Geoff Palmer - Your Face Is Weird (2020)

The first full-length release from Geoff Palmer & Lucy Ellis, Your Face Is Weird, takes you for a short spin while showing you how well they duo collaborates. This is a side project for both members, with Lucy coming from Lucy and The Rats and Geoff Palmer hailing from The Kurt Baker Band.

With only eight-tracks, and a playtime of roughly 25-minutes, it’s a bit more mellow than I expected. While the overall album is worth a listen, there are some parts that are boring and I’m not confident these songs show the true talent of these musicians – especially when compared to their other bands.

The perfect scenario for listening to Your Face Is Weird would have to be in the summertime. It makes you feel like driving around in the hot sun, with the album blasting from your car radio as a cool air blows in through your windows. But, I’m currently experiencing a chilly fall, so who cares about ideal scenarios?

Opening with ‘In a Town This Size,’ the song sets the tone for the album nicely. Though, going back through the album, it seemed to me that a good amount of the songs sound pretty similar in the way they’re structured and played.

‘Swim,’ the album’s single, is a chill song. It makes perfect sense for this to be the lead single. It shows exactly what you’ll get on this album. It has very mellow guitar, simple strumming patterns, and a solid drum section, which when put together is reminiscent of bands like The Beach Boys.

The next song ‘In Spite Of Ourselves’ puts a bit more pep into the album. This was one of the standout tracks to me, and one that I would recommend checking out if you want something with more energy.

‘Together’ was a song that didn’t really stand out to me. It follows a similar song structure to ‘Swim’ and ‘In a Town This Size,’ which was where it started to feel boring. That being said, this song does have some decent, fun lead riffs.

Track five, ‘They Don’t Know,’ is my least favourite song on the album. While still following the same structure as a few other tracks on the album, they slow down the tempo more than on the other tracks. After that is ‘I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,’ which is honestly very similar to ‘They Don’t Know.’ These songs are just not for me. I’ve accepted it. So, let’s move on.

The seventh track, ‘Crash of the Music’ is by far my favourite track on this album. Starting with the simple phrase “I like to play guitar,” it evolves into exactly the type of song I was hoping for more of from this album. If I had to pick a song to listen to off this album, this would be it. That being said, I don’t think this song gives you a good idea of what to expect from Your Face is Weird.

The album ends with ‘Having A Party,’ a twangy-guitar leads a perpetually-strumming guitar, while dual vocals are laid over top, as they sing sing about dancing and having a party. I think this song is a good outro for this album.

Now don’t take this as me hating on the album, because I think there are a lot of strengths. The dual vocals are great, and I think their voices are perfect together. That’s actually one of my favourite parts of this album. Their voices compliment each other’s really well, and lyrically, I think they know how to write a fun song.

Your Face is Weird is a decent album. I won’t lie and say it’s the most exciting album I’ve ever listened to, but this duo has talent, and a ridiculous amount of potential. So, despite me not championing this as album of the year, I will say it has perked my interest in seeing what these two can do for their next release. -Ryan Curtiss