Music Review // Annabelle Chairlegs "Waking Up"

https://www.todomusic.net/release/552553-annabelle-chairlegs-waking-up

  One of the things which I love so much about this new album by Annabelle Chairlegs is that it has all of these elements from music both past and present that I enjoy.  It just feels to me like many different influences have come together on here to create this sound, though that also makes it more difficult to describe because none of these songs really have that sound come out purely through it's a mixture even sometimes from verse to chorus.   But I do fully believe and support the notion that taking all of the known elements of music and making them into something new creates something familiar as well, which is the best recipe for that sound I will love.

"Waking Up" begins with the titular track and the vocals are isolated and alternating through different sides of my headphones, back and forth.  Right away this album reminds me of Fiona Apple, which is a feeling that will stick throughout, but it also manages to become so much more.   Into "Concrete Trees" and there is a faster, surf punk way about this.  I'm reminded of all of those garage bands that came out at the same time some odd years ago, like Shannon & The Clams.   "Ice Cream On The Beach" has more of a keyboard influenced love ballad sound while acoustic harmonies play a big role on "Above It All".  

"Shoo Fly" has a rowdy almost country rock n roll way about it, which gets gritty in the vocals when singing about the devil.  There is lots of wailing type of bass in here which also can make me just think about the buzzing of a fly.  I am also reminded of Slothrust at this point, bringing more of the influence to the present.  "Sally" feels more like an alternative song and I'm thinking of every band I ever heard on the radio in the mid to late 1990's, like Veruca Salt, Luscious Jackson and Elastica.  "Patty Get Your Gun" kicks in with a similar '90's vibe while "Sword Swallower" starts off slower and then about halfway through switches into a walking type of country punk rock song.   Before the end of the album you'll hear energetic, fuzzy type of surf rock with bass power while there is also twang and "Beef Witted" made me think about The Clash.

"Waking Up" is also a rather fun album to listen to lyrically because there are lines you'll put out for reference later and eventually you'll also be singing along.  While the first song, the titular track, singing about walking alone, the second song has a line about "walking with me".   I also enjoy the lines: "And the trees are a real bright green / Not a minty green".   Lyrics such as "As you get older get better / As you get better feel worse" will stick with you while the line "I can't hear but God knows I can hear you well" on "I Feel So Sad" will feel vaguely threatening.  

After you listen to this one enough times, you'll begin to get into the lyrics and also start singing along.  But your first few listens are going to be about the music.  These songs might sound familiar to you in some way that they don't sound to me because most people grow up with different influences and hear them in different ways.  But whatever type of rock music might have helped shape who you are as a music lover will come out in here somehow, some way and that gives Annabelle Chairlegs the most powerful and effective weapon in music: familiarity combined with that feeling of something new.