An album I have been hyping up for a long time finally released a few weeks ago. The long-awaited ‘catch22’ by Lane Mercer (stage name ‘wishlane’) has finally arrived. With this in mind, I plan on reviewing it as a whole to truly see if it was everything I wanted and more.

To start off generally, this album is very good. Every song is produced masterfully as always.  The vocals and vocal features are incredibly well executed and the vision of each song is clear. As an album, this project just works.

I am choosing not to go in excruciating detail with everything about this album (for once!), but the introduction into it, a shorter song called ‘initium’, feels like a very personal welcome into the rest of the project. An album’s first track is not everything of course, but the first impressions are important and this project sells it. Especially with perhaps the best single and track from wishlane next, ‘selective altruism.’

This track makes the album what it is. I know I have spoken about it many a time, but truly this song sells the entire vision of the album early on. I would say this track into the first half of the album is the section that I have personally listened to the most.

However, as this is an honest review, and that does not go without mentioning what I feel to be the album’s main flaw. With all the heavy hitters of the project centered around the first half of the album, it tends to feel like it drags on from there. Perhaps this is intentional, but it seems as if the rest of the album feels a little more forgettable in comparison to the earlier stages. Many artists start albums with more energetic tracks and get more emotional as the project goes, on of course, but with this in mind each track still should be able to allow people to come back to it easily.

With this in mind not any single one of the second-half songs are bad. Again, this album is beautifully made, but it is worrying that it feels as if only the first half may be worth coming back to more often. And the album’s statistics prove this. After the seventh song, ‘subliminal messaging’, the play count appears to decrease. It seems many listeners’ attention fell off here. It is unfortunate that this was the way that it played out, but it unfortunately makes sense. Many albums fail to keep the listener engaged through the whole thing. This admittedly is difficult to do correctly.

Although, the storytelling of this album does not die down at all. The second half of the album dives into a more personal style. After the melancholic interlude called ‘psychedelia,’ each song feels a little more like Lane put heart into it rather than trying to make it catchy. This personal touch is a great thing as it shows the care he put into the project, and while it lets him to experiment, it becomes harder to recall the songs. I would easily remember the chorus of the third song “staring contest” more than the chorus of track 8, “constrictor.”

In the end, however, this issue feels as if it gets overshadowed by just how well-done this album is. It shows Lane’s more experimental side while also showing the style people came to love from him. It has a personality to it in every single song, and each lyric seems to hit more and more as you listen to this project.

If I had to score this album on a scale, it would be an honest 9.1/10. Perhaps I am over-scoring it, but I feel that despite the issues present, it feels as though it still works as a collective group of songs. I highly recommend a full listen to this project. I promise you will not regret it.