I apologize in advance. I know no musical jargon and have no impressive credentials to merit any review on music at all. I just like listening to music. So, what I can bring to you is an honest opinion of what I think of a set of songs. I listened to the album “Inanimate Objects” by Atlas Genius, which came out August 26, 2015. I chose a band that I knew little about.

I listened to the album two times. The first, I paid attention to the lyrics of the song. The second, I focused on the sound. I had a more difficult time with the second time through because pretty much every song on this album has the same underlying melody. I felt like I was listening to the same song 11 times with 11 different messages. Because of this, I would advise not buying the entire album, but rather picking out a couple of songs that hold the messages that connect best with you. So, the best thing I can offer is a quick run-through of the messages in each song.

The whole album uses metaphors to try to replicate the ups and downs of a relationship. It starts off with Stone Mill, which describes the singer’s determination to give everything he has in a relationship to try to make it work. It is full of hope as it is an attempt to salvage something that is close to disintegrating.

Next is Molecules, a tribute to the ever-lasting question: Do our decisions make a difference to what happens, or has fate already pre-determined the future? Its lyrics abstract-ify the listener. Stockholm transitions the relationship into the next level, past the initial stage and into the more serious one. The one where you both are racing to an ultimate goal but have no idea what the journey will bring. He does this by describing a climb up a mountain.

Refugees talks of the floating memories that the singer doesn’t know what to do with. To solve the problem of this dilemma, the singer explains that they must be destroyed completely, without any remnants, in A Perfect End. He says that this is the only way it is possible to move on.

Friendly Apes describes the confusing thoughts that come about a relationship and how the confusion may lead to acts of lust, rather than of love. The listener then is told of the isolation felt in relationships when it feels like no one is around but those who you don’t want to be with in Friendly Enemies.

Where I Belong is all about guilt. The singer gets really down on himself and convinces himself that he belongs in hell. Balladino is more optimistic, explaining that one needs to embrace the fears of a confrontation because there is light up ahead. The City We Grow calls for a re-building of a relationship with a new foundation.

The album finally concludes with Levitate. After all of these songs about building, destroying, and re-building, this final song basically says that there is no way to explain the complexities of a relationship. So, maybe the singer is saying that he knows that the metaphor of building a structure doesn’t work with every aspect of a relationship, but it is the best he can come up with.

This band seems to spend a lot more time on the abstract metaphors in the lyrics than the diversity of the sound. For that reason, I would give this album two thumbs. I just don’t know if they are up or down.