An Unkindness is a one-man band created by Adam Johnston, and he is not known for making music. While Adam has been a musician for at least 13 years now, he is much more well known for his film reviews on the YouTube channel YourMovieSucksDOTorg, at least that’s how everyone found him. The reviews are top tier, with some of the most popular being his Cool Cat Saves The Kids review, currently sitting at 5.8 million views. I have been watching his content for the last 7 years, the first video I ever saw was his review of the 2011 film Megan Is Missing, and I found his music about a year later, where his 2010 EP 4 Songs and the 2013 EP The Present (which features demos of two songs found on this new album). I listened to 4 Songs much, much more just due to it being available on Spotify. “Fragments” was my favorite song for a good few years, “A Death” was an extremely good track as well, “Words Cannot Express” and “Foundation” were pretty underwhelming, but I really only listened to them as part of the EP, which I did listen to over and over again.
Just a few years ago I saw a video about a full-length project that was releasing soon, and I was pretty excited, I had been watching Adam’s content for years now and was absolutely down to hear some new material from him, it had been ten years since the last project released. With multiple release date changes (it seemed like every six months he’d push it back again) he finally released a video on September 15th, 2020 stating that the album would be releasing that month, and it did. The most exciting music event I had experienced so far.
This first track, ‘Spools of Thread’ does a pretty good job setting up for the album. There’s alludes to a relationship that is just not working out that Adam is going through. From the rest of the album, you could assume this is based on a true experience that he had, but it could also be an amalgam of every experience that he portrays on it, because there is quite a bit of relationship talk, and he sets it up well through this track. It’s also a nice groovy song, there’s an acoustic guitar riff that goes throughout. It being the first instrument heard on the album, an acoustic guitar seems fitting for what is to come, especially in later tracks that sound much more orchestral, it just shows a sort of growth over the ten years that the title refers to. There is also a really nice part before a chorus where Adam cries out this “Oh” to lead you into the chorus, which is very nice for someone who likes yelling in music.
This next track, ‘The Scab’', is very energetic. There is this piano going on throughout, it is very frantic and very fun. The song was an automatic favorite when I first heard it. Lyrically, it's not the themes of the album, with failed relationships and whatnot, it rather opens up about wanting to take a break, wanting to rest. In the chorus he repeats, “I never go to sleep” later becoming, “I want to go to sleep, please let me go to sleep,” So clearly something in his life is stopping him from resting. It feels like this could be referring to his content creation in a way, as he’s infamously known for leaving projects unfinished, or going on long hiatuses with projects, such as his The Genius of Synecdoche, New York series, or even this very album. The scab that the song’s title refers to is “inside my throat, it expands each time I poke,” representing overthinking his problems in life, leading to insomnia. Once again I have to say that the piano on this track is a lot of fun.
‘Wish Sticks’ is about the hard times, the rough times, the not so great times. How friends are able to help someone through a lot of those times. But really the only one who can really help someone is themself, and how they have to make this change, instead of always just wishing for it, which is where the title “Wish Sticks” comes from. Going with the ‘Sticks’ from the title, there is a steady tapping from what are most likely drum sticks throughout the track, and they’re a pretty good time. It ends with this violin descent that sounds really nice, but after all of that has gone away there are 30 seconds of pure silence. No clue as to why it’s there, not like this was the final track or this is where you’d flip a vinyl. It’s not even that the end of the song is so moving you’d need 30 seconds of silence to ponder it. I’m assuming it’s just a mistake, in the editing process, but you’d think you’d see half a minute of complete silence before you released an album you’ve been working on for ten years. Besides that, it’s a mid-tier song on the album, definitely not the best.
‘Freedom Pt. 1’ is where the album starts picking up with the overarching story of the record, focusing on a specific relationship that Adam had in college. Adam’s apparent boyfriend in this song was a controlling figure that, “with your motivation I decided I’d drop out of school,” and broke up with Adam soon afterward. Adam reflects on this experience as a positive for teaching him, “Not to trust my broken heart,” so something like this wouldn’t happen to him again. This is once again a piano-led track, has a couple of nice riffs going on, nothing to write home about. It flows right into ‘Freedom Pt. 2’, to the point where you don’t even notice it’s a separate track.
Speaking of that: ‘Freedom Pt. 2’ is the same story as Pt. 1, but this time it is more directed at this past lover. The first part is explaining the situation to the audience, and the second is talking to this person, almost pleading with him to stop on this warpath, because the relationship with Adam was not the last time he did this. Adam comes to terms with this relationship in the song, while also solidifying he won’t let it happen again. This track does sound sonically different than the previous, while still being piano-led, it’s now much more somber and slow.
‘Time Will Tell’ is another track that has its meaning right in the title. It’s about waiting for time to solve your problems. First talking about waiting for the day to end so he can go back to bed, then waiting to find somebody to fill a hole in his heart, then just waiting to be older and wiser to not make the same mistakes. The song has a nice rhythm to it, sometimes getting into an almost patter-like tempo. It’s very nice. Also still in the slew of piano-based tracks, the more orchestral stuff is yet to come.
