Album Review: Weeknight’s “Post-Everything”

by Aedyn Roze

A distorted haze of romantic themes and entrancing melodies is what you can expect from Weeknight’s LP, Post-Everything. Hailing from Brooklyn, New York, Weeknight are Holly MacGibbon and Andy Simmons – a duo that reflects each other’s musical personalities in perfect sync.

Simmons, the guitarist and predominant vocalist on the album, has a style similar  to Joy Division’s Ian Curtis, but with more serene characteristics. His vocals will soothe and haunt at the same time, placing a pleasantly dark yet light-hearted feeling onto the songs. MacGibbon’s vocals are entwined with Simmons’ on each track and provide a sort of gentle embrace to the overall texture of the album. The distant, reverb effect on their vocals and music produces an element of bewilderment.

Although Weeknight classifies their music as “dark pop”, there’s a definite influence from 80’s New Wave bands, such as The Cure and Depeche Mode, and is exemplified through the structure/blend of distorted and heavy guitar tones in “Dark Light”, by the more upbeat drum patterning in “Sound Of My Voice”, and through the general style of atmospheric layering and synth melodies by MacGibbon.

Post-Everything is the perfect title in which to wrap the songs on the LP: it is the type of sound that combines several qualities from other genres, like New Wave and Shoegaze, and creates another dreamy, alluring genre of its own.  It’s the kind of album that is emotionally consistent from the first track to the last.  The mesh of engaging guitar melodies, synthesized drum beats, sublime synth melodies, and memorable vocals leaves the listener in a pleasurable, trance-like state of mind – that subdued feeling of delight that should certainly be experienced by listening to this lovely album.