Into It. Over It. – 52 Weeks Album Review

Into It. Over It’s mastermind, Evan Thomas Weiss, is a member of Damiera and played in Up Up Down Down, a band that I consider one of the most underrated power-pop bands of all time. With that in mind, I expected some good songs, but was a bit skeptical for his solo effort, 52 Weeks, under the Into It. Over It. moniker.

For one thing, the concept was that Weiss wrote and recorded 52 tracks –- one track a week for a year — alongside occasional collaborators from well-received bands like Jena Berlin, The Early November and Damiera.

It’s not easy to write an album’s worth of songs, let alone GREAT songs, so it was interesting to see where this project would go.

For one thing, the acoustic-driven opener, “Batsto,” was not going to be the style du jour throughout the album. On the first disc alone, Weiss wears many genre hats, including that of singer-songwriter (“Anchor”), that of indie rocker (“Heartaficial”), that of punk rocker (“Gin and Ironic”), and that of math rocker (“22 Syllables”).

This is actually one of the few double albums that I can listen to on a regular basis. Trying to get through all 52 songs in a single sitting, however, is a different story.

The main problem with 52 Weeks is that, while many of the songs are consistent and good, it lacks any real flow. Weiss could’ve culled the best material from the recording sessions and had an album that could be considered a genre classic down the road. But ambition be damned. If Weiss hadn’t had the idea to do a song a week, who knows what the world would’ve ended up with.

In the end, many, if not all, of these songs are great, and the album as a whole works very well in short bursts or shuffled on someone’s mp3 player.

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