Thrice
Thrice began as a band with little grandeur or focused style, a band in an Identity Crisis. Quick, distorted guitar riffs and the screams of Dustin Kensrue filled small clubs around the United States, and fans filled small bars to hear the hardcore staples “Deadbolt“ and “A Subtle Dagger.”
However, with the release of their fourth album, Vheissu , the band saw a heavy change in style. This would cause a near-riot of Thrice fans, who felt as though they were losing the Southern California act they loved so dearly. With the heavy inclusion of more electronically-produced beats, keyboard parts, and sing-along style anthems, the band had found a new sound that was more in line with Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief, and much less in line with hardcore bands such as Glassjaw and Chiodos.
The band would soon embark on an even larger and more epic collection of tunes known as The Alchemy Index. The four discs the band put out between 2007-2008 would find the group musically describing the four elements and would stretch the band’s melodic hardcore to its limits.
With new release Beggars, the band has done a much better job of combining the pop punk of The Artist in the Ambulance with the lyrically-improved songwriting of The Alchemy Index, not to mention the musical tricks the band has picked up along the way.
Songs like lead single “All the World is Mad” and “Talk Through Glass” are the heaviest you will find musically on the album. Bassist Eddie Breckenridge and drummer Riley Breckenridge carry the tracks, while Kensrue and guitarist Teppei Teranishi deliver wonderfully executed pieces of the puzzle. This style doesn’t push anything the band has done in the past, but it certainly doesn’t do anything to degrade the mountain the band has built, either.
Thrice finds the true sweet spot here with slower tracks like “Circles” and “Wood and Wire”. Both feature a style that stays consistent for most of the song before eventually building to a crescendo that could have allowed for the songs to be extended, but instead only leads to the next track. On “Circles”, Kensrue speaks of setting “sail with no fixed star in sight” and “driving by Braille in candlelight”; however, the band sounds as tight and focused here as anywhere else on Beggars.
“Circles” goes into the strongest and catchiest track on the disc, “Doublespeak”, which stands alone here with no other track being its musical equal. The keyboard heavy track is by no means light. The very dark sounds of the song match the words, with Kensrue begging, “Honey if you think you’ve seen a crime, won’t you look the other way?”
Though it doesn’t feel like the band has made the type of leap that’s occurred on previous albums, where exactly is there to go after a fire, water, earth, and wind double-album release? When you have an answer, be sure to mail ‘em. In light of that, Thrice has found a great middle ground that serves them well, and one that’s kept them relevant without losing the ability to create what they desire.
Review By Bruce Matlock
Artist: Thrice
Album: Beggars[2009]
Genre: Experimental / Rock
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/thrice
-Track List-
1. All The World Is Mad
2. The Weight
3. Circles
4. Doublespeak
5. In Exile
6. At The Last
7. Wood & Wire
8. Talking Through Glass
9. The Great Exchange
10. Beggars
Terra Firma
I’ll try to make this review as straightforward as the album itself, sparing you all the useless chit-chat that I normally use as an introduction. From my point of view, actually, few people who have no idea who Chritte is or have no clue about Count Raven and doom/heavy rock in general will lay hands on this album. So, more or less we all know what’s the story.
The story begins with one of the greatest doom metal vocalists of all time, Christian Lindersson (Chritte or Lord Chritus) teaming up with Unleashed guitarist Fredrik Lindgren to create Terra Firma and give birth to two excellent heavy rock albums. The latter of those is “Harms Way” and it is also the best in comparison. As the title of the review suggests, it is actually a killer album. Chritte is the most gifted of all of Ozzy’s children, in a way that his voice actually both is and is NOT reminiscent of the Prince of Darkness. His vocals here blow me away, he is so melodic, emotional and expressive that he could teach rock singers how to do the job. But apart from that, the songs themselves are pure rock ‘n’ roll glory. Heavy as much as heavy can get, “Groundman”, “Harms Way”, “Have Demon Will Travel” and the list could go on covering the entire tracklisting. No fillers, no highlights, not a millisecond of boredom or relaxation. Heavy riffing and haunting choruses all the way. Those of you who closely watch Lindersson’s career would expect something “doomier”, but the game here is “groove and fun”. So don’t expect some Count Raven or Saint Vitus clone songs because you won’t get any.
Too bad they disbanded after this one, I think the rest of the band (without Chritte) continue under the name of Harms Way, but I don’t think it would ever be the same. He surely makes the difference here, singing splendidly over splendid musical compositions, and the result is one of the best albums of the 00′s.
