Album Review: Double Experience - Alignments

It's funny how every word seems to have more than one meaning. Double Experience proudly brand themselves as 'nerd rock', which is a term that sounds like it should apply to me. However, that word has more than one way it can be interpreted, and they lead to very different realizations. In some contexts, 'nerd' can mean RPGs and anime. In other contexts, 'nerd' can mean intellectualism and social awkwardness. One of those applies to me, and I can relate to, the other not so much. But when they list their nerd fore-bearers in the press materials, and include Muse of all people, I don't have a damn clue what 'nerd rock' is supposed to be anymore. I immediately think of Weezer (a contemptible band, if I do say so), and heck, I even think of Ozma. I certainly don't think of Muse, and I don't think of prog rock either.

So I think Double Experience is mixing up a whole bunch of things that aren't cool, and assuming we'll be fine calling them all nerdy. They aren't, and I'm not. But I digress...

The album starts off with "Perish Song", and it is anything but a nerd rock track. The riff is a bit more angular than your typical mainstream rock, and I can hear some drumming in odd times, but the chorus of the song is pure radio fodder, and no different than anything the more cro-magnon bands would deliver. "This is your perish song, now sing along" isn't exactly intellectual writing.

The band says something I find rather telling. They state, "it’s more honest for our band to write about how passionate we feel about specific pop culture than it is to write about blanket, angry emotions." While I appreciate the sentiment, and pop culture can be fine fodder for songs, that quote implies to me they think anger is the only emotion they can feel. Rock music doesn't need to be angry, nor do they need to be as people, but in a single line they distilled both down to nothing but anger. That has been one of my biggest complaints about the rock attitude for a while, and to hear so-called nerds buying into it disappoints me greatly.

So let's get back to the crux of the issue; what is nerdy about this album? There is a song about "The Punisher", but you would only know that because they shout "I am the punisher" during the chorus. Otherwise, there is very little in the lyrical content that directly ties the songs to anything nerd-level. The music itself isn't quirky enough to really be anything I would call that either. I say this not to pile on, but to ask a basic philosophical question; what do we make of a band that doesn't know who they are? They have adopted an identity that isn't theirs, whether that was a choice or a mistake, and it's a real lack of self-awareness, at least as far as I'm concerned.

The record is a perfectly fine mainstream-ish rock album. The songs are pleasant, and some of the melodies are pretty catchy. Sure, I would rather listen to this than the latest Five Finger Death Punch record, or anything of that sort, but they aren't that far removed from one another. If anything, at least those bands know why they are, and the audience they're shooting for. Double Experience doesn't have that luxury, and it really hurts them. My opinion of the record would be higher if I randomly came across it as a mainstream rock record. But when I'm told it's one thing, and it's really another, I can't say that doesn't have an impact. Even in the most pandering of music there is a grain of truth, but when the band is oblivious to their own identity, their work is as hollow as can be.

Sorry to say.