Almost Monday recently debuted their first full-length album, “Dive,” after their debut single “Broken People” in 2019. With song names such as “Sunburn,” “Tidal Wave,” and “Seaside Market”, “Dive” has a beachy vibe and is something I would listen to while sitting by the shore and enjoying a cool breeze. A lot of the songs delve into being in love or leaving relationships behind, but most of them keep an upbeat current going throughout the song despite it being a sadder topic.
The album has a good flow with each song complementing one another making it the perfect setup to enjoy while basking under the sun at the beach. None of the songs in the album stick out significantly except for the first song.
The opening song, which is named after the album name, ‘Dive’, is my favorite despite being only a minute long. This one still holds the same vibes, but it makes me feel like I’m sitting on the beach after the sun has set with nothing but the crashing waves and soft breeze accompanying me. Unlike the other songs, this one is calming, with slowly sung lyrics. It still holds some similarities to the other songs, such as being in love and leaving relationships behind as shown in the line, “And I cry, such a beauty for the eye. Hoping you’ll remember me. Hoping it’s not just a dream.” This opens up the album to its key subjects and themes but keeps a less upbeat and more somber, sing-song tone.
This album release also came with six music videos. They all have similar themes to tie them together keeping the coastal beachy vibes accompanied by bright colors. Still, overall each video is unique with how they visually represent each song. The songs that got music videos include: “Jupiter,” “Is It Too Late,” “She Likes Sports,” “Can’t Slow Down,” “Tidal Wave” and “Life Goes By.”
“Jupiter” is the first one on the playlist, which makes me assume it is of some importance, so I took a deep dive into that video.
This music video opens up with a man walking with his friends before finding a small trampoline. He decides to jump on it and jumps so high he flies to Jupiter. He stays on Jupiter for a while and meets a woman while his friends are still on Earth. Eventually, he returns to Earth, but then he gets his friends to return to Jupiter. Once on Jupiter, they’re shown playing around and just having a good time all together.
Overall, it is not a bad song, but it struggles with repeating lines. Of course, every song has a chorus, but this song has way more chorus than verses. I want to know more about the story being told in the song, but it keeps going back to the chorus which is a lot of “oh la-la-la-la-la’s” What I gathered from this song is that it appears to be about running away from Earth to Jupiter so he can have fun, as shown by the lines “Rendezvous on Jupiter” and “We just can’t get enough.”
The romantic undertones of the song also shine through in lines such as “Only just the two of us” or “and I’m loving every second with you.” The music video does have a woman in it who may be there to represent a romantic partner, but the focus of the video shifts to the guy with his friends rather than his relationship with this woman.
You may paint a different picture of the meaning or purpose of the song based on whether you watch the video or just listen to it, but overall, I see it as a fun song about escaping to somewhere fun (in this case, Jupiter) to have a good time.
The one downfall of the music videos is that they try to have a plot of some sort, but fail on clarity or consistency. As shown in Jupiter, the lyrics suggest running away with a person and being alone with them. Despite the lyrics, the music video doesn’t put much emphasis on the girl shown. Instead, it has a lot of the main character with his friends despite being about leaving them behind.
An issue with the album as a whole is repetition. It feels like I’m listening to the same song over and over again. Every song is about the same thing over and over again, being in a relationship, leaving people behind, with the same tunes and instruments. The reason the first song is my favorite is because it stands out from the album. Something I wanna see in an album is unique songs that I can enjoy separately, but still create a cohesive album.
Overall, the album is not bad and I believe that this band shows good promise for even more good albums, as long as they can work out some of the issues such as the repetition, or making more consistent music videos. You should give them a listen on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, or by going to their website.
MOXIE sent a poster for the album, which is a company that sends music for review to student newspapers.
7/10
