MicShazam

I've been through this album at least a good 3,5 times now, so I don't think I'm going to feel any different about it if I continue listening. It's been interesting checking out this type of music, but I didn't find it to be a genre that I'm dying to hear more of.

While I certainly enjoy a lot of the grooves on this album, I also found 1 hour of this type of material to be somewhat redundant as it doesn't strike me as the most varied genre. There is some variation in tempo and instrumentation here, but I do feel like a lot of the compilation blends together for me. Even after spending this long time with the album over the last few days, I can't really recall any specific tracks when not listening to it.

Like someone else pointed out, the vocals are often not recorded very well. The opening track is exemplary of how bad it can get, with it's distorted, shrill, overly loud vocals burying the much nicer underlying music. Some other tracks had more agreeable vocals, but on average, the vocals were more endurable than enjoyable for me. I definitely find world music interesting and am currently exploring this vague genre category a lot myself, but I don't see molam as being anything I'll likely return to.
It feels too much like it's mostly some pretty simple pop music. There's not a lot of depth to most of this music and the vocals tend to feel somewhat ham-fisted in delivery and repetitive in their melodic arrangements. Not a single one of these singers struck me as being particularly talented.

Still, I did have fun listening to this and the music was enjoyable a lot of the time, although not quite interesting enough for the length of the disc.

There's a certain vibe to this that I'd see why some would enjoy. If I was drinking beer with other people at a bar in Thailand, I'd probably happily take it in as part of the local atmosphere.

5/10 Good enough for what it is, but not really doing it for me personally.