tl;dr Colorful synths and organs with more wobble than a Skrillex track are just a few of the things that make Junior Beams your new Summer soundtrack.
Summer is just around the corner, although you wouldn’t be able to tell by looking out my office window. Seriously, what the hell Minnesota? I love you, but its March 26th, cut this shit out. Anyway, Summertime means tasty upbeat Summer jams during the day and nothing but American Football and Springsteen during the nights. My typical Summer jams are usually filled with stuff like Of Montreal and The Flaming Lips, but this Summer, when I am kicking it at Lake Nokomis, space will need to made for The Baddest Beams.
The Baddest Beams is the psychedelic, bubblegum pop project of AJ Marsden. The album Junior Beams was release by Marsden back in 2013 but was recently reissued by 4! records and tapes. Sonically, the album sounds like if your copy of Earthbound decided it wanted to be the psych pop album it always dreamed of being. The blend of wobbly synths, classic organs with the vibrato all the way up, and classic rock guitars (that oddly remind me of Frampton) is amazing. On Junior Beams, Marsden is able to fully utilize every instrument he touches without making it a focal point of the album. However, as genius as the tones on this album are, I still have a few complaints about them. While the piano parts on Junior Beams are well-written and do an enormous amount, as far as songwriting goes, I feel as if they sound far too digital for the glo-fi sound of the album.
As much as I love the production on this album. it is completely overshadowed by the songwriting. Marsden is able to write a great hook just as much as he is able to come up with complex song structures and mood changing bridges. The songs on Junior Beams have so much substance to them when it comes to their composition that, even though it is only 6 songs, I feel like I am getting a double album’s worth of quality melodies. None of the songs linger around too long which makes the album dangerously re-listenable (I say listening to it for probably the 5th time in a row). I am completely blown away by the high level of musicianship and virtuosity of Junior Beams. Marsden shows his mastery of a multitude of instruments with no real weak spots.
-Kent Bauer
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