The April playlist

Is it just me or did April go by SO quickly for anyone else? It's been a pretty busy month for me so I haven't had as much time for music as usual, in fact my playlist for this month has just over 30 songs when last month's had over 50, and there aren't too many new releases in there except for three albums which I'll come on to later. As this is my first post of this type I'm not 100% sure how I'll be doing things, but I definitely won't be going through every song in the playlist (though feel free to listen to it here).

Starting with a song I added on the 1st which is 'My Motto' by Jade Bird, whose album came out later in the month. I first heard her a little while ago on the radio with the single 'Uh Huh' which still remains my favourite song by her but 'My Motto' comes in at a close second, mainly for the chorus which always seems to lift my mood when I hear it. I really like the album and think it's really cool how she manages to fuse multiple genres together and appeal to such a wide audience. My main criticism would be that there are a few songs that risk sounding quite similar or just don't appeal as much to me, I much prefer the faster songs for example, and I probably wouldn't choose to listen to the album in full, but rather just play the tracks that stand out to me, which are the ones I've already mentioned along with 'Going Gone', 'Side Effects', and 'Love Has All Been Done Before'.

Much like every other month, I've got a few Neck Deep songs in there, and I wouldn't be surprised if I have the same ones in last month's playlist since I'm pretty much always listening to them. My favourites are 'Serpents', 'Don't Wait', and 'The Grand Delusion'.

I've been listening to a lot of Sam Fender this month which I should really stop doing since I haven't got tickets to see him on tour in May and it seems to hurt a bit more with every listen, I guess he'll tour again later in the year though as he's just announced a debut album, 'Hypersonic Missiles' (cover above) to be released in August. Not only does he make bloody great music, he also hates Ed Sheeran and for some reason that makes me love him more. If I had to recommend just one Sam Fender song to someone it definitely would be 'Hypersonic Missiles' but I also love 'Spice', despite not really loving the verses in it, the chorus is SO good and definitely makes the song. His cover of 'Waiting For Love' for Spotify Singles is also great and I'm so glad this was done with Spotify so I can actually add it to my playlists, unlike his live lounge cover of 'Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I'm Bored' which is sadly only on youtube (I'm pretty sure half the views on that video are from me, the amount I watch it).

Another new album released in April was 'Odd One Out' by GIRLI, the album is a lot of fun but I wish it was slightly longer, especially as it's her debut I feel like she could've included a few more songs to properly showcase herself, also since 4 out of the 9 tracks on the album had already been released as singles. Regardless of that it's still a really great album, and i guess a shorter album means there's less risk of any dull moments or songs sounding too same-y which this album definitely doesn't have. It was really cool to see GIRLI on the last date of her 'Odd One Out' tour in Oxford on Sunday, she put on a great show and it made me love the album so much more, as well as some of her older tunes. (I vlogged the gig over on my youtube channel so you can watch that here if you're interested) Personal highlights on the album for me have to be 'Friday Night Big Screen', 'Pink' and 'Hot Mess'. 

I guess I should also mention Catfish and the Bottlemen's new album 'The Balance' which was released last Friday (26th April). I probably would consider myself a catfish fan considering I love their first two albums and actually own one of their logo t-shirts for the last album. Sadly though, 'The Balance' was slightly disappointing for me, not really because the songs are bad (although I really dislike 'Overlap'- the different sections of the song don't seem to match, especially the chorus and second verse, it's literally as mismatched as my GCSE music compositions) but rather because the songs have nothing new about them to separate them from previous releases, and unfortunately I don't think Catfish are a band I can be genuinely enthusiastic about when they fail to evolve and refine their sound with each new release. My guess would be that they'll continue to release music with the exact same sound since they've got a pretty big fanbase over on indie twitter (basically all the people with crocodile emojis in their twitter name) and are pretty popular in America as well, so there isn't really any pressure to change up what they're doing, when what they're doing (which is good) has got them this far. I probably will continue to listen to their first two albums and I'd lie to see them live as they seem to put on a good show but this album just didn't really do it for me. There are a few songs I like off the album however, namely 'Basically' and 'Longshot'.

Finally, I've been listening to a lot of wallows this month, and although this album was released in March, I've been listening to it more now I finally have tickets to see them on tour in June after the sold out venue was upgraded. One of my favourite things about this album is the transitions between songs and how smooth they are, listening to it in the right order just to hear the transitions is pretty satisfying, and the synths used on a lot of the tracks are also cool. The stand-out tunes for me on the album are 'Remember When', 'Are You Bored Yet?', 'Ice Cold Pool' and 'Scrawny'.

Thanks for reading if you got this far, obviously I'm not the best writer ever so if anyone has any tips or feedback then feel free to comment down below, also if you've been loving the same stuff as me or have any recommendations then I'd love to hear some.