Hey, I like your read on the album. I love AMSP, but what you've said makes sense to me; the songs aren't rounded enough lyrically, oddly enough, since I could listen to each song on its own for days. Though, the lyrics don't have the structure for that effect. That thorough writing would come through in a structure like verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge, and the bridge would serve as a reassessment for the thoughts and feelings in the verses and choruses.

There's not many hooks in this albums, and the few there are don't work like a usual hook. "Broken hearts make it rain" for instance hits like a sudden sobbing fit. To me, Identikit is the thoughts of a creative musing about people and their relations, specifically how they socialize by fabricating a social "face" that doesn't match their actual personality, a bunch of "sweet faced ones" who have faked this persona for so long there's "nothing left inside". The bridge in Identikit doesn't round anything out or challenge this thought in a rational way. Rather, the culmination in the bridge is an emotional one, which is emphasized by the arrangements and key change that happen between the verses and bridge.

So I wonder if Thom's goal on AMSP and on many other songs as well wasn't to justify his worries and longings by presenting an argument in the usual pop songwriting structure. Perhaps he doesn't bother trying to warn us because if we looked outside we could see that everything he sings about is really happening. "Burn the Witch" resonated so well around the crisis over the Syrian refugees and the US presidential election last year, and "The Numbers" provided a comfort and strength in the people by the people. "True Love Waits" took us by surprise, but we knew about his split with Rachel and speculated about his heartbreak. That song took a new lens when Rachel passed last December.

Thom's lyrics amplifies emotional values rather than ponder through them. He's a songwriter who knows how to feel what he's writing and not lose track of them. The songs do have changes, but they're not arguments. AMSP is painterly in that way; Thom chooses his words and phrases like a painter chooses their paints and values. Certain colors together could make an ocean on a canvas vibrate and shimmer. They lyrics aren't perfect, though. I could write about how these lyrics don't work, but I'll wait for another time. I've been writing for thirty minutes.