Review Summary: This is a band that still has plenty of steam but seems to not use it for reasons I cannot fathom
After the release of their landmark LP Exit, Rotten Sound made it clear that they knew they needed to change. They understood that it was an impossible task to try and top Exit with the same approach. These changes included a new approach to songwriting with much more diversity, and a new sound that was still “rotten.” This lead to Cycles, another group of ideas and songs that were mostly solid hits on the target.
While there are eerie similarities to Cycles such as the glossed over production, Cursed is another change for Rotten Sound. It may not be as big as the change Cycles was but it definitely was a change. It appears they intended not to perfect Cycles but to go in a slightly different direction. First of all there is a new utilization of mid-tempo ranges (the songs Addict and Execute come to mind first). The use of the Vocoder that was on Cycles every now and then is gone. Finally and most importantly, this is also their most aggressive sounding record to date.
So now this leads to the excellent question based on the rating "what went wrong?" Nothing that is easy to hear upon the first couple of listens. The main reason why the album seems fantastic on the first few listens is because of the phenomenal production and has really outdone Cycles in that matter. Another reason the album will seem so fantastic at first is because of the new utilization of these mid-tempo beats which really do add a lot of power the songs. But after those first few listens and the fantastic production wears off, the songwriting shows its weak spots, many weak spots. Almost all of the songs lack song structure or have very generic song structure, especially for the standards of Rotten Sound. The slow moments are also resorted to way too much. While it is okay for there to be slowed down moments, they have used them very distastefully on Cursed as opposed to Cycles. It is very easy to tell that these songs while written with a ton of new ideas are sloppily put together with lack of thought which is a real disappointment because every single one of these songs had potential and occasionally shows it easily but they never last.
While it is understandable for a band to not quite live up to a previous release, it would be expected of a band with such talent to at least try to have the next release live up to its predecessor. Rotten Sound while adding new ideas to this album and still having large aspirations, they have gotten lazy with their ideas and have decided to hide behind fantastic production to add non-lasting power to their music.
