Song Review: City Mouth

Title: “For A Second”

Artist: City Mouth

Record Label: Take This to Heart Records

Release Date: September 13th, 2019

★★

The newest single from Chicago indie pop band City Mouth dropped just last week through Take This to Heart Records.  The single “For A Second” is a pop rock tune that reminds me of newer material released by indie rock bands today; probably because this was produced by Marc McClusky, who helped produced bands in the past like Weezer and Motion City Soundtrack.  Compared to their previous material, this is slower, catchier, and more “dance-like”. This of course, is not a bad thing, but they did not execute according to my needs.

The song sounds generic, uninspired, and generally over-produced.  I understand that that is the band’s sound, but after listening to this a few times, I am just simply bored by it.  The electric drums in the background and the synth featured in the track sounds bland, as it is the same beat over and over again.  I feel like I have heard the same beat in every other indie pop/rock song put out into the world. The lyrics include themes of self-care, and focusing on bettering yourself, which is a good message to send in the song.  However, the flow of his lyrics are just uncanny. There are segments of the second verse that he is rapping the lyrics like he is Tyler Joseph from Twenty One Pilots. I enjoy indie rock occasionally, but the genre in my mind has become so niche that all of the music coming out of the scene sounds the exact same.  Bands are taking massive influence from Arctic Monkeys, Black Keys, early Twenty One Pilots, and The 1975 among others, and simply becoming clones of them. This song is a great example of that. Listen for yourself and see what you think:

This is, after all, a humble opinion.