Review Summary: Life may be perfect, but this band, while charming enough, is sadly still a long way off.
Some records leave an instant impression. Whether for their quality or the lack thereof, these albums grab the listener by the shirt-front on the very first spin and almost
demand them to have an opinion – be it favourable or unfavourable.
Then there are records like
Life Is Perfect. Records which barely leave a first impression, beyond that old chestnut of
'it was okay'.; which seem purposely designed to be as bland and harmless as possible, while still retaining the bare minimum amount of quality to ensure radio airplay is attained and sales goals are met.
Irish band Only Rivals' full-length debut is exactly such an album. Its 38-odd minute runtime yields nothing outrageously offensive, but nor does it offer up anything particularly challenging, noteworthy or innovative. It is simply an album that exists, by a band that exists – and unlike many of its peers, it seems perfectly content with its lot. Much like the everyman twenty-somethings who make up the band itself,
Life Is Perfect never strives to be auything but unassuming, the type of album which chugs along merrily as the soundtrack to house chores or meal prepping, then gets left on the shelf for a spell as other, more interesting counterparts become available.
This is not to say that the music contained within the spires of this release is bad - much to the contrary, actually. Other than the somewhat nondescript
Too Many Churches, it is hard to pinpoint a track among the twelve contained here which is decidedly below-average; the problem, then, is that not many of them are that far
above average, either. The few standouts become apparent after one or two playthroughs, and the rest of the album is of homogeneous enough quality that many tracks end up blending into one another. In fact,
Life Is Perfect is a case-study in instant forgettability – other than a couple of particularly anthemic choruses, a semi-involved listener will be hard-pressed to remember anything about this album ten minutes after it has finished playing.
Once again, however, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Much like a forgettable date can still be fun in the moment, so too does this album manage to remain charming all the way through. The musicians are competent, Stephen Atkins has a suitably plaintive voice – somewhat reminiscent of an angry Chris Martin – and the sound itself is broad enough to entice pop-punkers, indie-rockers and Top 40 fiends alike.
Therein, however, lies another of
Life Is Perfect's fundamental problems – it suffers from a significant identity crisis. Only Rivals themselves started life as a pop-punk outfit, but eventually shifted their sound in a more anthemic, indie-rock direction – what has since become known as
stadium rock or
arena rock. Unsurprisingly, this shift ended up bleeding through onto their debut's overall sound, which is perhaps best described as
'early Coldplay with loud guitars' or
'pop-punk Biffy Clyro.'
Again, there would be absolutely nothing wrong with that...if the band knew how to blend the two elements together on
every one of their songs. They do not. Even a casual playthrough of
Life Is Perfect evidences a clear, distinct split between angrier songs and more mellow, Coldplay-esque, lighters-in-the-air tracks, with very little overlap. When the two styles
do come together, the fusion works beautifully, like in absolute standout
Sing, emotional follow-up
Eventide or closer
There Are Rules; more often than not, however, one is left with the feeling that Only Rivals are not quite sure who they want to be, musically speaking. Again unsurprisingly, this ends up harming their debut as a whole.
For what it is worth, the pop-punk songs work much better than the stadium-rock ones. Only Rivals certainly do know how to emulate their indie-rock influences, as evidenced by tracks like opener
Dive In; however, they come across much more genuine and likeable when they let loose with their more aggressive side, as displayed in the self-loathing
REPLACE // EXCHANGE, the galloping
Losing Touch (an unabashed callback to the group's original sound) or
Drive, a vitriolic indictment of a romantic break-up which boasts the best lyrics on the album. Had more songs on this album followed along these lines, the Dubliners might have earned themselves an extra half-point for their debut; as it stands, however, the sense of musical confusion emanating from these twelve tracks is just a
touch too pronounced to ignore.
In the end, then, it comes as no surprise that Only Rivals are yet to produce a follow-up to
Life Is Perfect. Caught between being the band they
wanted to be and the band they
needed to be to become NME darlings, the group end up settling for a slightly underwhelming compromise, and getting predictably lost in the anthemic indie-rock shuffle as a result. Life may be perfect, but this band, while charming enough, is sadly still a long way off.
Recommended Tracks
Drive
Sing
Eventide
There Are Rules
