5.0 out of 5 stars
Album Review for Class, February 6, 2011
This review is from: Sweeter As Fiction (Audio CD)
The Good Life, TGL, is a local band from Greencastle, Indiana, who are currently signed to Lobster/Oort. TGL has released two albums; Sweeter As Fiction being their most recent. TGL's band members include: John Sibbitt, Zach Stewart, Will Cath, and Boyd Lewis. When listening to their music you can hear each instrument incredibly clearly; no instrument drowns out another. The band plays in a very unified way, as if they are one being and they move together. Their band may be considered many different Genres; however, they consider themselves Pop Rock. They are also considered, power pop and just original Rock. Power pop incorporates strong melodies, prominent vocal harmonies, guitar riffs, and very few instrumental solos whereas Pop Rock has catchy, poppy lyrics incorporated into heavy guitar based songs. Their music begs the listener to bob their head along with the music, even if Rock is not your kind of music, you will more than likely be able to relate to their lyrics. In this album, the listener receives a love story from the guy's perspective; these days, there are many love songs written from a female's perspective, it is refreshing to hear a new perspective, after all there are always two sides to every story. TGL has put together their experiences in their music in an attempt to get to The Good Life.
In TGL's album Sweeter As Fiction, they are mostly singing about love. The first song on the album is entitled "Beauty School Dropout", and in this song they talk about how guy's girlfriend and her attempt to figure out what she wants in life and how her boyfriend fits into it. In the song she has left her boyfriend and is with a separate guy, and he (the ex-boyfriend) is telling her that he will "leave the light on" for her and that "it's not alright to pretend you want to be with him". The second song is entitled "Valleys" and it is about how a guy and his partner have grown together and even though they took a huge risk to be together, it was well worth it. TGL's album Sweeter As Fiction is a compilation of love songs, some of which are about how love is such a great thing, some are about how a girl has a guy at wits' end. The concept of the album is that all these stories are sweeter as fiction, hence the title of the album.
While most of the album's songs are about love, there are a few that are about the band's attempt at being successful in the music industry, and the path they have taken since they started, how they have made new friends and how they hope to never forget the journey they have taken to get where they are, and even if they do not make it big they will always remember one another and the bond that have shared from being on the same journey. This is what the sixth track on the album "Among My Souvenirs" portrays. What sets TGL apart from every other small band trying to make it, is that the music is not written by only one member of the band. When they write they write together as a group, this causes the listener to receive many different stories from different perspectives and attributes to the fact that they play as a single being. TGL has taken what they love to do the most as well as their experiences in the hopes that they will be one of the few that make it to The Good Life.
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