This is the first installment in the new Rather Red series: Over/Under. I’m gonna give you an artist who is overrated, and why their new album isn’t that great. I’m gonna follow that up with an underrated artist and why you should buy/download/torrent/shoplift their album instead.
OVERRATED: Paramore- Brand New Eyes
Sure, Hayley is the cutest Tennessee-bred girl I’ve seen in my life, and she’s got one hell of a voice, even at 7 in the morning. But she can’t even remember the words to her new songs!
And then she tries to blame it on Robert Smith from The Cure. Blaming legends for your own problems won’t get you anywhere, Miss Williams, except maybe in bed with Rather Red living off of my part-time retail salary (one can only hope).
Brand New Eyes is not even the second best album to drop on 9/29/09. It has a couple catchy songs (”Careful” and “Ignorance”) to begin with, but then the rest of the album is all a blur of boring pop-punk. Fast songs that wouldn’t have made the cut on their last album RIOT! are mixed with softer numbers that make even me go soft for Hayley.
The song that Hayley was TRYING to sing in the above video, “Misguided Ghosts” isn’t the low point of the album, but it isn’t exactly the redeemer either. This acoustic diddy might get in your head, but it was recorded very poorly. And I disagree with the placement of yet another soft number towards the end of an album that already numbed you with tedious punk songs that all sound the same interlaced with boring ballads.
UNDERRATED: LoveHateHero- America Underwater
LoveHateHero is another band who came out with their third full-length last Tuesday. They play energetic pop punk much like Paramore, but don’t enjoy the same amount of commercial success, mostly due to the fact their lead singer isn’t a red-headed cute girl that tweenies and teenies across the country can look up to.
LoveHateHero wasn’t always so accessible. In fact, their last couple albums exhibited screamo/post-hardcore at its finest. On America Underwater, the band opted to drop the screams and solos, and instead worked even harder on their already amazing hooks.
“Saints and Sinners (HisStory)” is a blazing starter to the album. Vocalist Pierrick Berube belts out the chorus, “There’s no such thing as a saint without a history, or a sinner without a future!” Next up is the album’s first single, the title track, “America Underwater”. Although this song is definitely unlike the old LoveHate, the band obvious has fun playing the song.
Unlike Paramore’s latest effort, the energy only picks up from here. “You’ll Never Know”, “Echoes”, and “Come and Get It” are just a handful of treasures you’ll find Underwater.
If there’s any reason for you RnO readers to support LHH, it’s that they’re from our hometown of Los Angeles. They play local shows regularly, although this winter they’re doing a tour of South America. Wish the boys well at their MySpace, which is deserving of as much traffic as our city.
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