Adam goes through another average human experience, being in love with someone who doesn’t reciprocate the feelings. This song also goes in which the time theme from the previous track, given its title ‘Stop the Hand’, referring to the hands on a clock. While the last track was about waiting for time to pass, this is about stopping time and staying in the same place. The album’s title does not lie, as it was written over the course of 10 years. Adam said on a podcast that he wrote a song a year, so these two opposing ideas make sense in the context they were written a solid 365 away from each other. This song is another hint at the orchestral tracks near the backend, with the brass instruments and strings and such all joining in with the piano and guitars featured on the previous tracks.
‘The Prophet’ is one of the most lyrically dense tracks on this album, and as a result, it is extremely hard to follow. You hear the first few lines, “Stop using me a mirror for yourself, you must really hate yourself,” then it pops on over to, “You wanted more power because you once thought that you had none, but over-compensation can only fuck the balance,” and it ends with, “You’ll never ban my life in your myopic fight, I won’t shut my eyes to make it better,” Absolutely no clue what is going on there. Obviously, it’s about someone Adam was in a relationship with, but it keeps going from topic to topic. It’s hard to make anything out in the fog. It is an extremely fun track to listen to, and the instrumentation is some of the best on the record.
Every time ‘Strides’ comes on you’re in shock. It’s forgettable in a good way, it always surprises you. One of the most energetic and funky tracks on this record, it starts with an almost surf rock instrumental, going into this near-beautiful chorus, it’s hard to even describe. If there was one song from this album that works on its own, it’d have to be this one. Adam’s vocal performance has so much character in this track, a big change if you’re used to his monotone voice on the YouTube channel. The instruments also just sound fun, it really does sound like Adam had fun making this song. In terms of what the song is about, seems to just be about time passing, like some previous tracks, this time in a better light. Things come in strides and you just have to live with ‘em. The track also has a bit of young Adam in it, talking about “a kid who convinced himself he was straight from birth ‘til twelve or thirteen,” and, “you say that I’m young, but how it hurts you when you’re young,” Pretty stellar instrumentation and vocal performance on this track, but it’s a good start to this line of amazing tracks at the backend of the record.
The slowest song on the record is next: ‘Anything’ is about doing anything, being anything, needing anything. In the first verse, we go back into the idea of insomnia, saying, “I just wish I could cure what’s in my head, I just need anything,” The idea that his problems have gotten so bad over the years, he would do anything to fix them. In the next verse, it seems to be more of a dialogue, with Adam talking to a parental or guardian figure who told him he could be anything based on the choices he makes. The final verse has him speaking to someone he used to know, saying that no matter their pasts, they will both always be staring at “the same damn moon”. This track is the slowest on the album, it’s almost entirely a piano piece, and it’s one of the few songs with a music video to go along with it. Piano is so prevalent in this track that the music video enunciates itself with an overlay of a piano being played throughout. Although the best tracks on this album are faster-paced, ‘Anything’ stands out as well, being one of the most meaningful.
Speaking of fast-paced tracks, ‘Alternative Treatment’, a personal favorite. There is a patter-like rhythm during the pre-chorus that is pretty amazing on a first listen, and once you get the lyrics, equally fun to sing along with. As for the song itself, it’s about a GOOD relationship for a change but still has its bumps. Now Adam seems to be happy, the dude he’s with this time seems to actually be good for him, but they still argue with each other. The only reason this song is a personal favorite is because of how fun it is, there really is no big instrumental breakdown or super crazy lyricism, just because it’s a fun listen.
‘Acceptance’ is the best possible track to end this album with. It brings together all the storylines, it has some of the best instrumentation, it even has a happy ending despite being a fairly somber sound. There are a lot of problems in Adam’s life, but everybody is going to have those problems, and it’s just part of being human. First, we have his fear of being forgotten (Synecdoche), “And that’s okay, yeah, that’s alright,” then his fear of the unknowable future, “And that’s okay, yeah, that’s alright,” Next up is pretending to be someone else to appeal to others and that practice’s effects on the psyche, “And that’s okay, yeah, that’s alright,” Finally on this list we have using personal tragedies to create art (like on this entire album), and alienating the people you create art about, “And that’s no good, but I think I’ll be alright” Throughout these different explanations of fears and shortcomings, the music swells, more instruments join, a steady drum begins and horns come in around the third verse, it really feels like something is building on this track. “You’re chasing carrots on a stick, but I won’t stop ‘til it gets better,” back to time, you can’t wait for time to fix your problems, you have to always make decisions and live with them, you cannot make someone else your entire purpose in life, you can learn to live with what you’ve made for yourself. You shat in the bed now lie in it. That’s what this song, and more importantly this album, is all about. But yeah, good tune.
Obviously given the problems some tracks bring up would lower the score of this album, unbiased this would be a 6/10 or 7/10, I’ve seen many scores even lower than those, a reviewer I respect gave it a 4/10. The album just means too much to me. I have been consistently listening to it once or twice every month since it’s release, that’s at least seven times. I would not listen to something I didn’t consider an amazing album seven times for no reason. Absolute 10/10 from me.
Also if you just want my basic thoughts or score from an album I have an AOTY account, I listen to new music constantly and you should have an idea of my current thoughts: www.albumoftheyear.org/user/josephdcater/
