Cassette Review // Beauty Pill "Please Advise" (Northern Spy Records)

$9 //
https://beautypill.bandcamp.com/album/please-advise //

If you've ever received an email from me where I didn't know what to do next, you will most likely have had the email end with "Please advise".   I like this cassette right away because of that title.   It makes me feel less weird because I'm not the only one, apparently, who likes to ask for help, who likes to learn how to proceed, with such words.  

Musically, these songs can take on the sound of electro-acoustics.   It's heavy on the percussion and at times can remind me of anything from Straylight Run and Panic At The Disco to Nine Inch Nails and Fatboy Slim.  Though there is a remix at the end of this cassette, it is four songs so it feels more like an EP than anything else, which works because it comes in the type of sleeve you would get a cassingle in.   

My favorite song on here is "The Damnedest Thing", which also has a sweet music video.  I know we're all mostly stuck inside this summer, but this is one of those songs I wish I could blast out of my car speakers with the windows rolled down.   I have a complex relationship with the radio so I will say that if I didn't believe this song was too good for the radio then it would be the type of song you could hear on your modern rock station (In a better world, perhaps, one not ruled by money)

Lyrically, these songs have some of the best lines you can pull from any songs.   I'm not sure why but the first song likes to say: "I live inside my own heart Matt Damon".   I'm not sure what Matt Damon has to do with any of this, but I'm here for it.  Did you hear the sort of hidden insult in the line "You're going to make some plastic surgeon a rich man"? Because ouch.  But, of course, my favorite is the question posed by "The Damnedest Thing": "What if the thing that will get you killed is also the thing that helps you live?"  What could that be?  Food for thought.

One of the things I like about this cassette (and Beauty Pill, in general, for doing this) is, as per the Bandcamp page: "Each physical format (CD, LP, cassette) features unique artwork and a unique piece of music, exclusive to that format.Track 5 on the cassette is Michael Kentoff's remix of "The Damnedest Thing.""   This means if you buy this on cassette, you'll hear a song only you can hear on this cassette and the same can be said for the other formats as well.    Even the digital version has a special song, so like Pokemon you've gotta catch 'em all!