Album Review: Corroded - "Defcon Zero"

It’s entirely possible that you may have heard Corroded without ever knowing that it was Corroded.  The band came to some fame after writing some music for the Battlefield series of video games, and once you pop in their new album “Defcon Zero,” the mental links start to get made.

Corroded lives at the intersection of Disturbed, Rob Zombie and Texas Hippie Coalition, an intersection of roads that has found itself mostly populated by tumbleweeds and dust in this new millennium.  There was a time when this straight-ahead, accessible and thumping brand of metal was all too common and all but ruled mainstream alternative radio.  Somewhere along the road there was oversaturation, too many one-offs and one-hit wonders like Drowning Pool and Union Underground, and ultimately a glacially slow, agonizing death at the hands of bands like Puddle of Mudd and P.O.D.

There have been blips of hope that the once proud and downright dominant style may not lay dormant forever.  The Showdown, Meldrum, the early days of Five Finger Death Punch, even Volbeat and PAIN have tapped back into the vein and allowed just enough blood to flow to keep the heartbeat low but detectable.

Corroded, releasing their first album in five years, is helping to keep that heart beating.

The first five songs of “Defcon Zero” by these ambitious Swedes are all capable of burrowing into your brain and demanding that your foot tap their easy beats while you’re working or studying or drinking coffee or whatever.  Each one may not seem like an aggressive earwig when you first hear it, but allow your brain to settle and don’t be shocked when the riffs and hook-laden choruses come flooding back.

The record begins with “Carry Me My Tired Bones,” which plays into a lot of stereotypes of melodic metal, but executes them well and proves why they’re stereotypes.  There’s a gentle, fragile acoustic opening that flits along for almost a minute until the first signs of a dark-clouded riff loom in the background, eventually overtaking the melody with driving percussion and a muddy guitar sludge that slops out notes.

Jumping past the next two cuts (only for time, not because they’re not worthy of comment,) we land on “Fall of a Nation.”  The song is the album’s battery, even among an album of batteries.  The action is nonstop, the vocals of the chorus are delivered with a wry precision that recalls an amalgam of several different familiar vocalists, and we hear throughout the track a slow double kick which does not seek to blow us away with tempo, but instead provides the song an intelligible and infectious heartbeat.  The medium-paced double kick is an often-overlooked tool in the metal arsenal, seemingly mastered and employed only by Overkill, though now Corroded demonstrates that they also understand its value.

Rounding out the first five cuts, the album arrives at “Vessels of Hate,” which comes equipped with a ready-made chanting chorus and a simple riff that allows enough open space for the chords to breathe and create an atmosphere of energy.  The song is really just a vehicle for the lofty chorus, but as lofty choruses go, it’s a strong entry.

Backing off the praise momentarily, here’s the other side of “Defcon Zero”: Corroded does such an impressive job of building momentum and carrying it through the first five songs that the rest of the album can’t possibly maintain that pace and execution.  “Day of Judgment” takes its foot off the gas for just a moment, and the album’s stride stumbles.

This gets paired in tandem with the earnest but frankly mundane and comparatively tame power ballad of “A Note to Me,” and after that “Defcon Zero” never really recovers.  The songs that come after attempt to pick up the pace and re-assert the album’s strength with some success, but the damage of “A Note to Me” has been done, especially in light of the fact that the last four cuts are fine, but not superior to the first five.

Anyway, let’s be clear, and let this be the takeaway – “Defcon Zero” is an album with five absolutely badass songs on it, and that’s more than enough to declare the album great.  It just so happens that all five songs are stacked at the front of the record, which makes for an efficient listen if nothing else.  While the songs aren’t revolutionary, they don’t need to be, either – their resurrection of an almost dead style, however momentary, is reason enough to celebrate.

Album Review: Ten - Gothica

I believe I first heard the name Gary Hughes in connection with the solo albums he wrote for Bob Catley. I then saw just how many albums he has had a hand in over his career, and while that amount of music was overwhelming, I knew without even digging deep one truism; if you make too much music, it will vary wildly in quality. There's a reason why few artists are massively productive while still being consistently excellent. It's hard to write good songs, and I believe most writers only have a certain number of great ones in them (I speak from my own experience there). Hughes, I fear, may have run out long ago.

I was actually a fan of "Stormwarning" a few years back, but Ten's subsequent attempts have done nothing at all for me. This album, with it's lyrical focus on Gothic storytelling, is appealing, but the songs have a lot to live up to.

