Eric Bass’ debut solo work ‘I Had A Name’ is a… frustrating project to review. It is equal parts fast paced fun emo rock and a somewhat cringe and unfinished collection of music, that feels like Bass was trying to prove that some of these tracks should’ve made it to other albums by placing them on this effort. Maybe we weren’t the target audience for this project, or maybe it needed another couple of months or an extra pair of ears during its process.
This project began its uphill battle with opener 'A World Unseen', which is supposed to be a slow-paced build-up to the rocking in store, but instead suffers from a vocal tempo just a little too fast for its piano backing. The cringe unfortunately rose as the somewhat on the nose calls of prayer repeated, and when the ‘is he a Trump supporter’ train of thought begins to cross the mind keeping said mind open begins to get more difficult (For clarity, this article is not accusing Bass of having specific political views and it is his right to keep them as private or public as he wishes).
But back to the positives - third track 'Azalia' is an easy standout for this project, with what sounds like a theremin in the intro and some DnB or hard-style inspired drums forming part of a fantasy rock backdrop, while Bass tells us the story of the titular Azalia and provides a strong proof of concept for 'I Had A Name'. Bass’ military-family background is put to great use in the songwriting in this intense rock ballad, with the vocals that he provides complimenting the themes around this concept well. Next track 'We Can’t go Home' keeps up the pace with almost-rap full sentence bars and elicits the feeling of dad rock made for young people, which is a refreshing energy.
Further on in this album, single 'Mind Control' and 'All Good Children - Our Guts' show where it was trying to go: in the former, the themes of Bass’ religious upbringing are woven beautifully into the angst of a thrashy and campy emo rock as he talks about the nature of sin and when to forgive, with the piano outros he’s so fond of working perfectly to close out the carnage. For the latter, a gorgeous acoustic guitar melody opens the ballad, as the horrors of war plague the third act of a concept once ready to ride into battle with glory. These tracks offer nuance around the high fantasy concept that Eric Bass is playing in while never quite preaching to the listener, but the highlight of this album is easily the closing/bonus track 'I Wanna Go To Hell'.
Playing on a nursery rhyme style melody and introducing the beloved trumpet into the mix, Bass gives a middle finger with a wink to the classic conventions of confession and good and evil in the faith he’s been exploring in the wake of this project; it’s like the grown up version of Green Day gag tracks like 'All by Myself', complete with a group of ‘la’s and Bass wishing the listener goodnight at the end, which in turn leaves a cheeky smile on our faces when this album does close out.
Alas, all this considered, this album was very frustrating. For all the good that exists in it, a cover to cover listen is difficult. Many of these tracks suffer from structural issues, be it the aforementioned mismatched tempos, the messy transitions between parts of songs, or its main structural crime of simply running on. 'We Can’t Go Home' is the first count on this charge, with the last part of this track sounding like the ending thrice before closing out. It darts between Bass’ signature rock sound and piano interludes, giving the song more of a mashup feeling than of an original song of its own. Lyrics throughout pad out this charge, with the great hook of "you can go to hell but you can’t go home" in 'We Can’t go Home' lost in the sea of full-sentence bars that feel more like a diary entry put to music rather than a song written to record. A lot of these tracks are half-great too: the bridge in 'Goodnight Goodnight' is great if you can get past the clunky first half, and the beat behind 'New Graves' is borderline perfection, whilst its lyrics are some of the lowlights of the album.
'If I Had a Name’s overall issue, though, is the sameness; this is a 12 track album made up of three to four songs, each written and performed to varying degrees of success. The nursery rhyme motif was rampant and did not work most of the time, and the same can be said with the chronic use of the piano slowdown which would seemingly appear every time Bass felt he had 16-32 bars to fill or wanted to drive home that this part of the piece was serious or sad. This makes it a difficult project to praise and critique because the elements that work in one song fall flat when used again, leaving us feeling frustrated when looking back on it.
Recommending this album based on prior listening then becomes difficult, as it feels like a critique on the artists that would come to mind - again, not that this album is terrible, just not quite where it needed to be for release, which for a project that Bass has been working on for as long as he has feels like a cruel comment. If you like themes of faith, fairytale motifs and…pianos? Then this will be the project for you.
Score: 5/10
'I Had A Name' will be released on February 28th 2025.
Words: Julia Brunton
Photo: Sanjay Parikh
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