Album Review: Don’t Be an Idiot, Listen to Coping Machine
Written by Kate Becker on May 18, 2020
Album Title: Coping Machine
Artist: City Mouth
Label: Take This To Heart
Rating: 4 out of 5
The indie/pop-punk world has a lot of music. It is a fun genre to listen to in the car, with your friends, and literally any other situation you can think of. This makes it hard sometimes for new music to stick out. As someone who grew up listening to pop-punk, I feel qualified enough to tell you that City Mouth stands out with Coping Machine. I am not going to lie, I have not listened to City Mouth in probably a few years, but that is about to change.
I rarely leave to go outside, but I can’t wait for the next long car ride so I can play Coping Machine and look out the window, pretending I am in a music video or something.
Some parts of the first track, “Sinking”, reminds me a little bit of some emo-pop. Maybe it is the synthy sounds I hear mixed with the vocals, but I dig it a lot. And then you get further into the song, and all of a sudden, you need to dance. It is definitely a unique track, in the best way.
The next track, “Sanity for Summer”, I am back to the feeling of wanting to dance, which is funny because the lyrics actually make me kind of sad. I think that is how I can explain this whole album: I want to sing about things that make me sad, but I also want to dance.” I think about the high school version of myself when I was super into pop-punk, and I would have loved to see City Mouth live and sing along to this song with my friends.
Title track “Coping Machine” continues the trend of catchy, yet sad lyrics. The vocal melody is super fun. It feels like there is a small shift in the album with “(hearteyes)” because it gets a little bit more electric than the other songs that play before it. After that, we are back to a jumpy beat with “Parking Lot” and lyrics that break my heart. This is probably my favorite song off of the whole album. “For A Second” and “Quit While I’m Ahead” remind me again of some emo-pop, and it works.
“Wednesday” is a song I’ll want to have on repeat. The vocal melody seems like a lot of fun, disguising sad lyrics with a fun upbeat rhythm. “If You’re Not” brings this album to an end, and makes it feel complete. After 36 minutes, it feels like you’re either okay with it being over, or you can totally start it again from the beginning. The album flows in a way I really enjoy. I feel like in the last few years, I have been pretty blind to the “pop-punk” scene and can get pretty lazy when it comes to listening to new music. Through listening to Coping Machine many times through, I have more confirmation on how true that is. For that reason, “Coping Machine” would have slipped right past me. Don’t be an idiot, listen to Coping Machine.
