I would like to apologize for putting out this review late.
This week I listened to One Week by First of October. First of October is a collaboration between Musicians/YouTubers Andrew Huang and Rob Scallon in which on the first of October they give themselves one 12 hour recording session (10 hours for their first album) with no material prepared ahead of time to write and record a whole album, with this latest album marking the 7th time they've done so, hence the title. I've been following this project since the first album, as I was/am a fan of both participants' YouTube videos. Though I must say that for a few years now I've felt that albums have been declining in memorability, originality, and quality. Last year's album I found so forgettable that I forgot that it even existed when I was talking to a friend about how I felt about the latest album in comparison to their other work. This year's album, I feel, brings at least a touch of memorability that the last few albums have missed but, still misses the mark in comparison to their first three. As is to be expected of an album made in a way such as this one, there are a lot of songs that feel underdeveloped or have ideas that just don't work for me. Two perfect examples of ideas that don't work are, "Who Is It For?" and, "Liberation" where Andrew Huang, who was the main writer for these two songs, tries to combine contrasting sections without any real segue between them, causing an extreme disjoint in the song. In the former, it is a heavy metal/hard rock inspired verse with this acoustic, slow chorus and the two feel so unconnected that the contrast doesn't actually provide anything interesting to the music. The latter track does a similar thing, where the verses switch from a heavy keytar focused rap to the same lyrics rapped with less intensity on top of an 808 Drum Machine which creates a similar issue as the former song. The rest of the album mostly suffers from being underdeveloped. This is felt most on the songs that feature heavily improvised lyrics, being, "Michael Squiers," "Murder Geese," and, "Greg Is Coming To Town!". These songs feature Rob and Andrew improvising lyrics for a couple minutes at a time and show their improvisation skills at their worst, especially on the Greg song. The first two have the benefit of Rob having a few lines already written, so there is some kind of structure and overall idea being communicated. Greg just has Rob and Andrew talking about, "Gregging it up" and how he is coming to town for a minute and a half intercut with some crowd vocals clamoring over Greg (I forgot to mention this year they recorded the album in a Guitar Center that was open to the public), which just feels and sounds incredibly lazy. There is a bright spot on the album, and what I think is for sure the best song on the album what is probably the best song they've done in years, being "I Am Enough". While this song certainly does have the feeling that it isn't as fully developed as it could be as the lyrical content is pretty minimal, I think that it really fits the vibe that the song is going for. This fact is also aided in that the hooks of the songs are actually enjoyable, with some fun and catchy synth lines strung throughout the song and a memorable melody which Rob sings extremely well in comparison to some of his other singing efforts. This song is certainly a First of October song that I can see myself coming back to which is something that has not happened in a long time. As for the rest of the album, I cannot see myself coming back these tracks. They are undercooked and easily forgettable. 5/10 album
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