Wednesday, May 4, 2022

Album Review: Robbing Millions – Holidays Inside

I can't feign objectivity when it comes to Robbing Million's Holidays Inside. Objectivity isn't the point of anything I write, but it is especially hard to imagine what kind of response that would be like when considering this album. Something along the lines of listening to an electronic reading app recounting a weather report- completely devoid of humanity. I am nothing if not human though and I sincerely love Holidays Inside. It hits so many of my music obsessions- hooky pop, flamboyant funk, beautiful guitar work, incorrigible synth experimentations, and large doses of eccentric personality. I love the bombastic, super-heated futuristic funk of "Family Dinner." The bizarrely wholesome and cartoonishly elastic, staccato escalations and sugar-dips of "Tiny Tino" warm my heart and excite my senses. Tracks like "Camera" make me feel like I've fallen through the floor and landed in the cockpit of a '70s sci-fi cruise to another galaxy. "Holidays Inside" delightfully wraps whistling cascades of atmospheric synths in the warm wash of progressive surf rock. "Season Of The Rain" sounds like a Roxy Music attempt at a Bajoran tango. I'm elated to bathing in the tides of moody but optimistic, star-loft yacht rock that pour out of "Overdry." The bounty of pitched vocals, Latin grooves, and the confluence of beats on "Chewie Chewie" is overwhelmingly delightful to gnash on. And finally, the ample pop-obsessed angularity of "Back" is just what I need now. Holiday Inside is like a five-diamond, extra-dimensional getaway in my own head. I know the band is called Robbing Millions, but I feel like they have gifted me an aural endowment that I will never be able to exhaust with this album. God damn, this is straight-up gold!