New Republic
Libertad
5.8
I guess MetalReview.com must be on some generic mailing list for certain record labels that never gets checked for content or appropriateness. We keep getting these achingly not metal records to review. I mean, I am just as tired as everyone else of the splintering of my pet fetish into subfetish categories, and I too miss the days when metal allowed for more stylistic adventuring than it does now. But the one thing all good metal has always shared has been that it was at least a little edgy. If you are a punk or alternative band who has forsaken punk and alternative songwriting for mere attitude and scenesterism, you really really ought to have a sit down with your label and get some kind of assurance that they won't send your record to a metal site where it will be covered in festering feces and set on fire. I just can't see how my having to sit through forty minutes of boring non rock music is going to help your careers out or win you any extra mailorders. Seriously, brothers and sisters, unless you have the kind of quality intellectual and emotional writing skills as a 3 or a Mars Volta, you should just avoid me like the goddamned seven plagues of Moses.
New Republic offers us nothing. It's watered down Candlebox meets Soundgarden. Who was under the impression we wanted this? By "us" I mean the metal community. Of what value is this pop rock record to us? This is hippy bullshit music as seen through the eyes of people who seem to have owned a New Kids record stashed away with some Poison/White Lion "best of" collections. It's not as though the band lacks talent as musicians, or as performers. I bet they sound impressive live, in a Europe meets Menudo kind of way. But as metal or even alternative they just don't cut it.
Now, all that aside, this is a quality recording and the songs have some serious hookiness now and then. And as I said, the band can play. They are not giving Despised Icon or Dream Theater a run for their money, but they don't screw anything up. The singer has a clean, vibrant style that could really elevate the group if he would stop biting so many modern pop singers for his attack. A few less breathy earnest pleadings and a few more kicked in the ball screams and the pedestrian nature of the compositions would become something more powerful. Same could be said of the whole band. Not fucking up often means you have taken too much pride in your perfection at the expense of your soul. Rock is dangerous, motherfuckers. It's a risk, a chance taken. If this is not how you see your music, get the fuck out of the business and head to fucking Reno. Get a job crooning in a casino, because rock doesn't have time for your pre-primadonna bullshit.
The set is recorded with a a crystalline perfection that cements the Styx-like quality of the listen. This band desperately needed some ugliness in it's product and the engineer has made god damned sure there is none. It's so clean you could eat pudding off it with your tongue. And it suffers for it.
The bottom line is that the band is probably not really trying to gather a metal audience under its skirt and I can't see any reason why a metal aficionado would enjoy this record. It might appeal to avid churchgoers or as background for Clarence Thomas' musings on weighty constitutional matters he wants to assrape, but for people who eat sleep and breathe non conformity, ugliness and fury, this is the soundtrack for a nap. To the band, I ask aloud what the fuck you are after here. To the readers of this site I say don't waste your time.
