I’m already pissed off with this band, because the review I just wrote got deleted for some reason. But they’re lame anyway, so it’s hardly as if this review will be any different.
There’s a conscious buzz around them at the moment, and you can’t move in London for someone hailing them as the post-hardcore-scream-garage-trash saviours of rock. Trouble is, I have no idea why, because as this release shows, they’re plainly boring. The title track is all juddering drums and monotonous guitars that do little to boost some astoundingly lazy vocals. It’s almost as if the band are so aware of their status as ‘cool’ that they’re making an effort to sound lazy, but they just sound contrived. I can’t understand why anyone would buy this, but I can tell it’s going to get into the charts simply because it’s sufficiently rocky without being anything but average. And let’s not forget the bandwagon jumping! Yes, the current trend for screamo backing lyrics is also followed towards the end and it just smacks of middling ideas badly executed.
“Alpha Signal Five” (hows that for a wanky title) is so astoundingly poor that the mind boggles that someone, somewhere thought it was a good idea to record. Repetitive riffs and the same boring vocals all underpinned by machine-like drumming do not a good song make. It’s got the requisite quiet-loud bits but it never sounds natural or passionate, only yet more cynical. And it’s not big or clever to add the word “fuck” to a normal lyric.
Woohoo! One track left. Named “Numb At Four In The Morning” it’s about as predictable as an acoustic post-hardcore song could sound. The music isn’t that bad, some nice acoustic guitar lines under the (yet again) shoddy lyrics but it quickly becomes boring and shallow. There seems to be absolutely nothing of substance to this band, and the addition of a piano is just hysterically bad.
Put it this way. This release is only getting half a star because the name Reuben contains my name. Go and buy Hell Is For Heroes instead. They do this stuff, but so, so, SO much better.
Ben