8 tracks, 14 minutes that could have never seen the light of day. Honestly, how do you rate an 8 track demo that is only 14 minutes? It’s a clump of unfinished songs put together into an album. For who Dominic Fike is, this was disappointing. For what the songs were, this was pointless. Without the name attached to the album, it could have been something decent, but in this case it’s a bunch of songs that were left on the chopping block, leaving the fans the scraps and crumbs. However, I can at least appreciate the short and sweet sentiment of it all and there are some nice tunes in the mess of an unfinished product. ‘hi grace’ starts off kind of sweet, and ‘to say to say’ has its moments. It might have worked as an interesting interlude on any other album. But when it is longer than half of the songs on the album, it just becomes tiresome.
“Dominic Fike summer” is a quote that I used to live by, that I used to thrive by. I love his music, and I appreciate his creativity. I consider him as a genre of his own when it comes to his uniqueness and ability to capture the very essence of a nostalgic summer day. For example, the song “misses” stood out right away for me. It offers a cool indie sound that focuses on some vocal effects and backing vocals that gel wonderfully with the guitar segments. The whole song was really something of Dominic Fike’s vibe; chill, vibey and something that you can blast with the windows down. It reminded me of the song “Brazil” by Declan Mckenna, because of its summer feel and trendy Tiktok appeal. It is utterly disappointing that this was not a longer song. Approximately 1:30 of it was surely not enough for it to live up to its potential.
“coast2coast” is a song that I wish had some effort put into it. “Oh- (Go) Coast to coast, but we never came close. If you ever find it, you should not hesitate”, I appreciate the ‘summer getaway’ storyline he is trying to convey here. It’s one of my two favorites on this album, and could have had the privilege to be placed on my personal playlist if it wasn’t only 1:05 long. This is unlike some of the other melodies on these songs that were quite nice but included wacky vocal mixing and lacked production effort. In the sense that it could have only lived up to its greatest potential by being created by Dominic Fike himself, this was very disappointing. No other artist could have picked up such an upbeat song like this, it simply only matches his vibe, which is why this is so disappointing that it turned out to be such a waste.
Dominic Fike as an artist is capable of so much more than what he’s been putting out, and I really want to love his recent stuff. If these songs were even given a second thought, it could have really been something great. Having only 8 tracks, each of them being only 60 seconds long, it seems more like tik tok brain rot than an album. Though, in all honesty, the amount of hatred that is given by critics feels wrong. This album does contain the Dominic feel; containing little glimpses into a story he may share some day. But for now, my heart is not comfortable with what was given. The beats are heavenly and I find myself craving more. Despite this, when I commit to putting Dominic Fike on, I am listening to every message he has to say front to back because of who he is and the talent that he has.