Beg, Borrow, Steal,
Army Of FreshmenIf you take bits of Something Corporate and Zebrahead, chuck in some Motion City Soundtrack and Homegrown, the sum of those parts would probably come across like Army of Freshman. It doesn’t sound too appetising does it? Well you’d be right to spit that morsel of food straight out of your mouth – for ‘Beg, Borrow, Steal’ is a pretty poor record. It’s not that the record actually sounds that bad, it’s just it has absolutely no idea which direction it wants to pull in. There’s moog, pop-punk inspired guitars – even bits that try and sound like Rancid – but where as most of that is passable, the lapses into spoken word vocals are just too much.
Tracks like ‘Uniforms’ and the ultra-catchy ‘Get Um Up’ are very slick keyboard-tastic gems, but the vocals tend to let the side down. Whereas all the choruses have more hooks than a fishing tackle shop, the songs themselves tend to be let down because they don’t stick to a formula. I know it’s predictable, but all the best catchy bands have verse/chorus/verse tyles which inspire the listener to sing along. Army Of Freshman mix far too many things into the mix. There are piano parts, keyboards, guitars, strange vocal effects and even spoken word parts! You get the impression that it would have been far easier for the band to have kept it simple.
Army Of Freshman is probably a really good live band, but this record suffers a huge identity crisis. The band really need to stamp their own mark on what they do, rather than sampling a shitload of other bands. Oh, and please, please stop it with the spoken word thing. It sounds awful…
www.armyoffreshman.com
33rd Street Records
Paul
