Comanechi – Crime of Love
A reckless attempt at avant-garde punk, this bassless fuzz careers along with White Stripesian insouciance but lacks the requisite pulse to endure. As noisey as it is tone deaf, the pervading headache of the music is permeated only by piercing vocals which rather recall a nuisance pneumatic drill’s affect on an existing hangover. At ninety seconds this racket is annoying, at six minutes (see final track ‘R.O.M.P’) it’s unbearable. Prize for most apt song title: ‘Why?’.
Choice Cuts: ‘Naked’
2.5/10
30 Seconds to Mars – This Is War
The actor turns singer-songwriter-bandleader paradigm never has anyone coming up smelling particularly of roses (Keanu anyone?!), so credit to Jared Leto’s crew that they have survived to a third album. Nevertheless, as can be expected from an actor turned singer-songwriter-bandleader, here the lyrics are the usual emo guff and the songwriting formulaic, with Leto covering his bases from Linkin Park (‘Night of the Hunter’) to My Chemical Romance (‘A Call to Arms’). That said, the vocals are credible – best served on the shameless U2/Bono rips ‘Kings and Queens’, ‘Search and Destroy’ and ‘Alibi’. More appropriate album title: This is U2 (sort of).
Choice Cuts: ‘Kings and Queens’
5.5/10
BlakRoc – BlakRoc
This rock/hip-hop/rap crossover protests loudly that it arose from organic beginnings – wunderkind producer Damon Dash supposedly decided the Black Keys were his new favourite band and decided to have them cut a record with a plethora of rappers. Regardless of the fact that the whole concept and sound barely updates the blueprint of beatsy guitar grooves built tall with rapping bon mots popularized by The Roots and more recently sent into hyperspace by Madcon’s ‘Beggin You’, it largely works. For every turgid ‘Coochie’, there’s a glorious ‘On The Vista’, and either way, as Pharoahe Monche suggests, “if it don’t make dollaz, then it don’t make sense”, right?
Choice Cuts: ‘On The Vista’, ‘Stay Off the Fuckin’ Flowers’
7/10
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