Faris Nourallah refers to The Kinks and Elvis Costello for his RIYL. And iTunes describes him as folk. In my opinion he doesn’t really fulfill any of the above. Guitars and piano and keyboard. A little bit of eighties spacey music. But basic indie pop. Not really anything special. The ones I liked were 5, 6, and 8.
Track One: Quiet opening. Soft with guitars and pretty harmonies. Breaks into Beatles strong chords and harmonies about a minute in. Then back to guitar and reverb.
Track Two: Kind of music box. Slow drums. A little droning. Strings! Little instrumental section with bells guitars and flutes. Sounds happy rather than the depressed opener and closer.
Track Three: Starts with a little electronica stuff. Spacey held chords, etc, and practically spoken vox. A little later Elvis Costello but with its own special twist.
Track Four: Heavy emphasis on vocals. Quiet drums and short guitar chords. Weird sliding vocals. Lyrics not great, but lots of repetition and then breaks down with heavy distorted guitar, still emphasis on vocals.
*Track Five: A little bit of “A Day in the Life” at the beginning. Then hard rock, then fades. Super short.
*Track Six: Cute upbeat pop song. Acoustic guitar. Abrupt ending. Obfuscation means to dark or obscure or confuse, in case you didn’t know.
Track Seven: Strong piano. Vox harmonies and castenettes. Nice Filler.
*Track Eight: Quiet vocals (and castenettes), mixed with crazy keyboard and strained shout-singing. (You know, singing that sounds a little strained). Cute little “bop-bada”s.
Track Nine: Pretty piano. Overlaping vocals. Weird vocals and lyrics.
Track Ten: Very Coldplay. And a little depressed. Dreamy spacey harmonies.
Track Eleven: Minor vocals. Slow tempo. Guitar heavy. Lots of distortion in guitar breakdown.
Track Twelve: Sounds like a chauvinist paradise. Oh, and he’s popular! I hope he’s not taking himself seriously.
Track Thirteen: Pretty piano. OK, jokey song about tattooing his woman in case she forgets about him.