This is the 2005 debut album from Ann Arbor indie, “wonky rock” band, Tally Hall, a band whose whimsy and weirdness was apparent from the second I heard them. I was introduced to Tally Hall as many young’uns like me are introduced to new music in the internet age: through memes! The closer, Ruler of Everything was the hot new meme for a good couple of weeks and it was just weird enough to pique my interest. I’m listening to this song and I’m thinking, what is this?! Not only did I finally not miss the boat on the hot new internet music fad, but I stumbled onto something good here, I have to check out the rest of this album. They gave me Da Vinci’s Notebook vibes, which is always a good thing, but way weirder. I just had to keep digging until I reached this album. And now I can say that it’s pretty good. The production’s a little inconsistent, but everyone sounds alright. The composition is not far off from the alternative scene of the 2000s, with Panic! At The Disco dropping their debut in the same year, for example, but it has enough character to stand out from that crowd. I was expecting something high concept from that Ruler of Everything song given how much of a strange, yet vivid story it told, but this isn’t really that. I was kind of bummed by this at first, but that lack of concept is by design. There is a certain “joie de vivre” about this record that I really gravitate towards. Sure, Tally Hall seems to wear their influences on their sleeves often on this album, but they still manage to make a fun record with a deeper meaning to find if you look hard enough. Not bad for a band I found through a silly internet meme!
PRODUCTION
The production is pretty good. The mixing is fairly standard rock fare, complete with the unfortunate rock trope that has persisted throughout the ages: heavy electric guitars overpower the vocals. These electric guitar explosion on the opener, Good Day, perfectly illustrates my point. But don’t get turned off by the first couple tracks that make a few mixing mistakes because mixing does get better, even Two Wuv’s electric guitars are better than the opener. Once the fog clears, you get some pretty clear sounding vocals. The bass on Two Wuv is the best on the record. Harmonies are ok from a mixing standpoint. I feel like slightly too much emphasis is placed on the lead melody at points, but when this album’s vocals are balanced, these guys are amazing together, like in the first few seconds of that opener. Also the hidden track, Hidden In The Sand, has a really nice bassy sound to it that is a nice way to end things off. I wish the rest of that album had that full sound, but it still sounds good.
The panning and other effect on this thing can get pretty creative at points. It always adds some more definition to this record and therefore adds more fun. With vocals, it adds more layering which makes the vocals sound fuller. This translates to the instruments too. Instruments are placed around the album in such a way that makes it feel that much more immersive. That clacking in the right ear at the end of Welcome To Tally Hall is really interesting and it leads really well into Taken For A Ride, but I’m getting ahead of myself. There are parts of this record such as Haiku where it feels like you’re in the middle of a crowded bar where this band is playing, which is so immersive and gives these guys a more fun, laid-back college band vibe. There are various filters around the album which give this album a bit more diversity. The digital filters on Taken For A Ride are great. The hidden track has a dusty quality to it, as if it was just picked up from the shore of a beach. But this effects part is the first of many parts of this review where I’m going to geek out about Ruler of Everything. This is where they pull out all the stops when it comes to effects in my opinion. I said this record’s production gets better as it goes along and this is the result of that upward trend! The vocal effects and panning and backwards, warped speech throughout this song is so good.
COMPOSITION
The composition is really something. It’s quirky and weird, but nothing too crazy as far as music’s concerned. But for a debut, it can get fairly dense and involved as far as instruments are concerned. Drums are nice and punchy throughout the record, at least when they are analog. There’s this filter on Taken For A Ride, which makes the drums sound a little more synthetic, but nonetheless punchy. The various hand drums to add that island sound on Banana Man really sells the Caribbean vibe (which we’ll get to, don’t worry). Pianos are nice and clear and are always pretty, whether they are melodic or in the pocket. They are commanding, as well as noodly on the opener, Good Day. Guitars are not really anything special, but they get the job done. Acoustic guitars set the tone of Be Born quite well. Same goes for the electric guitars on Two Wuv, which remind me of Blink 182 and a bit of Mother Mother for the Canadians in the audience, which is, let’s face it, most, if not all of you. Speaking of Two Wuv and Mother Mother, the bass has this groovy vibe and really works for a lot of this record. Tally Hall gives their bassist a role on this album and he just runs with it with these really groovy lines. They are often helping out guitars, but they are given a role beyond that. You can really hear it on Two Wuv with that sick solo bass line. There are brass sections early on that add that “college band” vibe I have been pretty warm towards, mainly because they remind of Cake, a band I grew up with! There’s also that New Orleans marching band style brass on The Whole World and You, which is pretty cool. There are strings on this record that range from deep and pretty to fiddles and fun, such as 13 which does the former, and Be Born, which does the latter. As you can attest to, there’s a lot to talk about when it comes to instruments.
