The only games I enjoy watching competitively are Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and my favorite event for both of them is always the Summits, where some of the best players in their respective games are brought together to duke it out while producing content in a unique environment. The fifth installment of Smash Ultimate Summit delivered on all fronts, with plenty of intense game-five sets and dramatic upsets that made for exciting results and entertaining gameplay all around. I always eagerly await the next Summit and that’s no different for the next Melee one on the horizon!
The Walking Dead on AMC:
So I’ve been behind on the latest season of The Walking Dead for some time now, but this past week I’ve really been making some decent progress towards catching up. For the final season (season 11), they split it up into three parts, each with eight episodes, I believe, with the final part to be released soon. But I had previously only made it into the first part and am now in the second part after watching a few episodes and I have really been enjoying it! At this point I’ve watched through the tenth episode of season 11, and that one especially saw a significant change in the feel of the show and although I’m still behind by several episodes, it has been a refreshing change of pace and I look forward to seeing how things shape up later on!
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the Nintendo Switch:
As much as I absolutely adore this game, I haven’t played it since its initial release and sank only about 30 hours into it before leaving it behind for the time being. I had been meaning to revisit it for some time now, in anticipation of the previously unnamed Breath of the Wild sequel (now officially titled Tears of the Kingdom). There was plenty left for me to do in the base game and I never even touched the DLC at all! So I’m hoping to get to as much as I can, but I did start over with a new file because it has been pretty much five years at this point and I figured it would feel like a practically brand-new experience for me at this point anyway! So while I’ve put very little time into this so far, I’m looking forward to reliving the magic of this game again.
Content of the Week:
Survivor: Guatemala Ep. 13 Reaction (The Curse of the Car) – Tarqaron
This was a fun episode to have in the mix! The episode right before the finale can tend to not be one of the most exciting episodes in the world and although the end result of the episode tracks with that, I think there’s a lot of fun character moments and personality to counteract that and make it a memorable episode.
Survivor 43 Pre-Season Spectacular – Tarqaron ft. Rusty
It’s really cool getting to jump back into that modern Survivor mindset with my pal Rusty. Given all of the factors involved in the last two seasons I am cautiously optimistic, but overall know I will have a good time because it is ultimately more Survivor at the end of the day! It was fun doing this draft and going through some weird pet peeves that the cast has.
Now ZACH ranks ALEC’s favorite things! – Tarqaron
Yes, Alec stole my idea for this video because of course he would. It was fun being on the other end of it and I anticipate us having fun with more fun and unique tier list templates in the future as well!
Rob Has a Podcast has been my main podcast of choice recently, though there’s almost never a time in the year when I’m not enjoying them regularly, since they are my main outlet for extensive Survivor and Big Brother content on YouTube. I’ve been enjoying their coverage of Big Brother 24 and their daily live feed updates so much that it’s probably actually the case that I’ve spent more time watching their coverage on YouTube than I have watching the actual show they’re talking about. I’ve been enjoying following along as Taran Armstrong in particular breaks down the season and its players in detail along with other fun podcasters.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on the Nintendo Switch:
The Super Smash Bros. series of games has been a constant in my life ever since its inception and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is no exception. In fact, I’ve invested more time in this game than I have in any game I can recall, period. I’ve put over 750 hours into this game to date, and I don’t see it slowing down any time soon. More than anything this game has become my comfort food, essentially the game that I go to as a default and one that is a go-to for when I just want something to keep my hands busy or keep me occupied as I’m listening to a podcast or watching a YouTube video. I’m glad to have it for that and for that reason alone I tend to regularly enjoy it on any given week more than any other one thing that might be highlighted here.