What I feared happening is what Ten throws themselves headlong into here; namely, the mentality that darker topics and atmospheres mean there's no need to have the big, warm melodies Ten is known for. That's a crock, and it ruins this album. Ten is not a dark band, nor a heavy band. They don't need to be, because at their best Hughes is one of the great melodic writers and singers in rock/metal. But by focusing on making this album 'dark', he's toned down the best aspect of his writing. He's handcuffed himself here, and then goes so far to make it a point of pride that he's done so.

And that's without getting into a gripe of mine, as someone who is a writer by trade. "La Luna Dra-Cu-La" is a mediocre song as it is, but the entire hook of the song is dependent on a mispronunciation of the character's name. There are times when I'll cut a band a bit of slack, because English isn't their native tongue, but Hughes damn well knows better. If the rhyme isn't perfect, you either find a different one, or you live with is being a soft rhyme. That's the way songs have always been written. You don't get to twist the language to fit your bad poetry.

But that nitpick isn't the only thing wrong here. This is, easily, the most boring album I've ever heard from Hughes. It doesn't really rock, and it's not fun to sing along with. His hooks on this album are so weak that not a single one of them is memorable. If you had told me this was a collection of the songs cut from the last couple of albums I didn't enjoy that much, I would believe you. That's how weak this material is, compared to what I know Ten can deliver.

Maybe this was just an experiment that didn't work out, but "Gothica" is a hugely frustrating album. It offers none of Ten's best traits, and focuses on things they have never been good at. It's a huge miscalculation, and an album that almost made me angry.

Album Review: Goatwhore - "Vengeful Ascension"

In “Hamlet,” Shakespeare’s Polonius tells us “This above all: to thine own self be true.  And it must follow, as the night the day.  Thou canst not then be false to any man.”  It’s sage advice from The Bard, and has become the stuff of scholarly study, life coaching and millennial tattoos.  So too it must be with music, and thus we are faced with Goatwhore’s new album, “Vengeful Ascension.”

The press releases accompanying this album speak a great deal about Goatwhore wanting to produce the most honest, Goatwhore-est album to date, allowing for little outside influence and promising simply the unadulterated chaos of the songwriter’s ambition.  A laudable goal for a band who’s managed to stick around in the underground for nearly twenty years.  It probably stands to reason that after six albums, the band would want to take their seventh to return to the touchstones which made them establish their career in the first place.

So we come to “Vengeful Ascension” with the realization that what we have here is a raw version of the already blue-rare music that we’ve come to know and love from Goatwhore over the years.  And yet, this is where the dilemma comes in…

Frankly, this album isn’t as good as the band’s two most previous works, though it’s equally hard to condemn because it’s clearly the kind of album that Goatwhore wanted to make, essentially a return to the mold rather than a breaking of it.

Now, let’s not be hasty – there are some great moments.  “Under the Flesh, Into the Soul” has exactly the rumble that modern extreme metal, or thrash for that matter, so often lacks.  The defining character of the song is the stop and go riff, which utilizes empty space to make the notes pop and add some dimension above the thorough pounding of the drums beneath.  This is where Goatwhore has always excelled, in the accessibility of their guitar riffs that concentrate on something other than simply playing fast.

This same thing goes for “Mankind Will Have No Mercy,” which could have passed for a cover of an early Anthrax song minus the grisly lyrics.  Similarly though, we hear the punk influence in the drums and quick, staccato riffing that move the narration of the song without losing the audience.  If the album could have stuck to those tenets exclusively, “Vengeful Ascension” could have been great.

The issue is that too much of the album, and stop me if you’ve heard this before, simply descends into a paroxysm of smashing and banging.  Much of what one supposes were supposed to be the heaviest, most intimidating and visceral bits of the record lack flavor in the single tone of their execution.  “Where the Sun is Silent” and “Decayed Omen Reborn” manage to leave the launch pad, but never really deviate from a ho-hum flight plan.  The attempt was obviously to show a more deliberate dynamic with the band’s music, but it doesn’t come out as anything all that interesting.

By contrast, we’re faced with several selections such as album closer “Those Who Denied God’s Will,” which give the impression of simply wanting to be black metal songs.  And there’s nothing necessarily wrong with Goatwhore wanting to write black metal songs, but it seems outside the wheelhouse of their strengths.

