SOS
A Guide To Better Living
4.8
Synopsis:
I don’t know. Some kind of metal tribute band that doesn’t realize it’s a metal tribute band?
Review:
I can't decide if this is simply pathetic or supremely pathetic. Writing a song about how you don't care if your songs get played on the radio when no one gives half a shit about you in the first place is like telling the picture of the porno model you just wanked to that you're not into long term relationships.
What niche are they shooting for, here? What I am getting from this record might be a band that desperately wants to recapture the hard rock ethic of great pseudo-retro bands like Supersuckers or maybe the post hairmetal ROCK scene that kind of got lost in the grunge explosion. Or, worse, wants to be a very stripped down version of Metallica circa Reload. Or maybe...maybe...they are trying to channel the spirit of the very late seventies/early eighties heavy metal bands like Riot, UFO or Saxon. I just don't know. It's all over the fucking place. They have a half baked attempt at a poppunk anthem, a "dirty" rocker with riffing like early Def Leppard, a strange Danzig styled pounder and a moody dark pop Smashing Pumpkins creeper. And a fucking SOAD/Scott Weyland French cabaret-cum-rocker?
Considering how confused I am anyway, this music might have made me feel right at home if it had been played by a band with more inherent panache. If you are going to try to cross genres this blatantly, you really have to have a powerfully grounded style to carry you through. All the great unclassifiable bands have this. Faith No More, Failure, Beastie Boys, Fugazi...all have a core of uniqueness that lets them play with any style they feel like. This band simply does not have that character, and that makes the songs sound too often like exactly what they are: lame rip offs.
The production helps not at all. This has a DIY feel to it, accentuating the group's lackluster style. The good ideas the band has...and yeah, they do have them...get crushed in the mid-less, swampy sound. The singer sounds like a latter-day James Hetfield having a personality problem where he sometimes thinks he is Mike Patton without any range. All the other musicians are so standard as to be entirely ignorable. Which - again and again I will say - would not be an issue if the band had some kind of signature to call its own.
Bottom line: You want old school? You guys need some fucking “flava”. If we are playing around with old references then that is the reference you need to think about. Simmering under the surface of this disc is a good record. I can almost fucking hear it sometimes. I have no doubt you guys keep a live crowd hopping, but for the love of German scatporn this is the real fucking world and you are not going to make a dent in it playing amateurish versions of other peoples' music with amateurish versions of other peoples' attitudes. If you want fat, arrogant old cocksuckers like me to give you recommends, you need to focus, find your style and quit trying to play everything until you can play SOMETHING. If not then continue to entertain all forty of your MySpace fanz until the rent‘s due. As far as the readers of this site are concerned, wait for the next.
