Ultimate Painting – Up! (2018)  


Review:
Sometimes certain events involving bands can overshadow their albums. Such is the case with Ultimate Painting‘s fourth (and now) final album, Up! Not long after dropping the album’s first single, the duo of Jack Cooper and James Hoare announced the band’s demise. Or rather Cooper did via the band’s website. Yes, as shaky as the partnership could be at times, they did have enough motivation to set up a website for the project. Oh, and release three albums in three years. The last before Up! was Dusk, which came out in 2016. Turns out that Cooper and Hoare were suffering from burn out. Hoare, in particular, was dealing with depression. No word on what the “irreconcilable breakdown” is that caused the band to not only break up but even go as far as to not release Up! to the public. You can draw your own conclusions. But what about the album? Does it deserve to not see the light of day? Actually, it could be the band’s best release. The band’s music remains mellow guitar rock, bringing to mind ’60s Brit-pop. But the songwriting is stellar. And in conjunction with the dissolution of the band, somber songs like “Needles In My Eyes” are THAT more impactful. Others like “Not Gonna Burn Myself Anymore” are THAT angrier. A band sounding off on driving itself off a cliff to please its listeners; though, that might be the actual result. It’s almost too easy to listen to this album in a different context knowing what happens after its recording. Up! is an ultimate painting of the inevitable. No matter how much we may hate it, this was a band destined to break up. But at least they gave us some good albums, and hopefully one day, more listeners will hear this one. — bandcamp


   


Track List:
01. Needles In My Eyes
02. Not Gonna Burn Myself Anymore
03. I Am Your Gun
04. Foul & Fair
05. Someone's Out To Get You
06. Take Shelter
07. My Procedure
08. Lying In Charles Street
09. Darkness In His Eyes
10. Snake Pass


Media Report:
Genre: indie-pop, indie-rock
Country: London, UK
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)


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