November 26th, 2013 
Troy Sennett 
Artist: Allison Weiss
Album: Say What You Mean (Sideways Sessions)
Genre: Pop rock
No Sleep Records has signed a lot of great artists in the past year or so, both veteran and up-and-coming, but Allison Weiss is probably my favorite of the bunch. Her first full-length with the label, Say What You Mean, was released in April, and her instantly resonant brand of spunky pop rock has been a fixture on my stereo all year. The album was funded through a Kickstarter campaign before Weiss signed to No Sleep, and her latest release, Say What You Mean (Sideways Sessions), was originally conceived as a reward for backers. The album is an acoustic, alt-country-influenced re-recording of Say What You Mean, and it’s a pleasant end-of-the-year surprise for Weiss fans and newcomers alike.
To say that Sideways Sessions is just a re-recording is selling the album short. Weiss revisited the arrangements and fleshed them out with new harmonies, folk instruments, and string sections, giving the songs a distinctly different feel than the original versions. This is most apparent on “One Way Love,” which is transformed from an upbeat rocker to a dark ballad, and “How To Be Alone,” where bells and banjo replace the stomping rhythm section of the Say What You Mean version. The latter remains a highlight of Sideways Sessions as it builds up through the repeated chant of “I miss you all the time.” While many songs were slowed down to fit the style, the new “Don’t Go” might actually be faster and more intense, if that was possible. The song gets a new guitar riff and a rolling snare beat, and Weiss shows her vocal versatility more than ever on the ending, when she slides from singing into an emotional yell that is reminiscent of vintage Dashboard Confessional.
“Wait For Me” is the most similar to its original version, with the only real change being the replacement of the original’s strings with horns, but it tugs at the heartstrings as much as ever. Hands down Weiss’s best song, the tale of reconciling wanderlust with a relationship still serves as the perfect centerpiece to the album.
The weak spots on Sideways Sessions are essentially the same as they were on Say What You Mean. “Making It Up” and “Hole In Your Heart,” for instance, are decent but not particularly memorable tracks. They don’t stand up to the album’s aforementioned gems, and the new arrangements don’t change enough about the songs to make them more interesting after the first couple listens. My only real complaint about Sideways Sessions is that I wish some of the songs had been reworked even more. New sets of lyrics or changes to song structure would shore up those weak spots and set the updated version of the album even more apart from the original.
The real lesson of Sideways Sessions is that good songwriting is good songwriting, regardless of the arrangement. The songs that work when they’re loud work just as well when they’re quiet, and the songs that were initially less interesting aren’t made any more so by the changes. That said, both versions of Say What You Mean are certainly worth a listen, as they show two different sides of an extremely talented young songwriter with a very bright future ahead of her.
Score: 8/10
Review written by Troy Sennett
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