Life Coach – Alphawaves

Collaborative effort Life Coach’s latest release, Alphawaves, is not an album to listen to on shuffle.

Conceived by Phil Manley of bands such as Trans Am, adopted by Mars Volta’s Jon Theodore, and sometimes babysat by Earthless’ Isaiah Mitchell and Date Palms’ Michael Elrod, Alphawaves was written as a single track that shows in the way it flows and meshes together as a solid team of steady percussions, flowing guitars, and soaring synths. The album reminds you of a less serious, melancholic version of post-rock band Mogwai, feeling like the musical equivalent of a nutritionally balanced meal.

The coaxing, buzzing sounds of the opening track layers on top of each other, befitting the title, ‘Sunrise,’ and breaking into the title track ‘Alphawaves‘ without pause of breath. In fact, when played in order, it’s impossible to tell that track one has become track two. ‘Sunrise’ gives over just as your mind begins to wander from its droning, kicking you into the more energetic, melodic ‘Alphawaves,’ a fun, vibrant electric orchestra of seven-minute length. The same can be said for ‘Limitless Possibilities’ and ‘Into the Unknown,’ along with ‘Mind’s Eye’ and ‘Ohm,’ the laid-back track melting into its more excitable, familiar sibling.

Most of the tracks belong in the instrumental, easy-to-tune-out portion of music that science talks about when saying music helps you do better by stimulating your brain without distracting it (hello, ‘Life Experience,’ you jaded, moaning track you). Some definitely don’t. Perhaps because it contains vocals, or perhaps it contains aggressive guitars, effortless solos, and a hard rock sound. Tracks ‘Fireball’ and ‘Mind’s Eye’ keeps the album just catchy enough to not play it in a fit of insomnia. Easy to listen to, easy to focus on, and easy to move along to.

Final track ‘Ohm‘ is slightly chaotic with rumbling, numbing sounds and easily comes off as very, very boring. An eight-minute stretch of boring. While it does lead the listener out of the album a similar way they went in, it’s honestly not a huge loss to skip over it and into something else.

Alphawaves creates stories in your head. Sometimes very dull stories, but stories nonetheless – and it stays true to the “dynamic musical narrative” it aimed for, showing diversity without being inconsistent. Sometimes spiritual, occasionally in-your-face, and other times throbbing, it’s an album that tried to tell a story and succeeded. No Palahniuk, but still quite satisfying.