, with a smart choice of words that blends in nicely with the many layered sound. Thrina has expanded her vocal acrobatics which is nicely featured in this song. The band turns heavier and louder in the third track of the album called When as Wilbert and Jasper tries to raise their songwriting creativeness to another level. Well, truthfully this song is hard to decipher, from the lyrics down to it's sound. But this is not a song disaster mind you. It's just that this song is most probably the hardest to digest of all the songs in the album. It sounds loud and heavy but still melodic nonetheless, and the lyrics are so deep, which in a way deviates from the simpleness of the band's trademark lyrics. Being the oldest members of the group, I guess both of these guys valiantly tried to experiment on this song. The next string of tracks in the album will show the band's softer side. First up is the song called Cloudy Day. It is a direct descendant of the band's biggest hit song from their debut album called Earthbound Angel. Written by Adonis and Erickson, Cloudy Day has all the right formulas for a sing song ballad. They wrote this song with the appeal of Pinoy's love for ballad songs. The next song is a song that features guest violinist Jan Martin Legazpi's violin tracks. This song reminds us a lot about Freddie Aguilar's song called Anak. Mr. Legazpi's violin tracks soulfully tugs our heart strings as it perfectly blends well with the lyrics of this song which talks about a parent's undying love for their child even if the child has decided to tread his own path in life. Jasper and Wilbert brilliantly captures our sentimental side with this song's heart tugging lyrics and music.
What will a Thoughts And Notions album be if there is no song that expresses their gratitude for God's love? The next song called Beloved Savior would be that song. Beloved Savior is a song written by Adonis and enhanced by Wilbert. It is the song featured on the Lyric Card. This song is perhaps their most honest song to date that speaks about their reverence and gratitude to our God. And the band would like to give this song as a gift to us by using it as the pocket sized lyric card so that we could easily bring it along with us and be reminded of our love for HIM. The next song called A Promise is a Wilbert Tan penned song that has an Orchestraic and grand feel to it. An epic song that enchants you with it's grand sound and dream like tune that could put us in a trance. I could easily imagine this song being played live by the band alongside an orchestra. Seeing and hearing this song live should be a treat. So while this song is grand and a big sounding song, the band strips down to their acoustic guitars in the next song called Safer In My Heart. Jasper and Adonis wrote this song with heart tugging earnestness to show and speak about love's innocent hope and promise. This song clearly shows that the band can also deliver a sound that could capture our attention even if their song is stripped down to the bare essentials. Sometimes we don't need a grand sounding song to garner one's attention, sometimes it would only take us an honest, soulful, and inspirational song like Safer In My Heart to be able to catch our attention and listen to the beating of our heart. The band amazingly shows this facet in them through this song. Doris also provided soulful back up vocals on Thrina's lead vocals in this song. This song also closes the band's soft side in this album as the next song would bring us back to the band's upbeat songs. Like Heaven is a song that closely reminds us of the song My Love Song from their debut album. A hook laden pop song that also shows some traces of Chinese sounding guitar riffs. No surprise there really since Jasper, Wilbert, and Thrina are of Chinese heritage. But this is a smart way of also giving ode to their chinese roots. The last song in the album is where all the band's songwriting creativity comes to a head. Stronger, Higher, Further will show the band members collaborative effort to come out with an anthemic song that talks about hope and courage. Jasper's lyric writing maturity is brightly featured in this song through the use of easily relatable choice of words without losing it's poetic value. I guess this untangles the mess of the song When. By not consciously writing a lyric with the intentions of making it brilliant, but instead allow the lyrics to flow through him and dictate his lyric writing. Meanwhile the song structure was well balanced by the band as the new members provided the song's basic structure and then let Wilbert experiment on the songs final sound. Thus, the anthemic value of this song is kept in tacked as they originally intended this song to be.
But the songs does not end there. The band included two bonus tracks that are so far out from the rest of the tracks in the album. First, there's the tagalog environmental song called Sa Pagsapit ng Panahon. This song has an ethnic and tribal feel to it by using acoustic guitars accompanied by tribal sounding percussions. This song is pinoy na pinoy and as the eco friendly album packaging shows, this band is affectionate towards our environment. The other bonus track in this album meanwhile shows their Mindanaoan roots as they wrote a song in the local bisayan dialect. This song is also sang by Adonis with Thrina doing the backup vocal chores. This song though is actually a full length jingle for a local brand sardines which helped the band financially in producing this album.
Overall, this album has leaped beyond my expectations on their follow up. By expanding the album's packaging concept, song themes, and even the guest musicians and their sound, it actually worked very well for them. And owning both of their albums is an added treat since I'm able to appreciate more the tale that they have weaved in their songs that truly spoke about Faith, Love, Hope, and Redemption. I'm giving this a 5 star for the sole reason that it went beyond my expectations.
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