Review Summary: Take The Crown shoots for the stars on their debut release. To bad they were using a Nerf gun on a rather windy night.
Fusing the sounds of steady synth, hard-driven guitar riffs, pulsating beats—all behind Bokan's shrilling vocals—TTC blend to create the new post-hardcore. - taken from the band's MySpace.
The above statement is mostly true, with the exception of the part about the whole creating the new post-hardcore thing. The band really does combine synth, hard-driven, albeit simple, guitar riffs, pulsating beats, and shrill vocals, though I'm not really certain if the shrill vocal part is something that should be a positive or not. Take The Crown is yet another band that seemingly was created for the sole purpose of having teenage girls wet themselves, and it definitely shows in the music.
The music is structured around an almost endless sea of appallingly simplistic powerpop guitar riffs and "danceable" drum beats, thrown together in a seemingly non stop series of hooks. To be honest sometimes it gets difficult to tell if you are listening to a verse or a chorus. Even though the electronic aspects of the band are hyped up to make them seem "fresh", for the most part the synth is drowned out by the wall of sound produced by the guitars. Even when the synth peeks out from inside the aforementioned wall of sound, it really doesn't do much to add to the musical experience. As far as the rhythm section goes, the bass is mixed down to the point where it is pretty much inaudible, whereas the drums sacrifice interesting beats and fills for the sake of keeping the music danceable.
Insight The Choir is simply an intro track not worth mentioning, although it is one of the only times the synthesizer is really in the foreground, even if its only for 40 seconds. The first proper song on the album, La Resistance, kicks in with the first of many, many, "huge" powerpop riffs, and then the vocals kick in. Beau Bokan has the
exact same voice as every other singer in this rapidly expanding genre. High pitched, whiny, overproduced, and pitch corrected, Bokan whines away the whole album spouting the same overdone lyrics about heartache and loss. A few screams are thrown in here and there, as well as some gang shouts, seemingly to appeal to all the hXc kids, as they feel very forced and contrived.
Lights, Camera, Disaster, seemingly displays the band's displeasure with pop-culture, which is quite ironic considering the sound and look of the band itself. The lyrical content of the song can be best described by the chorus, or maybe its the verse, again its hard to tell.
Hollywood came,yah it got inside your head
and ate you alive
This city was built on cash and swagger
I can tell you wont make it just by your stagger
You try to leave you can't get away
Ask you to stay you wanna run away
Its hard to take these lines seriously when they are being belted out of a ridiculously overproduced pop hook, but then again maybe its the band's sad attempt at irony. The sensitive aspect of the band is shown in Somewhere Waiting, which serves as the album's ballad. The term ballad is used loosely, as ballad's usually convey emotion, and this track is about as contrived as it gets. Cheesy string sections undulate behind still more powerpop riffs while Bokan strains his voice to hit even higher notes, and whines away about losing everything you love. Perhaps the most enjoyable song on the album is Ride Or Die, but the phrase most enjoyable really isn't a compliment in this context. The instruments are very underwhelming, as usual, but Bokan actually stays within his normal range for the most part, and it actually makes the track moderately enjoyable.
That being said, the album still shows absolutely no sense of progression from beginning to end, and its often difficult to tell which song you are listening to as they all blend together. The album's only redeeming quality
would be that the songs are catchy, but in order for songs to be catchy they have to at least get stuck in the mind of the listener, and that ends up being what keeps the album from even being average. All of the songs here are the definition of forgettable. The first time I attempted to listen to the album the whole way through, I actually zoned out for about ten minutes. I had to go back and really
try to force myself to pay attention to the music.
To put it bluntly, just stay away from this album. Don't make the same mistake I did by giving it a chance.
