Album Review: The Internet - Ego Death

Imagine, in 2015, having the audacity to name your band “The Internet.”

It’s one of those nearly un-Googleable things, like “Girls” or “Real Estate.”

But that’s exactly what Sydney Bennett and Matt Martians have done with their Odd Future off shoot group, The Internet.

Originally working as a duo on their debut from 2011, Purple Naked Ladies, the group expanded to include a live backing band, which they make excellent use of on their most recent effort, Ego Death.

A far cry from the misogyny and obnoxious behavior that was once associated with Odd Future before its recent announcement that the hip-hop collective was no more, with the laid back, funky, R&B sounds on Ego Death, you’d never know that Bennett and Martians has any connection to the a group that once incited riots at live appearances and sold the message “kill people, burn shit, fuck school.”

It’s that laid back, funk driven, R&B that makes Ego Death both an accessible, fun, catchy listen, as well as one that knows its own limits and does not try to surpass them.

The album hits its stride right out of the gate, as every element comes down on the opening note of “Get Away”—“Now she wanna fuck with me, live a life of luxury, models in my money trees,” Bennett sings over a heavy synth line, before delving into the issues she has with “her old chick.” And it’s her love life, or lack there of, or problems with, that make for a bulk of Ego Death’s lyrically fodder—reminiscent, in a sense, as the same content from Sister Crayon’s Devoted, which tracked the emotional roller coaster that is being young and walking that line between love and lust.

Bennett, herself, is a charismatic frontwoman for the group—she’s got a kind of restrained energy that gives off the impression that she doesn’t take herself too seriously—specifically in the throw away “shake shake” lines on one of Ego Death’s catchiest moments, “Go With It.”

As the group’s third album, Ego Death shows a lot of growth from the humble beginnings of a bedroom trip-hop sound on Purple Naked Ladies, and then a cleaned up, yet slow burning and sleepy R&B lean on 2013’s Feel Good. Despite the growth up to this point, the real and apparent flaw with the album is the band quickly finds its comfort zone, and then proceeds to stay within it.

Comprised of 12 songs and clocking in at just about an hour, The Internet rarely deviates from the specific sound they’ve landed on, so it unfortunately becomes a bit of a samey sounding record that is, smartly frontloaded with its best material so that the chance of you not having tuned out to hear it early on is still pretty good. It’s about at the record’s half way point, slightly past the album’s first single, “Girl,” that your patience doesn’t so much start to wear, but you start to question what song you are on, and if you’ve already heard this one, or heard something similar.

Ego Death was released at the end of June, and it’s a record that I have been listening to since the end of June, allow it to grow on me. It’s immediate, sure, in a sense because of how pop-oriented some of the songwriting is, but despite the fact that it’s a record where the sound doesn’t exactly grow beyond a certain point, you have to allow yourself to grow into the environment created by The Internet—if that makes an sense at all.

Sometimes, you’re not in the mood for something that is relatively upbeat and fun to listen to. I mean, I’m usually not, so the fact that I’ve warmed up to this so much and have played it pretty frequently at home says a lot about just how good and well put together it actually is, despite my main criticism of it.  It’s an incredibly accessible listen, and if anything, it serves as a pretty excellent soundtrack to laid back summer hangs, where the people in attendance will more than likely just be happy to have music that is marginally pleasing to the ears on in the distance.

Ego Death is out now via Sony.