Fable II on the Xbox 360:
I admittedly haven’t put nearly as much time into Fable II this week as I was hoping to, but I just had to highlight the developments which have been made this week. I don’t know what came over me, but I just suddenly had the urge to try out the evil side of being a “Hero” in this game. So I kill a couple of people in the friendly town of Oakvale and next thing you know I get a little carried away and I’ve slaughtered the whole town… I didn’t feel good about it, and, well, ever since there has been a never-ending stream of guards coming from the neighboring towns. So not only did it not feel good and it devoid this town of any meaningful life, but now it’s inhibiting my ability to even play the game like normal. I have yet to play since, but hopefully I can establish some sense of normalcy again and put myself on the righteous path of repentance after all. I’ve always thought about going the bad/evil/renegade routes in these sorts of games but I’ve never been able to go through with it any significant way, and maybe this is why…
Survivor: Guatemala Ep. 11 Reaction (Everything Is Personal) – Tarqaron
This episode wasn’t necessarily the most impactful of the season, but it still made for a fun episode and it was especially satisfying to see Gary calling Judd out at tribal council for “not lying” and seeing Alec’s reaction to that moment.
And now we’re playing TARQARON Mad Libs! – Tarqaron
This was a lot of fun. My brother gave us another great custom-made Tarqaron-related gift to enjoy, and this one being two whole books of Tarqaron Mad Libs will allow us to have a fun series of videos to enjoy as well! It’s always fun being able to reflect on Tarqaron’s history and our hundreds of videos we’ve put out over the years and my brother continues to give us more fun ways to do just that!
Hello everyone, welcome to a new weekly series I’ll be doing here on my website. Unlike my weekly blog series that I did for months last year, this series won’t focus on my personal life but rather will allow me to highlight the different games, movies, shows, books, and musics I enjoyed from the past week as well as elaborate on any content I posted as well. This does not mean I have included everything I enjoyed from the past week, but rather specific highlights that I thought were most worth mentioning! These will be posted every Monday and I encourage you to leave a response if you have any opinions on anything I highlight here throughout the week! Feel free to leave a comment here or reach out to me on Twitter @_Zach_Archer_ ! I love talking about these kinds of things so I’m happy to add another outlet for me to regularly do so.
Highlights of the Week
438 Days by Jonathan Franklin:
This is actually the first book in years that I actually sat down and read through in its entirety! Despite always having an interest in reading more, the flashier trinkets like video games and YouTube videos tended to distract me and keep me from really committing to a good book, but now that I’ve had some extra free time on my hands I don’t intend on stopping after this one. This was actually a real-life story I knew about before, but I was so curious to read about in more detail. 438 Days follows the grueling 438 days that a man named Alvarenga survived lost at sea with nothing but his survival abilities and seemingly endless miles of ocean around him. It’s truly unfathomable to wrap your head around just how long 438 days is to be in even just one place in general, let alone stranded at sea in a survival situation. I highly encourage you to read this if you’re interested at all in hearing about this incredible survival story.
Fable II on the Xbox 360:
My relationship with the Fable series is an interesting one. I have always been a fan of the series, but weirdly enough, I have only beaten Fable III and have yet to make significant progress on the first two despite starting them over multiple times and enjoying them both. But for some reason I was feeling that Fable itch once again and I’m going to try to stick it through to the end this time. I guess I’ve accepted my non-linear relationship with the series and so I’m going through Fable II next, it was just calling to me more. So far I’ve been enjoying it, but as tends to happen with this series, I spent a few hours the other night getting distracted winning over many of the townspeople in Bowerstone, getting married a couple of times along the way, and as such haven’t done much in terms of progress recently. But the next time I play I plan on focusing up and moving forward with more of the story proper.
Big Brother 24 on CBS:
Watching Big Brother has been an annual tradition for my family for so many years that it is just a regular part of each summer at this point. This season has been delivering in a lot of ways because it has been a rollercoaster of ups and downs and despite a really rough start to the season it has picked up and led to some interesting dynamics, even in spite of a couple of awful twists imposed by the producers. This season is also the first one I’ve been able to enjoy and discuss with my girlfriend, so that has been a plus, too. Hopefully the endgame proves to be just as interesting and gives us more to enjoy.
The Lucky Ones (Deluxe) album by Pentatonix:
Recently it kind of slipped my mind that I hadn’t given the deluxe version of Pentatonix’s latest album quite the love it deserved. I had listened to it a few times, sure, but not as much as many of their other albums for sure. I’ve since realized that the additional deluxe tracks are some of my favorite Pentatonix songs period now, with You’re Out standing out to me this past week especially. Truly a treat to enjoy, and one I’m sure I’ll continue to appreciate for quite some time.
