AJ Rosales - Ultramarine Review
by Gary Schwind
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AJ Rosales is a DIY master. He wrote and produced this album, and he plays guitar, piano, glockenspiel and percussion. He also arranged the bass and cello parts. Oh yeah, and he designed his website.The first song "Alone Again" is a great example of the energy that Rosales brings to his music. In fact, energy isn't even the best description for Rosales's style. His songs have an impressive density. The guy uses a lot of notes in a four-minute song. It makes me wonder if he grew up listening to a lot of Frank Zappa albums. Perhaps an even better example of the density in his songs is in "Breakdown." The guitar in this song should definitely provoke a "Wow!" "What's with All the Heartache?" is real mellow for about three minutes, then the band changes pace for about a minute and a half before ending the way it began. Those changes of tempo are not unusual for him and really add to the texture of the songs on this album. Rosales is great at crafting energetic, meaningful songs. For the most part, he keeps it mellow, although some of the guitar parts are downright frenetic (the aforementioned tunes, "So Sad"). I'm not sure how long it took to put this album together. I'm guessing it was a fairly significant amount of time. In any case, it is definitely worth the effort. If you like DIY singer-songwriters, this is definitely an album you should experience.
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AJ Rosales - Ultramarine
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