Review By Starkweather222000
Album: Harms Way [2000]
Genre: Metal / Thrash / Experimental
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/terrafirma1
-Track List-
1 Freebasing (Instrumental)
2 Groundman
3 Harms Way
4 Have Demon, Will Travel
5 Threefivenine
6 Dust Parade
7 Sway
8 Open Season
9 Steel Scale
10 Threefivenine
Copeland
With all that has happened over the past two years, it is hard not to feel privileged to have a new Copeland album upon us. After all, signs seemed to point to this record not being made at all. After the release of Eat, Sleep, Repeat, the band saw the departure of bassist James Likeness, parted ways with Columbia Records, sold their van and trailer, unloaded their demos and b-sides, and generally just slipped off the radar. Outside of some sporadic touring, there was little news coming out of the Copeland camp – no label decision, no recording updates – nothing. However, in a brilliant coup of marketing genius (and perhaps boredom-fueled creativity), Copeland hijacked Fall Out Boy’s CFOB campaign, and while neutering the buzz around Wentz’s (or Island’s) brainchild, used it instead to announce the imminent arrival of You Are My Sunshine.
So, while Copeland certainly has a trademark sound to claim as their own, their previous three albums are all quite markedly different. As such, it was certainly interesting to hypothesize where the Lakeland troupe would go with this one, especially since Eat, Sleep, Repeat is the type of record that a band could really retire on, feeling like they placed a perfect capstone on a nice run. But instead of just packing it in, Copeland has returned, seemingly refreshed (“Run right back to the start”), and have put together an album that incorporates some of the finest elements of their previous offerings.
You Are My Sunshine begins in distinct Copeland fashion on “Should You Return,” with Aaron Marsh’s delicate crooning floating along airily atop sparse verse instrumentation. Of course, as beautiful as this combination is known to be, it is made all the more affecting with some of the most resonant lyrical construction since Beneath Medicine Tree.
And all I want is just a love to make it hurt
‘Cause all I need is something fine to make me lose
Now it’s a funny way – I find myself with you
It is lines and themes like these that then go on to personify the record. There is the inherent brooding sense of doubt and foreboding that pervaded on Eat, Sleep, Repeat, but the edges of those clouds now seem softened by a sense of hope and optimism – both in word and sound. In this way, the opener is less a revelation and more a sigh of relief – Copeland is back.
On the tracks that follow, Copeland draw quite deftly from their experience cache. “The Grey Man” starts off like “Kite Part II” but then pulls a switcheroo in the vein of Death Cab’s “Title Track” as Jon Bucklew’s drums kick on a half minute in. The song does a great job of combining the highbrow indie pop of ESR and the mainstream accessibility of In Motion, and is indeed a solid choice for a first single. After this development, the inclusion of “Chin Up” is a bit of a letdown for those that own Dressed Up & In Line, since the remake doesn’t bring too much to the table outside of a still-satisfying crescendo that is far more fleshed out than on the demo. The disc rebounds after, though, with some truly gratifying moments. “Good Morning Fire Eater” sounds like nothing Copeland has done before – with a decidedly springtime melody carried almost exclusively by Marsh’s constant falsetto. The result is both operatic and cinematic, and centers around the emotive line, “I’m afraid you’ve stopped to lick your wounds.”
The sugary sound is not ever-present, however, as “To Be Happy Now” takes up a much moodier, darker, ESR-like tone. The track itself is somewhat by-the-numbers, ups the ante for the bridge, where Marsh’s dramatic vocals bring down the house in a way we haven’t really heard since his superman note on “You Have My Attention.” Similar backdrops are painted for later tracks – the classical muted majesty of “The Safest Ledge” and the melancholy minimalism of “Strange and Unprepared.”
In the midst of these excellent songs, Copeland rises above their own high standard with the album’s highlight, “The Day I Lost My Voice (The Suitcase Song).” Breezing in with “Strawberry Fields Forever”-like mellotron flutters and Marsh ambling along over soft percussion and horns, the tune is striking in its simplicity and elegance. But it gives goosebumps when everything yields dutifully to Aaron signing, “I’ve got my life in a suitcase / I’m ready to run, run, run away / I’ve got no time, ‘cause I’m always trying to run, run, run away / Every day in here feels like it’s only a game / I’ve got my life in a suitcase, a suitcase, a suitcase.” It sounds simple enough, but the execution is completely arresting – delivering one of the best songs the band has ever crafted.
