In our rather mundane and many times plain trivial lives, something that is of a ‘feel good’ tier is much welcome, whether we really like it or not. This is exactly where Aaron Fink comes into play. Coming in with some peppy and trippy vibes, ‘Galaxies’ by Aaron Fink is a treat.
The record starts off with “Serpentine”- an instrumental intro. While this song is definitive of a sonic theme that would follow for the latter of the album, the nuances add a refreshing touch to the music. “Lovelight” brings in the cheerful singing. Despite the pretty straight forward sounding nature of the song, I must insist on the magic of nuances and intricacy that makes a world of differences within a seemingly easy to understand arrangement of music.
“Left It Alone” is a great sing along song. It’s got everything that makes a rock song pretty much essentially rock, all crammed into one. While this isn’t entirely about those finer parts, the butch yet easy nature of this song makes it fun to listen to and sing along with. “Beautiful Creature” opens up with an interesting guitar intro before going all rock. The song holds down the groove hard and opens up to some really good phrasing.
“The World Has Other Plans” is a special song on many levels. This song instils a decent amount of hope, and I’m sure there are quite a few of us who might be reading this review might need a good dose if it. Don’t worry, this is for you. You try and make do! “Skies Above” is a song marked with a lot of contrasts. While on one side there’s a deep rhythm section and there’s a softer and mellow lead section, bridged beautifully with some blissful singing.
“Blue” has an intense dark and bluesy sound. Perhaps a bluesy rock sound is pretty much incomplete without sounding a little dark. This song could qualify for a fine old school western, with the horses and dust clouds in the horizon. “Galaxies” is a trip back to the peppy and groovy rock core that was seen predominantly in the earlier parts of the album. The song builds up a lot of tension before moving into a lot of other parts. This is yet another essentially rock song. “Lady Peace” is a fine balance between clean and dirty sections. The singing is magical on this one. The warm organ on the background adds a new level of detail and emotion to the music and its theme.
‘Galaxies’ is a record you simply can’t hate. You really can’t. You could be an elitist made up of prog matter or the most kvlt frost bitten black metal artist, nothing can make you hate this awfully gorgeous record. It is something to fall back to. This is a record for those terrible hard days. A combination of lively and colourful instrumentation coupled with great singing and great lyrics makes this album essentially comforting more than anything else. This can also be an album to rock out too but nonetheless, this is soup for the senses.
The level of production is stunning on this record. The production quality is just right to have the album sound very polished without taking away the human feel in the music and it preserves a sense of live instrumentation. This is a very important aspect because it does bring out the best in what it feels to be human in thought, action and idea. Aaron Fink has put a lot of soul into this music, thus bringing out a side of himself that we all can very easily connect to.