So in the end, there’s a distinct conundrum when one considers “Vengeful Ascension.”  The album falls short of the relatively lofty bar set by “Constricting Rage of the Merciless,” and is also shy of the pinnacle that was “Blood for the Master,” but for all intents and purposes appears to be the music that Goatwhore honestly wants to make, and its hard to criticize any professional artist for following their passion.  Nobody here is going to tell Goatwhore they can’t do what they want, but the truth of the matter is that we’re also within our rights to not enjoy it as much.

Album Review: Xtasy - Second Chance

When we talk about melodic rock, specifically the kind that makes great reference to the 80s, there's something about the music that is usually charming, but often underwhelming. I'm not sure why, but a lot of the artists trying to recreate those days are able to match the production techniques of the time, but they lack the songs. Or rather, what is really happening is that these bands remind us of how much we overrate the music from the 80s. If you actually give an honest listen back to a lot of those songs, they aren't nearly as good as thirty years of memories would have you to believe.

Xtasy is a newcomer to this world, but they're one who caught my attention when I came across the video for their single, "Into The Fire". That song opens this album, and it's a blistering bit of melodic perfection. There's a hint of crunch to the guitars, but it's all about the shimmering synths in the background of that classic hook. The song has one of those choruses that you find yourself humming along with by the end of the first time you listen to it. It's this kind of track that people are thinking about when they talk nostalgically about the 80s.

There's a certain touchstone Xtasy reminds me of. Between the pacing, the tones, and Silvia's vocals, I can't help but be reminded more than a bit of Alyson Avenue, particularly their album "Presence Of Mind". Considering that I feel that album is one of the most underrated gems of the early 2000s melodic rock scene, rekindling that spirit is undoubtedly a good thing.

The opening run of tracks, "Into The Fire", "One In A Million", and "Under The Gun" set the stage with a crunchy, arena-ready sound that would have ruled the 80s. The hooks on the songs are sweet melodies, big enough to have crowds singing along in one of those poorly-produced, black and white slow motion music videos from back in the day. I definitely feel like I've stepped into a time machine.

"Said And Done" is, if possible, even more stereotypical of the time, and is one I could easily hear being a companion song to "Heaven Is A Place On Earth". If you told me it was a Belinda Carlisle song, or someone like her, from back in the day, I would absolutely believe you. The one track I'm not sold on here is "Broken Heart", and not because it's a bad song. The way it's produced, with Silvia letting the backing vocals carry much of the chorus isn't something I would have done, because they don't have the power her voice does to do the heavy lifting. I know what they were going for, but it didn't quite work there.

Overall, "second Chance" doesn't need to be given one. If you like 80s rock at all, this will appeal to you. There's a lot of bands that try to do this kind of music, but aren't very good at it. Xtasy definitely are. This is one of the better 80s sounding records in a while. "Second Chance" is a throwback in the best sense of the word. Call this one a nice little surprise.

Album Review: Riverdogs - California

Let's get this out of the way early; I don't like Vivian Campbell. Never have, probably never will. There has never been a Def Leppard song I like, his attempt to resurrect DIO with The Last In Line was pretty bad, and if I'm being honest, I prefer the DIO albums with Craig Goldy anyway. So it doesn't get me the leeast bit excited that another band of Viv's is back from hibernation. I don't get the appeal of the guy, so I'm not going to be one of those people running to praise anything he does just because it's him. Even though the early DIO albums are good, I don't really put very much of the credit in Viv's hands. He's always been a second fiddle, which makes anything where he's the star a hard swallow.

This time, we get an album of hard rock that veers a bit more towards being bluesy, instead of glam or metal. Really though, you aren't going to hear that much of a difference. All the projects are built from the same basic structure, just with slightly adjusted guitar tones to make them 'unique'.

One of the things that's disappointing about this album is that, when it's done right, bluesy hard rock can have some of the biggest, most swaggering riffs of all. But that's not the case here. Viv and his cohorts stick with the more generic approaches to the music. There really isn't anything, guitar-wise, here that would pique anyone's interest. Viv is a big enough name that you would think you should be able to pick out great Viv moments, but I would never have known he was in this band if it hadn't been plastered on the promotional materials. Viv, at least for twenty-five years, has been a completely anonymous guitar player.

Even that would be forgivable if the rest of the band was helping to deliver songs that transcend their generic nature. Unfortunately, that's not what we get here. These songs don't have interesting riffs, nor rhythms, nor melodies either. Rob Lamothe has a nice voice, but few of his melodies have any energy behind them. "Golden Glow" is a fine enough song, but it's so laid-back you can almost hear him doing the vocals at three in the morning when all he wants to do is go home and go to bed.

