OK I've listened to the first several songs. I'll listen to the whole thing tomorrow at work (unless I get stuck doing something away from my desk most of the day). My initial impression is ... it sounds promising, but it needs work. A few initial thoughts:
1) If you want the album to succeed, you've got to have at least one song (preferably the first or second cut) which has "commercial hit" written all over it. I'd say this is especially true of a new band just starting up. If there aren't any songs that really jump out at you, it's not going to get anyone's attention. So far, there are some decent songs, but nothing that really jumps out at me. It may bother some purists to deliberately write a "commercial" song, but it's the reality if you want to get noticed.
2) I like the way you've got a variety of songs, but I think you should develop that a little more. There's nothing more boring than an album where all the songs sound roughly the same (even if it's a good sound). Most good albums will have a variety of fast songs, slow songs, loud songs, soft songs, songs emphasizing different instrumental arrangements, songs in minor keys, songs in major keys, etc. You've got a decent start there, but it would be nice to expand on it a bit more.
3) Melodic patterns. This is one of my biggest beefs about a lot of bands. Especially in bands with just one main songwriter, that songwriter often writes his/her songs which tend to follow similar melodic patterns, and this can lead to a bit of monotony. You've got *some* variety, but there's still a lot of sameness in the melodic patterns (though I've definitely heard worse). I see you've got two songwriters - I'm going to presume either: both of you sit down and write the songs together, or one of you writes the music and the other writes the words. I would suggest you might want to have each of you two write their own songs separately, without input from the other (at least at first). The reason for this is because each of you, writing separately, are bound to have your own individual styles. If Guy A tends to write bouncy melodies in major keys with long, wordy phrases that don't repeat for half a minute, while Guy B tends to write more somber tunes whose vocals meander around a narrow range and is very minimalist with his words, then you've got a *great* combination which will give the album some really nice variety. This is why bands such as the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac and Animal Collective were/are so great: Each of those bands had at least 2-3 songwriters with wildly different styles. When you play the album, you never know what to expect from the next song.
That criticism is by no means true of all one-songwriter bands, but it's definitely true of a lot of them. Also, if you already write songs the way I suggested above, then I think each of you two might want to individually practice "writing songs in ways you wouldn't normally write a song." Start some songs out by patterning the song around a guitar riff, write other songs by writing the words first and then fitting a melody to it, write yet other songs by humming out a pure melody at first and the writing the words/arrangement around that melody, etc.
Anyway I got through song #5, I'll listen to the whole thing tomorrow.
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