Don’t Mention It - Reviewed by Art Vandelay

Never was there as noble a craft as criticizing music. In an age of unprecedented accessibility to media and subsequent excess thereof, it is a craft that grows more and more indispensable with every Soundcloud post and Bandcamp upload that graces our sacred streams of consumption. Given that your most valuable asset is indeed your time, it is my pleasure as a critic of music to render this noble service to you, my fine, tasteful patron. It is my honor to keep your own consumption so sacred, your ears unscathed, and your time unwasted by telling you to give Chazz’s “Don’t Mention It” EP a pass.

Sultry and angsty, the tracklist of “Don’t Mention It” evokes a reclusive hobbyist plucking away at musical instruments he could only hope to insult with his paltry technique and musical ability. Takes upon takes of novice performance amassed into wads of noise, onslaughts of mediocrity, crimes against intunation and timing, and for what? Seriously...who is Chazz trying to please here? Certainly not me, the illustrious Art Vandelay.

This release smacks of an insufferable inside joke, a secret amongst friends, a piece for a small audience of Chazz’s wallowing confidants. At times, it comes across as an excuse for the time spent hiding away within the bedroom in which this album was so obviously conceived. Lines like “I wish I could sing you something earnest and sweet” and “The best I can do is hold you close and tell you I need you” pander to what I can only assume are the ranks of this man’s sad, woebegotten comrades. The song “Moving Season” accomplishes nothing but to undermine the critical and invaluable profession of the diligent landlord. Stripped of any pretense, all that remains of this EP are sundry modest attempts: Attempts at reconciliation of depression, attempts at sophisticated harmony, attempts at deriving meaning from hours and hours spent in isolation with a few guitars and Logic - attempts at human connection? Yikes.

As Chazz seems to strive to reassure his poor associates, so shall I strive to righteously debase this worrisome excuse for an EP. With that said, in my due diligence as a reporter of musical works, I am obliged to make sense of the comment Mr. Rogers offered alongside his work:

“With all that I’ve been given in this life, I can only aspire to pay it forward through music. Herein perhaps, lies my call to teach. My friends, my family, they mean everything to me. In good times as in bad, their love is the greatest privilege I will ever know. The songs I write are the only way I know how to express that.”

Drivel. Verbose and self-obsessed. The quote offers insight into the only truly definitive and comprehensive interpretation of “Don’t Mention It”: a desperate stab at self-identification. Though I would be remiss to deny that such gestures are inherent to the human experience, being that I have been subjected to the task of reviewing this particular gesture, I can only hope for his sake that this is not Chazz’s last foray into music writing.

Should you (wrongly) choose to partake of these three tracks and surrender your priceless commodity of time to a listen, your losses will likely be inconsequential. Clocking in at nine minutes and fifty seconds, this “EP” falls ten seconds short of the commonly adopted criteria of at least a ten-minute runtime which often constitutes an Extended Play.

I can only hope this isn't supposed to be someone's Christmas present