Bluesy rock, when done well, can be phenomenal. Bluesy rock, when door poorly, is among the most boring of genres. This album falls closer to the latter category. It's not terrible music, but it never makes an argument for its own existence. It feels like a band going through the motions of making a record. As long as it's been since the last Riverdogs album, I would expect that if they reunited it was because of their passion for the music. I can't hear any of that on this album. "California" is a tepid collection of songs that has no new tricks up its sleeve, and doesn't pull off the old ones very well. It's another Vivian Campbell disappointment, which is exactly what I was expecting.

Album Review: Barb Wire Dolls - Rub My Mind

I don't spend much time diving through the waters of punk music. I never went through a punk phase, nor was I ever someone consumed with the anger necessary to fuel that kind of attitude. I had my forays with The Offspring, and there is the one non-punk Bad Religion album I love, but for the most part, anything that is described that way has remained far off my radar. That would include Barb Wire Dolls previous album, which I was aware of but never actually listened to. But this is a different year, the world is a different place, and it's dedicated to the memory of Lemmy, so how can I say no to giving it a shot? If there is ever the right time during my life for punk, this has to be it.

The album kicks off with "Back In The USSA", which is a more clever take on the current political reality of one of our major parties than I had come up with on my own. But for a song with that viewpoint, there isn't enough venom in the delivery. It almost has a hint of power-pop in the saturated guitars and layered "whoa-oh" vocals. I was expecting spitting bile, and that's not the approach the band took. While it doesn't really work on that track, it does on "If I Fall". It's a throwback to the garage-punk of the Ramones, with a raw energy and a bouncy chorus. That's the kind of punk I can get behind.

"Desert Song" is appropriately named, as the laid-back feeling evokes the imagery of the desert, and the sound given to it by Kyuss. When the build up finally reaches its crescendo, it's a genuinely stirring moment that caught me off-guard. There's evidence of some real nuance in the band's songwriting that the little bits of their music I had heard before didn't contain. If the growth is real, and not just a figment of my limited experience with their music, I'm mighty impressed.

There are a few rough moments, though. "We Are Champions" spends its already short time repeating the same two ideas over and over, to the point where it reaches boredom in less than three minutes. If it was going for the psychology of drone, maybe it makes sense, but all I know is it wasn't at all interesting to listen to. Much better is "Fade Away", whose riff borrows just a touch from "Mary Jane's Last Dance". Pulling influence from Tom Petty is never a bad thing.

I think what threw me about the album is the description that came along with it as being from "raucous rockers". That terminology doesn't fit this album at all. There are the influences of early punk in here, but the delivery is executed in a way that everything comes across rather calm and subdued. That's not a bad thing at all, but it leaves a bit of cognitive dissonance between expectation and reality.

Ultimately, I like "Rub My Mind" for what it is. It's a hybrid of stoner, punk, and seventies power-pop. I think it works better like this than if it was the fire-breathing punk record I was expecting. This record sounds more timeless than a teenager's rage, which I think will help down the line. "Rub My Mind" is an album that can grow with you, even if you grow out of the feelings that fuel it. That's a pretty good trick, so it's worth checking out.

The Best & Worst Of 2017... So Far

As we approach the halfway mark of the year, I can't help but take a step back to do some accounting on what we've already heard this year. Coming off what I considered to be a slightly weak 2016, I was looking forward to seeing if that was a blip in the radar, or if there was a trend of weakening quality. There has actually been a bit of both, which makes this an interesting, but frustrating, year to sit through. The quality at the top of the market has been strong, but there have also been more unacceptable albums than I can remember in recent years. In alphabetical order, so as not to spoil anything, let's take a look at the best and worst so far.

The Worst:

Adrenaline Mob - We The People

There's an old saying that you can never go broke underestimating people's intelligence. That's what Adrenaline Mob is banking on, releasing one of the most flaccid albums and shameless attempts to hold on to their dying youth in recent memory. The only upside is that it's better than their previous album.

Danzig - Black Laden Crown

Danzig used to be captivating, but like many artists, he's lost sight of himself over the years. He can't hear that his voice is completely shot, nor can he hear that his production abilities are far below par. This is a terrible sounding record of boring songs.

Iced Earth - Incorruptible

Bands rip each other off all the time. What is less common is a band ripping themselves off, but that's essentially what happened here. Iced Earth has become a tribute band to themselves, rehashing the Matt Barlow era so much that this album might as well not even exist.