Copeland likewise strikes emotional pay dirt on “Not Allowed,” which again draws upon the shadowy facets of ESR, yet with much more urgency and emotion – reflected in kind with the lyrics that scores of fans can relate to, as we dress up out own sadness to keep others in good spirits (“Here you go I’ll smile for you now, ‘cause you’re sad and I’m not allowed to be sad”). In true Copeland fashion, they then go on to close out You Are My Sunshine in an epic frame. “Not So Tough Found Out” is a ten and a half minute opus stuffed with gorgeous Marsh-only vocal layerings, buzzing electronic static distortion, a dulcet female guest spot, shuffling percussion underscores, and lonely guitar wails rolling into bombastic swells. A testament to its creators that such a prolonged coda leaves its listeners yearning for more.
With You Are My Sunshine, Copeland not only return to the scene, but they sound energized in doing so. Incorporating the mood mastery of Eat, Sleep, Repeat, with some of the energy of In Motion and the intimacy and emotional honesty of Beneath Medicine Tree, the band seems to have found a comfortable place where they truly belong. The gripes with the record are minor. Marsh’s vocals are incredible undisturbed, but too often they are propped up with the crutch of an additional track. Bucklew’s drumming is skillful, but comes across as a little too clinical and impersonal at times – it would be good to hear more of The Real Jon, and less Drum Machine Jon. And finally, it doesn’t sound like Aaron Sprinkle’s influence got to come through enough on the record, as You Are My Sunshine could just as well be a Matt Goldman effort. Of course, the production is aces, and compliments the music well, but it might impact those who had structured expectations on this new pairing. Regardless, in the end, You Are My Sunshine is a breathtaking, stunning release from a band that is adored and admired by so many. Here’s to hoping we get many more such volumes.
Review By Steve Henderson of AbsolutePunk.net
Artist: Copeland
Album: Discography
Genre: Indie / Rock / Alternative
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/copeland
-Album List-
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Jonny Craig
Throughout the years in school, the learning experience that is a musical career, drama has not been a foreign subject to Jonny Craig. After leaving his first band, Ghost Runner On Third after just one EP, he moved on to the emo-leaning post-hardcore band, Dance Gavin Dance. Utilizing that voice that so many artists long to find, the band hit a high note with fans of the somewhat “experimental” side of post-hardcore with Whatever I Say Is Royal Ocean (can someone explain to me what that means, it’s that scene’s BC13 when it comes to album titles) and Downtown Battle Mountain. After much tension with the band Craig quit to the dismay of many fans. Switching to the band Emarosa, he brought something new to the band and their once scream-filled style. Now, straying from his previous styles a little bit, Craig has gone solo, and has gotten off to a good start.
Some might write off Craig’s album as generic metalcore combined with electric beats (he does use synth though) and then some lyrics about sex and drugs because “I Don’t Give A Fuck!” (untasteful reference?) simply for the fact that he is signed to Rise Records. But the album is in the thin capillary of Brand New and Manchester Orchestra-esque music. If only they were solo projects. Containing uber cool croons that show Craig’s vocal abilities, a wide assortment of instruments (synthesizer, bells, guitar), and the ability to mesh it all with some harsher vocal stylings, this album has the creative side of enjoyability down pact.
However, contrasting that high note, the album’s ten tracks (two being “transitions”) seem to meander at times where albums and tracks should definitely not meander. It feels more like an EP than an LP because it seems just so short and it doesn’t build up momentum. Part of this problem is the last track (acoustic) does a pathetic job at closing the album. But with that one extremely low track comes several others that glisten and shine in the spotlight Craig’s fans have wanted him to bask in.
“So Many Of Us Hide Our Black Hearts” begins with bells and heavily distorted vocals. Craig croons “I see into most hearts…” As it perfectly leads into the album’s first full song, “Istillfeelher Part III,” strong indie folk references are shown throughout the highly successful track. With screams akin to Jesse Lacey’s, the first track’s signature vocal stylings and larger-than-life musical delivery returns on the post-punk “What I Would Give to Be Australian” and the relaxing, ambient “I’m Jonny Craig Bitch And I Drive In Reverse!” These tracks all feel like you are listening to Craig’s (not yet released, and not yet in thought) Greatest Hits album.
While many of the tracks sit on the shelf as choice cuts, others remain dry, stale chicken. And while the highlights of the album are extremely high, the bipolar mania contrasts make the album seems a struggle for Craig to successfully accomplish a musical style that suits his voice well. It’s not a crowning achievement for all to cherish and reminisce about on their death beds, but it’s a damned good start (and apparently for fans of Minus the Bear and Usher. Don’t ask me, ask the people who make those stickers on the albums).
