 |
(Angry Staffer)
Label: Soft Drive - Rating:
When I hear polished, alternative, grunge music it makes me cringe as if I was forced to listen to an over-produced Hall and Oates album. Sure. There’s catchy riffs and songs. But overall, the music is cheap, plastic and lacking any soul. I mean, that’s all this mainstream alternative shit is. Isn’t it? Overproduced, over-polished, pop crap.
“Oh! But there’s tough, rough, bumbly guitar hooks and riffs! Oh! And the singer doesn’t have a perfect voice – it’s raspy! Oh! The drummer lost his dog when he was 12. These guys are singing about pain… real pain. It’s much more then Hall & Oates. It’s rock AND roll, man. “
To that I say… No. No it is not.
Pure alternative rock music is supposed to be messy, full of dissonance and noise. Something different than what we are used to. So when I listen to a record like Something to Burn’s “Transitions” in which it is so obvious that producers hands have molded a cookie-cutter polished version of whatever alternative rock music means to the record company heads… it makes me want to overdose on xanax. Don’t get me wrong. It is in no way the producers and engineers fault. If anything, that’s who should be applauded here. They are given a task of making this music the most radio friendly safe alternative music possible. And they have succeeded. But in no way is this music of any worth or substance. It’s the same washed up shit that we’ve seen over and over… and it sells.
Something to Burn should be synonymous with Nickelback. When I say STB you say Nickelback. This alone should make you want to stop reading now.
No?
Fine. But I warned you. In all honesty, I can only see Something to Burn gaining a following when Nickelback fans need another cheap uninventive thrill. The problem is Nickelback fans don’t need to turn anywhere else for slick polished post-grunge music. They have THAT band and that’s all they need.
Songs like “Below” and “Home” are attempts at the those top-40 catchy alternative ballads full of resent, loss and depression. That’s all fine and good if it weren’t for the fact that when I hear Greg Wayne sing – he sounds like a constipated man in need of a Laxative Bullet while we all need that silver bullet. The Greg-ster sings these blank lyrics as if he’s a grown man who just discovered he doesn’t have hair on his nuts yet (or he forgot that he shaved them off). The guitar work is fine and in no way impressive. The songs all sound the same and mix together like some bland pre-packaged chicken noodle soup can.
The combination of the gruff generic venereal disease vocals; the distorted radio friendly guitar work; and the catchy, polished production work makes this entire record drone on like one unimportant suicide note.
We can chalk this up as another crappy Hollywood band put together by some successful crappy Hollywood band (Stone Temple Pilots).
Something to Burn can easily reach the popular demographic of ill-minded teens who search for music at Target and Wall-Mart. They might even get so popular as to open up for Nickelback or shit, maybe even sell out their own arena venue one day. But in a world where there is so much better music to be heard – should we really waste our time listening to records of this quality? Time is too short. If you’re planning on listening to this record you would be better to spend your time buying a gun and shooting your self in the face.
Oh, and a question for Something to Burn: "Transitions"? Transitions from what? How can you transition from crap if you're still crap?
1 Gun (the gun I need to kill myself for listening to this piece of shit)
