youbet - Way To Be Review

A tender exploration of self in Nick Llobet’s intimate acoustic journey Way To Be.

Uploaded onto Youbet’s Facebook page are a collection of home recorded videos. Nick Llobet, who christened their solo project as a play on their surname, gently finger-picks Latin lullaby melodies on an acoustic guitar at home. The melodies and the setting - books stacked on their shelf, a tape machine stored on drawers, an intruding cat, are intimate. So too are the lyrics on their second album Way To Be, a self-produced introspective project that bobs along a bed of acoustic guitar, fuzzy chords and soft synths.

Youbet has described their creativity as a tool to understand themselves better “Each song is like a creature that lives within the depths of my soul, waiting to be written.” so it is of little surprise that self-exploration and discovery are themes across the record. “I think I’ll take some more / Now I’m filling up / It’s the way I am.” Youbet sings in a high register, like a sickly Billy Corgan, of a self-destructive side on ‘Alive to You’. The album’s best song, Carsick finds Youbet on a road trip, veering to excess and contemplating what self-control might feel like “Knowing when to stop / it must be so sweet”. The song fights its way out of the traps with heavy bursts of cloudy guitars before settling into an Americana, daydream like chug.

The tracks on Way to Be are low-tempo, best listened to alone with headphones where the interesting elements to the arrangements reveal themselves; the intricate, fuzzy guitar parts on “Way to Be”, “Seeds of Evil” and “Do”,  the whacks of snare drum on “Seeds of Evil”. The challenge the listener has is to stick with the album as its songs veer into empty spaces where the mind can wander.

Take the title track which, rather than running with the fuzz, drops it for a meandering tap of drums and sparse plucks of guitar. Still plods and wallows and Vacancy lacks anything to propel it beyond background music. Lots of the songs sound like different ideas that haven’t been followed to their conclusion, instead they’ve been taped together, lacking the strings that can pull and tighten them. The effect is to feel at various points the album is meandering, most songs just stop.

Llobet spent a year and half making this record in their apartment, a process they described being akin to “Making a whole movie” but while the album has its merits and should be applauded for it’s honesty of lyrics, it could have been aided by an external producer to hold the camera, highlight the ideas to follow and to accentuate, and the bits to cut.