Review Summary: Not worthy of your time.
It’s sad when the members of your band form side projects that are in turn better than the band itself. Unfortunately, this rings true for Taking Back Sunday, the pop-punk quartet (once a quintet) that has continuously shuffled members since its 2002 debut, the excellent
Tell All Your Friends, a bright spot that the band has never been able to duplicate, most probably because of the inconsistencies in the band’s lineup. Meanwhile, former TBS band members Jesse Lacey and John Nolan have respectively formed Brand New and Straylight Run, and have recently released excellent releases in contrast to the stale tepidness of TBS’s recent borefest,
Louder Now. Now former guitarist/vocalist Fred Mascherino attempts to continue the trend and come out on his own by leaving Taking Back Sunday to pursue a solo career, thus forming The Color Fred, a name chosen by fans over Myspace. So the pressure is on Mascherino to perform, and while his debut,
Bend to Break, isn’t horrible; it definitely is a little stale, and resembles Mascherino’s former work with Taking Back Sunday a little too much.
It’s obvious to see that Mascherino didn’t go solo to become less known than Taking Back Sunday. The sound on
Bend to Break is loud and anthemic, and the choruses are big and catchy. The problem is, they aren’t really that memorable. “Get Out”, the first track on the album, begins solemnly with just Mascherino’s voice and the exuberant strumming of an acoustic guitar. And that’s where all hopes of an emotional, isolated singer-songwriter’s work of art ends, as the song builds up and adds the traditional pop-punk requirements: loud guitars, a simple-as-*** drum pattern, and a big chorus. But when you get to the next song, “If I Surrender”, you’ve completely forgotten about “Get Out”, mainly because “If I Surrender” is the same damn exact thing. Faux-angst lyrics? Check! A chorus that is catchy and poppy, but sort of same-y and seems like it was written in ten minutes? Check! The same soft-loud dynamics ripped off from the Pixies since 1990? Check! Mascherino does change it up every once and a while, but the results are similarly mixed. “It Isn’t Me” replaces the big-ass guitars with pianos and violins, but instead of adding an emotional twist to the song that before couldn’t of been heard with just simple guitars, it just sounds like Mascherino just took a guitar-based track and replaced it with pianos, and left it at that. “Empty House” is also piano-based, but instead of shooting for radio with a big chorus, Mascherino keeps the melody from over-bearing the song and lets the song wander, and provides a brief change of pace from the sugar rush of the previous seven songs. “I’ll Never Know” is driven by a simple acoustic guitar, but instead of being distinctive and different, it just sounds like Mascherino listened to Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)” and got inspired.
But all variety found in
Bend To Break ends there. It really makes you wonder why exactly Fred Mascherino left Taking Back Sunday. He isn’t pursuing a different musical direction like John Nolan did: every song here could comfortably fit on a Taking Back Sunday album, and the sound is most easily described as “Taking Back Sunday without Adam Lazzara”. Sure, when Jesse Lacey left TBS and formed Brand New, the sound wasn’t all that much different, but
Your Favorite Weapon at least had some differing aspects between songs. Fred Mascherino seems content to release the same brand of pop-punk that was boring when TBS released it, and with bands such as Say Anything and My Chemical Romance pushing forward and expanding the genre, you have to be a little different to stand out.
Bend To Break just doesn’t do that, and it’s definitely not worthy of your time. Why? Cause, baby, you've heard it all before.
