Ham Chunks And Wine EP - GFOTY: Review
is a British pop singer who emerged the last decade as part of the PC Music collective making heavily thematic and character driven hyper pop music. Since she left the label she has dropped a spree of outside the box style projects, but on Ham Chunks And Wine she not only returns to her classic aesthetic but is also writing longer songs than is typical of the project.
Review By Lavender:
I can't say I've ever been the biggest fan of GFOTY even while she was attached to PC Music. She had a number of good ideas and the character of the performances was unique but I was never as into her work as some of her label contemporaries and I even skipped out on reviewing her last two projects under her own label. Given how quick this EP was being released after her GFOTV album and that it appeared that at least aesthetically she was returning to some of her PC Music days. But while Ham Chunks is more than willing to experiment with all kinds of different sounds, the hit rate is pretty weak.
After a stumbling start the brief track Magicians Wand isn't bad as an explosive hyper pop tune with spoken word vocals dealing in a number of magic type words and themes that is pretty unique. Rid Of All is the next track and it's a pretty manic experiences that bounces between dreamier bliss and punchy hard-hitting sequenced drums. Both sounds come off pretty well and I think the song is exciting. The major highlight of this EP is the closing track Here With Me which I did not anticipate loving nearly as much as I do. It is a slick and glistening electro pop ballad and despite the 5 minute runtime I absolutely adore the songs soaring vocals and dense anthemic synths. It makes for a really impassioned closing moment that I totally love.
Wide is the opening track and one of the kookiest on the EP. Lyrically the track is literally about being wide like your phone sideways so its wider or laying down so you are wider it is pretty weird. Despite the silliness of it all the only piece of the instrumental I really love is the pulsating percussion because aside from that I have very little interest in any of the musical elements and the song has a really hard time keeping up any momentum. By My Side is the real crown jewel of annoying with an interpolation of the "I'm Blue" melody from that Eiffel 65 song that I had really hoped I would never have to think about again. I'm also not a big fan of the songs drawn out progression and the huge gaps in the track where almost nothing is happening don't help with the really aggravating hook.
At this point most of the appeal of GFOTY is where the character will go next, rather than the music. While there are points on this record with bubbly slick production and a few pretty good vocal performances nothing here is as fresh or as new as it felt like the project was once capable of. If you love hyper pop music so much that you have to hear absolutely every release within the genre there will probably be something here for you but there isn't much here that I would call essential. 5/10
Album Cover Review By Tyler Judson:
This is an easy cover to review because there's really nothing happening. It's a simple composition and I don't think the concept is new or reinvented. I commend the effort put in but it's not done well and seems like a dry version of a real cover. The make-up is smudged because of the water but it's not done in a flattering way. The drip at the top is too composited and seems just slapped on in Photoshop. I do think the choice of styling with the top is cool and I with it could've incorporated the theme of that texture and color palette more. Without text this could be on some white girls grunge aesthetic Instagram page. 3/10
For more hyper pop check out my review of Charli XCX's How I'm Feeling Now here
