Lowlyfe
Eye Sores
3.5
I’m facing a roadblock here writing this review, my friends. Life is too short to spend listening to crappy music. Face the facts folks, and even more so, life is too short to be playing crappy music. Now I’m not saying that Lowlyfe’s Eye Sores EP is shitty, but it sure the hell ain’t chocolate cake, either. Do these bands not listen to their own music? Seriously. To think this 5-track disaster was intentional is beyond my realm of thinking. Maybe you can do better at it than I can…
Think of the simplest staccato riffs you can imagine, maybe like the funky stomping march of mid-paced Slipknot or Dope, with vocals by guys who really admire Starkweather (raw screaming) and P.O.D. (clean rapping) lending their own individual voices to the fray. Scale back on the catchiness from where you’re at now. Make sure the guitars you’re picturing are really, really fuzzy, and the drums sound like pie tins and buckets. Also make sure the beats are mostly urban, and the clean rapping has to be flat and lifeless as a doormat, and performed as clumsily as two virgins from the chess club on prom night trying to figure out how to 'operate' a condom. Don’t alter the pace too much, or change the riffs around. The production has to capture that ‘fresh garage sound’ as well, and if the bottom end of the mix only has one ball instead of the standard two, then you’re envisioning one ball too many.
Throw in those clean spoken word lines at the end of a verse here and there, picture a solo that only dogs can hear somewhere in the first half of the disc (I forget where exactly), and remember, don’t pick up the pace too much or get too inventive with the riffs. There is a cool little bass & drums interlude that pops up during “I Reality”, but beware fair traveler, the coolness is stopped short by more completely unnecessary prepubescent rapping, which pretty much throws any ounce of pleasure right out the window. Let me know if you’re feelin’ me here, ya’ll.
Hmm, well, that pretty much sums up the Eye Sores EP, so now lies the challenge. So how do I write a review for something like this, I ask you. How do I express the unpleasant way this boring mish-mash of tired styles made my eardrums beg for mercy, even if no mercy was to be had despite being aided by a short running length? How do I really get the point of ‘Christ, just stop it now!!’ across to Lowlyfe? How do I warn my fellow readers and reviewers to steer clear of this future drink coaster? Well, it looks like I just did. That wasn’t so hard after all, so thanks for all the help. I'm out.
