Review Summary: Another punk/alternative rock band treading well worn territory.
Spice is the first album from the band with the same name, not to be confused with the Reggae artist of the same name.
Their music is in the vicinity of alternative rock and punk. While this band has some good qualities, ultimately the music is very much alike so many other bands that have come out in... well... the last 20 years. Most of the songs on this EP / album (it’s only 26 minutes) are pretty much summed up by angry vocals vented through a voice box, behind layers of distorted guitars playing power chords. Their vocalist sounds like countless others and brings little personality to the recording. The lyrics are obtuse and disillusioned.
There seems to be a violin playing on some of the tracks. Now, violins can do a lot, but here the violin plays the same 2 to 3 notes over the entire song, which I think is a perfect example of their lack of ambition. Sifting through this album it seems sometimes they write a good melody, and, I suppose, if I don’t think about it, the album is good to vacuously nod my head to while the power chords and rhythm section play energetically.
That’s the overall picture, however, I want to analyse the individual songs, as there are individual moments worthy of praise, and to try and pin-point what they’re doing right.
The opening ‘First Feeling’ is a decent rock song. It’s not amazing but the melody is unique enough. It’s the second ‘All my best sh*t’, with that opening guitar riff that screams ‘generic punk/pop’, along with the angst lyrics of ‘all my best sh*t keeps falling apart, again’, that begins the slide. ‘Murder’ does nothing to invigorate the album, with a riff that sounds like it came straight out of a Blink-182 or Greenday album, with chorus ‘I’d be happy if you all just disappeared’, before angrily shouting words like ‘anger’ ‘ fear’ ‘ resentment’ ‘disgust’ - yep teen angst is what they’re aiming for, without bringing much, of any, personality to an already well tread genre. At least ‘reward trip’ benefits from some very good harmony vocals, otherwise it’s an unmemorable little throwaway.
The highlight of this album is ‘26 Dogs’ - it’s a slower song with a decent melody, and because there wasn’t so much distortion I could understand all the lyrics, and the subject matter is quite deep and thoughtful. This is a very good song. This is followed by a cute little guitar instrumental.
The closing three songs feature ‘Black Car’, which is a high energy song, ‘The building was gone’, there’s a catchy violin riff in there, but they fail to take this song anywhere interesting, and the closing, ambitious ‘I don’t wanna die in New York’. The second half of this song is violin and spoken word, which is quite an ambitious concept. I think this song deals with the pain of drug addiction.
Despite some promising moments, you have to consider how many bands are putting out similar material, and this EPs worth of material doesn’t offer enough interesting moments or memorable songs to rise above the white noise of all the other bands trying to get noticed.
