Allison Weiss - Allison Weiss Was Right All Along

This Is Fake DIY, but Allison Weiss certainly isn’t. To fund her latest offering, ‘Allison Weiss Was Right All Along’, she used her ingenuity and took to the internet, asking fans for donations in return for a plethora of rewards and gifts. Among the more ludicrous was the offer of having Ms. Weiss pen a song on a topic of your choice for a mere $500. Seems like a lot? It didn’t to two donators. Allison raised a grand total of $7,771 in a little over 2 months, indicating a fan base far greater than the one in the Fake DIY office and allowing her to produce a full length album as opposed to the EP she originally set out to fund.

The binding thread of this guitar-driven album is undoubtedly the honest, heart-felt lyrics which are prominent on every track. Each song is exposing and direct, with Allison’s heart well and truly worn on her guitar strap. For example, ‘You + Me + Alcohol’ does, well, exactly what it says on the tin. ‘We were so drunk we were practically dead,’ muses Weiss, ever the college student. Oh, did we not mention that she’s also a college student when she’s not being a pretty accomplished recording artist and making the rest of us feel like underachievers? The subject matter is raw and relatable, portraying stories of love and loss, for better or for worse. This, combined with the use of muffled dialogue overlaying the emotionally poignant ‘Ghost Stories’ and the unedited scratching of chord changes in ‘Why Bother?’, results in an intimate feeling album, ensuring listener interest from the offset.

With an eccentric mix of mellow, melodic songs such as ‘From You To Me’ and more punchy, up-tempo tracks like ‘Yer Going Down’, ‘…Right All Along’ makes for an engaging listen. It’s hard to box Allison into one genre, but if Tegan and Sara went to a folk festival and had a baby with the headline act, and the baby grew up and learned guitar and innovative money-making techniques, that baby would closely resemble Allison Weiss.

‘I’m no good on my own anymore’, sings Weiss. Well, we have to disagree. No label, no manager, no gimmicks; infectious pop at its best and it’s very good indeed.