White Stripe's Elephant - Album Review - old archive published in Evergreen 2003

The White Stripes-Elephant
Grade B



Retro-reactive


The White Stripes release a new album with creative new additions to their sound sure to keep their fan bass growing and happy.
The White Strips have fallen to the all too common music industry fairy tale. You’ve all herd it before, a band forms with the distinct purpose to create a new sound meant for pubs and small crowds of loyal fans. Soon they write a hit single and end up touring the world as rock Gods. The result is the band selling out and struggling only for the top forty hits.
In the case of the White strips are quite the opposite. Their new album gives the world the same style we all fell in love with last year. Jack White’s guitar stylings are still dripping of classic rock influence with his pedal always stuck on the “crunch sound”. Jack’s voice is still nasal and annoyingly addictive, as Meg continues to drum with simplistic elegance that fits their sound so well. What may distress many is that the band still had no bass player, and never will.
The White strips do change a few things to tweak their style. On many of the songs more than one guitar can be herd, with Jack re-recording bass lines on his guitar. While some may scream at this the fact is this change manages to keep their music fresh and new.
This is needed as many of the songs are very similar to songs of their previous albums. The track “There’s no Home For You Here” is an exact copy of “Dead Leave on the Dirty Ground” from the White Blood Cells album. The only major difference being that instead of singing on this song jacks vocals resemble a free style poet. This idea could be a revolution. No longer to artist have to write new songs simply change the style of your vocals on your last CD and you have a new album.
Perhaps the best song on the album is “In the Cold, Cold Night” which actually features Meg White as the vocalist. This song is rather haunting with Jack laying down a simple guitar outline with an organ filling up the chords. The song isn’t meant for rocking but rather grooving. This song serves as a pause and refresher amongst an album full of retro rock tracks
The White Strips think of them serves as naturalist, in that the want to restore the purity of Rock. Elephant is written and recorded to appeal to many listeners form many genera’s. Jack White brags in the liner notes on how they used no computers or height tech equipment to record this album. In this day and age it doubtful that refusing to use current technology is really smart or worthy of recognition. Just because you didn’t use a compute to mix doesn’t mean you’re better than those who did, yet that’s the mentality of the band.
The White strips manage to create a good album. Every track will eventually grow on you. Elephant is a testimony to their ability to grow and shrink, providing us with a very strange band.

The Music (Self Title) - Album Review Old Archive Publishe din Daily Evergreen 2003

The Music
Capitol Records

Awesome Music
4 ½ stars out of five

What do you get when you combine the creative sound of Pink Floyd, the energetic backgrounds of early Pearl Jam and the powerful vocals of Led Zeppelin and Candelbox? The answer is an amazing British band called The Music.
The Music’s self titled album serves up and intriguing sound that captivates the listener, pulling you in for the entire length of the album. Rather than regurgitate the same power chord, scream infested crap that’s out there toady The Music takes a bold step in redefining Rock for the new millennium.
The Music single handedly stretches the boundaries of rock by encompassing many techno stylings as well as classic stadium guitar riffs and 90’s distortion. Instead of relying on a hit single to propel their album sales The Music has created ten amazing works of art, all of which are around or over five minutes in length, something unheard of for today’s rockers. Every song on the album sounds carefully crafted to be what it is rather than just filler.
The first track “The Dance” starts off with a mass of distortion only to grow into a fast passed barrage of sound with the haunting vocals of Robert Harvey floating above. Instead of Submitting to the stadium rock pattern of verse then chorus The Dance seems to dodge around this form resulting in a musical “piece” rather than a song. The Dance really pumps up a listener and sets the tone for the rest of the album.
The nine other songs contain an amazing fusion of classic rock with today’s technology. The greatest song on this album is “Getaway”. The song is made up of same familiar foundations and many rock tunes are today. Employing the same key and guitar riffs you might hear from a Nickelback album. The Music through distortion and instrumentation is able to make this song stand out.
The Music is a band that seems to have layers in their music. Point and case if your tired of bands like The All American Rejects invading your radio with songs we’ve already herd that contain no substance what so ever then pick this CD up. The Music is a band with depth rarely found in today’s music scene.

Socialburn's Where You Are - album review Old Archive published in Daily Evergreen 2003

Socialburn-Where Your Are
2 ½ out of five stars
The Quest for a New Sound

As the popularity of Kurt Cobain today seems to grow exponentially, Socialburn tries to provide an example of what Nirvana might have sounded like today.
Socialburn's album “Where You Are” is an all too common mix of power chord driven alternative rock with a high pitched screeching voice at the helm. In an attempt to pick up where Kurt Cobain left off, Socialburn shoots and misses. The album provides nothing revolutionary to the world of music. In every song Socialburn tends to copy different artist styles from the early 90’s without really defining their own sound.
Lead singer Neil Alday’s voice continually cracks as the band tries to follow Nirvana’s tradition of writing songs out of the singers range. The first track alone “Break Back” starts of with Neil butchering a series of notes to a catchy guitar lick.
This seems to be the theme through most of the album as many of the songs tend to lack that special something to make them worthy of another listen. Yet the album does have its good points.
The albums first single “Down” can be herd on the radio at times and actually starts to grow on you after a while. The beginning riff drives the song quite well and allows any rocker to bop their head, while the chorus seems to have that necessary ability to become stuck in your head. The song sounds like it could be on a Puddle of Mudd CD (another supposed continuation of Nirvana).
Yet even this track is pretty much a meat and potatoes rock song. Socialburn doesn’t seem to do anything really exciting till latter on in the album. During “One More day” hints of Our Lady Peace can be herd. While in songs “U” and “Utopia”, Socialburn seems to have selected a new band that many have overlooked in the past, to draw inspiration from. The intro to “U” sounds like it came off of Candelbox’s self titled album. With a spooky start and a strong middle this song is very fun to listen to.
While the song “Utopia” is by far the best song on this album. Neil’s voice for some reason comes out very powerful at certain parts of this song. During many of the high parts the voice cracking that is such a constant through the rest of the album is gone. While the two guitar arrangement on this song provides the listener with a new interesting sound and as a result provides a great rock tune.
Yet to by an album for one song is pointless, especially in today’s post Napster world. Socialburn is only a good buy for rock fans, particularly those fans of Puddle of Mudd and similar bands. Though Socialburn does nothing really exciting they do cause you to rock your head at certain points.

