Music Review: Psychomonkey – Tries Out Stuff After Work

Before Psychomonkey releasde its 3rd album probably this year or next year, entitled, “ Don’t Panic it’s Organic”, let us take a look back at the 1st two albums of the band. First off is their second album, Psychomonkey’s Tries Out Stuff After Work.

The album was released without fanfare on the May of 2013. The album is the second from the band that features the writing talents of Bomba Records’ head honcho-Dexter Sy.

Album title alone, “Tries Out Stuff After Work” is already ear and eye catching. It is pretty cool and yet also makes you curious about what stuff the artist does.

The album inlay cover does not provide the audience with much information such as lyrics and other stuff. However the mix of cigarettes, a comic character and a comfort room sign age (and don’t forget the album title) does achieve to set the overall playful mood of the album.

The album opens up with, “The Game”, a song with a garage rock sound and feel.

The light guitar riff makes the song very radio friendly and introduces us to the pop rock sound of the band. As of now, the song is the second most downloaded song in their website.

Continuing the pop rock feel of the band is the song, “Burned Sometimes”. Though much more heavy with its guitar intros, this song is can be related to because of the lyrics and unless you are part of the lucky (and boring) ones, we all do get burned sometimes.

My favorite in the album is, “I want to be Your Conquest”. It is the most pop rock of them all. It has a melody that is just easy to sing with. It is for me the most radio friendly of them all. And yeah, in a weird way that title does sound romantic as well.

Overall the album with its light guitars, easy tunes and lyrics give off a happy and playful vibe. It has managed to do that even with some song titles such as, “ Mondays Keep on Getting Worse”, @Universe: F*ck You”, and “Burned Sometimes”. This album deserved to really have its own album launch with all the screaming fans and the fireworks. I just hope that the third album will have that and much more.

This year and the last, the artist Dexter Sy has reminded us of his record producing skills, I hope next year here minds us this time of his songwriting skills with the release of their third album “Don’t Panic it’s Organic”.

About the author: N.M. CABANGBANG graduated Bachelor of Fine Arts Major in Painting at University of the Philippines Cebu. He is now currently teaching grade 6 – 10 Art at B.R.I.G.H.T. Academy.