Never in my life did I believe that “gospel, funk, and 1960s soul” could all go into one song, but after hearing it, I wish I hadn’t.  15 year old multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Ray Goren brings a new and unique sound on his new EP entitled “Songs for You”, but these songs are not for me.

The EP comes from gospel roots, so most of the songs bring back a time of Sunday school. The beats are from “funk” but not the kind of funk that makes you want to get up and dance. The  1960s soul comes through in all aspects of the music, but the attempt of bringing those sounds back failed.

A majority of the songs on the EP including “Those Days” sound much like holiday music, without mentioning anything regarding any of the holidays. “Those Days” also sounds like it should be part of a commercial or a hippy peace film, yet it uses all cliché or unoriginal lyrics such as “Where will I go next/ Where will we all be free.”

“It’s On You” is the most “holiday” sounding song on the playlist, and also has extremely un-unique lyrics such as “The way that she used me up/ was like the sun on the snow.” and “the way that she hit me/ was like drowning on dry land” suggests some kind of past child abuse in Goren’s life that he has not received proper therapy for.   Many of the love lyrics are written like valentine cards or semi-professional junior high poetry.

The interesting part is that the songs played alongside of his songs on Spotify playlists were from groups such as Smashing Pumpkins and The Cranberries. Bands like these are nowhere near the low  end music Goren produces.  His music would not do well in today’s pop culture, but would be fine in this generation’s grandparent’s generation. After listening to this album, I had nothing good to say about it, except that there are only five short songs on it, which makes the experience a little less painful.