Review By Dymytry Vance of AbsolutePunk.net
Artist: Jonny Craig
Album: A Dream Is a Question You Don’t Know How to Answer [2009]
Genre: Rock / Pop / Alternative
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/jonnycraig
-Track List-
1. “So Many Of Us Hide Our Black Hearts” 1:16
2. “I Still Feel Her, Part III” 3:22
3. “What I Would Give To Be Australian” 4:07
4. “I’ve Been Hearing That You’re Freaky” 3:47
5. “7 AM, 2 Bottles And The Wrong Road” 4:03
6. “The Garbage Pail Kid Gang Bang” 3:41
7. “Taking Time For All The Wrong Things” 3:22
8. “No Matter How Hard I Dig They Always See Right Through Me” 2:01
9. “I’m Jonny Craig Bitch And I Drive In Reverse!” 2:52
10. ” Children Of Divorce” 3:59
Sufjan Stevens
Lots of songwriters have tried to define their vision of America, but Sufjan Stevens believes in taking a methodical approach. A couple of years ago, he set out on a fifty-record project to make a concept album about each state, starting with Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lakes State. It’s a ludicrously ambitious project, one that you wish Randy Newman or Al Green would have tried in decades past. But that’s probably the only kind of project that would suit Stevens, one of the indie world’s most eccentric and personal songwriters. He’s a thirty-year-old Detroit native currently based in Brooklyn, whose most recent album was the acclaimed Christian-folkie meditation Seven Swans. He puts out his records on his own label, Asthmatic Kitty, and uses each one to explore a different obsession. On Illinois, he brings the religious feel of Seven Swans to his Fifty States Project, for a sprawling twenty-two-track tour of the Prairie State. It’s part Schoolhouse Rock history lesson, part hippie Bible study. It has songs about UFO sightings, prairie fires, the Civil War, the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, the poet Carl Sandburg and the Cubs. It also has a song called “Come On! Feel the Illinoise!”Stevens plays acoustic guitar, piano and banjo, but his speciality is over-the-top arrangements, so the musical variety here requires a few listens before it starts to sink in. He brings in his indie-rock comrades the Illinoise Makers to play extra instruments, including a string quartet. But he plays the oboe, flute, vibraphone, glockenspiel, accordion, sleigh bells, triangle and a Casiotone MT-70. The music draws from high school marching bands, show tunes and ambient electronics; we can suspect Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians is an oft-played record in the Stevens household, since he loves to echo it in his long instrumental passages. But he holds it all together with his breathy, gentle voice, reminiscent of Neil Young circa After the Gold Rush.
The characters include some of Illinois’ famous historical figures, from Superman (“The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts”) to Honest Abe (“Stephen A. Douglas was a great debater/But Abraham Lincoln was the Great Emancipator”). But Stevens’ most intense songs are his personal ones. “Chicago” follows two friends as they hit the road in a van, sleeping in parking lots, heading nowhere in particular but drifting apart. “Casimir Pulaski Day” is a monstrously sad acoustic ballad about a friend dying of cancer and leaving a lot of painful spiritual questions behind. The singer prays for his friend, but his friend dies anyway; the singer is too young and scared to ask God why, so the trumpet solo has to ask.
Illinois has some of the pitfalls you expect from literary singer-songwriter albums. Flute solos, for one thing. For another, there’s the inevitable song about the serial killer who dresses up as a clown, which symbolizes nothing about American life except the existence of creative-writing workshops. But for a musician like Stevens, going too far and trying too hard is the point, the way to get beyond where a more austere songwriter could get with a more naturalistic pose. So the most pleasurable music here is the most ambitious — especially “The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!” It builds up repetitive Reich-style instrumental pulses, piano, horns, keyboards and layers of vocal overdubs into a gorgeous mess. “I can’t explain the state that I’m in/The state of my heart,” Stevens sings, and ultimately that’s the state Illinois is really about.
Review By Rob Shefield of The Rolling Stone
Artist: Sufjan Stevens
Album: Discography
Genre: Indie Folk / Baroque Pop / Folk Rock / Alternative
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/sufjanstevens
-Album List-
Read MoreTRY ALBUM: SUFJAN STEVENS – MICHIGAN
TRY ALBUM: SUFJAN STEVENS – ILLINOIS
TRY ALBUM: SUFJAN STEVENS – SEVEN SWANS
TRY ALBUM: SUFJAN STEVENS – A SUN CAMENew Album Out Eventually?
