Review Summary: A decent and hooky pop album; little to no replay value.
You’ve got to feel a little sorry for Greig Nori, ex-leader of the now defunct Treble Charger and now “mentor” on MuchMusic’s (Canada’s MTV) reality rock band show ‘disband’. Treble Charger as a band just never really took off in mainstream popularity, however when Greig became the manager of an at the time unknown pop-punk band by the name of Sum 41, I’m sure it was more like a last desperate attempt to stay employed in the music industry. When Sum 41 exploded with popularity, I’m sure he had some envy inside of him.
Wide Awake Bored was Treble Charger’s bid for mainstream success, at least in Canada. Their best known song, ‘American Psycho’ got some heavy radio and video play up in these parts, and remains their most well known song, pushing the album to platinum status in Canada. The follow up single “Brand New Low” was just a very minor hit. Stateside, the album flopped. TC followed up with their next album, a pop-punk thing called “Detox”, which disappeared as soon as it was released, and the band decided to go their separate ways.
I received a copy of this album while I was younger and just beginning to get into music. At the time, it was in constant rotation in my CD player. Does it hold up?
The answer is simply no. It’s by no means a bad album- it’s a very slick, polished pop rock CD. The problem lies in the fact that it’s very by-the-numbers, typical mainstream fluff that’s difficult to discern from, well, everything else.
TC actually has two vocalists, the other being Bill Priddle who sounds like an ever wimpier version of the singer from Death Cab for Cutie. Both singers sound drastically different from each other; Greig is definitely more akin to a pop-punk sounding voice appealing to the kiddies, while Priddle would be more appealing to fans of indie rock. To virgin ears or anyone unfamiliar with the band, the differences between the vocalists on each song would make you think they’re different bands.
As mentioned, the album is predominantly pop rock, featuring big catchy choruses and poppy melodies. When the band does it right, it already sounds like you’re listening to top 40 hits. “American Psycho”, with it’s very hooky chorus and vocal line, is instantly appealing (plus apparently it’s a diss against Courtney Love!) and is a brilliant way to follow up the fun rocker “Brand New Low”. “Cheat Away” has a bouncy beat that somehow manages to make the song quite introspective, and would’ve been a terrific choice for a single.
Best tune here is the quieter “Funny”, sung by Greig. The guitars have a spacy vibe to them, and the overall tone is moody and brooding, yet it manages to sound very mainstream and ready to be picked up by the radio, on top of the lyrics also sounding quite serious and sad (ex: “It’s not funny/We’re not laughing like we did before”).
And that’s Wide Awake Bored’s strength: when the songs gel well together, they sound compulsively listenable and chock full of hooks, begging for repeat plays and ready to stay in your head long after you’ve heard them. There also lies its’ weakness: there’s just no type of experimentation or variety, and as the album plays along, it begins to lose steam pretty quickly. As I mentioned previously, “Funny” is the high point of the album; all the songs afterwards sound either passable or mediocre. And while "Funny" sounds like a fairly serious song, it's nowhere near as cathartic as their excellent and anthemic single from their last album, "Red".
This album has a very specific plan and formula, and every song follows that to a T, afraid to leave its’ own inner security blanket. Because of this, the album doesn’t hold up very well on replay value. It’s not a bad album, and it can be quite fun and catchy. However, don’t’ expect too much out of this one.
