Up On and Over

Indie-rock is music that I've found to be music that is just there at times. It can be great, it can be bad, but mostly indie-rock are songs that can blend into the ambiance where it's not really noticed. For the Hartford, Connecticut band Bronze Radio Return, their indie-rock songs just about fall into the background of sounds. Their opening track, "Up, On and Over", which is also the title of the album, starts with some mild chant like sound that caught my attention. This short opening had me wanting to do the same, there's some instinct inside of me that just makes me want to go along with the chant, but it don't last long and the vocals of the song come into play.
Chris Henderson has the right voice for indie-rock music. He carries the same pitch through the songs, he has that slight nasal yet soft voice that makes the songs have their mellow feel, and he has a way to make the songs sound more intimate and personal. However, it's some of these same aspects to his vocals that make this album not stand out more. He keeps the same tempo for the majority of this album, when he does change his tempo it's few and far between to make it not have an impact. The best parts on this album is when Chris Henderson is doing the chants and going "Ohhh, Ohhh". The vocals just don't have much of a impact on the songs, even though they are sung ok, they just don't have that right enthusiasm to make them fun.
I've listened to the album at least 10 times already in the last 24 hours and there's still no song or sound on here that would make me remember this album in the future. One of the reasons this album is just a in the moment album is because when listening I would be lead to focus on the vocals or the instruments. When listening it's one or the other but never both, either the vocals was the focal point or the instruments. If the instruments had been given more volume in the songs this album would have taken on a different sound. Instead, the songs just have a mild amusement to them, though they are played ok and have vocals that are decent, the songs just don't have a strong enough impact or any points that are catchy enough to be insteresting.