Album Review: Unsatisfactory

In a world as fraught with uncertainty, disinformation, and constant rampant change as the one we currently inhabit, there is something extremely grounding and reassuring at a human level in hearing a new artist that is just all around really good. I mean, everyone has their own particular preferences and tastes, but if your head isn’t entirely up your own ass, you can recognise genuine creative talent, originality and sincere artistic expression when heard. It’s that instinctive desire to create that links us with even our most ancient ancestors, be it to express, understand or simply entertain; it’s a need some of us have that’s as real as hunger to the starving or sleep to the tired, it’s real, unchanging, and a fundamentally and uniquely human experience.

That was my main takeaway from listening to Yosavius’ latest album, Unsatisfactory. On a personal level, I loved the music and have much more to say about why. But as I was listening, I couldn’t help but see through the music and into this person that, to me, just earnestly and without reservation wants to be an artist, a storyteller, to paint their emotions in sound and invite others to reflect and refract their own experience through it.

…I know that’s a hefty pile of self-indulgent philosophical masturbation to lump on a 21-year-old just making records in their bedroom, but to be fair, the only information I found about this kid was written in the form of an autobiographical poem so I can’t be too off base.

The album itself has a sense of creative maturity to it. The first album from Yosavius is an amalgamation of different styles and genres, exploring elements of new wave and grunge on Somebody Cares or outsider folk reminiscent of Devendra Banhart or Daniel Johnston on I’ll Be Fine. But Unsatisfactory is more like a concept album with a cohesive thematic tone that runs through the whole record. The vocals have a restrained, almost spoken word at times feel, invoking poetic artists like Nick Cave or Leonard Cohen, balanced though with a wistful vulnerability and soft melancholic sweetness in the vein of Filthy Frank’s alter ego Joji. Instrumentally the album is saturated with an ethereal shoegaze-esque background hum of intangible and indistinct shifting tones, dappled throughout with discrete piano melodies all held together with prominent driving bass and lackadaisical drum lines that highlight the album’s glacial pacing.

Unsatisfactory begins with See in Me (What I See In You), which, with its slow and delicate pacing, sets the overall tone of the album. In lieu of catchy hooks or distinct melodies, Yosavius captures the listener’s attention through careful composition and an intricate use of vocal harmonies that demonstrate a highly developed sense for song writing and production. Rather than belting out the kind of impressive vocal chops that capture the unsophisticated, Yosavius maintains a restrained, held-back consistency throughout and instead displays his advancing talent through highly complex vocal arrangements layering the baritone lead with beautiful falsetto harmonies that drift in and out.

As things progress, we move through some modern R&B styled tunes like Piece of Gum and Better Man, both of which maintain the thematic tone already set but manage to distinguish themselves through richly poetic lyrics and the aforementioned vocal harmonies that give each track a distinct feel and originality.

For me the stand-out track on the album is Fool For You, it feels to me like a GenZ take on a classic 50’s doo wop, something you might imagine a young Phil Spector would write if he was coming up today. Here the vocals skip between a male baritone vocal line that’s paced in such a way that each word feels like it’s falling off the one that preceded it, paired with a sweet falsetto chorus sung in a harmony that accentuates the classic feel of the song.

I spent some time trying to figure out the instrumentation on the album. Yosavius is either a highly skilled multi‑instrumentalist or an even more skilled producer and sampler. At no point does anything feel repetitive or artificial, even the vocals retain their human imperfections instead of the generic autotuned slop we so often hear today. I feel, though, that the answer sits somewhere in the middle, Clearly an insane amount of work has been put into this album. It’s got the fine polish of a river stone and that shows through in every aspect of the work.

I highly recommend Unsatisfactory and am eager to see where this young artist takes their creativity next.