August 6, 2021

Written By Shanya Olivares

MUD WHALE RELEASES THEIR SENSATIONAL NEW ALBUM "EVERYTHING IN MODERATION"

On the odd chance that you’ve never heard any of Mud Whale’s songs, you’re in luck, the Cleveland-based alt-rock band has recently released a new album titled ‘Everything in Moderation’. Their first ever album contains 8 songs, with only 3 of them released as singles over the past few months. Before I get into telling you what this album has to offer for you, let me introduce you to Mud Whale.

Mud Whale was first formed in 2018, and it is composed by vocalist Michael Morris, drummer Shawn King and bassist Joe Hanson. There’s an old saying, “don’t judge a book by it’s cover,” but you can absolutely judge a band by their album covers; Mud Whales is no exception to this judgement, which is why I’m so keen on letting you all know who they are. This new album explores a different variety of genres, and ultimately allows us to explore who this band is.

The aforementioned album cover was a bit confusing at first glance, but I grew to love the artist's liberty and creativity the more I looked at it. In fact, it’s a perfect demonstration of the 33 minute album and it’s creators. The album opens with a song titled, ‘Karmageddon’, which starts off with an upbeat melody, and mellows out towards the middle. A song retelling the story of feeling helpless when it comes to our surroundings, yet I can’t feel miserable listening to this song, regardless of what the message is trying to convey. Although the song is followed by a previously released single, ‘Scapegoat’, I’ll skip over those and let you form your own judgement. The third song on the album is ‘Haze Jude’, which is completely different from the first song, in the sense that the two songs balance their genre differently. While this third song is a lot more mellow, it doesn’t take away from the originally developed genre or brand. 

These songs are followed by ‘Nutrient Burn’ — which was previously released — and ‘Decay and Bloom’. When I began listening to this song, I was convinced that this album was a compilation of different types of alt-rock songs. While none sound the same, you know that these are all Mud Whale songs, they have a sense of unspoken uniqueness and it’s inexplicable. This is followed by a song titled ‘Vacation Killer’, which in my opinion is the most different sounding song in the album, this song is almost the opposite of the ‘Karmageddon’ song, beginning with a very mellow vibe and going more upbeat towards the middle. I don’t often pick favorites, but this song definitely takes a spot in my top 10 hyper fixations for the month of August.  Before we get to the last song of the album, we are introduced to another previously released single, ‘French Roast’, which you get to form your own opinion on! The last song, ‘Pavement’, is very mellow, with impressive instrumental backgrounds. Somewhere in the middle, we lose the mellow feeling and begin feeling the angst of the song. This song proves their point that their music is a mix of alt-rock and early 2010’s indie-punk. If that’s your thing, make sure you give the new Mud Whale album a listen! 

Mud Whale, who has taken time to evolve as a band during this pandemic, has shown a diverse  range of modulation with the release of “Everything in Moderation.” It is available for you all to listen to on any of your preferred platforms, I expect a lot of great things from this band and we can’t wait to follow their journey.