12 Notes - Alec Benjamin (Music Review)

12 Notes is the third album from Alec Benjamin and follows on from his 2022 and 2020 albums (Un)Comentary and These Two Windows as well as his 2018 mixtape Narrated for You.

Despite following Benjamin on Tiktok, I didn’t realise that he had an album coming out. I could guess that he was gearing up for one - mostly due to the amount of songs he had been releasing in recent months and the tour that I had seen him promote.

Singles: Different Kind Of Beautiful; I Sent My Therapist To Therapy; Pick Me; King Size Bed; Sacrifice

12 Notes

Title track. Very piano heavy - even though it mentions a guitar before a piano. Lots of reference to music and to science. A very nice love song. Benjamin typically uses a lot of guitar over piano so it was nice for something different.

Ways To Go (ft. Khalid)

I had already listen to this song on release day. I’d got it on my Spotify release radar playlist and popped it onto my rotation playlist thinking that it was just another single. Did not realise that the album had come out.

I really like the backing vocals that create a lot of the beat of the song. Very laid back kind of song.

In A Little

I liked the opening part of this music. I heavily associate Benjamin with acoustic/very pared back production so it was a little bit of a good surprise to hear something slightly different.

Different Kind Of Beautiful

This was the first single off the album. This was not one of my favourites. A lot of Benjamin’s music is very simple, but this one feels very basic. It’s defiantly one of the weaker songs on the album.

Pick Me

The third single off the album. It’s a very classic Benjamin song - simple, fast, and a bit upbeat. It’s a very nice song and I kinda relate a bit to it.

Sacrifice Tomorrow

This is my favourite of the pre-release singles off this album. It is also the last one before the release. It’s got a dark and moody beat and has a bit more tech elements than it does the acoustic guitar. When the acoustic guitar is heard, the tech elements help promote it. In my opinion, it is the strongest of the singles

I Sent My Therapist To Therapy

The second single released off the album, I Sent My Therapist To Therapy is about a topic that Benjamin frequently refers to in his music - mental health. When I first heard this song, it did give me a bit of hope that it meant that Benjamin was continuing to adapt his sound. It’s a bit darker musically and lyrically.

The Arsonist

On TikTok, Benjamin revealed that this song was about a fight that he had had with his mother and that the song was an apology.

The deep sounding piano is very nice. For a very meaningful song, it makes sense for it to be on the slow side and fairly pared back.

Lead Me To Water

I loved the strings in this! This song is about asking for help and getting set up for life. There’s plays on the sayings “you can lead a horse to water but can’t make it drink” and “if you give a man a fish, you’ve got dinner, teach a man to fish and he’s set for life”.

By Now

A fairly bog standard Alec Benjamin song.

King Size Bed

I enjoyed this single. It’s fun. It’s upbeat. It’s fast. AKA a recipe for AJ to enjoy.

Love The Ones Who Leave

This was a surprise for me to hear. After feeling fairly disappointed about the other songs that I hadn’t heard off this album.

Final Thoughts

I have always liked Benjamin’s work but unlike other artists, I tend to gravitate to certain songs and only those songs. For the sake of this review, I gave his other albums a re-listen to see if there was anything similar or different between them. The three albums are fairly similar to each other. Overall, not super estatic about this album. I think that most of the singles were the best songs on the album.