This album came out in 1998 through the record label Up

Featuring "Birds": 8/10

Our Happiness is Guaranteed

The intro is nearly impossible to get through, but the rest of the song is actually pretty good. Too bad half the song sounds like a child banging on piano keys. 5/10

I Never Want to See You Again

This song is a lot of buildup, but the payoff doesn't disappoint. The tempo speeding up ever so slightly and the addition of more instruments as the song goes on really help it dynamically. 10/10

The Poisoned Well

I just wish this song was longer. The buildup from the intro is just magical, and that bendy guitar part tickles my fuckin eardrums. 9/10

The Happy Prole

The Man (tm) is fucking you over. There's nothing you can do about it, so suck it up and work. I only really like the latter half of the song. 6/10

Sea Shanty

I think this song exemplifies the album pretty well. The songwriting's pretty good, and the song gets better and better as it goes on. 8/10

It's Hard to Turn Me On

This song's pretty good in my opinion, even though it's a little silly. It's relatively calm compared to a lot of other tracks on the album, whcih isn't a bad thing. 7/10

Nothing from Nothing

This song starts out very ambient and grows to a nice little rock song. 6.5/10

Tomorrow You'll Hide

I like the vocals a lot, but otherwise not much to note about this one. 6/10

California

This song's just really good in my opinion, definitely one of my favorites on the album. 9/10

You Fucked Yourself

Just a quaint little waltz, really catchy. 8/10

Ape Self Prevails in Me Still

Yet another really catchy rock song. No complaints here. 8/10

Please Do

This is another calm song, with just an acoustic guitar and vocals (as well as a few other minor intruments). It's pretty refreshing compared to all of the distored guitar of the other songs. 7/10

I Give Up

There's a lot of dissonance in this song that make it a little hard to listen to at first, but the song does get better as it goes.

Birds

N/A. just birds.

Repetition

Yet another hard hitting song on the album, and another favorite of mine. 9/10

Only Success Can Fail Me Now

A nice little album closer, could be in a movie soundtrack, probably. 7.5/10

This was one of those albums where, when it ended, I almost felt like I had just finished watching a really emotional movie. Each song is relatively unique, and I'll definitely be coming back to listen to these somgs even after I'm done reviewing them. The songs, lyrically speaking, have suprisingly melancholy themes despite the songs mostly being upbeat musically, and I think that's really powerful.