Content of the Week:
Box Art Battles! – Episode 6 | Tarqaron ft. Ryan
This episode was a lot of fun. As always in Box Art Battles!, we got up to a lot of fun shenanigans as we navigated a variety of video game box art. Most notably I feel like Winning Post 7 really defined this episode in a lot of ways, lest we forget the moments we shared.
Jamie’s parting words were almost too iconic not to be referenced in the title, especially after the dramatic downward spiral that we witnessed from him throughout the past few episodes. I know Alec was happy to see them finally actually go through with voting him out and I don’t blame him; it was a much needed change of pace. Had a fun time with this episode for sure!
Belle Review – Tarqaron
This was definitely an interesting anime film worth highlighting, and I knew there would be a good amount to get into, but I certainly never expected Alec to get so heated about one minor critique I made in the video (especially since we were more or less in agreement about everything else). Watch for yourself and let me know if I was really being that unreasonable with what I said, because it really took me by surprise.
This game was everything I wanted it to be and more.
Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling is a video game that was released on the Switch, PS4, and Xbox One back in 2020, but I just now got around to really sinking my teeth into and finishing in 2022. This game was always high on my radar because it takes direct inspiration from the Paper Mario games of old. To truly understand the significance of that key element it might be worth checking out a post I wrote a year ago about The Rise and Fall of Paper Mario in my, and most of the fans’, eyes.
Bug Fables is almost shameless in how much of its DNA is really derived from Paper Mario. But it’s admirable in a sense. Paper Mario fans have been asking for a return to form for almost two decades and finally someone comes along and says fuck it, we’re going to do it ourselves. So this perfectly scratches that itch that fans have been so longing to scratch. From the action commands in the turn-based battle system to the puzzle-solving using unique abilities and from the same paper aesthetic to the same badge/medal system, Bug Fables borrows a lot to give fans exactly what they’ve been dying for all these years later. Frankly, I’m not mad at it. If Nintendo wants to refuse to deliver on fans’ expectations then naturally that was going to leave the door open for someone to do so. And we have good ol’ independent developer Moonsprout Games to thank for giving it to us.
And that’s not to say that Bug Fables is just a Paper Mario clone and nothing more. The amount of influence and gameplay elements taken directly from the first two Paper Mario games is undeniable, to the extent that this might as well have been another entry in that series. But it does it with such heart and a lot of care put into every aspect and oozes a ton of charm on its own as well. From what initially seems like it will just be an excuse to do a lot of bug puns and bug-related names, they actually take the whole bug aspect and use it to really flesh the world out quite well with everything from unique character designs to fun dialogue and an engaging story.
Needless to say I was hooked from beginning to end and while of course there are things I would like to improve on or change if they were to make a sequel in the future (fingers crossed), that’s not really what I wanted to highlight here. The main takeaway is this: Paper Mario and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door are two of my favorite games ever and I’ve been endlessly disappointed with the direction the series has gone since then. Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling gave me a burst of that joy I felt when playing those two games and I am so, so grateful for that. The attention to detail and heart, with a breadth of content too, make it clear that this was a love letter to true Paper Mario fans and one that I will cherish forever!
It is really tough to stay positive when things keep adding up so much. Sometimes it gets to a point where it feels like so much is working against me that it’s almost comical. The biggest thorn in my side for a while was having cars that I would keep having to fix every couple of months because they are old and used. So I decided to finally invest in making monthly payments on a nicer car with much fewer miles so that I wouldn’t have to deal with that hassle anymore but now only three months later that car is not drivable and is likely going to cost a lot just to get running again. It’s truly frustrating beyond belief, but also ironic that I invested so much in getting this car so I wouldn’t have to keep getting cars fixed every few months and now I’m hit with probably the biggest repair fee yet… only a few months later. It’s just funny that even when you take the proper precautions for a specific situation, that exact problem can still find its way back into your life again and again.
