I know and am an old friend of the artist who created this work, Mike Moody and I were at school together and I have her to thank for a fair amount of the musical knowledge I do possess, just to make you all aware of any potential biases I may have, but I'll try to keep this as fair as possible.
Thirdly and finally, something of a trigger warning, the subject of the following review is an album that deals with themes such as gender identity and disability, two subjects the discussion of which certain denizens of the internet are known to suffer acute phobias of. Please exercise caution if you plan to read this, and I hope the lack of a tone of voice doesn't preclude the perception of my sarcasm.
With that in mind let's get on to the music, The Sound of Living is something I hesitate to tie to a genre, the tone varies throughout shifting to give the impression of something experimental before going palpably melancholic (which never lasts more than about 20 seconds at a time) and switching to something much more upbeat. It is evident that every care has been taken in the track placement so that the mood never stays the same for too long.
Lyrically this album is unabashedly sincere, and maybe just a little cheesy, but in a way that I like personally, dealing with themes relevant to the artist herself, such as disability and gender identity as mentioned above, in particular, track 4, It's Not Cross-dressing the message of which being that how someone chooses to dress and whether it is appropriate or to be considered cross-dressing is entirely up to them.
If I had to tie a theme to this album I would say that the overall message seems to be one of acceptance, being comfortable in your own skin and loving yourself. Even the less-upbeat parts carry a distinct undertone of compassion.
The clear musical influences are distinctly new wave, in particular, I hear a lot of influence from The Damned in the overall style here, including the somewhat ecclectic tone which seems to follow, if not a narrative then at the very least a structure, as I said before, each track and it's accompanying mood was clearly placed carefully in relation to those around it.
I would normally offer some criticism in reviews but as I say I don't know much about the process of music-making and so nothing comes to mind, and even if it did I wouldn't feel like I should be talking.
The bottom line here is if you like New Wave and eclectic music such as that of The Damned in particular, give this one a look, here's a link: https://mikemoody1.bandcamp.com/album/the-sound-of-living
