May 10, 2004
Rock Star Quote of the Week:
"I think 1988 was the year that I really discovered I was an alcoholic...and I liked it."
-- the ever-quotable Jim Reid of THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN
Rock Is Dead: Reuben Ham opens his vault of CD reviews and spotlights some of the worst music to ever cross his desk...
DISTURBED The Sickness
The press release notes that DISTURBED is the band your mother warned you not to accept candy from. Really? But, but... as I peruse the band photoyes! I'm sure this vocalist was the shuffling hobo whom I approached in a public park only last week! He smiled weakly, gave me a big ol' lollipop, wiped his feverish brow with a dog-eared issue of Metal Hammer and promptly burst into tears, muttering between sobs that LINKIN PARK sold more records than him last year! 'And they're not even a metal band,' he continued. 'I meanwe tune our guitars a full quarter-step lower than theirs! And, and... the light's dimmer in our publicity pics! Our goatees are longer, dammit!' In the interests of journalistic integrity, I threw on the DISTURBED album in question, and discovered that yes, it is tight, yes, it is impeccably produced, and yes, it is utterly indistinguishable from its every neighbour on the angst-lite assembly line. The first and last rule of Angry Young Men's Club is: Stop crying wolf, wait until you really are disturbed and release Junkyard. Or Fun House. Or Christian rock.
DUNCAN SHEIK Daylight
So over-produced it makes TATU's album sound like a demo that Lou Barlow and his dog played frisbee with, Daylight consists of the suspiciously immaculate Duncan Sheik (he looks like a walking Tommy Hilfiger advertisement, essentially) serenading waitresses in various outlets of a multinational coffee corporation, and insisting that we cheer him on. 'I'm just trying to find what's on her mind,' he croons. That's settled, then. She doesn't have to worry about her pants, as he's only interested in her cerebrally. 'She's wearing the t-shirt of a band I really like,' he reveals, and 'maybe that's coincidence.' I don't know there can't be many people who still own a WET WET WET shirt. Yes, that is the sound of sighing. And no, it's not because I could've sworn the maitre d' just looked at me. For now, this is the last word in Starbucks romanticism, and you know what? I miss Lisa Loeb.
THE PORKERS Buds For Brains
Including both a silly hip-hop version and a silly ska version of the title track, the latter breaking into silly reggae at the midpoint, THE PORKERS need only add death-metal and minimalist electronica passages before compressing everything into forty seconds and renaming themselves MR. BUNGLE. Then, at least, they'd genuinely suck, and you could entertain yourself by baiting the ubiquitous "Mike Patton is a genius! What do you mean, 'Why am I wearing a KORN t-shirt?'" guy who always seems to plant his Victoria Bitter-scented armpit in your face at shitty shows. Actually, forget THE PORKERS; you can do that anyway.
OCEANSIZE Relapse EP
Funny time signatures! Ten-minute songs! Landscape photography! It must be prog with a capital Q! Whatever that means! Actually, this sounds like RIDE reformed as a TOOL covers band. Dream gig: MiddleEarth. With delirious elves tossing their underpants onstage. Should appeal to TEA PARTY fans for whom LINKIN PARK are too commercial, and to LINKIN PARK fans for whom TEA PARTY are too artsy. In any case, get drunk and sweaty and enjoy the rock before OCEANSIZE start painting themselves blue and rabbiting on about third eyes and therapeutic weeping and how Jesus won't play with them after school.
GRINSPOON Panic Attack EP
Lead track 'Don't Change' is the sort of slick, crunchy, cockle-warming thing that usually plays during a teen movie's opening montage, in which the camera sweeps over a sunlit campus, following the cool kid in his hotted-up Camaro for a bit before zooming in on the other key players The Geek! The Prom Queen! The Stoner! The A&R Executive! Huh? What the hell is he doing? Negotiating for another song over the final credits? No, he's merely getting down with the kids, showing that he can tie a hanky around his head and flash gang-signs with the best of them. 'Uh, dude that's a hip-hop thing,' an eighth-grader interjects. 'This is rock.' To which the executive replies, 'Ah, but in 2003, I'm predicting that rap and rock will soon merge to form a whole new genre. It's coming, even if no-one but me can see it. Word.'
JENNIFER LOVE HEWITT Can I Go Now
This actually makes me yearn for her deliciously overwrought 'How Do I Deal' from 1997's I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER soundtrack you know, when Buffy still had a rack, Ryan Phillippe hadn't started 'acting', and Hewitt was built of peachier stuff than mascara, cheekbones, and no-carbs. Watching her latest filmclips is like being forced to witness your mum dancing around the living room after three bottles of champagne at a highschool reunion, eyelids held open CLOCKWORK ORANGE-style. So unless you happen to be Norman Bates...
PEACH Giving Birth To A Stone
Apparently, Jesus never wanted little Justin Chancellor for a sunbeam. But the guy couldn't just say 'oh' and then shut up. No, no, no he had to make a tenth-rate rock record about it. This album is exactly what you'd expect from a member of TOOL fancy time signatures incorporated for the sake of incorporating fancy time signatures (how do they fit five beats into a bar? must be the devil's work), a black cover (like their souls, presumably) with red writing (like the blood which they... erm... bleed for their 'art'), murky guitars going wee-ooh wee-ooh beneath lyrics which could have been written by the kind of goth to whom Trent Reznor is old-school. So, if you like this kind of thingoh, who are we kidding? You're not reading this. You're currently doing whatever Maynard Keenan told you to do in that 'manly, yet sensitive' voice of his when you last sacrificed a virgin atop your Playstation 2.
PAPA ROACH Lovehatetragedy
'Emotional swords slash my soul / And now the pain takes control / I need a bottle / I need some pills / I need a friend / I need some thrills'. A live feed from the 22nd Annual Bad Goth Poetry Slam? Thirteen year-old Candy's feverish diary entry on the day her favourite chapstick went missing? No it's rock, apparently! For the thinking man, even. For the man who isn't afraid to get a bit crazy with his syntax and place the words 'love' and 'hate' so close together when naming an album. For the man who isn't hairy enough to like his SEPULTURA but is far, far too hairy to be seen with a BELLE AND SEBASTIAN album. You know who you are: get a group of friends together, link arms, form a power ring, and deal with those, erm... 'emotional swords' and stuff.
© Reuben Ham
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