So if I look at my position in life right now, and think about trying to figure out what I’m gonna do considering I don’t have a lot of expendable income to begin with, it really is very heavy and overwhelming. Luckily I have some people in my life who keep my spirits up as much as possible and I am actively working on compartmentalizing things in a way that this really trying situation isn’t the only thing I think about at all times. It’s hard to keep this up and of course I have my moments where I break down and struggle with it, but I’m doing my best to adjust my mentality so that I’m not stressed to death every day. That being said, I’m really not looking forward to being without a car for however long again…
Not exactly the start to the new year that I wanted, but I’m going to try to stay strong and turn this thing around somehow. I don’t even know that I believe I can do that but I’ve got to convince myself that I do. Positive affirmations or some shit. I guess 2022’s just trying to show me that it’s going to be a challenging year for me, but I don’t think I ever doubted it would be. Challenging isn’t necessarily bad, though. 2022 will be a big year for me in terms of life changes, reinstating motivation, getting myself back on track and improving myself in general.
Videos I Posted This Week:
Survivor: Palau Ep. 13 Reaction (Goofy Goober) – TarqaronWest Side Story (2021) Review – Tarqarontick, tick… BOOM! Review – TarqaronSpider-Man: No Way Home Review – Tarqaron
Since blog day just happened to line up on New Year’s Eve, I feel like the topic for this week writes itself. A new year is just over the horizon and it’s crazy to think about the chaos we’ve all been stuck in for the past couple of years and will likely be stuck in for all of next year as well. Even though so much is still up in the air going into 2022, I know for certain that there are things I can/need to work on to better my self and my place in life.
As someone who loves movies, video games, television, music, etc. it’s pretty much always one of my goals at the start of a new year to try to discover and enjoy more of those than in the year previous. I’m thinking I’ll reflect on exactly how much new stuff I enjoyed this year on next week’s blog, but off-hand I know that I started the year off strong but then really tapered off for at least the second half and as a result I haven’t even had time to play a game or watch a show in weeks. So there’s definitely room for me to enjoy a lot more next year.
As an extension of that, a big goal for me going into next year is to really figure out a good schedule so that I can improve my quality of life by being able to balance my work time, my creative time, and my free time in a way that feels more manageable and less overwhelming. My biggest problem currently tends to be that I spend so much time working on videos or working that I don’t have as much time for myself as I’d like. So as a result I’ve got shelves of games and movies going untouched. In 2022 I’m going to make an effort to consume and discover more in general.
In addition I’d like to diversify my activities and hobbies more. Meaning that just because movies, video games, music, and television are some of my favorite things, I don’t want to hesitate to branch outside of those things more often with things like books which I’ve been meaning to get back to for years, writing more and expressing myself in more creative ways, or much more outdoors/physical activities. This will help everything not to feel as rote because while I do want to establish a more comfortable schedule, I also don’t want to confine myself to a monotonous or restrictive routine. There’s a perfect balance somewhere in there that I’d like to find.
With an effort to do more things outdoors and more physical activities comes my desire to be an entirely healthier person in 2022. This comes in every aspect of my self, really, from my physical health to my mental health to my emotional well-being. I need to exercise more, I need to really work on my diet, and I need to focus on putting less stress on myself and work towards a happier me. I would love to come out of 2022 having made significant improvements in my health.
My work life is obviously a big thing I’d like to change in 2022 as well. Not only would I like for my work to be less of a hinderance on my creativity and motivation, but I’d like for it to reinforce those things. Not just be less intrusive on my video-making and free time but rather bridge the gap between those things perhaps. This is an aspect of my life that needs to change and will change in 2022 so that I can truly be happy. I can’t have such a time-consuming part of my life continue to hold me back. Once I fix this part of my life then my living conditions, finances, and overall state of my mind will have much more room to grow and improve as a result. This will be my biggest hurdle to overcome and nip in the bud in 2022.
So for the new year I have a lot to work on but ultimately it all comes down to working towards finding a happier and fuller version of myself. 2021 has genuinely had everything from my lowest lows to my highest highs from beginning to end. My mission now is to make those highs more consistent by keeping what makes me happy and removing/changing what doesn’t. It’s time to fix my whole shit in 2022.
