A Brief Review of 'Tiny Triumphs'

In order to properly describe "Tiny Triumphs," I need another album as a reference point. The first thing I was reminded of when I heard 'Tiny Triumphs' was Animal Collective's first album "Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished." (The second track "Rain" could easily be mistaken as a B-side from "Spirit")

Like early Animal Collective, 瘫滩疫 obviously wants to put more emphasis on originality than make music that is widely appreciated--'Spirit' is possibly Animal Collective's most difficult album to unpretentiously like.

Whether 'Spirit' was an accidentally good album or not, it was critically acclaimed, was the starting point of one of the most critically acclaimed indie bands of the last ten years and is one of my personal favorite albums.

Will "Tiny Triumphs" be 瘫滩疫's 'Spirit?'
I think the answer is, "No. And I don't think he was trying for that anyways. Yet, it is a good place to start."

Besides the droning repetitive concluding song and a couple others, most of the songs seem to finish right at the point where they could be taking off and it feels more like a mix of musical ideas than a finished album.

However, the ideas in themselves are interesting.
This album will hopefully be only a first step of what could be an interesting trip when 瘫滩疫 matures musically and develops the ideas from the strongest tracks such as my favorite song on the album, 'Seppuku,' and the two great subsequent songs.

It is a homemade album that was made on a zero-dollar budget, and, as the album's title suggests, 瘫滩疫 doesn't claim to have written a masterpiece.
That being said, I liked it enough, I love that 瘫滩疫 has completed an album and I'm now very curious to see if he will evolve into being an artist I will like even more.

To hear the full album, click on the link below.
http://tantanyi.bandcamp.com/album/tiny-triumphs

I'm always willing to review and/or plug your personal art projects on my blog.
Email me with your art projects at elihu0@gmail.com. :)

More original music posts to come! :)