Pain Of Salvation - In The Passing Light Of Day

Prog can have a reputation for having its head up its ass, and for good reason. Where Daniel Gildenlow got the idea that anyone would want to listen to an hour of his tuneless warbling while the band thumps out bland riffs is beyond me. There's barely any music to this at all.

Steel Panther - Lower The Bar

The joke was funny the first time, and the songs were good. With each passing album, both have gone downhill. Now, I want to know why I'm supposed to think the same tired dick jokes are supposed to be funny. They've run out of ways to talk about banging strippers, so now all that's left is their mediocre music. Lower the bar, indeed.


The Best:

Creeper - Eternity, In Your Arms

Meat Loaf meets AFI, Creeper has done something amazing by packing massive amounts of (melo)drama into three minute songs. These are pocket-size punk operas, and add up to an album that is ear candy with surprising depth.

Harem Scarem - United

Coming out of nowhere, these veterans have put out their best record ever. Song after song, they deliver massive, candy-coated hooks that play over and over in my head. The guitar playing is quirky enough to catch your attention, sounding like a more streamlined version of The Winery Dogs. A phenomenal shock.

Nightmare - Dead Sun

We can quibble, since it came out in Europe last year. Either way, Nightmare has delivered an album that is as heavy as power metal can get, while retaining a strong sense of melody. Maggie Luyten injects life into the band, with her vocals stealing the show. She is a superstar in the making, based on this performance.

Orden Ogan - Gunmen

In the world of power metal, Orden Ogan is currently one of the very best. They've never disappointed, and on this album they kick their game up a notch again. Their second-best album, "Gunmen" is nearly an hour of killer metal that is heavy, epic, and beautiful. Blind Guardian wishes they sounded like this these days.

Soen - Lykaia

This is what Opeth should have evolved into. Soen takes a massive leap forward here, delivering their best album by a mile. The riffing and vocal tone might be a bit too close to Opeth for some people, but I love hearing a style that has fallen by the wayside. Musically inventive and hauntingly melodic, Soen has come into their own.

The Warning - XXI Century Blood

Three young ladies have earned their acclaim for this one, an album that delivers mainstream rock better than many of their major-label competitors. Listening, you would have no idea their ages. When you find out, you wonder how in the heck these three can make an album this good, while Halestorm squandered every opportunity in the world on their last album. One heck of a debut.

Album Review: 42 Decibel - Overloaded

Rock and roll is, in essence, about pushing the limits. It started out by taking the music of the day and making it louder, heavier, and more obnoxious to the older generations. There's nothing new about trying to be more than everyone else. But there is something worrying when this new 42 Decibel album comes along with an explanation that the band recorded it by trying to push the equipment into the red line. Even without hearing a note, I was conjuring up images of distorted recordings and unlistenable songs. That's what happened to Baroness' "Purple", which was utterly ruined by a hatchet-job production. Putting that in my mind before listening was not a good idea.

Thankfully, they don't take things to that extreme. The sound is rough around the edges, but never to the point of distractions. The guitars have that slightly swampy tone that an under-powered amp being pushed to its limits gets, which is slightly fuzzier than the music needs. If they cleaned it up just a bit, there would be more bite to the riffs, which I think would make things hit just a bit harder. It's counter-intuitive, but sometimes turning down the gain makes the guitars sound heavier.

But production aside, the real issue to have with this album lies in the songwriting. Simply put, 42 Decibel aren't delivering at the level they need to. There are a few decent riffs, and the vintage sound is good, but there are no vocals or melodies here that are worth listening to. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but I'm failing to see the point of taking this kind of music, and more or less screeching atonally over the top of it. The vocals aren't good at all, and what is being sung is boring as well.

You would think a rock band would take one of two approaches; either have big melodies like an AOR band, or lock in with the riffs to drive simple hooks the way that Ozzy did with Black Sabbath. Instead, the eschew any rhyme or reason, and instead caterwaul completely separate from the rest of the band. It's such a waste of any potential, and it just strikes me as being lazy.

Because of that, I can't say that "Overloaded" approaches being a good album. The vocals are such a distraction that there's no chance the songs can overcome them. This is the kind of record that gets made because someone has the idea music that sounds like the 70s will sell, but they don't have any idea how to make that kind of music. "Overloaded" is anything but. It's underwhelming.

Album Review: Orden Ogan - Gunmen

Power metal, as a genre, is stale beyond belief. You have dozens of new bands that are doing the same things the old guard used to do, and you have the big names still out there, but now making rather bland follow-ups to their once greatness. One of the very few bright spots is Orden Ogan, who have carved out a niche as one of the few bands making power metal that really matters. I maintain that "Easton Hope" is one of the best power metal records of the last fifteen years or so, and the records that have come since might not match it in scope, but they come darn close. So when they announced a new record for this year, I was finally excited about something in metal.