Evanescence's Fallen - Album Review Old Archive, published in Daily Evergreen 2003 and Evanescence Web site

Evanescence
Fallen
Neo-grudge with a new twist.
41/2 out of five stars

If you’re like me a few weeks ago you went to Daredevil and came out with the feeling that it was a good movie but could have been much better. The acting was mediocre and the sub-plots could have been developed more yet the soundtrack left you excited. I went out and bought the CD the next day. The compilation consists of many big and small rock bands who each contributed new material for the movie.
Seether and Fuel both put forth very catchy songs yet the track that stood out in this compilation was “Bring Me to Life” by Evanescence. The song started off with piano and took off one of the most powerful voices I’ve herd come out of the music industry in a long time. I had to hear more.
Evanescens’s fallen album hits the listener with an unusual combination of styles such as Celtic, pop and modern rock to form a Neo-Grudge sound that is extremely addictive.
The guitar riffs provide nothing new, rather they consist of the same power chord crunching, drop d guitar mashing that Rock has become dependent on today. The main influences here are artist such as Linkin Park, 12 Stones and Epidemic.
Piano and strings are present in almost every songs and provide a unique blend that has the potential to catch a lot of people interest.
Yet the instrumentation of Evanescence is not what makes this album so powerful, it’s the voice of Amy Lee. Her vocals can be compared to that of Clannad and Tori Amos. Her voice is incredibly strong yet smooth which provides a melodic factor to this album that many rock albums lack today. Amy Lee Weaves in and out of chords with an ease that’s almost hypnotic. The sound can be compared to Enya on acid.
If your one of the people who likes to download and “sample” a few tracks before purchasing then you should look up tracks: Going Under, Bring Me to Life, Tourniquet and the powerful ballad My Immortal.
These songs set the style of the band. “Going Under” consists of a common four chord progression that highlights Amy’s range while “Bring Me to Life” sticks to one chord till the chorus then gives you a slight taste of Rap-Rock during the bridge. Its “Tourniquet” that sounds so interesting with a intro that reeks of Linkin Park yet steps down and grows through out the entire song.
My Immortal is the one song that might not be for everyone. It’s a piano based ballad which is pretty much meant to be a tear jerker. Yet the style of this song grabbed me, its really beautiful and powerful at the same time. The Chorus line flows with grace and is very pleasing to the ears.
In all honesty I couldn’t find a song on this album I didn’t like. It’s extremely addictive. Hard Rockers will love the grove this band gets into in almost every one of their songs while pop fans will find the melodic ambush pleasing.

Hot Action Cop - CD Review - Old archive, Published in Daily Evergreen 2003

Hot Action Cop
D+
Album falls Short

Brace yourself; Hot Action Cop is on the scene. Yes it seems another band has released album in hopes of cashing in on the so called Rap-Rock revolution of the late 90’s.
This band suffers from a horrible disease that seems to be taking down the world’s musician’s one group at a time. The name of the disease; lack of originality. From the Very Beginning Hot Action Cop sounds like Limp Bizkit must have sounded like ten years ago.
The lead singer’s voice provides the same whiny tone that Fred Durst is famous for but with out those really catchy chorus lines allowing the public to listen to the Significant Other album without slamming a pot into their head.
The band can’t seem to find a style they prefer as they transfer from heavy metal, to funk, to punk, and Hip Hop all in the first song, “Doom Boom.” These transitions provide a lot of tension in their writing causing listeners to stop listening to closely and to focus on the beat.
The first single off this album, “Fever for the Flava” is by far probably the worst song on the CD. This quirky tune consist of amazingly deep lyrics such as; “do you think that I can get some (jiggy jiggy)”, “Can I get a little zip zip (looky looky)” its lines like these that will blow your mind.
“Fever for the Flava” reinforces the reality that you don’t need to be smart to be a rock star. Then again bands like Adema have already showed us that.
The track “Busted” try’s to go serious. Describing the sorrows of prison and being busted. Listening to this track will give the listener no doubt that none of the musicians in this band have ever spent more than three hours in jail. The track starts off with a slow guitar intro similar to Tick Turners “Friends and Family”-- just not good. The song continues to build up to a very disappointing apex.
This album in terms of musicality stinks. However, when played behind a party, dance or sporting activity I can see it being quite popular. The groove created by Hot Action Cop is generally up beat and fun.
What might make this album succeed is the image Hot Action Cop tries to create. Modeling after Sum 41 and late Offspring albums, this band attempts to show that they’re fun loving guys and if they can have fun playing their music you should have fun listening to their music.
MTV has predicted this album will be the album of Spring Break 2003. Many think this fun loving bunch of guys will be shot to stardom up there with the great pop stars like Justine Timberlake and Good Charlotte. Well, this album is just bad enough for that to happen.