Gentle Firefly Radio,
Isle of ViewWith plenty of enthusiasm rippling through the speakers, decent lyrics and competent melodies, Baltimore’s Isle of View should be a band you would continuously like to come back to. But you don’t, and this is the type of album you’ll enjoy, but it will soon finds its way buried beneath a dozen other discs. It is by no means bad, it is just that the 13 tracks fail to ignite anything remotely interesting or imaginative, seemingly find comfortable ground in the realms of mediocrity. There are some hidden gems though with openers ‘Fall Asleep & Die’ and ‘He Who Laughs Last’ proving superbly crafted pop punk numbers which flow nicely and show some interesting elements of song structure. But from here on in, the LP is very much a hit and miss affair consisting of largely middle of the road, average tracks.
The five piece’s main problem is that it isn’t different enough from other bands doing similar things. When looking at the pop punk benchmarks you can usually take either two roads. You can take Rufios avenue and make blisteringly impressive 3 minute efforts laced with some incredulous technical expertise while maintaining a mainstream edge or the Matches option of just going with all out sheen to woo in the punters, but sadly Isle of View fall neither here nor there. The album is put together extremely tightly though and like the beginning, the end is laced with the best tracks. ‘Dream Girl 99’ is a cracker as the pace is increased while the acoustic ‘Driving on Train Tracks’ ends on a tender but well timed effort, but it isn’t enough to save the album from just being… meh. They do have a little bit more about them than most pop punk bands, but there isn’t enough quality present to warrant a full album and although it is by no means bad, neither is it all that interesting.
Jay
Undecided Records
www.isleofviewcrew.com
