ALBUM REVIEW: Fart Lunge - Fart Lunge

    2023 is proving, so far, to be the Year of the Fart Lunge. For such a new artist, Fart Lunge started the year strong with January's Collection of works and items from 2020 to 2023, a certainly oddball release but one that I couldn't help but enjoy for its mix of lovely acoustic tracks that was wonderfully balanced out by bizarre electronic numbers and experimental pieces. It was a worthy follow-up to his decent enough but spotty SCALD debut album from the year prior, and with singles like the industrial "Feb" and the quirky "Jung" being released before this album, expectations were building for me. Well, this third full length outing from Fart Lunge is mostly a continuation of ideas from his previous singles and album, and while the results still do cook, I admittedly find the results much less satisfying than his previous endeavor, especially when it lacks some of the wackadoo energy.

    One of the most purveying aspects of this album remains the instrumental acoustic tracks, and generally I don't see that as too much of an issue, especially when many of them continue to be as generally lovely as they are - the one exception to this trend is the aforementioned "Jung-1" which has made its way onto this release, about as close to the bizarre energy of his previous album as we get. There's also the peculiar instrumental "1" which is seemingly played on some sort of melodica-type instrument; all good fun, and I'd like to hear this kind of variety in the future. Even some of the acoustic tracks like "Covered" are as lovely as ever (I even heard "Covered" live before it appeared on this album). However, as great as the acoustic tracks are, I also kind of feel them to be the album's biggest flaw. They are lovely, yes, but many of them still have a rough demo feel. With the looseness of the previous album, that was almost a benefit, and they served as great dividing moments between more off the wall moments. Here, it's mostly these acoustic tracks, and they are in a bit of need of more than just acoustic guitar - When only 4 of the 23 minutes of this album are not solely acoustic, it does get stale. It doesn't help matter when songs like "BE" or "Casí" feel as though they are overstaying their welcome.

    It goes without saying that Fart Lunge is a more than capable musician, and I truly think that Collection of works proves that. While his self-titled release here does take the ideas that worked on that previous album, it lacks a lot of the out-there energy and diverse ideas from previous releases, and even with many of the songs being as good as they are on their own, taken as a whole it does get a little tiring. Fart Lunge is certainly an artist with plenty of potential, and the self-titled album still shows some of that, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't prefer the crazy-as-hell previous album.

RATING: ✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

Listen to Fart Lunge.