When I decide to review an album, I usually skim through the Billboard 200 for an artist I know. I listen to a few songs and if I have a strong (usually negative) reaction to them, I decide to review it. However, this review is a little bit different.

The Marionette received the album Freddie’s Extra Teeth in the mail from South Dakota songwriter Von Zimmer with a sticky note reading, “Would someone like to review this? Thanks!”

I’m “someone.” Nice to meet you.

That day, I listened to the album in the car. It’s good car music. My first impression was that Von Zimmer sounds like an acoustic Smashing Pumpkins cover band. This was mainly because the vocals were reminiscent of Billy Corgan, or perhaps REM’s Michael Stipe. I love Smashing Pumpkins and REM, so this artist was already off to a good start.

“The End of the World,” ironically enough, is the first track. It’s chill. It makes your head bob. It has the lyric, “you sell me carcinogens when I get cancer.” I like that lyric. You don’t hear that sort of lyric everyday. The bass solo right before the three minute mark sounds like it was sampled from an REM song.

Another song that stood out was “Your Song.” Luckily, this wasn’t a cover of the Elton John track of the same name.

It begins with the sound of church bells chiming, an odd but good choice that separates it from the rest of the album.

One thing I noticed throughout the album is that this singer is very….committed to the melodies. This is especially prominent in “Your Song.” You need to listen the song for that to make sense. The melody is eight counts and just repeats over and over and over with different lyrics throughout the verses. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but once you notice it you’ll always hear it. In fact, this is my favorite song on the album. I love that it seems like an unromantic love song. That’s a good concept.

“Epic Fail Blues,” the best song title on the album, is one of many songs that shares this trait. The drums stand out most on this track, played with speed and rock star swagger. There’s a guitar solo. The vocals are even more rough and strained than usual. It’s all reminiscent of 90s alternative rock, which I love. The lyric, “John Wayne Gacy, he had a family,” really stands out to me for some reason. I didn’t know who that was so I decided to look it up. Apparently, John Wayne Gacy is a serial killer who sexually assaulted many young boys. So….I don’t really how that relates to the rest of the song. Are they saying that sexual assault is an epic fail? I can get behind that message. Or are they saying that it was an epic fail because he got caught? I cannot get behind that message.

Thank you to Von Zimmer for sending us this album. I’ve never done anything like this before. It was such an honor to receive an album from a band and review it. But I’ll admit that I didn’t have a strong reaction to it. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t amazing. I did like it though, I’ll give it 5/10 alternative songs from the 90’s that I’d rather listen to.