ALBUM REVIEW- "The Josh Ramsey Show" by Josh Ramsey

 Side projects. There are many "requirements" to a good one, the biggest being that it has to be musically different from a musician's main project. Some have been very successful, like Gerard Way tackling Britpop on his solo album "Hesitant Alien" or Tom DeLonge taking on Post-hardcore with Box Car Racer, while others aren't as good, like Alex Gaskarth and Mark Hoppus with their post-punk project Simple Creatures. 

So in comes Josh Ramsey, the frontman of Canadian Pop Rock band Marianas Trench, a band that I like to say is Canada's answer to Panic! At The Disco. The similarities are endless, from starting in pop punk to becoming a powerhouse band, a charismatic frontman with a range that puts other male vocalists to shame, etc. But the key difference is MT is still a band, while P!ATD is at this point a solo project. Oh, and the music quality is better and more consistent. 

Anyway, due to the pandemic, Josh had a lot of free time in his hands, so he decided to put that to good use and put out his debut solo record, which he promised was going to include a variety of styles of pop, rock, and other genres. So did he stay true to his word?

  Oh, you bet he did! Look there are too many genres to go through, so a few examples include: country pop on "Best Of Me", grunge on "Painted Faces", Soul on "Beat The Devil", Dance Pop on "Like There's Nobody Watching", etc. Now, there's a risk to having so many styles on one album, especially one that clocks in at 18 tracks over the period of an hour, and that is lack of cohesion. It definitely keeps the listener wondering what he's doing next, but that results in it feeling more like a mixtape than an album. And to be honest, I started feeling the runtime by the end.

But okay, let's get some of the good stuff out of the way. First of all, the production is as clean and solid as any Marianas Trench album, thanks to Josh being a superb producer. And his voice works very well on most of the music, especially on "Painted Faces", a song I categorized as grunge, a genre where there aren't many vocalists like Josh. The hooks are a plenty on tracks like "Best Of Me", "Delirious", and "Reckless Heart". 

With all that said, there were still some blaring problems with this album. Aside from the aforementioned runtime, there were some songs that seemed way too similar to other artists. "Like You Do" feeling like an Ariana Grande or Mariah Carey reject and "Can't Give It Up" feeling like Ed Sheeran if he decided to stop trying and had guest vocalist Tyler Shaw sounding like he and Josh were the same person at times. Speaking of which, that was a reoccurring issue for me, in that a good amount of the features were mixed to the point of barely being able to tell the difference between them and Josh, like Chad Kroger on "Lady Mine" and Dallas Smith on "Best of Me". This album also has THREE interludes on it, the last two feeling like the album would have been better without them, as the were just like musical theater interludes. Probably the worst song for me has to be "Like There's Nobody Watching", which is very dated to the late 2000s, complete with chipmunk vocals in the mix, and a weirdly timed drop that's unfortunately weak as well.

I appreciate Josh wanting to branch out into different territories and test the limits of how many genres he can pull off. But it really felt like he was a little too over ambitious in his first attempt at a solo career. The album is too long, the interludes feel tacked on, and some of the features are barely noticeable. Coming from one of the most underrated singer and producers in music, I honestly expected better.

Favorite songs: Delirious, Painted Faces, Best of Me

Least Favorite song: Like There's Nobody Watching 

Final score: 2.5/5