Music album review: Spice.’s “pathos”

Junior Clayton Helms released his new album “pathos” under his stage name Spice. Nov. 9 to Spotify, Apple Music and Soundcloud.

November 14, 2018

Junior Clayton Helm's cover album for "pathos."

Junior Clayton Helm’s cover album for “pathos.”

Overall the album gave an indie rap vibe, similar to Rex Orange County or Tyler the Creator. All of the songs from the very beginning track “untitled” gave listeners an insight to Spice.’s views on his daily thoughts throughout life. The background beats fit each particular song, with upbeat sounds to the happier songs ,“lovely introduction,” “the city” and “everything,” then with the gloomy sounding songs, Spice. used lyrics that are low-key and of a similar background sound in “moonman.” The main downside with this album was Spice.’s repetitive word choice and overall sound of each song in his album.

 

Highlights

“lovely introduction”

A definite bop. Add this to your mood booster playlist. Now, this song was absolutely amazing all in part to how positive it began. LANY fans will be most obsessed with this song because it’s not only upbeat but the lyrics will make the listener feel relaxed and content. Spice. touches on how love is hard to find for anyone, a thing most teenagers can relate to. With spice.’s smooth vocals in combination with the chill background music, it sounds very similar to Khalid’s music.

“intentionally lonely”

It’s easy to tell this will be a mellow song from just glancing at the title, which is perfect for Spice.’s easygoing vocals. Spice. begins with a very quiet and almost depressing tone, but as the song goes on it begins to become upbeat as the background music becomes louder and upfront. The only downside with this song is Spice.’s lowered voice. It’s sometimes hard to understand his lyrics and the meaning.

“cold”

With a similar message  to Maroon 5’s “Cold” that came out in summer 2017, this song also goes on with the effects of having cold feelings toward someone a person was once super close to. The rhythm of the beats coordinates perfectly with the lyrics about this song having to do with having distant feelings toward a person. But similarly to Maroon 5’s “Cold,” the rhythm in the background brings an enthusiastic feeling to a topic people see as negative. The interlude of lyrics going into the steady rhythm are executed perfectly throughout this track.

Lowlights

“moonman”

The chill Sunday afternoon vibes seen from the background beats make this song great only for background noise. Spice. is hard to understand throughout the entire track and the background music cancels out all of his lyrics. With no lyrics to be understood, this song loses its meaning because all of Spice.’s songs such as “untitled” and “onesided” drive the listener’s attention when his feelings throughout the song are easily understood, without the background sounds being too loud.

“everything”

This song is about everything, a confusing mixture of everything. The first 15 seconds of this song sound very calm and collective almost all the songs have sounded like this at the beginning. After 15 seconds, it instantly picks up its pace way faster than it needed to and was completely unnecessary, leading to confusion of what the song is really about. The last part of the song picks up the echoes of the calm and collective beginning. The lyrics were minimal in this song, making it hard to understand as the listener.

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Olivia Dowell, Print Editor

Olivia Dowell is a senior and the Print Editor for “The Express” and was the Features Editor last year and a writer two years ago. Along with Newspaper, she is a member of the cross country team and watches lots of Netflix. She likes to window shop online as much as she can and last, but not least, loves her Mini Australian Shepherd, Maggie, the most. On staff this year, Olivia is looking forward to making each and every print issue the best she can as well as improving her writing even more.

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