“Seeking Thrills,” Georgia’s sophomore album, tries a lot. “Seeking Thrills” is more refined than her previous self-titled album released in 2015. Her latest release still has a heavy techno influence but is more upbeat and takes more influence from pop music. Georgia does great work in authenticity and presenting a unique sound that is simultaneously pop while being completely different from her previous sound. While the music has a solid techno sound and does many things right, it sometimes attempts to do too much at once.
The album feels like it would be most at home while being played at a house party. The album starts out with fast-paced heavy hitters such as “Started Out” and “About Work the Dancefloor.” Both of these songs are arguably the best songs of the entire album and are quite captivating.
What also helps the flow of the album is the pacing of the album itself. “Seeking Thrills” starts off fast and strong and as the album goes on, it slows down. The songs have a stronger euphoric and woozy aura to them. They do work well as a whole, but toward the end, more songs feel weaker compared to the hits of the first few songs.
Georgia’s voice does great work tying everything together. Her delivery feels authentic, pure and unaltered by autotune. Most of the songs featuring her singing sound clean and well-produced, but can still conjure the image of her alone with her mic.
There are some effects done to her voice, but it serves the purpose of furthering the flow of the song rather than attempting to enhance the voice underneath. Although these vocals are great for the most part, there is a lot more than just vocals in an album. In Georgia’s case, some of these even add to the detriment of the songs themselves. In “Started Out” the song has a great beat and is easy to dance to, but periodically a warbled voice breaks into the song singing “I don’t want to lose you.” This unnecessarily breaks the flow and takes away from an otherwise well-made song.
There is an average amount of songs within “Seeking Thrills” including a few well-made edits of other songs within the album. These songs have great beats and flow, but with some exceptions.
“Feel It” is dreamy and feels like it resides in a separate place and is overall quite nice with the exception of a high pitched cheer that occurs repeatedly throughout the song. In addition to the cheer, other odd bits of techno and vocals are present that don’t mesh with the song itself. During the course of the song, the singer will sing in a relatively monotone manner, get broken up by someone cheering or screaming while their voice is heavily distorted, then a very high pitched childlike voice is distorted in the background. All of this occurs very quickly and the combination of distorted vocals, techno beats and a variety of pitches can press on the ears. It’s disappointing because so many songs in this album suffer from this problem. It doesn’t cripple the album, it’s still very good, but it is harder to listen to more than a few times.
Georgia used this album to play with and experiment with the audio through pitch distortion, wobbling the voices and using a variety of techno sounding beats and sound effects. While some of the experiments fail, it is a great effort made on the part of Georgia. Many of the things that Georgia attempts work to some extent but the whole can be dragged down by its parts. It isn’t for everyone and is not a great introduction for someone who might not be exposed to techno. Despite this, the album shines in its own way and sits on a fine line of pop and techno and straddles both uniquely.
It’s no wonder why the album—and specifically “Started Out”—has been making waves. The ‘80’s inspired house and techno music combined with Georgia’s own style has serious potential if refined and tuned. With more experience, Georgia will only grow larger.
Jayden Perez can be reached at ryleejackson@sagebrush.unr.edu, or on Twitter @Jayden_Perez13.
