Review Summary: "The band before mewithoutYou"
As most of you know,
The Operation was “the band before mewithoutYou”. The Operation consisted of both Aaron and Mike Weiss as well as former mewithoutYou guitarist Christian Kleinberg and current bassist Greg Jehanian.
The Operation released one EP in 1999 entitled
Invisible Man EP and this full length before the Weiss brothers and Christian Kleinberg started a side project, by the name of mewithoutYou. Before long mewithoutYou started to become more serious and
The Operation disbanded in 2001. Fronted by Greg,
The Operation was a more straightforward rock band, with some post-hardcore tendencies. The difference from this band and mewithoutYou is almost astronomical. You wouldn’t except that the majority of this band would go on to create albums that pushed the boundaries of so many different genres. I’m not saying that
There Is Hope For A Cut Down Tree is a horrible record, it’s just a safe record so to say. Nothing new is brought to the table, but nonetheless this is still a good release and proved that this band would have had a future.
Band Members:
Greg Jehanian: Vocals
Mike Weiss: Guitar
Chris Kleinberg: Guitar
Aaron Weiss: Bass
(
These are all the band members that I can find. If anyone knows of others, could you please inform me so I could update this?)
The Operation includes many different traits that are keys to having a successful band. They have a solid rhythm section, a pretty decent vocalist and slightly above average lyrics.
A New Math, the album opener, exemplifies most of these characteristics. The song starts of quietly then sorts of explodes with the rest of the band coming in and Greg’s vocals overtop, singing through it all. Lyrically
The Operation isn’t afraid to admit that their Christian. Most of their songs have lines along the lines of
And there is no other I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart fail again. You are the strength of my heart, forever. Well you get the picture, these guys love God. But here is where some of this music becomes flawed. With lyrics that all focus around God, without metaphors or hidden meanings, starts to sound an awfully a lot like church music. If you start with
A New Math and let the record play through until the final notes on
This May Not Have Happened you may start to get the allusion that you just listened to a contemporary church worship service.
But, to give them credit, this is only their first release. I’m sure that, if given time,
The Operation would have been able to mature in a deeper band, all the while expanding on the loud/soft dynamic that they seem to have mastered on their first release. There are many parts on the album that are good examples of this. On
Catch (Something I Might Be Ashamed Of) there is a nice instrument build up, even featuring some effects laden guitar to climax and end the song. This is also apparent on just about all of the songs, although another great example of this is the (almost) instrumental track
To Prevent Fall-Apart, which builds up for 2 minutes then has a line sung and abruptly ends.
But as previously mentioned, while listening to the CD through, the songs start to blend together, with similar song structures, repetitive guitar hooks and the same singing over and over.
There Is Hope For A Cut Down Tree showcases a band that had quite some potential. They probably would not have went on to be the next mewithoutYou, but they would have become a solid indie rock/emo band. With just a little bit of maturation and improvement in areas that need it,
The Operation could have managed to become a predominant band in their genre.
Recommended Tracks:
A New Math
8th and Washington
Fall Like Fire