Wilco
Myth, it has been said, is the buried part of every story. On April 23rd, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot finally emerges into the light of day, having spent the last year interred in its own cluttered mythology: a hermetic studio gestation, with the inscrutable guidance of Chicago ex-pat/kindly wizard, Jim O’Rourke; internecine squabbles; conflict and resolution with American media behemoth AOL Time Warner; the release portentously slated for September 11th, but mysteriously delayed; the indecipherable short-wave radio prophecies; and, eventually, the hero’s welcome, with the first stirrings of spring. It’s all there: the miracle birth; the unlikely hero; the, um, benevolent mentor; the primordial menace; good over evil. Joseph Campbell would be pissing himself if he weren’t dead.
The miraculous birth narrative of Wilco’s fourth album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, is already old hat: banished from straightedge AOL Time Warner imprint Reprise on the cosmically short-sighted judgment of label executives who deemed the album a “career-ender,” Wilco streamed Yankee Hotel from its left-wing website to millions before signing with weirdo progressive AOL Time Warner imprint Nonesuch. Long is the way and hard that leads up from AOL Time Warner into the light, I guess.
But the unique circumstances of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot‘s long deliverance make for more than just pointless disc jockey chatter before spinning “Heavy Metal Drummer.” The long delay and streaming audio conspired to ensure that everyone in the world has already heard Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in part, if not in its entirety. Vast digital pre-circulation, corporate controversy, and buzz like a beard of bees have rendered all reviews afterthoughts at best.
But myth is always an afterthought, and these days, the motif I like chewing on best is, without question, that of the Unlikely Hero. Who would have predicted an album of this magnitude from Wilco? As much I love the band, the fact remains that they were together for five years before they produced anything that could stand with Uncle Tupelo’s March 16-20, 1992 or Anodyne. AM is rather forgettable, while the expansive Being There, though frequently inspired, travels on paths blazed by Tom Petty on Damn the Torpedoes, if not The Flying Burrito Brothers.
1999′s dolorous Summerteeth was exponentially more sophisticated than anything that came before it, though its heroin innuendoes, shades of domestic abuse and nocturnal homicidal impulses sat somewhat ill at ease alongside the album’s lush and infectious pop arrangements. Of course, Summerteeth was a strange and majestic, albeit dark, deviation from the alt-country genre Jeff Tweedy co-invented. But since Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, it has retroactively become more of a harbinger of things to come. Upon being pressed by the Chicago Sun-Times about abandoning alt-country, Tweedy dismissively bequeathed the old Wilco sound to Ryan Adams. And you can never go home again.
So does Yankee Hotel Foxtrot justify the controversy, delay and buzz? Everyone, I think, already knows that the answer is yes; all I can offer is “me too” and reiterate. And after half a year living with a bootleg copy, the music remains revelatory. Complex and dangerously catchy, lyrically sophisticated and provocative, noisy and somehow serene, Wilco’s aging new album is simply a masterpiece; it is equally magnificent in headphones, cars and parties. And as anyone who’s seen the mixed-bag crowd at Wilco shows knows, it will find a home in the collections of hippies, frat boys, acid-eating prep schoolers, and the record store apparatchiks of the indiocracy. No one is too good for this album; it is better than all of us.
But for all the talk of terminally hip influences– Jim O’Rourke, krautrock, and The Conet Project– Yankee Hotel Foxtrot still conjures a classic rock radio station on Fourth of July weekend. And this extends beyond the alternating Byrds/Stones/Beatles comparisons that pepper every Wilco review ever written; Yankee Hotel Foxtrot evokes Steely Dan, the Eagles, Wings, Derek & The Dominos and Traffic. The slightly disconnected, piano-led “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart,” is delicately laced with noise, whistles and percussive clutter, like some great grandson of “A Day in the Life.” The muted, “Kamera” strums along darkly with acoustic and electric guitars; the twittering electronics in the background don’t quite mitigate the tune’s comparability to the clever and precise (though now largely neglected) jazz-inflected blues-rock of Dire Straits’ stunning debut.
The cone-filtered and anthemic country psychedelia of “War on War” could have been jammed straight out of a hot “Bertha” at a 1973 Grateful Dead show. The violin and coked-up country lounge of “Jesus, etc.” recalls some mythical seventies in true love and cigarettes. The sharp, stuttering guitar solo that rips open “I’m the Man Who Loves You” could have come directly out of Neil Young’s hollow body electric circa Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. For all its aural depth and layering, Yankee Hotel tends to come off as earnest as yesteryear’s FM radio. Wilco gets the benefit of O’Rourke’s gift for cutting straight to the guts of every style, without the burden of his trademark contempt for the subject matter at hand.