Look, I’m gonna give myself a break and not stress too much about what to write this week. It is Christmas Eve, after all, and I did mention last time that I would give a follow-up to the position I was in last week so that’s exactly what I’m doing.
So last week I talked about how I had pretty much all of my shopping left to do with only a week left until Christmas. Well, I’m relieved to say that everything has come together pretty nicely, though it still wasn’t quite up to snuff with the amount of effort I usually like to put into gifts. Minus some finishing touches and last-minute additions, everything is good to go and I’ve already given most of my friends their gifts so it’s been great to see them all happy with those. It’s funny because when I was young I loved and anticipated Christmas so much for all of the gifts I would receive and get to enjoy in the morning. But in adulthood there has been such a dramatic shift in that I get so much more out of giving gifts. While I still really appreciate everyone who takes the time out to give me gifts in any capacity, and thoughtful gifts are really touching to me, I just love the payoff from a good gift coming together (and, more-so when I give myself a comfortable amount of time, I love the process of putting it all together).
I am definitely super excited to get together with family and have a good, stress-free time tomorrow, but right now I also can’t help but be stressed about how behind I am on videos especially when I think about how many I specifically want to get out by the end of the year. But maybe after Christmastime I can kick it into overdrive and really tear through them. I think the most overwhelming part of it is the sheer amount of videos that I have built-up combined with how time-consuming they are to work on, so once I can whittle down those numbers then everything will be a lot more manageable to me. I’d really like to go into the new year with some clear time management goals in mind so that I can have a less stressful existence in general. More concrete goals in general would be a good step for me, but hey, for now how about I just let myself enjoy the holiday season?
Videos I Posted This Week:
Encanto Review – TarqaronOur November 2021 Favorites! – Tarqaron
You know, I went into this year thinking I would give myself more time for things, more time to get things done in advance, and yet here I am. I managed to not only not give myself more time to get my Christmas shopping done, but I actually gave myself significantly less time to do so. There’s only about a week left til Christmas and I still have the large majority of my shopping to do. As if the holiday season wasn’t stressful and busy enough already, I had to go and add that to the mix as well.
As I mentioned before, I really do love putting together gifts for people that I care about, few things give me greater joy than having a nice gift come together and then seeing their reaction when they open it. So in that way it annoys me that I won’t be able to get some of the more elaborate things that would require more than a week’s time to put together, and I have no one to blame but myself for that, really. I’m still gonna do my best to put together some kick-ass and thoughtful stuff, in spite of a tough time limit and very limited budget. There’s been a lot going on over the past few weeks so it’s not always easy to stay in high spirits but ultimately I love the holiday season and the good vibes that it can bring so I’m hoping everything turns out swell. It’s really interesting that the holiday season, which is supposed to be a wholesome and happy time for all, so often is a source of stress for people. For me, the payoff tends to outweigh any stress involved, but I know for some people it can just be a completely stressful experience from top to bottom (which is unfortunate).
For now my mental health seems surprisingly better than it had been for a while, but that might just be the allure of the season distracting from the very real stresses which I know are looming in the background. So the state of my mental health will probably be more accurately identifiable after the start of the new year once I’m more alone with my thoughts again. Stay tuned for that I guess, here’s hoping for the best!
Next week’s blog will be on Christmas Eve so you might be able to get a sense of how my last-minute Christmas shopping push went and exactly how optimistic I am going into the holiday itself. The blogs are probably going to take a bit of a backseat and be less in-depth (like this one) until the craziness of working, gift-making, video-making, and spending time with the people I love dies down a bit, but I’m still going to be checking in every week in whatever capacity I can. And like I said, I should hopefully have more to talk about next week since it will literally be the day before Christmas, which is always something for me to look forward to.
Just a couple of days ago, I got to see Pentatonix perform in person for the first time in two years and they did not disappoint! But rather than talk about that here, I’m going to save that for a video I’ll be recording about it since I have talked about every other Pentatonix concert experience in video form and I don’t see any reason to stop now. Since PTX is at the top of my mind at the moment, though, I wanted to at least share my thoughts on the Evergreen album. Just like I did with The Lucky Ones, I’m going to go track by track, giving my opinions on each song along the way.
