Never trust anything that bleeds!,
American Eyes80s pop meets pop-punk whilst being slapped about by whatever the latest indiefied dance crossover sensation is? Hmm. You don’t need to look at American Eyes to realise that they’re a slightly effeminate bunch, and this is definitely going for the bouncy end of the pop-punk spectrum, but it’s a little naďve to think that you’re going to con more than a bunch of kids by being influenced by the likes of Soulwax as well as the usual pop-punk starlets.
The opening 20 seconds of track two ‘Telephone wires’ is actually startlingly close to George Michael. Which is not necessarily a bad thing – everyone loves a bit of George – but on here it just sounds damn strange. Truth be told, the only common theme running throughout the entirety of this record is the catchy pop vibe, with a range of other genre ‘experiments’ being patched onto this sound. As a result, coherence is kind of lacking and leaves you feeling a bit here nor there when listening.
‘Carry on for keepsake’ is reminiscent of American Hifi with its cheesy rendition of embarrassingly basic lyrical content and simple acoustic guitar. Novel on the first listen, but it quickly lost any element of replay value which is, in essence, a fairly blunt but honest overall appraisal of the whole affair.
I’ve absolutely no idea what’s going on with ‘Day We Died’, but it’s shockingly shit. ‘Radio’ reminds me of Alkaline Trio in more than just name with the vocals being taken down a notch. It’s probably the best song on there with about the right dose of catchiness complementing the upbeat tempo whilst largely banishing the synth. In fact, this song just screams “Happy!” If the whole record had been like this, it would have received a fairly enviable mark, but in the end you’re left wondering what might have been.
www.myspace.com/americaneyes
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