Making Lemonade from Lemons

By Ryan O'Connell on 05/07/2015 • ( 0 )

Spencer Albee is a Giddy Up America-Approved musician. We can only hope that helps him sleep at night. Dude kind of seems like he’s been through some shit lately based largely on what appears to be troubled source material for his latest release, Mistakes Were Made. The album is full of longing, regret, sadness, a little more longing, occasional pining and attempts at understanding. Although leave it to Albee’s pop sensibilities to create an album of sadness that sounds like sunshine.

Diabolical!

A fixture in the music scene of sunny Portland, Maine- vet of two of the most popular bands to emerge from the city (Rustic Overtones, As Fast As) Albee has been on somewhat of a role in recent years. He released his first solo album in 2013, a career retrospective last year and now Mistakes Were Made. After being one of many for so long, Albee appears more than willing to grab the reins of his career and forge his own path- a path filled with whimsical harmonies, fantastical melodies and extremely delicious instrumentation. Think the Beatles meets the Byrds has a drink with Beck all while watching “a Wes Anderson film that doesn’t exist.”

Hmm…Wes Anderson, huh?

Okay so here is a written word review of Mistakes Were Made in text form: it’s really good.

Now here’s a track by track review of the album told via .gifs from Wes Anderson movies. These .gifs are not meant to cop meanings from Albee’s songs and/or possibly distort his message. They merely help explain how I feel about each song, how each song makes me feel and in some form or another, help display the vibe of each song.

So let’s do this.Le