Album Review: Memory Tapes Reassures Rather Than Evolves On New Album “Grace/Confusion”

By: Alex Lee –

Before the album’s release, Davye Hawk, or better known by his moniker Memory Tapes, stated that he wanted this record to be “messier” than his previous ones. While the six-song album seems miles away from this self-described direction, it does keep a good narrative to the record’s supposed intentional chaos.

At first look, Grace/Confusion certainly seems chaotic. While the album only contains six songs, the shortest cut on the album barely clocks in at five minutes. The lead single “Sheila” is eight minutes long, but compared to the exhaustive mass of his debut Seek Magic, the album seems far less disposed to its cyclic tendency to drag on for minutes on end. That doesn’t mean Hawk has completely shied away from his methodology of lengthy dance numbers. Grace/Confusion’s focal platform is grounded at overtly stretched-out pop songs, but it’s the way he executes this formula that makes his chillwave-meets-pop antics so intriguing. Still, even without any evident proof of a sonic innovation, the album in its entirety proves to be a satisfying ride.

“I watch you sleep” sings Hawk in the eerie chorus of opening track “Neighborhood Watch.” It’s given the sounds of distant, hazy synths and lightly strummed acoustics doused in a mist of tasteful reverb. It’s daringly spaced out, but it works in all the right ways. The equally lengthy “Thru the Field,” makes Hawk’s grittiest 80’s pop fantasies a reality. It’s a sugar-high pop number at best, but the song’s heartbreaking lyrics bleeds through its unnervingly bright and perky nature, making it one of the album’s most bittersweet memorabilia. While Hawk’s striking efforts to establish large-scaled pop epics are evident, major portions of the album fails to reach its destination with the listener’s interest still intact. The songs sound confident in its artistic focus to deliver a variety of textures and depth, but that statement gradually loses touch as it makes its way through the songs’ demanding length.

It’s almost obvious to be disappointed by certain aspects of Grace/Confusion, simply because it lacks any progression. Hawk has shaped up to be quite the excellent remixer, and one would only think that he would have focused a hair more closer in expanding the horizons in his productions. Grace/Confusion never truly dares to step out of Hawk’s familiar territories, but instead, it constantly boxes itself in without any commitment to push forward. If anything, Hawkes has shown more than enough glimpses of his potential as an artist. We’ve all heard the brilliant creative culminations of his previous releases, but it seems more like a reassurance, an after-thought of Hawk’s well-defined sound. Without any effort in progressing the sound that he has built, Memory Tapes will continue to bring forth nothing but rehashed songs that sound more or less like self-parody.

Essential Tracks: ““Sheila,” “Neighborhood Watch,” and “Thru the Field.”