Review Summary: Pretend-indie pop.
Like a lot of genre labels, the word 'indie' has a pretty confused definition. At first, it was an abbreviation of 'independent' and referred to music not released through a [major] record label, but like everything its meaning has developed. Through a broader application of that initially relevant 'independence', 2009's dictionaries have the definition of indie down as
'possessing any risk factor whatsoever; including guitars in a promotional video; breaking away from a verse-chorus-verse-chorus song structure.' Meese are this band. The Denver-based group stray so close to that line between pure pop and not-quite-pure pop that the only band less offensive are The Fray, who happen to be an apt comparison. Among deliberate piano melodies, uninventive guitars and airy vocals, Broadcast is one hugely marketable slice of pretend indie-pop with its fair share of enjoyable moments but absolutely nothing to set it apart from the kind of pop music considered edgy by people who deem Bright Eyes emo.
Most of the individual songs on Broadcast are tolerable and many of them manage to inspire one or two fingers or toes into action, it's just that the next one sounds pretty similar, and so did the last one. Even though there are subtle sideways glances in stylistic terms, it's never drastic or successful enough to pack any sort of punch; opener Forward Motion has momentum but no real drive, Next In Line's dancy stuttered guitars and drums go nowhere, and Say You're OK's brilliant chorus is horribly let down by uneventful verses. The tempo changes don't become overly predictable but they still feel stale when they come, and this difficulty is merely compounded by an apparent desire to make everything catchy as hell; it makes for some cute melodies at points, but too frequently Meese become irritating with their constant barrage of decent (not superb) hooks.
And despite the fact that there are some great songs here and hints of great song
writing, the problem with Broadcast is that everything feels too forced or too intentional. The title track is a case in point, as its structure is so rigid that its verse lyrics feel like square words in round holes and its first chorus is made to start uncomfortably because of a refusal to budge from songwriting 101. What's missing isn't a sense of complexity or technical virtuosity - in fact, Broadcast is best when it's simplest, like the gently affecting chorus of Taking The World On, which sounds like a slow Something Corporate song. What Meese lack is a certain self-awareness and an appreciation of when enough is enough. Vocalist Patrick Meese [whose surname disappointed me as I had hoped the band name was a deliberate joke about the plural of moose] is grating after just 2 and a half songs, because although his range is decent, everything is faux-whispered and it limits the aesthetic of Broadcast's material to a restraint that doesn't fit the music.
The problem with Meese can be summed up by how they describe themselves; their Myspace sees their primary genre as 'rock' when in actual fact there's nothing rock about them. As soon as they realise that, there's a very definite possibility that they can craft more than vanilla pop songs with decent lyrics and pleasant melodies. At times Broadcast excites, but mostly it just exists, and though there's good songwriting to be found through its 48 minute runtime, trawling through the mediocrity to find it isn't likely to appeal to many.