To be honest, I was a bit worried by the theme of the record. Volbeat tried a similar Western motif, and it was a disaster. Thankfully, it didn't take very long to hear that Orden Ogan was in complete control of their sound.

With each passing record, Orden Ogan has been getting heavier, and that continues here. "Gunmen" is their heaviest record to date, and it's a refreshing change of pace for the power metal world. There's no one who could seriously call this 'flower metal'. This is thick, chunky, crushingly heavy power metal that tries to make every song more epic than the last. Some bands, no matter how much studio trickery they use, sound small. Orden Ogan sounds massive.

At this point, Orden Ogan has their sound, and they stick with it. If you heard "Easton Hope", you know what "To The North" and "Ravenhead" both offered, albeit with a few very slight dips into new territory. In that respect, "Gunmen" is the safest Orden Ogan album yet, because it doesn't break any new ground. These ten tracks give us heavy doses of the band's chugging riffs and huge choirs. We don't even get a ballad or heavily folk-influenced song this time around. But while this album is safe, it's also the most consistent album they've put out. Every song follows the same trajectory, but that's because it's a great one.

Orden Ogan is, to put it simply, the modern update on Blind Guardian's classic period. It's that kind of epic power metal, but with an even heavier and dirtier edge to the music. They find the perfect blend of low-tuned crunch and gritty melody. And with their penchant for adding choirs on top of choirs, those choruses are massive hymns to the metal gods. If I'm being nit-picky here, they do sometimes layer in a few too many voices where the lyrics become hard to decipher, but the sheer amount of tracks emphasizes the epic scope of the songs.

You may notice I haven't mentioned any tracks by name. That's because there isn't any need to single out specific tracks. "Gunmen" is remarkably consistent, where nearly every song is of the same excellent level of quality. It really is a case of 'if you like one, you'll like them all'.

Orden Ogan hasn't gotten the level of acclaim more traditional power metal bands have, but what they've done is quietly built up a discography of stellar releases that put them right at the top of the list of bands currently populating the genre. They are an excellent band who make really good to great records, and "Gunmen" is another one that continues their winning streak. They've never made even a mediocre record, and they haven't here either. "Gunmen" is easily one of the best metal records of the year, and one you need to go listen to. Seriously.

Album Review: Broadside - Paradise

Oh, what was become of pop/punk? All of the bands that were that, or alternative, have taken on new sounds over the years. Some of them tried to go serious, some modern pop (Fall Out Boy), and others have bizarrely taken on 80's New Wave, despite not being alive when that was popular. For whatever reason, those bands that used to make punky music that was fun to listen to no longer want to have any fun. That leaves it to smaller-profile bands to carry the torch, and not depress the hell out of us. Which brings us to Broadside.

That's not to say you can't introduce modern bits into the sound. "Hidden Colors" opens the album by doing this. Among the usual riffs, there's an odd tone that is pulled out of the modern 'blip and beep' pop catalog, but when it's used only as a coloring, it can work. The problem is when bands try to build their entire sound around those fake and phony tones. That makes the music sound sterile and a cash grab.

It can be argued that Broadside adheres a bit too closely to the formula for pop/punk that was written years ago. There are times in songs like "Paradise" where the rhythm and vocal tones are eerily reminiscent of early Fall Out Boy, but that's sort of the point here. Broadside is still a young band, and they're still in the process of absorbing their influences into their own writing. Finding a style uniquely their own is going to take time, and as long as they deliver on the quality, a bit of sameness isn't anything to criticize them for.

That's where I'm happy to say Broadside hasn't disappointed. Maybe it's because I don't spend a lot of time listening to the modern wave of pop/punk, but there's something refreshing about their delivery that really works. Their music is ingratiating, pleasant, and incredibly sturdy. It might be lacking a bit of immediacy, and there isn't any track that stands out as something that will be a timeless favorite, but the album as a whole is solid through and through.

I think the best way to sum it up, at least if you're older than your mid-twenties, is to say that Broadside has made the album Fall Out Boy would have if they decided to go back to their roots after "Folie A Deux" got a lackluster reception (though I think it's a very good album). So yes, Broadside isn't doing anything but patching up the old, worn-out wheel, but there's no shame in delivering something plenty of fans are happy to take more of. "Paradise" is a fine little record.