Ah the major label. Scurge of the punk lover and friend of the world weary 14 year old. Wherever we stand on the subject, the honeymoon period doesn’t seem to be ending as endless lines of bands still seem to be getting picked up and marketed to millions more consumers across the globe. This is Florida’s Moments in Grace major label debut after they formed from former members of As Friends Rust but unfortunately while the latter’s work was biting and edgy, Moments in Grace‘s is simply damp, soppy shite.
I’m no punk elitist, I love my Enema and can’t go a few weeks without my fix of Tell All Your Friends but the whole of the record seems so angled towards shifting copies rather than making excitable music it is an extremely difficult listen. It pulls you in with the force of a 7mph gale and spits you out with the velocity of a Micky Quinn sprint. It is simply that uninspiring. Many of the tracks on display simply blend into one and the task of distinguishing one atmospheric rock twaddle from another is made all the more difficult when the same vocal pitching and the same somber arrangements are all but repeated track after track.
As you may of gathered the production is generally spit shine clean and the vocals have that familiar echoed sound of pristine perfection, but I can’t really pick faults with this section of the album to much. The problem lies in the music. But while for the most part I found it to offer nothing new, there are a couple of efforts that involve the listener a little bit more. ‘No Angels’ is a little belter, while the melodic ‘My Dying Day’ shifts between pitches of dark into beams of light optimistic music effortlessly. But while the dull ‘My Stunning Bride’ and the frankly shocking ‘Monologue’ are on display, this will quickly be finding its way to the rear of many peoples collections.
There is certainly a market waiting for Moments in Grace and without doubt this will sell well. It is a ‘safe’ album if such a phrase can be coined and it doesn’t dare to do anything from the norm. Fans of light, structured pop emo will lap this up, but for others it will simply beg you to turn off and look for your emotional fix elsewhere.
Jay