Review Summary: Maybe being judgmental isn't such a bad thing after all...
At the risk of sounding incredibly unprofessional, I'm going to be as blunt and honest as I can about this brand of country/indie-pop fusion that has everybody lined up for another slice: I don't like it. Being more honest, I fucking hate it. And I don't know what I hate more, its egregious pandering or the fact that people eat it up so easily. And so it's right here I'll say that I'm officially ceasing checking things out because they got great reviews from critics and bloggers, because for a while, it's almost as if critics and music bloggers seem to have this hypnotizing effect with sparkly text and collective pants-shitting over an album to try to convince people that what they're reviewing really is the second coming. And sure, indie/country/pub music/whatever is never out of place from the top 40 charts; look at Mumford and Sons, and how they've managed to shake the world with hits like "I Will Wait" or "Little Lion Man". Yet, as the saying goes, "success is never the best determination of quality". And so right now, I need to bring up the entire point of the review: "You're fucking kidding me, right?!"
Twin Forks have managed to take Mumford and Sons, Civil Wars, the past two John Mayer releases, that song from last year's Alexander Keith's commercial, and Dashboard Confessional (since Chris Carrabba is the brains behind this project), and throw them in a blender, making no effort to trim away any fat or make suitable adjustments, but rather throw them all in there with little regard for the quality of the project. And the result is everything you'd expect: a blazing hot mess of an album, with only two unifying factors here: the saccharine lyrics about love, and the fact that there's clapping and gang vocals in every track, almost enough for 30 Seconds to Mars to call excessive. There is really no point in mentioning any standalone song on this album because they're really all the same. Well, not all of them, but close enough. Basically the second half of the opening track "Can't Be Broken" consists of the same chorus being repeated almost 666 times, to the point where it'll serve as effective torture for war criminals. Repetitiveness isn't always a bad thing, but the chorus is not even catchy, and is quite frankly
annoying. And things aren't improved one bit when you hear the next track, which greets you with at least two over-used indie cliches- namely jangly acoustic guitar and annoying whistling. Oh, and try not to listen too hard to the lyrics, or you'll hear, "
From time to time/You cross my mind/Good company is hard to find".
Oh, that brings me to another point: lyrics. Take a wild guess as to what the majority of the songs are about? That's right, love. Love, love, and more love. Hell, track #4 is called "Kiss Me Darling". And if Carrabba's god-awful vocal performance wasn't bad enough, he sounds simply bored singing the lyrics, but it's hard to blame him for such an uninspired performance with lyrics like these. The song itself sounds a lot like a weird mashup of The Civil Wars' "From This Valley" and that song "Millionaire", just without the painful earnestness of the former, but plus the vapidity and bull-headedness of the latter. Oh, and did I mention the clapping in EVERY SONG yet? You can just hear Chris saying to his band mates, "oh, let's just throw some clapping in, that'll distract people from the pure shittiness of the music!" Except it doesn't, and only brings it forth to light.
The only good thing to come out of this record is that now, hopefully this annoying brand of indie-pop will die the death it's been needing to for quite some time. Although it's only just the end of February, I can already tell that this album will be a contender for "worst of the year", and is definitely a good drinking game, in the very least- take a shot every time a clapping chorus comes in. Take a shot every time Chris strains his vocals. Take a shot every time we are "treated" to all this saccharine love song stuff. The list goes on and on...
