Album Review: Say What You Mean by Allison Weiss

Allison Weiss got her big break by leveraging the power of the Internet for self-promotion and successfully using Kickstarter to fund her first full-length album, Was Right All Along, which was mostly made up of your standard guitar-and-drum pop songs and sentimental acoustic ballads characteristic of the majority of indie-rock singer/songwriters, meaning the album didn’t really do much to demonstrate Weiss’ unique personality. Since then, she’s signed to No Sleep Records, and now, on her first release for the popular punk/emo label, she’s begun to embrace her pop-punk influences more overtly to craft a record that succeeds by coupling its infectious melodies with a few pointed words and a lot of feelings. Following in the footsteps of the pop-punk-tinged indie rock of earlier Tegan and Sara records, Weiss sets herself apart from many of her contemporaries (and her earlier material) on Say What You Mean by adding more energy, greater diversity and sleeker production that includes incorporating a variety of instruments into the album that allow Weiss and producer Chris Kuffner to create elaborate songs with intricate arrangements.

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Brooklyn singer/songwriter Allison Weiss burst onto the scene in 2009, through a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign to release her first full-length ...Was Right All Along that reached its goal in ten hours and tripled it in two days. Whether you agree or disagree with the notion of an artist crowdsourcing as a means to release their work, what Weiss accomplished through creative fundraising incentives, effective marketing and outside-the-box thinking is impressive. But none of that matters, of course, if the songs aren't good.Now, we have Say What You Mean, Weiss' first LP for No Sleep Records.

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