Going Feral Over Insignificant Other
insiggy baby
December 30th, 2024. As the year was winding down, I was browsing the Counter Intuitive Records store. I'm not sure what led me there exactly. I might have been shopping for some more records to add to my endless collection.
Either way, I was browsing the store, and as I hovered over the roster listing all of the bands, one stood out to me because of how fun the name was. That band was "Insignificant Other". I had definitely seen their name when on the site before, but whatever it was, I was immediately drawn to them this time.
So I clicked through and saw the image that's the feature image for this post. I was enthralled by the energy this picture gave off so I loaded up Spotify and looked up the artist.
They only had one album that came out in 2019, "i'm so glad i feel this way about you", so I loaded it up. The album starts off with the title track and honestly it didn't draw me in right away. It sounded kind of like generic power pop/pop punk, but I kept rocking it. The next track "heathers" also kind of turned me off. The lead singer, writer, and frontwoman, Simona Morales, does something kind of weird on this track with her voice. As she sings about rewatching the film "Heathers" over and over again while engaging in self-destructive activities because she needs someone to talk to her and calm her down, the song begins to reveal its true colors.
It wasn't until the third track where I finally got hooked in. "brushes" has such a wonderful chorus that had me wanting to just keep it on repeat. The outro on this one picks up the tempo as it repeats the chorus and it's magic. However that magic turned into something a lot different in the next song "don't @ me devin". Morales kind of mumbles in a low whiney voice, and then as the track goes on the vocals sound blown out.
From whiney to haunting, "well" takes you on a journey. It's almost like the song shifts genres a few seconds in only to change back. That haunting feeling will return a few times throughout the latter half of the record, as it does in "bitter sweetness". "january" strips things down a bit as it goes on to describe a person who's zodiac sign is Aquarius.
"un mensaje" is up there as one of my favorite tracks on the record. The band is at it's best when they're having fun. Morales is flexing her vocal capabilities on this power pop anthem. The guitars and percussion hit just right and it has some of the best production on the album. The message of reaching out to a friend who will always be there despite living their own life, it's something that hits close to home for everyone listening.
"real date" starts off with a recording of a woman explaining how she knows that there's a lot of queer people in the world. I tried looking up the source of this recording but I couldn't find anything, unfortunately. Morales sings about a girl named Lizzie who she wants to take on a date and protect from the rest of the world.
The haunting feeling returns in "freya" as the lines "If you take my heart / It will be yours that breaks in time / And I don't want / And I can't stand to see you cry" get repeated over and over again as the synths take the lead on this track.
"flyswatter" continues to weigh on you as the line "would never hurt a fly" swims around in your head over again. Once again Morales is flexing her vocals on this track as she pours her heart out on this one.
Rounding off the album is "antbf" that, once again, sounds like more generic power pop. However, the true closer to this record is a reprise of the opener and title track "i'm so glad i feel this way about you".
Normally I save the album review stuff for my music blog but this one is special. Those were my initial thoughts when listening to the album. I gave it another listen and then called it a night.
The next day I had to prep some food for a New Year's Eve party. I decided to listen to some podcasts, but as I continued to cook, something was nudging me to give this album another listen. As I put it on, I felt myself falling more and more in love with it. By no means would I consider this a 10/10 album. Personally, I would give it a 6/10, maybe a 7/10. Everyone I've talked to seems to have a similar opinion, and yet, I can't stop listening to it.
A friend of mine had encouraged me to buy Counter Intuitive's Discography as it's only a dollar for 100 albums and EPs. I had put it off for months, but after listening to this record so much over the course of the past 24 hours, I bit the bullet.
Normally I try to ring the new year in with DROELOE's work as it's always a good time for self-reflection, but I just started playing this record over and over again.
This album quickly consumed my life. After seeing that the lyrics weren't available on Spotify, for whatever reason I decided to add them myself. I spent the bulk of New Year's Day adding all of the lyrics to Musixmatch. While I've added lyrics to sites like Genius before, it was fun to add them to Musixmatch. Syncing up the lyrics to the actual music was more tedious than anything else, but hopefully, they get pushed through soon.
After listening to the same lines over and over again, I began to fully understand every track. I became familiar with every word and every note. The tracks that once irked me were now ones that I just looked forward to listening to over and over again. I think one of the big things that has drawn me into this album so much is that it is quite rough around the edges. It's a lot of fun, there are some stand-out tracks and some that need some work. It shows that the band has a lot of potential, and they're not afraid to talk about the intrusive thoughts that plague us all from time to time.
January 2nd was spent blasting this album once again but also exploring the band's Bandcamp. As I fell further and further down the rabbit hole, I found myself loving nearly every track I heard. From the 2015 demos, to the bullshit that was made on garageband.
Hearing more and more demos and covers from insiggy was super cool and hearing the growth from humble beginnings to having such an incredible album out is one of the best things you can experience.
I'm so excited to see what this band has in store for the future because it seems like they have some new music coming out soon. I'll probably have to write about this album on my music blog sometime soon, but for now, I'll just cement this album as number one on my wrapped for 2025.
As always, I will leave you with a few words.
Be A Real Person