There’s not much to it, but they nailed it with It’s Been A Long, Long Time. The contrast between Scott and Mitch’s voices is really what made this one work, but it’s also nice that both Kirstin and Matt had moments to chime in as well. The song had a pretty unique tone in comparison to what we usually hear from their voices. This acted as the perfect short intro song for the album, and was the perfect choice to tie in with their tour announcement, too. I really liked the nice touch of hearing them light a candle, which they then blow out at the end of the album.
There is nothing noticeably remarkable about Wonderful Christmastime, but it has grown on me a bit since my first time hearing it. I mean, that’s basically the case with the original version, too. It’s more or less just a catchy song with not too much going on with it. While I don’t think Pentatonix’s version is quite as catchy, I still enjoy it and it has enough charm to be worth listening to when going through the album. Scott’s voice in particular complements the song well.
I Saw Three Ships surprised me with how much I ended up liking it. I had never heard the original before, but even from the name of the song, I feared I was in for a bit of a bore. I really did not expect it to have as much energy as it did, so I’m glad that I was wrong about that. They really do a great job of not only coming in with a good amount of energy but also building on that energy as the song progresses, which naturally makes for an exciting arrangement. Scott is again the heart of this song and I really love hearing him go all out as he sings about these damn three ships, but Mitch, Kirstin, and Matt all had great moments to shine as well. That tends to be the impetus for my favorite Pentatonix arrangements, any time we get each member shining in different ways is exactly what I want to hear.
I’ve gotta be honest. And I’ve always said this because no one is brave enough to say it. Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You is the greatest Christmas song ever made. So Pentatonix’s version, featuring Christina Perri, was very disappointing in that I was expecting high-energy holiday goodness but got a really slowed-down version instead. Upon further listening, I have a lot more respect for the bold departure, but I can’t help but wonder what it would have sounded like with a similar approach to the original. So while I appreciate what they did with this, and it’s swell enough by itself, I can’t help but be honest when I say that they essentially took out the heart of the song and why I love it, so this didn’t quite work for me as much as it could have.
I don’t know why I love the very beginning of Home For The Holidays so much, but I really do. Just the right amount of reverb as Scott calls on each member by name to join in the song and add another layer to the arrangement. That twenty seconds is just enough to add some charm and set it apart from what is otherwise a pretty rote classic Christmas song. Overall it’s nothing to write home about but that intro gives it some personality.
Another song I hadn’t heard of, River was really pretty though it’s not one of my favorites. It’s very folksy in style which is so interesting because it really doesn’t feel like a Christmas song as a result. That’s probably the biggest issue for me, not only is it not my preferred style of music in general but it’s definitely not the kind of music I want to listen to during Christmastime either. So this one didn’t really do much for me but that’s okay.
Over the River is the much much better river-based song on this album. I really fuckin’ love this shit. Lindsey Stirling killed this and added such a badass, much-needed layer to this arrangement. It’s mostly the same violin sequence being replayed throughout but I love it so much and they use it so creatively to switch up the pace of the song in fun and exciting ways, so it doesn’t really matter. This easily could have been just another beat-for-beat classic holiday cover, but I’m glad they decided to do something much more special with it.
Okay, so The Prayer is the best song on the album and it’s not close. This takes up the show-stopping mantle of songs like Hallelujah and Amazing Grace in past albums and it did not disappoint in the slightest. These tend to be my favorites in every album that they do because they not only are heaven to the ears but are brilliant at showcasing their talents both as individuals and as a group. Words cannot express how much I love and appreciate this cover from Pentatonix. It’s truly one of the best they’ve ever done, period. From Kevin’s excellent percussion to Mitch’s killer range, they all deliver brilliant all-time performances. It’s truly a pleasure to listen through as Scott, Mitch, and Kirstin each give us chills at least once. This will probably go in my top five favorite songs from Pentatonix ever!