Structure is a bit of a mixed bag for me. On one token, I want to slam this album because structure kind of goes by the wayside right from the beginning. However, this is just Good Day, and that’s the opener and the weirdest track from a structure standpoint, as it darts around musical ideas quite haphazardly. It starts to make more sense as it goes along with more conventional song structures that are expected of a 2000s era alternative pop rock band, but made a little weirder to fit their style. As eccentric as this album is, it manages to be pretty cohesive thanks to very solid transitions. These transitions are employed right away between the opener and Good Day and Greener, then Welcome To Tally Hall and Taken For A Ride. This makes this album quite interesting and it really goes the extra mile to add cohesion to a record that doesn’t necessarily need any. This is an eclectic collection of songs type of record, and as such, it is an album that is weird and wonderful. It has nothing to prove to anyone and confidently struts its way into your ears with all its weirdness in tow.
LYRICS
Lyrics are a very quirky beast to tackle, but nonetheless enjoyable. These are sung by the boys of Tally Hall. The yellow tie guy, Robert Cantor, who would, by the way, go on to write that Shia LaBoeuf song, has some breathy, punk rock vocals on Greener that really bring those Blink 182 vibes. Flanking him is the man in the red tie, Joe Hawley. Joe’s responsible for the bulk of vocals on this record and rightly so. He pulls off a variety of vocal styles to fit the mood of each song rather well and it fits the vibe every time. Part of the bonkers nature of this album is because of this guy. Whether good or bad, this guy sells it. Sometimes he gets so cheesy that he makes my eyes roll into the back of my skull, but I enjoy that charm from him. His rapping is cheesy on Welcome To Tally Hall, but again, he sells the vibe! His rapping on Ruler of Everything is great too. He and Cantor are helped by the blue tie-sporting Zubin Sedghi, who makes for a three part harmony that is really beautiful whenever it shows up. Side note: whoever sang that, “I stepped on gum” line gave me flashbacks to Nostalgia Critic’s The Wall, and those are memories I do not like to revisit. Stop. Ew.
The lyrics themselves are as quirky as the boys sing them as. There’s no real concept in mind besides this “have fun” vibe and I really like that. There are fairly standard rock themes like love on this record. Standard romantic woes show up on Greener, Just Apathy and Haiku, father-son love on Be Born, as well as the alt-rock stalker song, Two Wuv. The song “Welcome To Tally Hall” is exactly what it sounds like: an introduction to the band. Ordinarily, I would hate the idea of songs like these in the first place for reasons of “show, don’t tell”. I feel like artists have no need to formally introduce themselves in music as their music is the introduction, but with a band as shameless, carefree, and fun as Tally Hall, it somehow works. There are more thematically interesting songs on this record like The Bidding, which plays out like an auction mixed with The Dating Game, that game show with a girl choosing who among three guys to date. Banana Man may be offensive in current year with its fake Jamaican accents and stuff, but don’t count it out just yet! It’s a really interesting song about maybe drugs or vacations or drugs on vacations and how modern life at a cubicle sucks. And then we get to Ruler of Everything. This is perhaps Tally Hall’s masterpiece and it’s not very hard to see why. It is the most lyrically interesting song on this record as it talks about time and how it governs our every move. Time controls our lives and being insecure is not worth the time. We’re all going to run out of time eventually, so while you have it, make the most of it. Give it up and smile! This is a vibe that is crucial to how and why this album works. It’s an album that is not concerned with serious matters, just with making the most fun, enjoyable music possible!
CONCLUSION
So yeah, turns out some well-made and well-placed memes led me down a rabbit hole of good music, which only gets more interesting the deeper you go! And the entrance to this rabbit hole is Tally Hall’s Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum. Like the museum the album is named after, it’s bright and full of weird things to look at and enjoy, but its just off the beaten path enough to catch you off guard, and make you feel like you’ve made a real find. Production is alright, if a bit cliché for my liking at first. It gets better as the album goes along. Panning is used to add more dimension to this record, whether they want you to feel like you’re in a crowded bar or in some psychedelic world. This album’s pool of instruments is on the larger and more diverse end of things and it always works well from track to track. Structure is weird at first, but starts to make slightly more sense as it goes along, as it is a weird album by design. It is an album unafraid to express itself, sink or swim. This confidence shines through in lyrics too. These singers are fun, but not just that. They carry the song with their great voices as well. Joe Hawley in particular is critical to the “young adult 2000s fun rock band” vibe of this album, with singing and rapping in different tones of voice that always works, no matter how bizarre. The lyrics are as quirky and fun as everything else on this album. They are a diverse collection of songs that range from something like a Weezer to something completely out of left field. Ruler of Everything is the best song on this album by far and it sums up not only this album, but the time it was in. It is a song about how time dictates our every move, and how pointless it is to waste time on insecurity, which is a perfect way to sum up this album. It is not afraid to be what it is, and it’s confidence sells itself. Its weirdness reminds me of the early internet age that this album was made in and it’s kind of poetic that this record came back to the laps and hearts of everyone on the internet. These guys went from meme to meme from 2005 to now, and this is a great album to have on your resume when you’re experiencing a spike in popularity.
FAVOURITE TRACKS: Greener, Welcome To Tally Hall, The Bidding, Be Born, Just Apathy, Spring and A Storm, Two Wuv, Haiku, The Whole World and You, 13, Ruler of Everything, Hidden In The Sand
LEAST FAVOURITE TRACK: Good Day
Strong 7/10
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