ATP! Album Review: Anomie - S/T EP

Imagine a scene in a 90s movie of a melancholic beach trip; Anomie’s self-titled EP would be the soundtrack. The four-song length album showcases Rachel Browne’s vocals and guitar work, delivering a 90s soft pop feel. With a current boom in the revival of 90s culture, Anomie fits right in.

The first song on the EP, “So Long,” is the most upbeat track and kicks the EP off with a happy, beach-y feeling. The simple sound of Browne’s fingers sliding on the strings of the guitar at the start of the song brings a garage band-esque feeling that lingers for the rest of the song, and allows for stronger connection with the listener than if it sounded like a pristine recording. “So Long” is a song for anyone.

“Of You” switches the previous song’s mood of casual fun out for a same sort of melancholic mood that a slower Nirvana song would bring. The repetition of the line “it’s you” throughout the choruses makes this track feel like a sort of love song, but almost a tired love, past the point of passion and simply just there: no more or less love, but just a simple declaration of the fact that, well, it’s you.

The fifty-seven second long “Overnight” is more of an interlude than anything else, with the slow guitar overpowering Browne’s vocals, and slowing down from the previous song just as the former did from the first. The song provides a signpost for a change or metamorphosis from the first two songs on the album, short and fairly upbeat yet also moody, to the last and longest song on the album, “Funny How.” Definitely the most melancholic track on the album, Browne’s remorseful and powerful singing paired with a buzzing guitar sound forms the image of a bedroom with the curtains drawn shut. The long periods of lacking vocals take the mood much further down from where Anomie started, the almost ambient noise that the album ends on highlighting this transformation.

With Anomie emotionally travelling downwards from upbeat to extremely moody, yet never straying from the overall retro beach-y California feel, Rachel Browne successfully packs a whole lot into her solo four-track EP. While the vocals may not be very clear on a first listen- through, Anomie is definitely worth listening to again and again, and in a variety of different scenarios, as each song offers an accurate soundtrack for a range of emotions. Anomie, as whole, is a rollercoaster of ear candy. For those times when you’re in the mood to sit on the beach and stare moodily at the beach, perhaps in a striped crop-top with your jelly shoes on the towel next to you, Anomie is the ideal background music.

4.5/5

Sara Rolat

Anomie's self-titled EP will be released on February 10th via Father/Daughter Records.