I should really slate this. Honest to God, my credibility as a reviewer (did I have any anyway?) is going to nosedive for sure. Four Simple Rules are a bunch of Atticus-toting young kids that play a brand of ultra slick pop-punk that sounds like a cross between McFly and Simple Plan. It’s so Americanised even the Yanks would say it’s too sickly sweet. I mean, look at pictures like these and then you’ll know exactly what I’m on about:
http://www.four-simple-rules.com/images/main12.jpg
http://www.four-simple-rules.com/images/4sr3.jpg
Style over substance is clearly very wrong kids. But, to Four Simple Rules‘ credit, this 5-track EP is pretty good for what it is. It’s horribly, horribly cliched and unoriginal, and as I said previously, these guys sing like they’ve never ever set foot in this country, let alone lived in Essex. And while the songs they do have are as catchy as any unsigned bands’ songs I’ve heard this year, they rip off the likes of Good Charlotte and Simple Plan something chronic. The last song, an acoustic effort, could quite easily be McFly.
I mean, for very young kids this stuff sounds amazing – if they write their own material and this recording isn’t souped up to shit using Pro Tools, these guys have a huge career ahead of them as a McFly-lite band. I wouldn’t be surprised if majors were swarming already. But a punk band they’re not; these guys are straight-up pop – probably funded by mummy and daddy – and any attempt to align themselves with something with more substance will result in no-one taking them seriously at all. Take it for what it is, and this demo is an excellent pop record which stands the band in good stead; but that’s all it is – a pop record.
www.four-simple-rules.com
paul