Eastwood
It Never Gets Easy

It Never Gets Easy, I think that might be one of those truths in life, things are probably always difficult – perhaps they are for Eastwood. It is their debut album, they have an EP from 2017 in the catalogue but this is the first album. And Eastwood is very much the project of Knocked Loose guitarist Cole Crutchfield who is the songwriter and main person of this band. And when I listen to Eastwood I can conclude that it never seem to get easy to make outstanding and exciting music.

Shoegaze, pop-punk are descriptions I read for this album and why not? That is probably what it is with simple and catchy melodic modern rock songs they are trying to rule the world. But the lack of novelty might be a deterring factor there. But the production is good, as is the vocalist. The playing time of 43 minutes is a sensible one and is probably short enough to make the lack of variation over the album appear less of a negative.

It is a good album with pretty strong and entertaining songs, a pretty easy album to like. But while it is easy to like, it is also pretty easy to grow tired with – it isn’t an outstanding or memorable album, just a short bit of entertainment that is fast forgotten. The lack of a hit song is one of those little niggles, but also the lack of really fresh ideas and novelty. One of those albums that shows skilled craftsmanship in recording and all of that, but it lacks the songs to make a lasting impression.

Sure, there are good reasons to look at this album, and the odds that you will like it might also be favourable, but you will forget it and it will never count amongst your favourite albums. It never really grabs me as a listener, it tends to feel somewhat generic. So, I think that the conclusion might be that it is a solid debut release that should appeal to most people somewhat, but they need to do more than this if they want to make relevant music in the future.

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