Review: Ferried Away by Stay Inside released independently
Last one I have to write for February, we did it girls, I am never doing this method again. (I will forget next year.)
Every year I decide to try to run things a bit differently and every year I go back to the old me. Oftentimes the issue is biting off much more than I can chew and with March being such a heavy release month it’s often the time of year I have to ask myself the big questions. Just before we stop using every news site available, however, we found Stay Inside.
One thing standing out to me about Stay Inside is their vocalist, Chris Johns, who has a very distinct type of delivery. Chris has this way of singing where it both sounds nonchalant and totally invested. The “I swear man” on the first track says it all before you dive too deep into anything else. There’s also a way of storytelling within the lyricism which has me completely invested because you know this author has been through it. On “Bon Zs” I have to ask myself if the question “I wonder if you tell your family Heaven isn’t real” is meant to tell us the narrator is the religious one or if it's at the expense of someone with religious trauma. Either way it’s pointed and it’s felt. The most potent of this effect is “A Backyard,” where we’re walking through a visit to an old friend; they’re doing well, they have kids, they have a life and it’s all so foreign to you. You wish you were part of this picture but you aren’t. It’s an emo trope, but when done well tropes are tropes for a reason.
But I like it, and I might just stay, cause I miss these days.
Your daughter, your neighbors, I wish they knew my name.
There’s quite a bit of emo gold in general on the entirety of Ferried Away. “My Fault” opens with a heavy hitter line and the track sonically is pure gold. A lot of bands do this, Stay Inside feels like a force of it. Also the pause at the top of the hook is just really strong writing. This band also wanted you to be invested from the jump here. “Bon Zs” is produced so intricately, there’s horns, there’s so much prog rock influence and there’s more than just one jaw dropping line. My test of a great band is if you’re willing to do things on a record most artists would save for a live show. Track one into track two sounds so natural as if it’s happening before my eyes and a track like “Learn to Float” should feel strange as the second on the album and yet it was formulated very well here.
Tell me I was selfish, yeah, I don’t mind.
No smiles, no flowers, no ashes, no concern.
I can admit I sometimes get too invested in being an art critic when the entire point of me starting this stuff was I was an art fan. This record made me stop in my tracks. I put it on and pushed plans back to really get lost in it. I texted a friend from back home and told him he’d probably dig it as opposed to listening three times, posting my review, onto the next. Sometimes you need to stop and really check this stuff out. After listening to this one I cut my massive album backlog by over thirty releases. There’s no point in being some MusicBoard nerd if all I’m doing is treating artists like numbers.
I like this, I might just stay awhile.
Our score of Ferried Away is 8/10.
Our favorite track was track 3, A Backyard.
Comments
Post a Comment