The Bushweeds complete album, 'Absence of Hope', is now up on Youtube..

Link to playlist - Absence of Hope.

 

Yep, after spending some more time collecting strange images to put together to make some visuals to the songs, they're all now available to listen to on Youtube.. 

Emphasis and effort put into the visuals is varying, as that wasn't really the point.. just an addendum so that I wouldn't be uploading just a song with a black screen throughout...

I'll be starting this rundown on the fourth track, which is also the title track, 'Absence of Hope', as the three first tracks were covered in the previous post.

Since this is the title track, I.. err, I mean, the band, wanted it to be something that felt a little more grand than your average punk rock song. This track isn't really a punk song at all, but more some kind of slow I-don't-know-what-to-call-it kind of rock song.. I guess. It breaks the mold even more with the first track, so it seems that 'The Bushweeds' is not a band afraid to try different things.. for better or for worse.

It's not a bad song, but does it fit in? Thinking in terms of a complete album where songs are played successively.. an uncommon thing in this day and age where everybody just skips to the next song on their streaming platform, having a song like this is probably good to make an album seem varied and dynamic. Instead of having every song chug along at the same tempo and intensity.

Then comes the fifth track, 'Don't Eat Pencils off the Sidewalk', whose title is totally not a rip off from off this song by The Cramps... This one is probably the strangest track on the album, on first listen.. a song about eating pencils and the graphite industry!? What!? Yeah, not gonna say more.. this one also brings the tempo back up again, in preparation for their next track perhaps..

 

 

Number six, 'When the family arrives...'. This one starts of right away with a high tempo and shouted verse in punk rock style about.. well, what happens when members of the family show up to gather. Judging from the psychedelic images in the video (What were they on when they made this!? ;) ) it probably doesn't end well....

Track number seven, 'Dave Lost His Flute', is just the intro to the next track. Two minutes or so of flute playing.. nothing to say here, moving along... It's point though is to serve as a breather after the previous high energy song.

Before it gives way to the eighth track, purposefully or accidentally, numbered as the seventh track on the album. Another song in the punk rock style, but where the other one was a little more hardcore, this one has a poppier and more accessible sound which makes it sound a upbeat and enjoyable, in spite of the sad subject matter of being a homeless man...

 Then it's back to the more hardcore punk sound again. This song, 'Promises from out of town', has the most abrasive intro of all songs on this album... Sounds like they were angry with something or someone here... Spokeswoman and drummer Kajsa Tangstad says they wrote this song after their visit to the record company in Cyme Ixotic, where they hoped to get a record deal...

Then after they've let out some steam on the previous track, they continue with this one, 'Thanks for Nothing', where they take it back to some kind of pop-punk song which turns out to be a break-up song! Ugggh.... give me a break! ;) Now, I don't hate the song, but this is probably my least favourite on this album... it's just not what I would listen to... what are you? Taylor Swift!? Blah!
 

..and then for their final song, they take it down, down, down to a dark and gloomy place in this stripped down track, 'Cash for a rainy day', about a mother in the city struggling to make ends meat... oh boy. This one is far, far removed from 'Party Punk', which they started off saying they were, but it is probably my favourite track here right now... there are no loud screaming guitars or bravado to this track, but that only makes the message stand out more..

The last track, 'Dave found his flute', is just another two-three minute flute track in a similar fashion to the previous one with almost the same name, but this one sounds a little more uplifting and.. heavenly (?) for lack of a better word.. it also gives me the feeling of watching some ending credits. Not sure if that is a property of the track itself, or just because I know this is the last song. ;)

..and that was it, clocking out on a playing time of 44 minutes and 14 seconds.. a varied punk-pop album with celtic influences.. that's what I would call it. ;) And actually.. the title does seem appropriate, as, apart from the first track 'We are party punk', where they introduce themselves, an absence of hope does indeed seem to be an underlying theme one way or another in every song that follows... the album is perhaps a little bit uneven in the way that it seems they don't know if they should be pop or punk, but on overall I'll say it's a job well done. ;)