Quite a contrast from The Prayer, Evergreen delivers in a much different way. Though it’s not my favorite in the world and not one that I’m really eager to listen to on repeat, it is definitely a really sweet and heartfelt song. And I loved hearing just a little bit of Kevin’s singing voice in this one, it really suited the song nicely!
Frosty The Snowman is one of those classic Christmas songs that was inevitably going to be covered by Pentatonix at some point, it was just a matter of when. What I didn’t expect was for Alessia Cara to be involved. Look, I’m a big Alessia Cara fan and I will be the first person to sing the praises of her voice. She’s great. But my grievance with this cover is pretty much the same as my grievances with most Pentatonix songs that “feature” artists like this. The fact is that this is much more an Alessia Cara song featuring Pentatonix than it is a Pentatonix song featuring Alessia Cara. So while I think that Alessia is brilliant and her voice actually really suits this song, it’s simply not what I’m looking for when I listen to a Pentatonix album. I really wish that they would have more of a back-and-forth with their featured artists rather than just taking the back seat every time. That would make songs like this a lot more fun and engaging for me to listen to.
I Just Called To Say I Love You is really beautiful. One of my favorites on this album for sure. The blending of their voices in this song in particular is so tastefully done, and all of their voices individually shine in soft and pretty ways. I’ve become a lot more of a sap in recent times, so I have much more of an appreciation for the messages of songs like these too, so combine that with heavenly vocals and you’ve got a recipe for melting me as I listen to this album. Love it. Wonderful arrangement.
Not much to really dissect here but Little Saint Nick is a lot of fun. All it really took is a nice effect on Scott’s voice and this cover really captured the essence of the song well. So while it’s a brief and simple holiday trip, it’s a pleasant one for sure. Good stuff!
Similarly to I Saw Three Ships, they do a great job at building up the song as it progress with It Came Upon The Midnight Clear. But there is a break from the build when Matt comes in for his solo (which is really nice and pretty, by the way) and then it just kicks into tenth gear and goes all out with an insane finish. Mitch and Scott kill it with bringing this one home and they all bring the energy to a whole other level that is so fun to hear. This one is great!
I’ve never heard a song as raw and as barebones from Pentatonix as My Heart With You. The immediate impression I got from hearing this song is that it would be the one they sing at the end of their concerts when they put down their mics as they always have in concerts past (and I was right). The thing that really sets this one apart from those other songs they’ve done that for is that this one basically already sounds like it’s being performed in that way. There is essentially no instrumentation being replicated here so it’s not only all vocals but it’s all singing so it feels even more pulled back than usual. So that right there sets this song apart from anything they’ve really done before, and it’s definitely really pretty.
They end it with a really soft and more predictable one to go out with and that’s We Wish You A Merry Christmas. Nothing too remarkable for me, not a standout from the album by any means, but I don’t hate it as a way to ease out of the album. And of course hearing them blow out the candle they lit with the very first song shows just how purposeful the whole ordering of the album was so I’m willing to give them kudos for that. Matt’s moment is a highlight for me in this cover, but overall it’s more by-the-books and less exciting than some of their other covers on this album.
And that’s it! Overall I enjoyed the album, though it doesn’t reach the greatness of most of their other Christmas albums for me. To be fair, their last few Christmas albums were all excellent so it’s probably just a high bar, but this album just didn’t reach that tier for me in the pantheon of Pentatonix greatness. The Prayer is by far the greatest that this album has to offer and I’ll always be grateful for that at the very least. The few other standouts make this album worth it for me and of course it is always great to hear new Christmas music from Pentatonix again. Even when it’s not their best Pentatonix are excellent, it’s just the fact that their best is so good that it makes anything less than that particularly noticeable.
Videos I Posted This Week:
Survivor: Palau Ep. 10 Reaction (Janu It Was Too Much For Her) – TarqaronGhostbusters: Afterlife Review – TarqaronEternals Review – TarqaronPentatonix and Lindsey Stirling KILLED this! (Over the River)Survivor 41 Ep. 11 Reaction – Tarqaron
Things I Enjoyed This Week:
Pentatonix: The Evergreen Christmas Tour Survivor 41 Smash Summit 12 CEO 2021
Zach Archer 