Franklyn 95 – 90s Days

“90s days” is a debut full-length album by Franklyn 95, an outstanding musical outlet of a profoundly talented English singer-songwriter Simone Le Gassick. This comprehensive collection consists of eight marvelous compositions that vividly showcase her creativity, talent, skills, and knowledge, and it’s unquestionably one of those debuts that will immediately appeal to all the music enthusiasts looking for expertly composed and flawlessly performed music. Aesthetically, “90s days” explores the nostalgia of the nineties by merging some of the finest elements of the particular era. Still, the artist also blends in some modern ideas and approaches to elevate this epic sonic journey to new heights. Lyrically, the album explores various themes, such as love, relationships, friendships, sentiments, moods, situations, and circumstances, so it’s a highly relatable material that will resonate with the broader auditorium on a profound level. Sonically, Franklyn 95 merges everything you dearly love about the nineties music. Perhaps alternative rock comes to mind first, but you’ll unquestionably notice how some of the finest properties borrowed from shoegaze, grunge, garage, indie rock, and dream pop found their way into this sonic equation. She uses all these additional elements as more than necessary enhancements, accentuations, decorations, and other details to uplift her music to new heights while simultaneously remaining loyal to the primary sonic direction. Therefore, these experimentations with different but complementary styles resulted in a catchy, memorable, engaging, mesmerizing album that will satisfy even the pickiest listeners. 

“Stay Awake” sets the stage for the remainder of the album with its calm, soothing, relaxing, ethereal ambiance, achieved by stacking marvelous, reverby, arpeggiated chord progressions, heavy, intricate basslines, and moderate rhythmic patterns. The production resembles all those beautiful nineties alternative and shoegaze songs, with a touch of rawness, and abrassiveness included along the way. Still, Simone Le Gassick steals the show here, as her exceptional vocal performance commands attention and guides listeners from scratch to finish. The impressive vocal range seamlessly balances low, mid, and high notes with such precision and finesse, decorating everything she intended to achieve with this song. This epic sonic journey continues with “Dead Flies,” another catchy, memorable, ethereal track that blends all those fundamental elements of indie and dream pop music. Franklyn 95 showcases her noisy, grungy, shoegaze side with “Fear,” one of those tracks that seamlessly blends the finest qualities of the eighties and nineties music. The guitar reigns supreme, with many memorable, heavily distorted, abrasive chord progressions and riffs pervading from all possible sides while the rhythm section keeps a steady pace and groove. Her vocals once again showcase an impressive range, making this track one of the standouts of this material. It’s more than obvious that Simone Le Gassick thoroughly planned the entire tracklist. Each composition acts like an adequate continuation of the previous one. “Found It” exemplifies her dedication to the craft, with its energy and ambiance that mimic previous songs yet showcase Franklyn 95’s ability to break all the rules and shapeshift the boundaries of so many music genres at once. 

“Heaven” brings a more energetic, dynamic, psychedelic sound to the table. Simone Le Gassick incorporated fundamentals of alternative, shoegaze, and garage music in this one, so it carries some of the finest guitar works, basslines, and rhythmic sequences you’ll hear on the contemporary music scene. Perhaps this track carries that irresistible, hypnotic, addictive eighties and nineties alt-rock ambiance, but it also delivers some innovative moves rarely seen on the music scene nowadays. “Insatiable” is another ballad where Simone Le Gassick’s excellent vocal performance decorates everything she intended to achieve with this track. With a nearly cathartic ambiance achieved by stacking many guitar and bass layers, and removing drums from the sonic equation, she demonstrates how alternative music can still sound exciting, fresh, and unique. On the other hand, “Gone Gone Gone” emphasizes all those robust, heavy, groovy, cleverly assembled, flawlessly performed, well-accentuated beats, breaks, and other percussive acrobatics while the guitar continuously levitates between traditional chord progressions and noisy experimentations. Her marvelous voice glides over all these instrumentations, once again guiding listeners through the expansive sonic universe. This epic sonic journey closes with “Inbetween,” another stripped-down alt-rock ballad where she solely relies upon her vocal performance and nearly psychedelic, arpeggiated chord progressions. It’s such a perfect closure of a magnificent album. Simone Le Gassick thought about everything while writing, composing, recording, arranging, and producing her debut album, so if the guitars act as a perfect backdrop for all the vocals to shine upon, then the bass guitar and drums serve as a backbone, binding and holding everything together. Besides all these instrumentations and arrangements, the artist also thought about the overall ambiance, so you’ll notice how the raw, abrasive, gritty, noisy ambiance lurks throughout the entire album like she recorded all those instrumentations on the cassette tape. It’s a nice touch that will unquestionably appeal to all the fans of alternative rock music who listened to their favorite music on tape. 

“90s days” is an alt-rock masterpiece that vividly demonstrates Franklyn 95’s ability to break all the rules and shapeshift boundaries of alternative rock music. Her experience, knowledge, creativity, talent, skills, ideas, and musicianship are on full display, and “90s days” is one of those albums you’ll gladly spin all over again. You should put Franklyn 95’s and her debut album on your music album because she deserves your utmost attention. “90s days” is available on all streaming platforms. Don’t miss it!