Feeling Not Found - Origami Angel: (Guest Review)
This is a special review written by my friend and go-to emo and pop-punk coinnessoir Sasha Prudence. You can check her out on Instagram here.
Review by Sasha:
Origami Angel is a 5th wave emo band from Washington DC that made their big break on the scene with their acclaimed 2019 album Somewhere City. The album consisted of lyrics ripe with nostalgia for late 2000s childhood delights, blisteringly fast mathy riffs, and themes about a hopeful future full of emotional growth and self-improvement. However, the band’s hopes to tour behind this album were dashed with the arrival of Covid 19. Their tour was canceled, and the momentum the band had gained was all but lost.
They returned with a follow-up album, Gami Gang, which was as unorganized as it was experimental. The album ended up feeling like a mixtape full of wild ideas such as "Bossa Nova Corp," which combines easy listening bossa nova with powerful pop-punk chords, and it’s one of my personal favorites of the band. Their third release was a stark contrast as Brightest Days seemed to be their least experimental, most saccharine take on pop-punk that left an artificially sweet aftertaste in the mouths of fans who appreciated their earlier work.
That brings us to their latest release titled Feeling Not Found. The new album starts with a short yet dazzling synthy ballad complete with auto-tuned vocals that sing about desperately wanting to change yet being afraid of the judgment of one’s peers. The song establishes an interesting new sound for Origami Angel that feels similar to Porter Robinson’s newest album. Yet, after only 1 minute, this synth-driven sound is tossed out the window and immediately followed by chugging guitar chords that remind me of Weezer’s Maladroit.
"Dirty Mirror Selfie’s" lyrics discuss taking control of one’s life back from depression and self-hatred. It’s a nice affirmation, but sonically the song is rather generic. There’s nothing particularly wrong with this song, but it feels like it’s missing a certain special sauce that makes Origami Angel unlike the pop punk and emo bands that came before them. After the first 2 songs, I’m left wondering what it would be like if the band stuck with that cool new sound rather than delving back into predictable territory. The following track "Where Blue Light Blooms" is my personal favorite from the album. It feels like a retread of the ideas introduced back on "Bossa Nova Corp" with more guitars this time around plus the inclusion of an adorable glockenspiel. The lyrics talk about breaking out of one’s shell and realizing that hiding from the scary things in our lives can lead us to miss out on awesome new experiences, a hopeful sentiment I personally relate to.
This is the general motif behind many of the tracks in the album’s first half. These songs are basic for OA standards, but they’re still decent pop-punk tracks at the end of the day. However, around the album’s midpoint, the generic tone of each song starts to grow stale. They start to blend together sonically, and the hopeful lyrics turn bitter and resentful. "Fruit Wine" was the first single off of this album, and combines anguished lyrics with the typical sweet pop-punk sound the band has played with but adds some hardcore breakdowns just for good measure. It’s a decent track, but it ultimately feels like OA are doing their own rendition of the sweet and sour combinations one would find on Turnstile’s album Glow On.
After this song is the last 5 tracks on the album which are without a doubt some of the most boring Origami Angel songs they’ve ever produced. They aren’t bad, but there are no catchy choruses or earwormy melodies to be found. It just feels like the emotional diatribes of lead singer Ryland Heagy set to crunchy guitar tones. This isn’t inherently bad, but the lead singer never gets specific enough with his lyrics to garner relatability, let alone sympathy. This is perfectly exemplified on the song "Sixth Cents (Get It?)" which might actually be the worst song I’ve heard from this emo duo. It feels as unnecessary as the parenthetical note attached to the song’s name. (Yes Origami Angel, we do get it. All your song titles are jokes just like every other emo band that’s come since Fall Out Boy.) The song is two minutes of Ryland complaining about having to use social media to sell his music.
This seems to be a major theme in the latter half of the album. Obviously, nobody wants to be tied to the obligations of the music industry, yet these hardly feel like finished songs and more like ideas glued together just to fill out the tracklist. It’s almost like the band frustratedly wrote songs about the frustration of writing songs. The album has the opportunity to make some poignant meta statements about the pressures of meeting up to the standards of fans and their record label, but it feels like the band lacks the energy or passion to make deep observations about the current state of their careers. Instead, they elect to whine over crunchy aimless guitar tones. The inventive mathy riffs and hopeful lyrics of Somewhere City have been replaced with boring generic songwriting and jaded sentiments towards the band’s audience.
OA finishes the album with the title track which is the best of these jaded tracks, yet it’s on the same tier of sonic quality as the songs from the first half of the album, and it comes nowhere close to the inventive songwriting from the band’s first two albums. The band shouldn’t have to live in the shadow of their previous work, but it’s obvious that they're devoid of inspiration. I understand that they’re exhausted musicians given a raw deal by the world, but I wish they’d have more creative ways to express this unhappiness. The band has the potential to make something amazing, but it seems they lack the motivation. In the final track, Ryland even goes as far to contradict the statements he makes in the album’s opening song. Instead of being afraid to change because of the fear of his peers, he proudly proclaims how he’s never going to change despite how much the world wants him to while enjoying the wealth and opportunity the band’s success has given its members. This ultimately leaves the entire album feeling confused about what it’s even trying to get across to the listener.
The first half of Feeling Not Found has some fun pop-punk ragers, yet the latter half feels more like an old man and an expensive guitar yelling at a cloud. It’s a decent listen, but don’t expect anything close to their first two albums in terms of quality. While this is definitely an improvement from Brightest Days, it leaves me desperately wishing that the band changed into something more creative and interesting in the future, despite Ryland’s wishes to do the exact opposite. 6/10
For more emo, check out Lavender's review of Foxing's Foxing
