Album Reviews

- by Tom Dumarey

I don’t think I have misophonia, but there are certain sounds that will make me see red. Try and take a big sloppy bite out of an apple around me and see what happens. Well, absolutely nothing will happen actually. But inside I will experience almost uncontrollable feelings of rage and I will hate your fucking guts. Just from that, I can guess that life with misophonia - a disorder where certain sounds trigger feelings of anxiety, irritation or anger - must be annoying to put it mildly.

Jonathan Diener (of The Swellers fame) has to deal with misophonia on a daily basis and even wrote an album about it. Well, half an album anyway. The other half of Baggage’s debut album is about how being in a band for most of his life has turned him into a jaded, bitter person.The album opens with a song about the band’s van dying and it closes with ‘Flying Home For A Funeral,’ a song about a relative dying.

While this may make ‘Life In Misophonia’ sound like an absolute bummer album, it is not. Instead, Diener treats us to eleven songs that linger in that sweet spot between pop-punk and rock . Cuts like ‘Horseshoe’, ‘Where You Are’, ‘Insanity’ and the Jimmy Eat World-like 'Hotel Hallway' are stacked with slick melodies and big hooks alongside riffs that are slightly grungy and deliciously wholesome. Other than being a solid album, ‘Life In Misophonia’ also carries the strong message that just because life throws you a shitty hand, there’s no reason why you couldn’t turn that into something positive.

Track listing:

1. E-350    
2. Horseshoe    
3. Misophonia    
4. Potholes    
5. Choking On Nothing    
6. Fox Hill    
7. Where You Are    
8. Down The Drain    
9. Insanity    
10. Hotel Hallway    
11. Flying Home for a Funeral