Northbound – As Long As The Sun Is Up
Record Label: Self-released
Release Date: November 22, 2012
Sometimes I pretend to enjoy happy music but really I’m just filling up my quota so I can say that I listen to all types of music then I go back to sad, angry dudes singing about being sad and angry. So when the record opens up with the words “We all mess up. I fucked up” I immediately know that despite the fact that I’ve probably listened hours of shit exactly like this, nothing will stop me from memorizing every word.
Northbound is one dude named Jon Fraser who played in a band called Sleep Patterns and now he’s singing emo punk with an acoustic guitar. He sings about sucking at life over simple chord progressions and doesn’t pretend to be a poet. Instead of comparing girls to summer days he opts to say things like “I really fucking miss your face”. But this isn’t a bad thing; in fact it’s a pretty good thing because he’s singing exactly what he wants to sing.
It also places a lot of the heavy lifting on Fraser’s vocals which are, to use redundant words, raw and emotional. These words are often synonymous with out of tune and generally not so pleasant sounding but this is not the case here. But the standard “good” voices almost always lack the power to convey emotion. Fraser is one of the talented few who can sing in tenor melodiously and still be heartbreaking at the same time.
He doesn’t always sound so nice though. Sometimes when he really needs to make a point he stops strumming to yell and the contrast to his voice makes it sound that much better. Lines like: "please come pick me up, because this time I really mean it, I really fucked up" will always be accompanied in your head with the sound of Fraser’s distraught shrieks.
Twenty minutes after you hit play, Fraser says “Fuck you, now I’m done” and he’s actually not joking cause the album ends. Maybe in a year I’ll be content with life and I’ll wonder why I ever enjoyed As Long as the Sun Is Up but for now, it’ll do.
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