Sean Solomon releases ‘The World Is Not Good Enough’
The Los Angeles singer-songwriter shares a fully realised debut release.
Photo: Michael Schmelling
The World Is Not Good Enough is the debut album by Los Angeles singer-songwriter Sean Solomon. It’s rare to hear a debut that sounds quite this fully realised and considered. It is full of songs that sound completely sure of themselves. The arrangements are confident and always perfectly balanced. There are horns on the album’s opening track, Car Crash, that take you right back to Michigan-era Sufjan Stevens. Elsewhere, on album highlight Shooting Star, the arrangement explodes from a sparse, scratchy guitar and vocal to cacophonous electric guitars and drums.
When you think you know where these songs are headed, they surprise you without ever sounding forced or anything less than seamless. The drums, performed by Owen Barett and Josh Da Costa, are rough and loose without lacking power and punch. They take all the songs up a notch in much the same way that James Krivchenia’s drumming does in Big Thief.
Solomon’s vocals sound pained and rough yet still perfectly melodic. They stand in the perfect middle ground between Conor Oberst’s desperately pained vocals and the sedated, conversational vocals of MJ Lenderman. Musically, the songs have the same raw emo sensibility found on the best Death Cab for Cutie records. These comparisons aren’t to dissuade from the originality on display on this record. For a debut album, it’s impressive how Solomon makes all of these songs sound so distinctly full of character and his own.
At a cool 28 minutes, The World Is Not Good Enough is brief and concise. There isn’t a single wasted second, and every song feels like it’s needed to fit right alongside the others around it. Solomon has crammed this record full of as many hooks, sounds and stories as he can think of without it ever once sounding too busy or messy.
The album cover, designed by Solomon himself, is a throwback picture reminiscent of the fantastical, childlike drawings of children’s author Richard Scarry. Scarry’s best work was known for capturing a child’s eye view of what the world should be, full of innocence and wonder. Solomon’s songs are drowning in this same melancholic optimism.
Crucially, the album isn’t titled The World Is Not Good; it is titled The World Is Not Good Enough. This is a key distinction because these songs are not drowning in their own misery. These are songs about fronting up to a cold, hard world, confronting our own expectations of it and asking it to do better. Solomon approaches the world with more questions than he has answers.
The World Is Not Good Enough is full of addictive songs that are starkly aware of the cruelty of the world around us but refuse to be crushed by its all-consuming weight. It’s an ambitious concept for a debut album, but Sean Solomon makes easy work of pulling it off.
The World Is Not Good Enough is out now via Anti.
