KRAMON is the project of songwriter, producer, and musician Josh Kramon – best known for his scoring work on Veronica Mars and Lethal Weapon. His debut album Evolutions is a twelve-track exploration of the ever-changing nature of the human psyche. At its heart, the record is a fully collaborative effort with Hunter Hawkins and Meredith Adelaide, whose vocals and lyrical sensibilities bring each track vividly to life.
The atmosphere of the album is revealed from the very first seconds of the opener Morning Vapers. It instantly made me a little sad that summer is already drawing to a close, because this feels like the perfect soundtrack for late May and early June: bright, joyful, yet tinged with a subtle melancholy. Meredith Adelaide’s voice is a clear standout – memorable in tone and immensely pleasant to listen to.
Hunter Hawkins’ deeper vocal timbre provides a counterpoint. While Adelaide leans more toward an indie sensibility, Hawkins brings a jazzier touch, highlighted in the smoother, piano-led arrangements of the second track Back Last Summer. The compositions themselves are remarkably smart – when the bridge comes in at 0:26, it’s gorgeous, and again, for example at 1:40, effortlessly clever and well-crafted. You can clearly hear the years of experience and talent behind it.
Later, Adelaide returns to the spotlight on the track Change, which leans toward a hazier indie-rock world, in the middle breaking into subtle noise before folding back into melody. Her delivery here reminded me of one of my favorites, Aimee Mann. Leave It There brings a folkier flavor, slightly evoking Fleetwood Mac but with a sleeker production polish. The verses felt almost too cheerful for my current gray-day mood, but the shifts and breaks within the song completely won me back.
Adelaide also leads Crush, one of the album’s singles and biggest ballads. Despite its restraint, it’s kept engaging by scattered sonic details and background textures, making it both emotional and sonically rich.
From the record’s second half, The ’80s stood out to me most with its precise guitar work and stellar production – a nostalgic, warmly inviting track that again hints at Fleetwood Mac. On Place in the Sun, we finally hear Josh Kramon himself take the mic. It’s a rockier, more anthemic piece, his vocals cloaked in effects yet still deeply felt, with an epic ending.
Toward the close, The Only Way shines with its affecting melody and exquisite guitar lines. The final minute, when electronic elements and a pulsing beat enter, is one of my personal highlights of the whole record. And then, in the very end, Kramon returns on vocals, this time supported by female backing harmonies, for a hypnotic, krautrock-tinged closer. Driven by its brisk tempo, it works as a perfect finale for an album brimming with ideas – so much so that other artists might have spread them across three different records.
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