Hey Look Listen – Now Is The Time

The alternative music scene is growing stronger each day, with many artists and bands delivering high-quality music that immediately resonates with listeners and stays with them long after the last notes and beats have ended. However, many of them also overly explore influences, experiment too much, or try to reinvent the same old wheel by mimicking something the greats recorded and performed decades ago. Thankfully, there are music outlets like Gwen Katherine’s Hey Look Listen, whose music often breaks all the rules and shapeshifts boundaries not only of alternative rock sound, but also of many additional genres along the way. With “Now is the Time,” the debut album released via streaming platforms today, Hey Look Listen demonstrates how even long-standing music genres like alternative rock can still sound fresh, unique, innovative, and exciting. It’s one of those full-length recordings that immediately wraps around your listening apparatus, grabs you by the collar, and leads on the epic sonic journey through the expansive sonic universe. Lyrically, Gwen Katherine explores themes such as love, relationships, various sentiments, moods, situations, and circumstances, making “Now is the Time” such a highly relatable collection of songs that will immediately resonate with the broader audience. With “Life Not Lived,” “Stop Motion,” “Lowell,” “Static Snowflakes,” “No Time,” and “Fill The Blanks,” six exceptional composition that first appeared as standalone singles, this album carries some of the finest alternative tracks you’ll hear in a while. Of course, the remainder of the material is equally good, carrying everything you ever needed from this genre. Speaking of music genres, it’s worth mentioning that alternative rock is not the only style you’ll stumble upon here. Quite the contrary, Hey Look Listen incorporated many other complementary styles like shoegaze, grunge, indie, and dream pop, making this material worth revisiting every time you crave some excellent music. By blending various approaches, different techniques, and complementary genres, Hey Look Listen uses these additional sonic ingredients as more than necessary enhancements, accentuations, decorations, and other details to elevate this material to new heights while simultaneously remaining loyal to the primary sonic direction. This dedication to the craft is rarely heard or seen on the contemporary music scene, and it seems like Gwen Katherine assembled the album with such ease. While “Now is the Time” unquestionably carries the qualities that meet all the trends of modern music production, you’ll also notice how a subtle touch of nostalgia lurks around and spices things up on an entirely new level. Therefore, these experimentations with various approaches, different techniques, and complementary styles resulted in an album that will immediately get a special place in your record collection.

As soon as you press play, you’ll notice that Gwen Katherine poured heart and soul into assembling this material. “Now is the Time” is one of those records you could endlessly spin and not get bored with it, thanks to so many catchy, memorable, engaging songs that immediately penetrate your listening apparatus and refuse to let go. Each of these compositions arrives with a perfect structure, packed with many profoundly detailed segments, brilliant ideas, and marvelous orchestrations. Each vocal, sonic, and rhythmic maneuver has its place and purpose here, making this album worth repeating over and over again. The vocal performance plays a significant role here. Besides acting as a centerpiece, it also elevates everything to new heights, commands attention, and leads listeners on this sonic journey. You’ll notice how calm, soothing, soulful, passionate, sincere, confident, and emotive vocal harmonies balance low, mid, and high notes, emphasizing everything Gwen Katherine intended to achieve with such precision and finesse. Besides decorating all those segments and instrumentations, the vocal performance also contributes more than necessary emotional depth and complexity to an already intricate song structures. In the meantime, the guitars shape a perfect backdrop for all the vocals to shine upon. You’ll notice how Hey Look Listen implements entirely clean, polished, ethereal chord progressions and heavily distorted, abrasive, raw riffs, depending on the song’s mood and ambiance. The interplays between those riffs on one side and memorable themes, melodies, harmonies, and other sonic maneuvers craft such a fascinating ambiance that will force you to spin this material all over again. You’ll also hear how subtle or more dominant implementation of delay, reverb, echo, tremolo, and chorus effects decorates those guitar works. Also, it’s nearly mindblowing how all those layers articulate together without overwhelming each other. Everything is skillfully and tastefully incorporated to satisfy even the pickiest listeners. Of course, this material wouldn’t sound complete without a rock-solid rhythm section. There are vividly hearable, intricate, warm-sounding basslines rumbling beneath those guitar layers, contributing heaviness, clarity, and depth while simultaneously acting as a binding element between the mentioned orchestrations and rhythmic structures. You’ll also hear how the exceptional drumming performance keeps everything in line while dictating groove and pace with all those expertly assembled, flawlessly performed, well-accentuated beats, breaks, fills, and other percussive acrobatics. Each instrument has its place and purpose in this sonic equation, making this material so catchy, memorable, and worth revisiting all the time.

“Now is the Time” is an absolute alternative rock masterpiece, crafted, performed, and recorded with such precision and finesse. It vividly showcases Hey Look Listen’s tremendous dedication to the craft, experience, knowledge, creativity, talent, and skills. With a comprehensive collection of beautiful, shoegaze and dream pop-soaked tracks, it will immediately become a favorite record in your record collection. Therefore, head to your favorite streaming platform and check out this epic alternative rock gem. Do not miss it!