Spaceking
Collection Volume 1

“Heavy Indie Rock with a Pop sensibility. This is a collection of Unreleased, B-sides and the best of songs from the 25 yrs of this Tampa Fl outfit.” That is what the press material says, what I can see Spaceking hasn’t exactly released any albums before, not that I can find through verifiable sources. Sure, you can always do more in depth searches but there is a limit on how much research you can do if you want to produce any material. So, this collection of tracks has a pretty cool artwork, but is it a royally good album?

Indie rock with pop sensibility is a pretty good description of what this album has to offer. It is a varied release as it is materials gathered through 25 years, but it is also a tad incoherent. It ranges from catchy and poppy songs to more heavy stuff, and some pretty indifferent stuff as well. The production is a bit up and down, sounds fine in moments but less so in other moments. It is an album that feels a bit fragmented, and that doesn’t quite work for the album as a whole, neither does the hour-long playing time.

This album is pretty brilliant in its best moment, like opener Rock Star or Movies. It is also really dull in its worst moments with dreary and unexciting tracks that doesn’t quite do anyone happy. So, the impression is somewhat ambivalent, on the one hand I find this to be quite great while on the other hand it is pretty dreary. Perhaps Ryan Michalski, who is Spaceking, should have trimmed this one quite a bit as I think at least a third of it doesn’t really do much for the album. A little bit of a case for the less is more argument that is an always recurring thing when listening to music, way too many artists think too much of their own stuff and overstays their welcome with their albums.

So, is it worth looking closer at? Sure, why not? I think it is quite excellent in its best moments, you could always buy the digital release from bandcamp and then throw away the less impressive stuff and make yourself a really strong album. Had that been the case it probably would have been higher rated, but I must review the whole thing and there are some tracks that subtract rather than add. Spaceking does pretty well in the best moments, so you might do well checking it out.

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