Film School - Film School
And so the search for original sounding bands continues in the overwhelming wave wash of various new artists who play an eerily comfortable retro sound ... that makes it possible for coots like me to follow current music trends without painful listening.
Film School - Film School: DBI
I've been listening to too much Roth Radio lately ... and he likes to make this comparison about musical influences, basically that everyone who is up and coming in music has influences ... and that every new band kinda steals from here and there to come up with their sound. And that with the good bands, you cannot see the weld marks of all the influence SLASH imitation
Something that is very noticeable early on in this effort from Film School is the similarity in vocal delivery with say, Robert S. from Disintegration era Cure. What else, post-punk wall of sound ... check. Eno/The Edge jangly delay guitar ... check. Well, okay, let's get back to the original comment -- this album really sounds like the band paid attention to college rock era, Cure
So much so, that "On and On", "Pitfalls", "Eleven-Eleven" ... in particular sounds like outtakes from Rob's band ... I mean, it's so eerily similar. I think it's like an homage to that Cure sound. And I suppose if one loved the classic Cure sound ... not really the hits era Cure, but early album Cure, either you would love it ... or totally despise it as a poor imitation
There are moments when the band meanders into a Radiohead or surreal instrumental Pink Floyd-y landscape vibe, like "Deep Lake"/"Sick of Shame" and "Garison", respectively ... and admittedly, I'm not a big fan of the RH music that kind meanders all over the place under the wall of noise and slow slurry vox ... though REAL critics tend to drool over this kind of music and can't get enough of it.
Lately, I've been real critical about songs that go north of 4-5 minutes with no point other than to be annoying in its repetiveness .... maybe I should take drugs so I won't notice such things. Some things I guess I will never understand.
The other thing I will say is that I am guilty in terms of liking the new retro sound as much as the next youngster with no clue about college rock, new wave, post punk due to NOT BEING BORN ... thinking that this is SO NEW ... I guess having lived through the same musical trends now one and a half times ... it seems that I tend to lose patience over bands that sound so similar to another band that it's like you could interchange the names and no one would know the difference
At the end of the day, this is another lesson to all of us ... not to believe the hype. Believe what your ears hear ... our ears hear something that is not to our liking, anyway ... so we resurrect the old DBI rating and apply it here