Golden Mixtape

The hardest thing for creative people is to share their art with others. This is especially true for me. To this day I won’t let anyone see the shit I wrote down in my journals in high school out of fear that I’ll be institutionalized. Plus, some of the poems…they’re pitiful attempts at trying to be deep like Good Charlotte lyrics (judge me, it’s okay). But for what I write now, that’s all good to share because you have to put yourself out there and learn from the critiques to either change what you’re doing or to keep on keeping on. So when new bands come out with music I commend them for taking the chance at putting their selves out there to be picked apart. Bands like Nobody Lives In Cleveland and their album These Dreadful Dedications. So I will do my best to give my two cents at what I liked, and what could use some polishing to shine a bit more.

Nobody Lives In Cleveland is an indie band from the streets of Blackwood, NJ. I say that like I’ve traveled the world and have seen every inch of it. Anyways, it’s two parts lady and one part male, making a trio of Popeyes loving, musical pals. Mike Graham and Jenn Nguyen sing together on a lot of the tracks, and with “The Rise of ‘88” because of the way the music sounded, it reminded me of Napoleon Dynamite and the dance scene. So images of Mike and Jenn as Napoleon and Deb played in my mind. This one was a good duet, but then there were other times that Jenn seemed to overpower Mike and you just wanted her to pull back a little.

So with that, it was definitely the slower tracks like “Every Day is an Open Door” and “Sunday Morning” where Mike showed off a vulnerable side of his voice that were highlights of the record. A couple weeks ago I seen 10 Years and then tackled the movies soundtrack, and these two would be great on there aside Oscar Isaac’s pair.

Another note, the Disney feel, which is more common than one would think in music nowadays. It probably has something to do with the age of all the up and coming artists out there. Any who, “All The Right Words” sounded at first like No Doubt’s “Running” sped up, but quickly turned into a Disneyland parade. Then a few tracks later you have “Oliver & Company (Interlude)” which was a weird break, but I hope that makes it into the live show with the pattycake sounds…

The two songs in which Mike is given the spotlight are the big winners on These Dreadful Dedications as far as personal taste and my musical ear goes. How the Nobody Lives In Cleveland choose to go about their way, that’s up to them because it’s their craft to create. They can only take that opinion as it is. These Dreadful Dedications is out now and is for fans of Camera Obscura and Ben Gibbard.

As I was wrapping this review up, “Every Day is an Open Door” played and it summed up the notion of what I started with, you have to try or else you’ll never learn. So here’s the lyric from that song that made me want to review this in the first place, “We’re all meant for something but if we do nothing how could we ever know what it truly means to grow.”