Quarantine Album Reviews

By Bridget Dunbar
Music Journalist

Everyday life seems to be changing rapidly: quarantine, closed stores, DIY haircuts, and even delayed albums.  Everything seems so strange. We almost don’t even recognize the world around us. But the music industry is still booming with new albums in the time of social distancing!

Here are a few albums that have been released recently:

Love is an Art by Vanessa Carlton

Vanessa Carlton’s 2020 album, Love is an Art has been in the works since 2017 when Carlton released the song “Love is an Art.”  This album, despite the harsh drumbeats and strange, ethereal rhythms that are present throughout the album, gives me a sense of peace. One of my favorites tracks, “I Know You Don’t Mean It,” seems to travel through many different styles, which is a really interesting choice that she made. All in all, this album is very interesting and so much fun to listen to!

Roaming Hearts by Shasta

Roaming Hearts is an EP that has three songs on it.  The opening track “Roaming Hearts” is a very fun electric pop song which set a great tone for the rest of the album.  The second song, “Ciao Fun,” has a synth and guitar duet that is really cool! This song would be so much fun to dance to with all of your friends. The final song in this project is “Closer.”  This song is much more mellow than the other two songs, perfect for ending such a great album!

What Happened to Us by The Head

What Happened to Us is a three-part project that was released in 2019 and 2020.  The first part of the series is rather mournful, with songs such as “Oceans” and “Cut Me Out” addressing loss and abandonment. The second part of this project, released in 2020, goes much harder and has a groovy sound that was not in the first one.  My favorite song on this album is “Cait.”  Finally, the third EP in this set is a refreshing sound from the first two. This one was released a little later in 2020 than the previous and as a result, sounds different. Watching the artistic evolution at work with these albums was a really great experience!

All of these albums were such a joy to listen to and I cannot possibly recommend these enough!