The family that sings together sticks their strongest oohs and aahs together and more, which is insatiably proved by the Boyd siblings, of course, in all good ways.
Change is the constant thing in this breathing Earth, and they managed to get rid of it as time went by, completing their metamorphic stage with their new record. Despite the overuse of the word because it claims that there exists progress in their musicality, there’s no other word to summarize the 45-minute-and-so run time of a narrative. In music history, I have never really heard a family-etched album where everyone intensely shows off the wonders of their voices and believes in their members’ ability while seeing the sun and its corresponding fun.
Adding a couple of tracks to their record, Metamorphosis, may come off as a deluxe edition of the record, but it does not necessarily define these tracks as worthy of being called ‘deluxe tracks’, as they also have inhaled life to the album title. In the context of a bus roundtrip, these are just passengers that prefer to stay at bus stops rather than terminals because, while they aren’t the ones who go first, they are still needed to complete the seats before the arrived destination. It somehow reminds me of Noah Kahan‘s Stick Season (We’ll All Be Here Forever), a deluxe edition of Stick Season, which was released a year after the original was out, catching its waves.
Filled with tracks that deal with different themes sensitizing the acceptance of change through firstly, complaints, and mostly, declarations, Infinity Song took every aspect of development the way humans should do, and did not lean on its idealistic frame, which deviates the whole point of metamorphosis, primarily because we, as humans, aren’t born with a linear path. There’s always some sense of shame especially for me towards artists who were able to create art about progress in a way that is reminiscent of quotations of successful beings. I, as a consumer who would listen to these songs label it as pretentious due to the loss of human touch that should be present in a big word as change.
It can easily be traced in their first track, I Want You Back, wherein the group sings, “I want you back / But I will never tell you / I will never tell you that.” For a starter of a line to kick off the record, it showcased the imperfect way of rekindling what has once been sparks because there still is something to be taken into consideration. This summer of an opener represents that ’tis a season of unaware delusions, but it is all fine because autumn has not come yet, and we have to stay for summer, even for just a bit. On top of it all, their voices have softly arrived to combat the heating rays, creating a nice contrast and a morning that is meant for all.
Although the sun has come already, the songs that go after just come murkier, and it has to be, tracklist-wise. The overstimulation of blissful ignorance in Lotus, the accordion-centered ego thing as the armor for insecurity and envy in Hater’s Anthem, and the revelation for me in this record, a soft-rock, almost like a Chicago-sounding or George Michael-sounding Comedy, taking a spin of the unreal portrayal of art to mirror reality.
Of course, as a collective, there tends to be a raising eye formulated when there is a band from nowhere bravely craving for something hard to sing as Fleetwood Mac‘s Dreams, which they did decent and acceptable, considering the bewitched tone of Stevie Nicks casting such spell that it is only she who would sing the song, but to be able to part of the tracklist does makes sense, as the song allows the rain to come for us to be clean, which is another subject for change.
Closing it with The Sunshine, the band must end it with a concluding statement about how the sun is still shining above it all; even if it is the most basic way to depart from the record, still feels like a nice sunshine-y touch, and feels like a better closer than the original’s I Don’t Feel No Ways Tired’.
There have been bands that are blood-and-surname-knit related, and it is time to allow them to be added to such a growing body. There’s power in subtlety, and they have been quite reliant on this approach, and there is something so humbling about it.
Jett interestingly seeks every supposed-to-be-life-changing almost: getting a Bachelor’s degree in Secondary Education, submitting a finished compilation of epistles and poems to some book publications, and releasing passion projects to audio streaming platforms. However, his inkling of his pen and his reverberating of his music, being the ones that keep him sustained in somehows, never stop him from walking to a road yet to be taken.