And Tweedy seems to be coming into his own as a lyricist. I still wince when I hear him sing, “I know you don’t talk much but you’re such a good talker,” on Being There. The brooding introspection of Summerteeth made for a handful of elegant lyrics, most notably the skeletal beauty of “She’s a Jar,” where “she begs me not to miss her” returns as the stinging “she begs me not to hit her,” transforming a wistful love song into something gently bruising. But on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Tweedy becomes what I think he always was: an optimist and a romantic.
His declaration of wanting to salute “the ashes of American flags,” is less cynicism than, perhaps, the devoted liberal’s nostalgia for an honest patriotism (check out the array of properly lefty links at wilcoworld.com if you don’t believe me). “All my lies are always wishes,” he sings, “I know I would die if I could come back new.” In “Jesus, etc.,” there’s a cascading simplicity when he sings, “Tall buildings shake, voices escape, singing sad, sad songs to two chords/ Strung down your cheeks, bitter melodies turning your orbit around.” Sad, celestial and lovely. The final declaration on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is one of abiding dedication: “I’ve got reservations ’bout so many things but not about you.” There isn’t a truer word to be had.
On Summerteeth, Tweedy yowled about “speakers speaking in code” and I thought of that refrain from “I Can’t Stand It” when I first heard the words “yankee-hotel-foxtrot” uttered by the disembodied English woman on the sublimely creepy box-set of shortwave radio transmissions, The Conet Project, which is sampled sporadically throughout this record. And in a deeper, more deliberate world, perhaps we could trace that thread to unravel the secret wonder of Wilco’s new album. But I don’t think there’s any secret; and I don’t think there’s any code. Beneath the great story of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, there are all the tropes and symbols and coincidences of a little mythology; but under that is a fantastic rock record. And why tell you? You all already knew this.
Review By Brent S. Sirota
Artist: Wilco
Album: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot [2002]
Genre: Experimental / Rock / Acoustic
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/wilco
-Track List-
1. “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” (Tweedy) – 6:57
2. “Kamera” – 3:29
3. “Radio Cure” – 5:08
4. “War on War” – 3:47
5. “Jesus, Etc.” – 3:50
6. “Ashes of American Flags” – 4:43
7. “Heavy Metal Drummer” (Tweedy) – 3:08
8. “I’m the Man Who Loves You” – 3:55
9. “Pot Kettle Black” – 4:00
10. “Poor Places” – 5:15
11. “Reservations” (Tweedy) – 7:22
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Set Your Goals
Named after CIV’s debut record, this San Francisco outfit formed in 2004 and now release their second album. They are on an extensive tour of North America until mid-November, followed by a short break and then European dates.
Two styles are very evident across ‘This Will Be The Death Of Us’, which begins with the thrash-metal title track of the same name. Reminiscent of The Offspring’s early work, it is breathless but doesn’t take your breath away and is listenable without being seducing. Along with ‘Like You To Me’ and ‘The Fallen.’ it is likely to create some energy in the mosh pit though.
The band’s other audio taste owes to the likes of Blink 182, punk-rock frat anthems such as the bouncy ‘Look Closer’ which will delight teens, but are hardly innovating. Again these tracks will get a live audience sweaty, and on ‘The few That Remain’ the band does at least convey an admirable swagger which is given a touch of glamour by the appearance of Paramore’s Hayley Williams.
It has to be noted that the record does get somewhat monotonous toward the last few numbers, while the acoustic instrumental that is ‘Arrival Notes’ has got to be one of the most ill-fitting minutes of music ever placed on an album. Still, it won’t stop the band finding their fanbase, but it’s also safe to predict they won’t become global superstars.
Review By Alex Lai
Artist: Set Your Goal
Album: This Will Be The Death Of Us [2009]
Genre: Rock / Punk / Hardcore
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/setyourgoals
-Track List-
1. this will be the death of us 3:09
2. with hoffman lenses we will see the truth 0:43
3. look closer 3:50
4. summer jam 3:05
5. like you to me 4:26
6. the fallen… 3:24
7. the few that remain 3:21
8. equals 3:23
9. gaia bleeds (make way for man) 2:52
10. flawed methods of persecution & punishment 4:09
11. arrival notes 1:08
12. our ethos: a legacy to pass on 4:34
Read MoreTry Album [Megaupload] | Set Your Goals – This Will Be The Death Of Us