YAJICO GIRL

Released: 22.05.18 / Label: MASH A&R

Airride has found moderate success with YAJICO GIRL fans, but has failed to attract many new listeners. And I think I have an idea as to why: the song is kinda just meh.

This is a case of a band doing everything a little bit too by-the-book, resulting in a track with a nice guitar hook, a decent overall arrangement, and some interesting rhythm in the melody, but nothing that stands out as memorable. The vocals wander aimlessly around the chords, while the chorus is repetitive with no real payoff. The songs whole structure seems like it’s cut and paste from the pop musicians handbook. I did appreciate the extended bridge section being turned into the outro, but that might be due to being tired of the chorus by the end of the song.

All of the band members are exceptional musicians, but something clearly went wrong during the recording session. I think they were going for a “chill” vibe, but the final product falls flat. What results are some pretty emotionless individual parts that don’t really mesh together.

The whole song is based around the concept of an “airride”, which seems to be the group’s term for “reminiscing about past love.” Unfortunately, thsee memories aren’t particularly interesting; going to a restaurant, going to a bread shop, sleeping next to someone, getting yelled at. Although liberally self-referenced as “poetry” in the chorus, the lyrics have remarkably little to say.

However, the production of the track is where they hit the mark. Everything is super clean, and they’ve clearly recorded in a high-quality studio. Given the band’s breakout success with earlier tracks, I’d guess someone dropped some real money in the hopes of riding the wave of popularity to fame. The mixing is superb and it gives the the track a great overall balance. I hope they recorded some other songs in that session.

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