Album Review: Mixed Reality by Gin Blossoms

I have started blogging regularly again, but I still don't have the time that I would like, especially for music listening. My temporary solutions is that instead of reviewing two bands per week, for a while it will be one band and the other review will be new (that term used somewhat loosely) music from previously reviewed bands.

Mixed Reality by Gin Blossoms (2018) is the perfect starting point for three reasons.

1. I love them.
2. They were part of that exciting round of getting to see bands I had given up on seeing.
3. Discovering No Chocolate Cake was part of my realizing that new music hadn't stopped with the end of MTV. I just needed to find new ways of finding it.

I don't want to dwell too much on the past, but especially No Chocolate Cake's first track - "Don't Change For Me" - that intro went straight into me and the lyrics raised my spirits. That is why it is a good idea to check back in periodically with the bands you love. Even if your particular flavor of music geekdom (hypothetically) involves tracking down new bands and old bands and constantly pushing away from the familiar, you need to check back in with the ones already deep in your heart. This is both to support them and to feed your soul.

On to Mixed Reality.

There is a nice mix. The aching beauty of "Wonder" is quickly followed by the dynamite intro to "Shadow". My vote for favorite is split between "Angels Fly" - possibly the most interesting musically - and "Still Some Room in Heaven", which has that weary optimism that the Gin Blossoms do so well.

(The inclusion of "The Devil's Daughter" does make it impossible to construe any certain theological bent from the album.)

"Forever Is This Night" totally sounds like the Gin Blossoms. That could be disappointing for anyone wanting a reinvention, but I find it comforting. I remember finding No Chocolate Cake at a time when my life was very hard, and writing about that and wondering if maybe there would be another release in 2014 and how my life would be falling apart then. I could have found the album earlier for that, and it remains true now.

However, one of my favorite bands is still out there. Still touring. Still recording. Still good.

That is very comforting.

https://www.ginblossoms.net/

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Previous Gin Blossoms posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/01/concert-review-gin-blossoms.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-gin-blossoms-and-i.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2014/01/creating-set-list.html