Tricky-to-label Vancouver artist EKKSTACY mixes melancholy instrumentals and hazy vocals on deeply reflective third record.
EKKSTACY is an artist who’s hard to pin down in any one genre, or compare to others. His music is completely its own entity, and that is perhaps what makes it so polarising. You either love it or hate it. But there is a case to be put forward that doesn’t need to be so black or white. His third album, FOREVER, certainly sounds rather basic on a surface level, but it serves a purpose – it’s music for the sensitive, the daydreamers, and the ponderers. It’s not meant to be flashy.
FOREVER is daze-inducing. It has a bedroom-made simplicity, with most tracks featuring looping guitar chord patterns and beats which act as carriers for the messages that the 23-year-old Canadian alt. creative is trying to relay. It hosts a majority of short tracks around the two-minute mark, with most telling tales of love and loss, depression, and a longing for slow living. Each is a diary entry, a scribble in a journal crafted into a song.
While the first half offers quick-tempo punk-ier offerings, as he goes on, things slow down much more significantly. sadness taps into the stylings of Joy Division’s early post-punk, with a spaced-out feel and quick-picked bass, whereas stain has more of a forlorn aura akin to Lil Peep. One thing that is certainly beautiful is EKKSTACY’s tender vocals, layered in reverbs and sounding so far away that they lift you into the clouds.
For those wanting complexity from their music, this won’t be the record for you. This is an album you can lay back into, like a body of water, and let it assist you in diving into your own headspace or letting your thoughts wander. FOREVER is for the big thinkers and deep feelers of the world. It’s not gonna blow your socks off, but it will strike a nerve if you listen closely enough.
Verdict: 3/5
For fans of: Lil Peep, HUNNY, Joy Division
FOREVER is released on May 16 via UnitedMasters
