Timmy Trumpet & Smash Mouth – Camelot

61%%Overall Score

• Stale Deep House bassline
• Flat performance by Smash Mouth, yet a warm vocal!
• The trumpet is now… A sax

Putting the hilarious memes aside, Smash Mouth have proved themselves as catchy vocalists, and Timmy Trumpet seized this opportunity and played his cards well to create a potential summer hit. Even though, I didn’t find it as admirable as intended. “Camelot” is a sweet bouncy Future House tune with a bassline that is not uncommon in your typical Deep House tracks. Timmy’s signature musical contraption transforms into a saxophone, featuring the renowned band, who are also famous for providing Shrek’s soundtrack.

The combination made here is interesting: the Australian DJ/Producer is not new to unusual team-ups (remember “The King” with Vitas?), and I truly think that there is sign of creative work behind the scenes. Smash Mouth’s vocal about love at first sight is warm and familiar, albeit flatter than I remember. Surely I didn’t want to scream at top of my lungs a new ear-scrapping version of “All Star 2.0”. The band did a decent performance, and the producer tried to valorize it, and at the same time, craft a hit song for the summer.

This is where my issues with “Camelot: begin: the deeper low-end just doesn’t work. It immediately feels boring, killing a part of the vocal’s stamina and even a couple of sax solos weren’t enough for saving it. I would have preferred to hear the classic piano used in the build-up in a more dominant way, because like Two Friends taught us, a cadent piano can be deadly in this context.

Finally, the result is that while this production comes off as enjoyable, it also sounds mundane after a couple of times. Maybe it will be successful this season? Underrating the power of those vocals would be unfair, but still doubt remains. The idea, on the other hand, is worth applauding for its existence.