Call me crazy, but I’ve never really thought that camping, or the whole notion of sleeping out in the woods and “roughing it” is any sort of a good time. I enjoy tons of outside activities, any sport you can think of, swimming, jet skiing, you name it and I’ve probably done it, but going into the middle of nowhere, getting bitten to all hell by bugs, and sleeping on the ground has just never struck me as enjoyable. The woods are the exact vision that I get upon listening to Seventeen Evergreen’s music. I see two stoners giddily playing the guitar and drums, respectively, in some clearing deep in the woods. Nine out of 10 hippies would absolutely love this album, and the other hippie is too strung out on PCP to actually vote, but he’d have probably enjoyed it too.

A good amount of this disc is free-form and instrumental with no real direction to speak of, and while I can generally get into that type of thing, this just doesn’t grab me. There’s no elements of this that stick out; it seems to drone on in one long, continuous stoner session. Some songs try their best to defy this convention, as “Grays” plods through most of the length with some melodic chord plucking and repetitious use of the snare drum, but it ultimately can’t get over the hump as the guitar slowly intensifies, as the song is all crackle and no pop. The majority of these songs just don’t settle into an identifiable groove, and I’m not letting them off the hook on the premise that it’s only a two-man outfit, as there’s lots of things that can be explored with only a guitar and drums, none of which are really expanded upon with this record. But if reverb, low vocals, and open-ended song structures are your thing, you may have just found a new favorite band.

For the rest of us, that open-ended song structure needs some sort of push to it, something to make what seems like improvisational wankery into actual music. Seventeen Evergreen, however, seem to dabble far too much in the wankery end of things. “Luzerac” is the one song on this record that most closely resembles some sort of song structure, as there’s a good deal of vocals and some low droning guitar, but that doesn’t mean it’s able to hold your attention. The ambient sounds of “Grays” are really the album's best moments, as the snoozefest “Haven’t Been Yourself” takes away any remnants of continuity that the album was still holding on to. Singer Nephi Evans just can’t seem to find the right ratio of vocals to music to actually keep things interesting. Every so often you’ll stumble onto a hot pocket of energy of creativeness, until the droning just wipes it out.

My issue with this album is much like my overall view on camping, in that what seems like enough to keep you occupied will in turn leave you bored very, very quickly, but probably with less bug bites than an overnight stay in the woods.

I’m all for music being inventive, and fighting against being derivative and formulaic, but somewhere along the line it also has to be interesting, and that’s the boat that Seventeen Evergreen let leave the harbor. One quick listen through this album and you’ve heard all that you’re going to; there’s no melodies, chords, or lyrics that won’t go in one ear and right out the other, and that’s what’s frustrating about this. Life Embarrasses Me On Planet Earth can toil in greatness, but will ultimately stay a subpar effort.